Google Fiber Pre-Registration Closes With 89 Percent Of Neighborhoods Signed Up

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Google Fiber, the search giant’s experiment to offer gigabit-speed Internet service throughout Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas has concluded its first phase, pre-registration, with at least 180 out of the total 202 neighborhoods to which Google had offered its Fiber service reaching Google’s pre-registration goals, the company announced on Sunday. Google published the following map showing in green all of the neighborhoods that had reached their pre-registration goals and said it would announce more accurate figures on Thursday.

That’s an 89 percent sign-up rate, which is great news for Google, although it’s worth noting that just days before the pre-registraiton deadline, the company revised downward its qualifying goals for some neighborhoods (which had been set at 5, 10 and 25 percent of households, depending on each neighborhood’s household density). Google won’t offer its Fiber service in neighborhoods that didn’t reach the goals, prompting concerns among Kansas City residents and school officials that the installation of the high-speed Internet service could exacerbate the “digital divide.”

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