PORT ANGELES — Clallam County and Port Angeles city governments use them for their own computer networks.
So do some businesses.
But fiber-optic cables, which can provide ultra-high-speed Internet access, have remained out of reach for home Web users because of their cost.
Google is hoping to change that with its new “Fiber for Communities” program — which will provide fiber Internet connections to between 50,000 and 500,000 homes around the nation at speeds 100 times faster than what is available outside of government and business networks — and the city of Port Angeles is expected to throw its hat in the ring.
More Web usage
Google’s Web site says the venture is intended to push home Web use into the next generation with 1-gigabit-per-second connections, and expects to announce the community or communities that will host this program sometime this year.
The seven-member Port Angeles City Council will consider at its Thursday meeting authorizing staff to submit a proposal to convince the Internet giant that Port Angeles is the place to showcase “fiber-at-home” Web use.
The city’s Utility Advisory Committee, which includes three council members, decided Tuesday to recommend that the council give its consent.
The program may seem like a natural fit for a community that gave itself the informal name “Fiber City” six years ago as a means of marketing its 82 miles of fiber cable, but the competition is already fierce.
Port Townsend
Port Townsend-based Internet service provider OlympusNet is submitting a proposal on behalf of that North Olympic Peninsula community, and the city of Port Townsend is also putting together a separate submission for its City Council to consider.
OlympusNet CEO Ned Schumann said his company will launch a Web site this week that will promote Port Townsend to Google and show how city residents can get involved.
The city of Austin, Texas, has already launched its own Web site, www.biggigaustin.org, to increase its chances of being chosen.
But some communities have resorted to some out-of-the-ordinary promotion tactics as means to win what appears to be a heavily sought after program.
In a promotional video, the mayor of Duluth, Minn., wearing a T-shirt and shorts, jumped into Lake Superior, and dared the mayors of competing towns to do the same, the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Minn., reported last week.
The newspaper also said that the city of Topeka, Kan., informally gave itself the name “Google, Kansas,” for the month of March.
Port Angeles’ Deputy Engineering Director Steve Sperr said the city would likely leave any extraordinary promotional tactics to any civic organizations that wish to get involved.
“We have no plans to market the city in any nontraditional manner,” he said.
March 26 deadline
The deadline for submitting proposals through the Web site, http://tinyurl.com/ydu3le7, is March 26.
Google is allowing both governments and private citizens to apply on behalf of their communities.
The California-based company will use online questionnaires to make its selection.
Residents who submit a proposal must provide information on their local Internet service, while counties and municipalities must answer dozens of questions that range from population size to the cost to use utility poles.
While it remains unclear how Google will evaluate the proposals, Sperr said the city would likely have some competitive edge due to its already extensive fiber network.
The city and Clallam County both use the 100-megabit-per-second network to allow their various offices transmit documents to each other nearly instantly.
They also get their Internet access through the fiber cables, but at slower speeds. The city, for instance, only pays for a 2 Mbps Internet connection.
Two council members, Mayor Dan Di Guilio and Cherie Kidd, both hailed Google’s program as a “great opportunity” for Port Angeles at the Utility Advisory Committee meeting.
Larry Dunbar, deputy director of power systems for the city, told the committee that filling out the proposal would likely take staff a day to accomplish.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
