Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Council Bluffs is in line to get Googled again.
A subsidiary of the Internet search giant has submitted an amended application with the Federal Communications Commission that would give the Mountain View, Calif.-based company authority to build an "antenna farm" in Council Bluffs on the same site as its data center.
The cluster of antennas and a fixed-Earth receiving station would be used for collecting analog and digital video feeds from broadcast networks that Google then could package as a bundle with the company's high-speed Internet product. That product, Google Fiber, is currently under development in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan.
In typical fashion, Google remains tight-lipped on the topic: "We're still exploring what product offerings will be available when we launch Google Fiber in Kansas City," a company spokeswoman said.
But if offering video content is the company's intent, the move would pit Google against cable television providers as well as Internet-based video products like Netfix and Hulu.
Such a move by Google makes sense, said Ken Dick, chairman of the telecommunications department and a senior research fellow at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
"The thing that's happening in the industry is people are watching more and more video on computers and mobile devices than their TV," Dick said. "Between 40 and 50 percent of what Millennials (consumers between the ages of 13 and 30) watch is on the computer."
As of Friday, Council Bluffs officials had not been in contact with Google about the company's plan. Council Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan said Google would need to work with the city's planning department, but since the roughly 180-acre data center site at State Highway 275 and South 11th Street is already zoned, the project probably would move forward quickly.
In addition to the FCC approval, Google also would need to apply for a license in Iowa through the State Legislature. That process could take as little as 60 days.
The application does not include information about the size or appearance of the antenna farm. Such farms don't usually bring a lot of new jobs but would be expected to increase the land's value for property tax purposes.
If at some point Google Fiber — the company's next-generation broadband that's expected to be 100 times faster than current high-speed Internet products — expands outside of Kansas City, Google would have room to grow its antenna farm, too.
In addition to the data center land, Google owns an additional 1,000 acres about four miles southeast of there.
For bandwidth-intensive video transmission, Council Bluffs would be a good location for serving Google's future customers in Kansas City.
The Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area is atop a vast network of fiber-optic cables, which are needed for communications at Offutt Air Force Base. Other companies like First Data's payment processing operations, Union Pacific's dispatching center, ConAgra's corporate headquarters, and a handful of sizable data centers, including Google's, all have benefited from the underground fiber highway.
After Google installs all of the necessary technology like antennas, video encoders and decoders and connects them to a fiber network, transmitting the signal to Kansas City would be relatively easy, an industry source said.
The same person estimated that Google's equipment cost would be at least $10 million, not including the fees charged by content providers like ESPN, HBO, Fox and NBC.
Google originally filed for the project on Dec. 16, but the FCC dismissed as too broad portions of the application for conventional "Ku-band frequencies" that are used to receive broadcast signals from satellites. A revised application was filed Tuesday and, if there is no public opposition to the filing, it would be approved after 30 days, an FCC official said.
An audit already has found that the antenna farm wouldn't interfere with any other signals from competing carriers, according to FCC documents.
Google declined to comment on whether the Google Fiber video offering would follow an online or more traditional model, but Dick said it would make more sense to go the online route, since Internet-based content is "taking over." Going that direction also would allow Google to provide video content to Android-based tablet computers and smartphones.
"Google is always trying to push everything on the Web," Dick said. "Its revenue model is clicks. The more advertising you view and clicking you do, the more revenue Google generates."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1414, ross.boettcher@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
