Google's Super-Speed Internet Is Off-Limits for Businesses — For Now

Google’s ultra-high-speed internet service is for homes, not businesses. And Google wants to keep it that way. At least for now.

Joe Barnhill knows this only too well. He lives in Kansas City — the first city to receive Google Fiber, an internet service that’s about 100 times faster than what you’re used to — and recently tried to build a business around the service. Google put a stop to it.

Earlier this year, Barnhill moved into a Kansas City building where Google was set to install its high-speed service. The building was zoned for residential use — that’s why it was getting Google Fiber — and Barnhill tells us his original intention was to live there and enjoy the personal benefits of an internet service that reached speeds of 1 gigabit per second. But the building also was zoned for business use, and when a larger space opened up in the building, Barnhill realized it could serve as a work space for entrepreneurs who wanted Google’s super-speed internet. So he founded a new business he called Spark Centre, hoping to house such entrepreneurs and turn a tidy profit.

Elsewhere in Kansas City, some startups were already using Google Fiber, and Starbucks coffee shops were tapping the service to provide internet access to coffee drinkers. Spark Centre was something different, though. Most of the other startups were essentially solo entrepreneurs working from home. A Kansas City “Hacker House” was offering the service to outside entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs didn’t pay rent, and stayed in the house only temporarily. The house does sell overnight stays through Airbnb, but Google considers the fiber service as an amenity offered to residents in this case. Starbucks is certainly a business, but it had a made a one-off deal with Google, as did a few other small businesses when Google Fiber first launched.

Barnhill was trying to slip through a loophole in Google’s terms of service, taking advantage of the fact that his building was zoned for both residential and business use.

Barnhill’s landlord was able to sign up for Google Fiber as a residential customer, but when it came time to install the service, Google questioned whether this was appropriate. For one thing, the Spark Centre’s brochures advertised day passes that didn’t sound like they were meant for ordinary residents. As first reported by the Kansas City Star, Google ended up telling him that the Spark Centre didn’t qualify for service.

Now, Google is trying to figure out how to handle this sort of thing the next time. It does intend to offer a business-friendly service — but not just yet. “From the beginning, Google Fiber has been all about making the web faster for individuals and families in residences, and that’s still our focus today,” a Google spokesperson tells us. “We’ve said many times that we’ll have a small business product in the future, but as we’ve been building out Google Fiber in Kansas City, we’ve discovered a few properties which have been misidentified as ‘business’ or ‘residential.’ We’ll soon have a separate Fiber agreement we can offer to the handful of individuals in these unique situations.”

Barnhill has received a new offer from Google to use the residential service temporarily, so long as he switches to the business service once it becomes available. But he says he has already vacated the space and sold most of the furniture.

Source: http://feeds.wired.com/c/35185/f/661370/s/3279b8e4/sc/15/l/0L0Swired0N0Cwiredenterprise0C20A130C10A0Cspark0Ecentre0C/story01.htm
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