Google appears to be gearing up to start offering paid-television services to residents in the Kansas City area in a move that would pit the Internet giant against cable companies such as Time Warner Cable, according to reports.
A Google subsidiary last week filed a video franchise license with the Missouri Public Service Commission that would allow the Web behemoth to deliver content to television sets there, the New York Post reported. The company's subsidiary, Google Fiber, also filed a similar application in Kansas.
Rumors that Google is considering an Internet TV service have been floating around since last year. The search giant is thought to be planning the TV offering as part of a fiber-optic network it is building in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan. that will provide ultra-fast Internet service to the area. As part of that effort, Google earlier this month started laying fiber across the Kansas City area for what it called a "new high speed infrastructure" that will provide citizens with data speeds of 100 times the national average.
Google has remained mum as to whether it would offer TV services alongside the high-speed internet, however.
"We're still exploring what products will be available when we launch Google Fiber," Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres, told PCMag today.
But Google's applications in Missouri and Kansas, filed Friday, are a strong indication that the search giant is indeed prepping a TV service for the area as well. The company could launch the service within the next several months, according to reports.
Google is also reportedly in discussions with media companies like Disney, Time Warner, and Discovery about distributing their content, according to The Kansas City Star.
Meanwhile, Google also is asking the federal government for permission to set up commercial-scale satellite dishes near its $800 million data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The move has lead to speculation that Google aims set up some type of "antenna farm" to receive movies and television shows.
The Star speculated the Council Buffs data center could become "a giant, virtual DVR for all the customers subscribing to a Google TV service."