In a move that Richard Nixon and Vladimir Putin would surely approve of, Time Warner Cable is now offering cash rewards for Kansas City citizen spies who pass along tips regarding Google’s fiber deployment. An anonymous tipster has sent in a Time Warner Cable promotional poster to GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham that encourages Kansas City residents to “share tips, rumors and rumblings about Google construction or launch activity for a chance to win $50.” Higginbotham postulates that this offer implies “Time Warner is concerned enough about the potential competitive threat that Google’s deployment represents to suss out all the details it can.” Which is understandable, of course, since Google’s experimental fiber network and its projected maximum download speeds of 1Gbps will wipe the floor with whatever offerings the cable and phone companies will have.
The incumbent ISPs shouldn’t worry too much, however, as Google’s fiber network is only slated to hit Kansas City… for now, at least.
