There’s no place like home — especially if you live Kansas City, Kansas, where houses will soon be connected to the net via fiber optic cables that Google promises will deliver 1 gigabit per second internet connections — roughly a hundred times faster than a typical 10 Mbps cable connection.

With that fast a connection, it becomes possible to download a full-length feature film from iTunes in seconds.

More than 1,100 cities and town across the country applied to be the testbed, highlighting the dismal state of broadband connections around the country. The Tuesday announcement came after more...