Jared Starkey is going all out for Google broadband. The day after Google said it would provide high-speed Internet access to as many as 500,000 people around the U.S., Starkey set up a Facebook page to lobby Google to bring the service to his hometown, Topeka, Kan. Since then, Starkey has passed out bright-orange necklaces made of the kind of fiber-optic cable used to deliver fast Web connections and rallied 100 people to show up at a downtown redevelopment meeting wearing T-shirts that play on Google’s motto for the broadband plan. “I’ve been talking to absolutely everybody about this,” says Starkey, owner of a small Web-design company.
Broadband-starved cities and towns across the country are going to great lengths to grab the attention of Mountain View [Calif.]-based Google, which in February said it will set up a network that can deliver speeds of 1 gigabit per second, about 20 times faster than the speediest ones sold by Verizon Communications. Google will spend “hundreds of millions” on the effort, Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News.
To set themselves apart, some municipal officials are naming cities after Google, owner of the world’s largest Web search engine. The city of Greensboro, N.C., is preparing an “Operation Google” gift package for delivery to Google headquarters and has earmarked $50,000 for promoting a Google broadband effort.
Yet with budgets strapped after the recent recession, many cities are relying on citizen-led grassroots efforts, often through social networks such as Facebook and the microblogging service Twitter. Activists have set up more than 70 Facebook pages to attract Google’s attention to cities including Grand Rapids, Mich.; Columbia, Mo.; and Ventura, Calif. Starkey’s “Bring Google’s Fiber Experiment to Topeka!” page boasts more than 10,900 members.
Community Support Factor
Google may pay…