Lafayette, LA – Officials for Lafayette Consolidated Government and Lafayette Utilities System extend a warm “congratulations” to Kansas City. Google announced Wednesday that Kansas City was selected for the Google Fiber for Communities initiative.

City-Parish President Joey Durel was positive after Wednesday’s announcement saying, “I know that Google’s latest initiative will mean positive things for Lafayette. All of the applications that will be developed for Google’s new Kansas City Gig network will work just as fast on our LUS Fiber network. Congratulations to Kansas City, because the more they succeed, the more success Lafayette will enjoy from all the new broadband applications.”

Google stated during their search that they were looking for a city with little, or no, connectivity. One very important part of the Google Fiber project was to find a Greenfield community and actually build the fiber infrastructure from scratch. Although Lafayette’s fiber system was already serving customers, Lafayette submitted an application for the much-publicized nationwide contest to make Google aware of the ultra high-speed network already in place in Lafayette. The plan worked, as Google representatives chose to attend last year’s Lafayette FiberFête. Subsequently, Google hosted Lafayette at their Washington DC facility to meet with the nation’s most respected broadband experts.

Terry Huval, director of Lafayette Utilities System and LUS Fiber, is excited to have another sister fiber community and said this of the announcement, “The citizens of Lafayette took steps to invest in our community long before the Google Fiber project was announced. And now, there will be great opportunities for our city to connect with another that has the same 100% fiber infrastructure.”

Huval goes on to state, “The LUS Fiber network is already providing Gigabit services to all of the public high schools in Lafayette Parish. By the time the Kansas City Google system is operating, the LUS Fiber system will be making Gigabit speeds available to homes and businesses in Lafayette. We congratulate Kansas City for all of the growth and opportunities that come with access to the extreme amounts of reliable bandwidth which can only be provided by a Fiber-To-The-Home network.”

More From News Talk 96.5 KPEL