Market Watch
Only suitors with big incentives and money need apply
All across America, mayors are jumping into lakes, temporarily changing city names and creating Facebook fan pages, in an effort to woo Google Inc. and its broadband network trial.
From Juneau, Alaska to Sarasota, Fla., cities across the U.S. are vying to be chosen by Google as a test bed for its experimental ultra high-speed broadband network, projected to be 100 times faster than what is available in most U.S. homes.
But some cities might want to think twice before they court Google. They might want to make sure they have some funds in their coffers and incentives that will very likely be required to help turn their cities into 21st century digital hubs.
"By the time this is over I expect this to be a bidding war," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "If you get a bidding war going, you might find out that the winning city ends up paying for more of this than they expect."
Details so far are slim. Google is now requesting information. Interested communities, local governments and their constituents are submitting responses on why they would be the best host for an ultra high-speed network. Google announced its plans Feb. 10 and cities have until March 26 to submit their pitches. See Google news here.
There are 89 fan pages on Facebook, sponsored by cities such as Huntsville, Ala., with 5,729 fans, to Ventura, Calif., with 1,320 fans and a multi-colored logo that mimics Google's. The mayor of Topeka, Kansas temporarily changed the name of that Great Plains city, population 122,000, to Google, Kansas, with a proclamation that included a mandate not to do any evil. Citizens of Duluth, Minn. saw their mayor jump into a 35-degree Lake Superior at a dual-purpose event for Google Fiber and the Special Olympics.
"We've already received a good number of submissions from communities across the country, and thousands of submissions from people who are excited about ultra high-speed Internet access," said a spokeswoman for Google in Mountain View, Calif. The company is not asking potential partners to share in the cost of the network build out.
But surely, cities which provide the easiest ways to cut through their own bureaucratic red tape, and the most economic incentives, will be favored as likely hosts.
"We would support implementation through access to currently installed fiber and other existing network resources to the extent of our ability, as well as property access, zoning assistance, permitting and regulatory facilitation," said a spokesman for Sarasota's Google fiber initiative. The city, which has a population of about 372,000, can also promise great demand for network bandwidth and potential subscribers. The coastal city also temporarily changed the named of its City Island to Google Island.
Doesn't zoning and permitting usually mean costs, or money going into city coffers? Cities may lose out on some potential revenue in their ardor to win the ultimate prize.
That prize, as Bill Bunten, Topeka's 79-year-old mayor told CNN, would hopefully inspire younger people to stay in the city and encourage new businesses.
"The technology will be an enabler for unknown innovations," said Jeremy Hansen of
Hansen Gress Corp, and an information technology consultant to the city of Juneau. "I'm not trying to guess what those innovations are."
By fueling this frenzy, as cities across the country compete with each other to host the experiment, Google may cleverly get the cities to pick up more of the costs than they expected.
What if Google's trials remain only an experiment? Google has spent a lot of money buying up dark fiber, meaning fiber that is not currently in use, some of it built up during the dot-com boom. But it's not clear that Google wants to be a network service provider.
Google and the host cities may have a hard time trying to find another company to manage their awesome -- but costly -- fiber network that zips video around at speeds of one gigabit per second.
Be careful what you wish for.
From Juneau, Alaska to Sarasota, Fla., cities across the U.S. are vying to be chosen by Google as a test bed for its experimental ultra high-speed broadband network, projected to be 100 times faster than what is available in most U.S. homes.
But some cities might want to think twice before they court Google. They might want to make sure they have some funds in their coffers and incentives that will very likely be required to help turn their cities into 21st century digital hubs.
"By the time this is over I expect this to be a bidding war," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "If you get a bidding war going, you might find out that the winning city ends up paying for more of this than they expect."
Details so far are slim. Google is now requesting information. Interested communities, local governments and their constituents are submitting responses on why they would be the best host for an ultra high-speed network. Google announced its plans Feb. 10 and cities have until March 26 to submit their pitches. See Google news here.
There are 89 fan pages on Facebook, sponsored by cities such as Huntsville, Ala., with 5,729 fans, to Ventura, Calif., with 1,320 fans and a multi-colored logo that mimics Google's. The mayor of Topeka, Kansas temporarily changed the name of that Great Plains city, population 122,000, to Google, Kansas, with a proclamation that included a mandate not to do any evil. Citizens of Duluth, Minn. saw their mayor jump into a 35-degree Lake Superior at a dual-purpose event for Google Fiber and the Special Olympics.
"We've already received a good number of submissions from communities across the country, and thousands of submissions from people who are excited about ultra high-speed Internet access," said a spokeswoman for Google in Mountain View, Calif. The company is not asking potential partners to share in the cost of the network build out.
But surely, cities which provide the easiest ways to cut through their own bureaucratic red tape, and the most economic incentives, will be favored as likely hosts.
"We would support implementation through access to currently installed fiber and other existing network resources to the extent of our ability, as well as property access, zoning assistance, permitting and regulatory facilitation," said a spokesman for Sarasota's Google fiber initiative. The city, which has a population of about 372,000, can also promise great demand for network bandwidth and potential subscribers. The coastal city also temporarily changed the named of its City Island to Google Island.
Doesn't zoning and permitting usually mean costs, or money going into city coffers? Cities may lose out on some potential revenue in their ardor to win the ultimate prize.
That prize, as Bill Bunten, Topeka's 79-year-old mayor told CNN, would hopefully inspire younger people to stay in the city and encourage new businesses.
"The technology will be an enabler for unknown innovations," said Jeremy Hansen of
Hansen Gress Corp, and an information technology consultant to the city of Juneau. "I'm not trying to guess what those innovations are."
By fueling this frenzy, as cities across the country compete with each other to host the experiment, Google may cleverly get the cities to pick up more of the costs than they expected.
What if Google's trials remain only an experiment? Google has spent a lot of money buying up dark fiber, meaning fiber that is not currently in use, some of it built up during the dot-com boom. But it's not clear that Google wants to be a network service provider.
Google and the host cities may have a hard time trying to find another company to manage their awesome -- but costly -- fiber network that zips video around at speeds of one gigabit per second.
Be careful what you wish for.
