About Town

Discreet?

AT&T’s video-ready access devices still stick out like…video-ready access devices.

When AT&T began to install their video-ready access devices (VRADs) all around town a few years ago, the uproar was huge.  Time and again, I’d hear arguments along the lines of, “You’ll be happy they’re here!” and “Once the bushes grow in, you won’t even notice them.” Just look at the full hydrangeas around this device near the corner of Dempster Street and Maple Avenue.  If you squint really hard and zoom in on the picture, you might be able to see the box and its graffiti.  Full disclosure: as a Comcast customer, I have no loyalty to AT&T’s U-verse system.  I don’t even understand it, though I wanted to scrap any connection with Comcast last week when, after a full month, they still hadn’t come out to repair a downed cable line that hung…

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Kansas City -- Not Evanston -- Gets Google Fiber

Google announced they will test Google Fiber in Kansas City.

Evanston will not be the test city for Google's new ultra high-speed broadband, as the company has instead chosen Kansas City, Kansas for their Google Fiber trial. Evanston is one of thousands of cities that didn't make the cut. Even Topeka, Kansas, which in 2010 briefly changed its name to Google, Kansas in an attempt to bring the company to their city, lost out to Kansas City. "In selecting a city, our goal was to find a location where we could build efficiently, make an impact on the community and develop relationships with local government and community organizations. We’ve found this in Kansas City," Google said in an official blog post. In response to cities expressing disappointment over the news, Google updated their announcement …

Google Fiber Announcement Delayed

Decision won't be made public until early 2011.

In an e-mail to cities anxious to hear if they have been selected for a Google Fiber trial project, Milo Medin, Google's vice president of access services said the company will delay its decision until early 2011. The company was originally slated to announce the project locations by the end of the year, but they received an influx of applicants and need more time to go through them. "To be clear, we're not reopening our selection process but simply need more time to decide than we had anticipated," the e-mail said. Google Fiber is an "experimental, ultra-high speed broadband network" that will make Internet connections incredibly fast, according to their website. More than 1,000 communities have expressed an interest in being a test …

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