Google project attracts interest

Iowa City and Cedar Rapids groups have formed to try to catch the eye of Google as it decides where to build at least one pilot fiber-optic network.

The search engine giant is scoping out cities with between 50,000 and 500,000 residents to test its fiber-based business model and technology. The Google Fiber project has attracted interest from places nationwide.

“It would be neat if they could do the whole Corridor area,” said landscaping business owner Tim Pugh, who started up Google Fiber for Cedar Rapids, a Facebook group devoted to attracting Google Fiber, over the weekend. He soon found out there was already another group, Google Fiber in Cedar Rapids, on the job.

The “for” group had about 59 members Thursday afternoon. The “in” group had about 46.

Pugh said Google Fiber would be an open source network, allowing schools, libraries, municipalities, the new media, and others to use it to stream information and data. The bandwidth capacity would be so great that it could provide opportunities such as streaming local television channels across the Internet, Pugh said.

At the south end of the Corridor, the Facebook event “Nominate Iowa City for Google Fiber” had 1,185 guests on Thursday.

University of Iowa student Ryan Knopf, president of the Open Source University Meetup, a group that supports free and open source systems, said he thinks city leaders will come on board with the effort.

“Google Fiber would be huge for the university,” Knopf wrote in an e-mail. “In fact, it would be huge for the entire area's economy. I'm sure there are researchers who would love the kind of data access they could get by using the faster connections we would get by tapping into Google's Open Access fiber network.”

Some supporters estimate Google Fiber would be 51.2 times faster than the fastest Internet service currently available in Iowa City from Mediacom. It says having Google Fiber would give the University of Iowa a “huge research advantage” by enabling it to tap directly into Google's Open Access Network.

Mediacom on Wednesday launched a much faster service in Waterloo called Ultra 105, which it touts as the nation's fastest. It provides download speeds of 50 megabits per second and upload speeds of 5 megabits per second.

The Iowa City group touts magazine rankings that have placed Iowa City among the top 10 cities nationwide in categories ranging from best-educated cities, to smartest schools, to best places to expand a business.

Of course, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids aren't the only towns showing interest. The City of Ames has already said it will have a nomination submitted by the March 26 deadline, and other Iowa nominations are expected. The Ames City Council voted unanimously on Feb. 26 to pursue the project, and 951 have joined the Facebook page Ames Wants Google Fiber.