Google Might Widen Our Hose

Dan Saltzman’s chief of staff Brendan Finn is super-excited about an agenda item during this week’s council session:

356 TIME CERTAIN: 10:30 AM — Authorize the City to submit a response to Google’s Request for Information for construction of ultra-high-speed open access broadband network within Portland (Resolution introduced by Mayor Adams and Commissioners Fish, Fritz, Leonard and Saltzman) 30 minutes requested

• FINN WITH A LENGTH OF REGULAR COAXIAL CABLE: “THIS IS THE GARDEN HOSE, WE NEED THE FIRE HOSE,” HE SAYS

The proposal is for Portland to bid against other cities to be amongst the first cities working with Google to build a fiber-optic network to replace its existing coaxial cables for internet use. Read all about it after the jump.

Mercury:Tell me about this proposal.
BF:”Just as background, the city’s had a long interest in seeing an open access telecommunications network in the city of Portland, since 1998. We’ve conducted a number of studies on the feasability of building a fiber optic to-the-premises network in Portland, giving the ability to have 1 gigabit streaming downloading an uploading, and we’ve found that we’re a good fit for building out that infrastructure. We did refined business case studies in 2007 including polling of citizens and businesses, and found that there’s a huge need for better bandwidth at a lower price. For businesses to be more successful, for creatives to be more creative, and for regular citizens to have internet at speeds that aren’t controlled.”

Speeds that are controlled?
“Right now current internet providers have been limiting speeds based on application use. Portland has one of the highest internet penetration rates in the country—we’re number one per capita, meaning more citizens are on the internet than any other city in America, according to a 2003 study.”

Now what?
“The city decided not to move forward on doing this municipally because of the recession, and it’s important to note, I think, that we’ve always encouraged a competitive environment in that field. The analogy I use is an airport—it’s a very needed piece of infrastructure in a city—but you don’t just allow one airline in an airport. Google is committed to seeing that happen, so the question is, now what? Google has issued a call for proposals from municipalities to make the case for Google building a fiber optic to-the premises network. So because of our past work in all of these areas, because of our robust, creative and tech-savvy citizenry, and because of our open-source community and the personal telco community, we’re well established to be a good fit for Google.”

How many cities are they selecting?
“They haven’t said yet. The city is moving forward on endorsing the application that’s set to be submitted next week, and at the same time there’s an organic process of supporting this out in the community that’s being supported at the website portlandfiber.com.”

So, everyone needs more fiber in their diet?
“Everyone needs more fiber in their diet, because it can bring jobs, enhance the creativity of our citizenry, and potentially bring down the cost of telecommunication services for our citizens and businesses.”

What’s to stop say, one provider from buying up all of Google’s fiber-optic bandwidth and monopolizing the market?
“Google has indicated that they’ll only be a wholesaler on the network—they’ll own the fiber optic network, but they’ll allow any provider to compete on the network, which has a limitless amount of bandwidth on it. Not only would it cost a lot to build it, so there’s job creation there, but this infrastructure has the potential to give Portland competitive advantage in recruiting major businesses throughout the United States, because of the applications and competitive cost that an open access network would provide. It’s amazing the amount of interest that this has brought out from all different directions.”

How so?
“So there are people who are interested from an open source perspective, because Portland is the home of open source technology. Or there’s Project 162 which is happening out in East Portland—it’s a place where police officers and landlords of various apartment complexes out there are sharing information that’s led to a new improved effort to try to clean things up out there in the way of public safety.”