Small colleges like Baker University in Baldwin City offer a number of advantages for some students over larger schools like Kansas University.

By the beginning of the coming fall semester at Baker, one of those advantages will be super-fast broadband service. RG Fiber, which is based in Baldwin City, is rolling out gigabit broadband service in that community and is making Baker its first customer. By mid-August, the company says, the super-fast Internet services will be available at Baker academic buildings, sports venues, student union and residence halls. That means Baker students will have access to an Internet system that most KU students would envy.

Baker certainly benefited by the presence of RG Fiber in Baldwin City, but this is an area where small campuses generally may have an advantage over their larger counterparts. Providing super-fast Internet to the number of students and buildings served by Baker is a far smaller challenge than providing the same service to a campus the size of KU’s.

Once Baker is hooked up, RG Fiber will extend the faster service to the rest of Baldwin City and then to Eudora. The company also plans to move into the Lawrence market but not until at least 2016. The first phase of the service in Lawrence probably will be near major city streets that already have city-owned fiber in the rights-of-way. It’s uncertain what the plans are to extend the service to KU.

It’s not clear how big a selling point the gigabit Internet service could be for a school like Baker, but it is an attractive amenity for many students who can tap into the service for a variety of academic and entertainment uses. At least for now, that’s a service KU and other major universities can’t match.