Kansas’ capital changes name to Google

There cannot be much doubt about the earnestness of Topeka, Kan., officials’ desire to be included in Mountain View, Calif.-based Google’s “Fiber for Communities” program. For the month of March, the small city has been dubbed “Google, Kansas — The Capital of Fiber Optics.”

For “Fiber for Communities,” Google will test ultra-high-speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Topeka made its non-official name change by proclamation in early March in an effort to bring particular attention to its “Fiber for Communities” application, which it submitted in February. “It’s just fun. We’re having a good time of [the name change,]” Topeka Mayor Bill Bunten told CNN in an interview. Bunten also told CNN that the name change was definitely not permanent. “We are very proud of our city, and Topeka is an Indian word, which means ‘a good place to grow potatoes,'” the mayor said. “We’re not going to change that.”

The “Fiber for Communities” experimental networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second fiber-to-the-home connections, to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people, according to the company. Interested municipalities have until March 26th to provide Google with information about their communities through a request for information that will be used to determine where to build network.

Read Topeka’s name change proclamation, and watch a video offering more information about Google’s “Fiber for Communities” program.