Monday, March 15. 2010

Cities Vying for Google Fiber

The race is on for a few select cities vying for Google Fiber, the company's initiative to place high speed broadband access to a few cities in the U.S. According to Google:

"We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."

Some of the cities in the running include Austin, TX; Huntsville, AL; Topeka, KS; Greensboro, NC; Chapel Hill, NC; and Seattle, WA. These cities and towns are going to extremes like changing their name (like Topeka which has temporarily renamed itself "Google, Kansas") and getting their state legislatures to issue proclamations. Facebook pages, such as that for Huntsville, are springing up faster than Google ads.

Does location matter in the selection? Well, I'll put in my two cents and give you my opinion:

• Austin, TX - Nah, too big
• Seattle - Come on, with Google's competitor sitting in Redmond
• Topeka - overreaching by changing their name
• Greensboro - is "Tobacco Road" the ideal place?
• Chapel Hill - Well, they've already got the high tech label with RTP, next...
• Huntsville - Yes, my choice by a mile...the home of Virtual Alabama, Cummings Research Park (second only to RTP), and "the Rocket City" ... a much better association for Google than "Tobacco Road"

[oh yes, forgot, I live in Huntsville]