The Atlantic Wire recently ran an interesting article that outlines costs of the Kansas City Google fiber network…

Google CEO Larry Page has previously mentioned vague expansion plans for Fiber during earnings calls, calling it a “good business” and not just a “hobby.” But it’s very unlikely that Fiber will see a country wide release. Most importantly, installing fibertoptic cable is expensive — just laying down Fiber in Kansas City cost $84 million for 149,000 homes… and that was before even connecting the cables to the houses. One estimate pegs “nationwide deployment” at $140 billion, which would wipe out even Apple’s big pile of cash reserves. Just another 20 million homes would cost $11 billion, according to other research.

The article goes on to talk about what made KC an attractive community…

Of course, that still leaves hope for certain parts of the country. But Kansas City met certain specifications that other cities might not: “We wanted to find a location where we could build quickly and efficiently,” Milo Medin, Google’s vice president for Fiber, said back when the K.C. pilot program was announced. “Kansas City has great infrastructure.” Specifically, Google means the “business friendly” environment that promised to keep the city officials away from Google, according to Forbes‘s Elise Ackerman. “They didn’t dangle tax breaks, but they did deliver access to public rights of way, expedite the permitting process, offer space in city facilities and provide assistance with marketing and public relations,” she writes. Kansas City made certain “development agreements” in order to snag the first Fiber deal, such as agreeing to pay for power at city locations and offering space to house Google equipment at no charge. Google also secured guarantees from the city that it would get quick responses on “mundane but important matters,” as Technology Review explains.

Interesting to look at what it takes in terms of finances and what a provider seems to find attractive in a community. Now to be fair, most providers don’t have a business plan that includes selling advertising like Google does – but still interesting.