Milwaukee has chance as Google Broadband test city
Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. 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.
From now until March 26th, we’re asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we’ll use to determine where to build our network.—Message from Google, Inc. posted 2/10/10
Competition will be tight, but it is urgent that the City of Milwaukee act this time.
Here is a link for you, as a citizen, to tell Google why Milwaukee should be its test market. Here is a link for governments to make their applications.
Whoever you are, make sure to note in your nomination Milwaukee’s superior underground communications conduit system, part of the Infrastructure Services Division of the Department of Public Works. The existence of this system could put Milwaukee at a true advantage for a change, since the conduit is in place, and has been for 110 years. Few other communities have such a conduit, and it is expected that any great broadband deployment in those cities would require tremendous capital expense that we have been spared due to the prudence of our forefathers. Plus, the City has an entire body of law in place governing use of its conduit by others — another advantage.
Early in the Barrett administration, the city toyed with the idea of granting conduit access to a firm that proposed a citywide Wireless system. This department was not too fond of the proposed system, and the firm was never able to raise sufficient funds to progress. Google, however, does have the money, and Milwaukee has the need. Tell your aldermen, tell the mayor, tell City Engineer Jeff Polenske and DPW Commissioner Jeff Mantes that they can’t go home until they get this application in Google’s hands. (You don’t have to bother telling Scott Walker. It might confuse him.) The response deadline is March 26th, 2010, and we better have one.
Competition will be tight, but it is urgent that the City of Milwaukee act this time.
Reposted with permission of Michael Horne and the MilwaukeeWorld Hound Dog Team
Here is a link for you, as a citizen, to tell Google why Milwaukee should be its test market. Here is a link for governments to make their applications.
I’ll wait right here while you send your message to Google.
Whoever you are, make sure to note in your nomination Milwaukee’s superior underground communications conduit system, part of the Infrastructure Services Division of the Department of Public Works. The existence of this system could put Milwaukee at a true advantage for a change, since the conduit is in place, and has been for 110 years. Few other communities have such a conduit, and it is expected that any great broadband deployment in those cities would require tremendous capital expense that we have been spared due to the prudence of our forefathers. Plus, the City has an entire body of law in place governing use of its conduit by others — another advantage.
Early in the Barrett administration, the city toyed with the idea of granting conduit access to a firm that proposed a citywide Wireless system. This department was not too fond of the proposed system, and the firm was never able to raise sufficient funds to progress.
Google, however, does have the money, and Milwaukee has the need. Tell your aldermen, tell the mayor, tell City Engineer Jeff Polenske and DPW Commissioner Jeff Mantes that they can’t go home until they get this application in Google’s hands. (You don’t have to bother telling Scott Walker. It might confuse him.) The response deadline is March 26th, 2010, and we better have one.
Re-posted with the permission of Michael Horne and the MilwaukeeWorld Hound Dog Team.
