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City vying for Google techHARLINGEN, May 02, 2010 (Valley Morning Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- In a group of 1,077 cities and communities vying for a high-speed Internet expansion program, Nick Consiglio likes Harlingen's odds. Studies commissioned by the Federal Communication Commission in the past two months determined that high-speed Internet affordability would be beneficial to businesses, schools and hospitals. It would also empower people of lower socio-economic backgrounds. "Broadband expansion is just like laying down a highway," said Consiglio, president of Harlingen-based Internet marketing company DCNC Marketing. "If you have businesses in one town, but no high-speed highway connecting it to another big city, it would slow development." With that in mind, Consiglio and a group of local business owners and city employees applied for the Google Fiber for Communities Project last month, hoping to obtain that kind of structure. This is how Google describes the project on its Web site: "Google is planning to build and test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. "We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections." The first step, Google said, was to identify communities interested in the project. And Harlingen has made its interest known. Mayor Chris Boswell granted permission to the local group, made up of city IT Director Charley Kidder, Rick Ledesma, Dominic Consiglio and VTX Broadband sales representative Pamela Leverett, to apply for the program during a March 22 joint meeting between the city and the Economic Development Corporation, according to city records. The application was free and the city did not appropriate any money for broadband expansion, according to city records. Fifty-one communities and cities throughout Texas applied with Google, including Edinburg and McAllen, the only two other Valley cities to apply, according to Google. The program drew national media attention on April 1 when Topeka, Kan., changed its name to Google -- and Google became Topeka. It was a one-day publicity stunt and joke to bolster Topeka's plea. "About 95 percent of all Harlingen residents have access to broadband," Kidder, the city's IT director, said. "I don't know what number of homes have the service, but it's probably significantly less." That's the trend across the country, according to a study by the Social Science Research Council. About 65 percent of American homes have broadband at home. Cost is the most significant factor for people who do not have broadband access, the FCC commissioned study, titled "Broadband adoption in low-income communities," determined. The study determined that access to broadband would empower low-income communities as well as provide economic stimulus. In its report published in March, the FCC determined that the best way to expand broadband would be to increase competition within the service providers. Broadband expansion would provide an economic stimulus by bringing technology business to Harlingen, said Pamela Leverett, sales and marketing representative for VTX Broadband. The Harlingen based-company VTX Broadband, a subsidiary company of Valley Telephone Cooperative, Inc., works in the market of broadband provider in rural areas. "There are so many possibilities if Harlingen can get this fiber-optic cable project," Leverett said. "We're on the edge right now of what we can achieve as a city, and this would just push us one step further towards our potential." Google says it plans to announce "a target community or target communities" sometime this year. To see more of the Valley Morning Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.valleystar.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |