Google Fiber may banish buffering if it travels as quickly as early reports claim.

The service is allegedly 100 times faster than the average Internet connections currently available. This blue streak enables users to download high-definition feature-length films in under a minute.

Google Fiber is only available in the Kansas City area, where a fiber optic cable network has been set up like telephone lines. Google’s technicians can connect customers’ houses to the fiber optic cables, which contain thin glass threads that enable the transmission of one gigabit per second of data, reported Business Insider.

Along with the apparent speed, Google Fiber is relatively affordable. A subscription is only $70 per month. Additional television service costs $50 more per month.

Subscribers receive a complimentary Nexus 7 tablet, which doubles as the television’s remote control. The clean and clear controls of the tablet are a decided improvement upon Google TV’s complicated remote control of several years ago, according to analysts Rich Greenfield and Walter Piecyk, who wrote a detailed report of Google Fiber for the trading firm BTIG.

Certain features are reportedly missing at this early stage — such as YouTube integration or HBO — but overall Google Fiber offers such a convenient entertainment experience that it could revolutionize the industry.

One notable improvement: Google actually schedules appointment times for installation, rather than providing windows of time, typically spanning several hours, when a technician might show up.

At least one competitor, Time Warner Cable, has been going door to door to make sure connection speeds are strong and to ensure overall customer satisfaction, reported Greenfield and Piecyk.

It is conceivable that Google Fiber’s lasting contribution to its industry is not Internet speed at all but rather faster and more efficient customer service.

Either way, Google Fiber is alive in Kansas City and may be hurdling full speed ahead into a new era for the Web.

– NY Daily News