Asheville Google Fiber Network Initiative town hall meeting is March 18

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Press release here. This is an important meeting:

Asheville is calling for artists, musicians and filmmakers, brewers, entrepreneurs and small-business people, educators, faith leaders, outdoor enthusiasts, students and retirees, techies and non-techies alike to join an effort to entice Google to make our community home of one of the fastest high-speed broadband networks in the nation.  The public is invited to learn more about the effort by attending a community meeting March 18 at 6 p.m. in the Civic Center Banquet Hall.

The meeting will provide a briefing on this initiative and inform Asheville citizens how they can support the city’s bid to bring Google Fiber to our community.

Speakers Troy Tolle of Digital Chalk, José Ibarra of Applied Solutions Group, Ben Teague from the Chamber’s Economic Development Coalition and City Councilman Gordon Smith will share a progress report on the strategies and efforts of the community to date.  Attendees can also record video testimonials promoting the benefits of high-speed access to artistic, cultural and technology innovation as well as community and economic development. 

Various elected officials from City of Asheville, Buncombe County as well as the North Carolina State Delegation are expected to attend.  Focus groups will be conducted to solicit direct input from the public on particular areas of interest.  

Attendees will also be able to utilize on-site wireless internet and workstations to complete the community application. 

When selecting the locations for the project, Google will take into account both responses from local government entities as well as perceived community interest and demand for the initiative. Asheville is encouraging residents within the community to submit their own responses to Google explaining why the trial should be held in our community. Responses to Google directly from the community will play a key role in attracting the Fiber for Communities project to Asheville. Anyone can nominate the Asheville community for Google’s consideration. To nominate Asheville and to learn more about the Google RFI, visit here.

Nominations must be submitted by the Friday, March 26, 2010, deadline.

Information about how to participate in the Asheville Google Fiber Network Initiative can be found online at www.googleavl.com. To show support for Asheville becoming one of Google’s test markets, become a member of “Asheville Google Fiber Initiative Network” group on Facebook here. To learn more about how this could benefit Asheville, view the FAQ posted on the “Discussion” tab here.

Google’s one gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections will provide selected communities with Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans can currently access. The service will be available to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 individuals at competitive prices. Google also intends to operate Open Access Networks by sharing the network with other service providers in an effort to give users more options. According to Google, the goal of this project is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone.