Call to Action: Nominate Austin For Google’s FTTH Experiment

Google just announced that they plan on rolling out a 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) Internet access service in a number of trial locations. To give some perspective, a 1Gbps Internet access service would be over 65 times faster than Time Warner Cable’s fastest Road Runner tier available in Austin and over 165 times faster than AT&T’s fastest available DSL tier. According to the company’s policy blog, Google wants to build out the super high-speed fiber network for between 50,000 and 500,000 people and to operate it as an open access network, open to all competitors that want to offer FTTH service. Now, Google is trying to figure out where to build this network and is looking for city nominations.

Austin, as a tech hub and an Internet-savvy community, would be a fantastic test bed for this FTTH experiment. Austinites are highly connected and sophisticated Internet users and would perfect beta testers for super high-speed service. Also, with the city’s two major Internet Access Providers (AT&T and Time Warner Cable) experimenting with usage caps and metered service, the city may soon need just such an uncapped high-speed alternative service.

Google is asking for community nominations from individual users, community groups, and local governments. The company will be accepting nominations until March 26, 2010. We urge Austinites to let Google know that they think Austin would be a perfect test site and to send in their nominations for Austin early and often.

Matthew Henry is an EFFA board member and a partner at McCollough|Henry, PC