Desperate cities beseech St. Google: bless us with thy fiber

Forget “Topeka”—as of yesterday, Topeka, Kansas will be referred to as “Google, Kansas” for the month of March.

Bizarre publicity stunt? Sure, but it’s got nothing on the time in 1998 that Topeka became the US launch city for Pokemon games from Nintendo—and changed its name to “ToPikachu” (groan) for the day. At least this time, the city has a serious goal: get Google to bring in a 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home network.

Topeka wants to be Google’s testbed for the new 1Gbps network that the company announced last month. Since that announcement, Google has been taking applications from cities around the country, and the grassroots response has been astonishing.

The city council supports the name-change idea, intended to show just how serious the city is about its bid. Still, leave it to the lawyers to ruin the party. According to the local paper, “City attorney Jackie Williams told the council that legally, the city couldn’t change its name to Google for a short time period and then change it back. However, he said he saw no legal problem with Bunten’s issuing a proclamation calling for Topeka to be referred to as ‘Google.’”

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