Assemblyman Lentol submits Google application for North Brooklyn’s bid for ultra-high speed Internet
Communities across the country are vying to be the trial location for a new ultra-high speed fiber optic network system being offered by Google.
Williamsburg/Greenpoint’s hat’s in the ring, thanks to Greenpoint resident Chris Johnson who has been rallying local support, and who recently brought the idea up to Assemblyman Joseph Lentol.
The Assemblyman, (the only Brooklyn elected official, apparently, who was receptive to the project), liked it, especially after receiving hundreds of calls of support from other local residents, groups and organizations, and put his full support behind it. Yesterday, his office filed an application of RFI (Request for Information) on behalf of the community. He says:
“The overall advantage of having Google run their project in North Brooklyn is monumental. Absolutely every single one of my constituents can benefit from such a project and I am extremely proud to be able to voice the community opinion in a government response.”
Along with the application, Google is looking for a high level of community support and enthusiasm, and is asking for 50,000 signatures as one of the requirements to be chosen for the cutting-edge technology. So Johnson has also created a Facebook page, and encourages local residents to sign up as well as also register a vote for our community via Google directly.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenpoint-Williamsburg-for-Google-Fiber-Optic/362078262231
Even though the deadline for submitting an RFI was yesterday, there’s still time to show interest by joining the Facebook page, and/or signing into the Google site, says Johnson.
Johnson who is a web technologist at WSJ.com in Manhattan and sometimes telecommutes from Brooklyn, believes that Williamsburg/Greenpoint, and surrounding neighborhoods, with its high concentration of media and arts businesses and professionals, is a prime area for Google’s pilot program, and believes passionately it would benefit everyone in the community:
“The net is increasingly a platform for applications—a platform for people’s lilfestyles, photos and videos, etc. The idea is that the faster people can reach information, upload and download it, the more bandwidth available, basically, the more complete the applications can become. One of the big things in this experiment is that it will enable people from their homes and businesses to access online services that haven’t been possible before.”
Johnson acknowledges that it’s a longshot. “It’s intensely competitive,” says Johnson. Among the competition’s applicants is Senator Al Franken from Duluth, MN who even submitted a video to bolster his case that his community should be selected for the experiment.
Johnson figures there may be about 200 applications from across the country, maybe more. Some have questioned whether Brooklyn is too densely populated an area, but Johnson thinks on the contrary, that a dense area is a great place to start: “In my eyes, that’s a good thing, having to deal with such an established infrastructure, with such a densely populated environment would show the other broadband companies that it’s possibe to roll [the fiber optic technology] out anywhere in the world. It would show the US, that it can be done.”
http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/public/overview
http://gothamist.com/2010/03/12/colonial_williamsburg_is_coming_for.php
There’s nothing to lose, and all to gain.
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