City Prepares formal Request for Google

Mayor Byron Brown is asking residents of Buffalo, NY for their help as Buffalo plans to officially enter Google Fiber for Communities Project this month. Earlier this year Google announced a plan to to build, and test ultra-high speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the country.

The City of Buffalo views this project as an opportunity to provide significant economic development benefits to the City and to help bridge the digital divide that exists in some sections of the city, according to www.city-buffalo.com. "We view this opportunity as a chance to increase and improve access to technology and information that will have broad and positive impact on the entire city. Think of this as another opportunity to demonstrate Buffalo’s ability to lead the way in cutting-edge technology, just the way the City fostered so many new technologies did at the turn of the 20th Century."

Buffalo already has some significant advantages for this competition. Buffalo has a strong fiber optic cable network. City government plans to make the case to Google that Buffalo is the right city to test this new system. And with the strong foundation of colleges and universities, along with such developments as the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, City government will promote Buffalo as the perfect location to establish this new technology. The city also has already been pursuing initiatives to address the digital divide.

According to Google's website, "We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 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.

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better, and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it's creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can't yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We'll test new ways to build fiber networks; to help inform, and support deployments elsewhere, we'll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we'll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory, and transparent way.

Buffalo could indeed be a great place for Google to test their technology. Submission deadlines are March 26, winners will be announced later this year. You can help the city of Buffalo prepare their bid by visiting http://www.city-buffalo.com/applications/googlefiber/default.aspx