Gotta get a gig: KC startups are buying homes to get Google Fiber

Businesses across Kansas City (KS) cheered when Google chose their municipality for its new fiber-to-the-home deployment. Access to a gigabit fiber connection is something most businesses could use — even if they couldn’t use an entire gigabit just yet. But once Google started its roll-out of fiber in both Kansas City (KS) and Kansas City (MO), the business executives and startups were disappointed.

Google Fiber was heading to residential users first. Google didn’t really explain its decision, but plenty of business people in Kansas City expressed confusion or complained about the decision in private, while lauding Google publicly. After all a $70, fiber-to-the-home connection for residents was still going to be great for the city. But the startup community wasn’t willing to settle — and since most of them worked from their homes, coffee shops or communal space anyhow, it wasn’t a big leap to decide to find a house in an area slated for fiber and move in.