Google can leverage municipalities to bring fiber to the masses

[Commentary] My wife and I run a small Internet service provider (ISP) here in Lawrence (KS). Customers who live near our fiber are already getting gigabit service and, in partnership with our city government, we are looking at installing a common carriage gigabit system in residential neighborhoods throughout Lawrence. Most of the rest of the country isn’t that lucky. A vast majority of US households have no ultra-high-speed providers (defined as ISPs that can deliver 1 gigabit per second), and even traditional broadband choices (which usually end up being less than 10 megabits per second) are limited to the incumbent phone or cable provider. But Google is changing that in Kansas City (KS); Austin (TX); and Provo (UT). By building fiber networks in these communities, Google is forcing incumbent carriers to innovate. They are giving customers choices. [Montgomery is the owner and operator of Wicked Broadband, a Lawrence, Kansas-based ISP]