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Friday, March 26, 2010

Tech Time Is Running Out to Nominate Portland for Crazy Fast Internet from Google!

Posted by Ned Lannamann on Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 2:50 PM

googlefiber.png

The deadline for nominating the city of Portland as a candidate for Google's super-high-speed fiber network is TODAY at 5 pm. Google is talking about bringing internet with a near-unbelievable speed of 1000Mbit/sec to a select American city. If you're interested in having Google bring fast internet to Portland, have you submitted a nomination yet? I just did. It's easy. Go to Portland Community Fiber and follow the link to fill out the form. You'll need a Google/Gmail account, though. The form asks a bunch of questions, but the only required ones are (1) Name, (2) City, (3) State, (4) Why should Google build a fiber to the home network where you live?

That last one is the tricky one. Here's what I put for my answer. (You definitely don't need to write as much as I did, and you can totally steal from me, or from Portland Community Fiber.)

Portland is home to one of the fastest-growing sectors of the so-called "creative class": young, creative types who are generally ahead of the curve in terms of integration of new technology into their day-to-day lives. That said, internet service is provided by only a handful of unsatisfactory options: the awful Comcast provides the highest speeds but is unreliable and overpriced, while the new Clear wireless upstart is just as frustrating. Portland is a small-to-medium sized city, perfect for this type of project, and its proximity to Google's facilities in the Columbia River Gorge makes it an excellent candidate. The failed MetroFi boondoggle showed that, if nothing else, interest and demand in citywide internet coverage is incredibly high. Furthermore, Portland Community Fiber has listed five excellent points on their website for consideration (quoted here):

"-Portland has a tremendous amount of technology talent in our community that is underutilized/unemployed because of the economy. They can innovate and do great things given the right opportunities.
-Portland has a growing community of creatives in film, video, music, graphic arts, and multimedia and more who would greatly benefit from ultra broadband.
-Portland is an open source city, with lots of open source software development initiatives.
-Portland is a leader in sustainability and all things green. Ultra broadband can save energy, reduce travel, and help us live more lightly on the planet.
-Portland is “shovel ready” and can get it done quickly and cheaply."

Anyway, deadline at 5 pm! Portland Community Fiber have done a great job of outlining the benefits this kind of network could bring to the city. But time is almost up. Do it, if you want Portland to have super-freaky-fast internet.

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