Kansas City Power & Light has announced an agreement with Google and the city of Kansas City, Missouri, to bring Google’s ultra high-speed fiber optic Internet service to residents and businesses in Kansas City, Missouri. KCP&L is the first investor-owned utility in the world to partner with Google on its Google Fiber initiative. By providing access to its electrical infrastructure, KCP&L will allow Google to offer Internet service at speeds up to 100 times faster than what most people have today.

"Just as the move from dial-up to broadband led to new and unpredictable innovations, we believe ultra high-speed bandwidth will push the web to even greater heights – and we couldn’t imagine a better place to start than the Kansas City region," said Milo Medin, Google's Vice President for Access Services. "We're thrilled to be working with KCP&L to bring the most advanced Internet service in the country to Kansas Citians."

As part of the agreement, KCP&L will provide Google access to its poles, infrastructure and existing fiber network to deliver its ultra high-speed service to customers in Kansas City, Mo. Rather than having to build its own delivery system, this innovative agreement will allow Google and KCP&L to work together to deploy service over KCP&L’s existing infrastructure, significantly reducing costs as well as time for engineering, permitting and construction.

Over the last year, more than 1,100 cities across the United States competed to host Google’s next generation Internet service. In March of this year, Google announced Kansas City, Kansas, as the first community to receive ultra high-speed fiber. Since the announcement, KCP&L, the City of Kansas City, Mo., and other community groups have continued to work with Google to expand the deployment in the Kansas City region.

Google’s ultra high-speed broadband service will allow customers access to the Internet at sustained speeds of one gigabit per second. Google plans to begin offering this service to residents of Kansas City in early 2012.