Google ended its year-long nationwide competition Wednesday to implement a new ultra high-speed broadband Internet in one U.S. city, upsetting Madison’s efforts by choosing Kansas City, Kans. as the Google Fiber winner.

Madison was one of hundreds of cities fighting for the chance to be chosen in Google’s February 2010 competition that would provide one community with the fastest broadband Internet in the world – offering up Internet speeds of one gigabit per second.

According to a statement from Google Vice President for Access Services Milo Medin, access via “Google Fiber” will be more than 100 times faster than what is currently available in the United States.

After announcing the Google Fiber project, Google opened up auditions, encouraging city leaders to sway them to choose their community.

“The response was overwhelming – nearly 1,100 cities felt the need for speed – and we were thrilled by the enthusiasm we saw across the country for better and faster web connections,” Medin said in the statement.

Throughout the audition process, Madison officials attempted to win Google’s support through practical and gimmicky methods, ranging from creating a city website entirely devoted to the project to creating a Babcock Dairy ice cream flavor in honor of Google Fiber.

As one of the most well-known attempts for recognition established throughout the competition, Topeka, Kans. took measures to new extremes by renaming the city “Google, Kans.” for the duration of March 2010.

According to the statement, Google chose Kansas City as its winner based off of the ability for the company to build efficiently, impact the community and develop relationships with local government and community organizations.

Edwin Birch, spokesperson for Kansas City Mayor Joe Reardon, said being given the opportunity to implement the experimental program marked a new day for the city.

“This is the beginning of unlimited opportunities,” Birch said. “We can’t even imagine all of the possibilities for our students and our businesses.”

Birch said Google will be working closely with Kansas City organizations such as the Kauffman Foundation, KCNext and the University of Kansas Medical Center – all of which Birch said represent the “cutting edge” of technology.

Birch said Kansas City public schools recently implemented a program that buys laptops for all high school seniors, making the Internet easily accessible and opening up an opportunity for higher education.
“The diverse, business-friendly makeup of our community is what made us stand out,” Birch said. “We’ve created many jobs and established success. We hope to be a model for other cities to come.”

Medin said Google plans to offer service beginning in 2012 and will be looking at ways to bring Google Fiber to other cities across the country, opening up the door for Madison to prepare itself as a potential candidate in the future.

Birch said he hopes that Madison will later be given the same opportunity as Kansas City and “experience the same overwhelming excitement as Kansas City.”

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz had campaigned for Google Fiber to come to Madison based off the city’s campus setting, which he said created a tech-savvy environment.

“We have a tech-savvy, engaged population, and we’re already home to a local Google office,” Cieslewicz said in a statement announcing Madison’s candidacy last year.