LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to the Wall Street Journal, state records show that Google applied for licenses to offer local TV service subscriptions to the area. An unnamed executive reportedly involved with the deal, said the project could be completed within the next couple months.

Google Fiber is a fiber-optic broadband network. When completed, the service will provide residents with connection speeds 100 times faster than what most American Internet users receive. Google has announced that it had finally begun to lay the thousands of miles of cables necessary for the network.

Google had said in a blog post in July of last year that it hoped to have the network up and running by early 2012. Kansas City residents will have to wait a bit longer now to enjoy the fastest broadband in the world.

The Journal reported in November that Google may have been planning a for-pay TV subscription service. There has been speculation that such a service could be bundled into a competitive Google Fiber package to attract users away from cable and satellite providers.

Ars Technica noted earlier this month that Google Fiber requested permission from the FCC in December to build what might turn out to be a large "antenna farm" in the area of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Kansas Star speculated the site is at a great distance from Kansas City -- but didn't rule out the possibility that it could be used for TV programming.

"Why Council Bluffs? Perhaps because the [nearby] Omaha area sits on the backbone of the fiber optic cables that stretch the Internet across the U.S. The location could help if Google launched its super-fast Internet service in other markets, or if it incorporated a paid-programming package with its Google TV," the newspaper previously reported.

"The Council Bluffs station might act as what the cable industry describes as a 'head end.' That's where television signals are collected from satellites, unscrambled and assigned to channels. Google could then transfer the signals over Internet Protocol Television, or a technology like that used with AT&T's Uverse service called IPTV, to homes. Running a connection to Kansas City, experts said, would be relatively simple."

Business Insider's Henry Blodget wonders whether such a "seriously expensive" project might spread Google too thin.

"If Google plunges headlong into the local-fiber-and-Internet service market, it will have to spend a much higher percentage of its cash-flow from operations on equipment than it currently spends," Blodget wrote.

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