Want Asheville to be a test city for a cutting-edge new Google initiative providing internet connectivity at 1 Gbps? (To put this in perspective, 1 Gb per second is more than 20 times faster than the fastest and most expensive Charter connection currently offered to home users in this area. My AT&T home DSL is currently downloading at 2 Mb per sec, or less than 1/500 of the 1 Gbps speed Google is talking about. Test your own speed here. 1000 Mb = 1 Gb.)
Google has plans to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the U.S. According to Google, this new broadband offering will deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to.
Google says it will offer this new hyperfast internet service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
We at BlogAsheville hear that economic development people at the Chamber of Commerce are partnering with institutional entities to create the official application. Ordinary people who want ultrafast Google broadband in Asheville have a part to play, too.
Until March 26, Google asks interested people to provide them with information about their community through a Request for Information (RFI), which Google will use to determine where to build a broadband network.
Learn more about Google's fiber optic broadband plans in the short video here.
Here's how to get behind this initiative:
* Offically nominate Asheville as a Google test site here (requires Google account)
* Join a Facebook group supporting Asheville as a Google test city here.
* Join a listserv for supporters here.
* Local YouTube video supporting Asheville's bid for Google fiber here. Can our creative community do more to help spread the word that we want that fiber?
There's also an ongoing conversation about Google fiber in Asheville on Twitter. Looks like a popular hashtag is #googleavl.
What do you think of all this, Asheville? We welcome your comments!
3 comments:
You've got your stats backward.
This is false:
1 Mb = 1000 Gb
It should be:
1000 Mb = 1 Gb
Also, a 'GB' is a Gigabyte. A 'Gb' is a GigaBit. Very different terms. The bandwidth they're talking about here is in GigaBits, not Gigabytes.
You might want to retool your stats, cause the 1Gb bandwidth is about 500 times faster, not 20 times :)
Here's a short film I made about the Google Fiber Initiative for Asheville:
http://www.jennjacobsen.com/temp/Googe%20Fiber%20Initiative%20Interviews.wmv
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