Monday, March 8, 2010

Why San Antonio needs more Internet fiber in its diet


When Google offered to install a test version of its new high speed fiber network for a town of 50,000 to half a million residents, Don Ness, the mayor of Duluth, took a winter dip in Lake Superior in the middle of February to garner publicity for his city's effort to get the quicker network. Meanwhile, Rancho Cucamonga offered to change the second part of its name by calling themselves Rancho Googlemonga.
You can't fault these and other mayors for trying to get this test project. Having the higher speeds within their civic borders will attract future business, most notably in animation services and other multimedia outlets.
Because of our size, San Antonio can't qualify for this Internet bakeoff. Yet, as the opportunity for a larger beta project from Google arises, I wonder what our civic leadership is doing to embrace these types of efforts.
Our city has done a great job with attracting computer security organizations, most notably the 24th Air Force and expanded NSA operations. Yet, we need to diversify our technical efforts so that when opportunities like Google arises that we have the components to make it happen.

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