Pittsburgh, Seattle Announce Interest In Google's Fiber Trial

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a press release from the mayor of Pittsburgh that says the city has announced, along with Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the University of Pittsburgh, that it intends to respond to Google's 1Gbps FTTH (Fiber to the Home) request for information. Seattle's mayor, too, wants in on the action, and more cities will surely pile on.

Comments

They w

[Anonymous Coward]

Troy in upstate NY announced the same on Thursday. http://troyrecord.com/articles/2010/02/12/news/doc4b74e2cd9e36e314599627.txt

I bet they'll receive tens of thousands of applications in the coming weeks.

tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[SuperBanana]

I bet they'll receive tens of thousands of applications in the coming weeks.

And guess what comes next? A reverse-competitive bidding process, whereby various cities write off their taxes on both the profits and the capital equipment, waive requirements like community access programs, and more- just to get google to give them fiber-to-the-home, something that has no proven public benefit. Which is idiotic- I don't want my tax dollars used to fund capital expenditures for corporations!

Anyone else a little more than slightly freaked out by this move? Google now encompasses search, email, instant messaging, calendaring, social networking, blogging (both content production and reading), cellular and telephone services, online payment, and now actual last-mile services? What's left?

Why does it feel like in 10 years we'll be calling it The Gnet, not the Internet?

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[shutdown -p now]

When "free market" (not that it's actually free... but hey, at least there's "competition") has failed repeatedly for decades, a competent monopoly with a proven track record is more than welcome.

Re:Burlington, Vermont

[vermontmcintyre]

I am on the Burlington Telecom Advisory Committee and we have been discussing this amongst ourselves as well. The timing on this is advantageous and important because of the issues Bradley mentioned above. The city in general is focused on this issue, so Google has an excellent chance to make a powerful and positive impact by its mere presence here in Burlington.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[Nethead]

The Seattle Metro Area is well covered by Clearwire 4G WiMax. It will beat the pants off of anything DSL does. And for you, it's buying local (Kirkland) and helping to keep local geeks like me employed. And the back bone of the system; I can't say much but (NDA) but trust me, FAT PIPE.