Google Hopes To Make Provo The 3rd Google Fiber Community!

Today's announcement from Google that they hope to make Provo, Utah, the third Google Fiber community is fantastic and cool.

If I were LDS/Mormon, I'd be applying right now to be the Google Fiber Community Advocate for Provo. I tried to get the community advocate job for Google Fiber in Kansas City, Kansas, thanks to the nudging from Erin Q-L, but Google decided not to hire a community advocate to focus on KCK. They instead hired only one community advocate for the entire two-state KC metro region. I still feel KCK would benefit from having its own Google Fiber community advocate because that city has entirely different challenges to adopting and getting the most out of Google Fiber compared to the KCMO part of metro KC. If Google contacts me and wants to discuss the KCK Google Fiber community advocate position, or wants to hire me to do that, I'm ready to go tomorrow. Or today, if that's what it takes...

The coolest aspect of Google doing Google Fiber in Provo is the bar-raising they are doing for telecommunications and ISPs in the US. When Google announced they're going to roll out Google Fiber in Austin, TX, recently, AT&T was goaded into announcing that they, likewise, would make an equivalent gigabit Internet connection available to the residents of Austin. Whether the AT&T desperation press release will ever be realized in actual reasonable cost symmetric gigabit service for Austin Internet users remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see if AT&T or any other Provo area ISP announces that they, too, will be providing gig 'net access in that metro area. The upside of the triple-play Google Fiber expansion is that people who live in or move to those three metro areas have the option to participate in leading the way in an emerging area of technology. I'm not aware of any currently available and in-use 'killer applications' for symmetric gigabit Internet access, partly because the 'other end' or the transmission links are throttled, but people in those three metro areas will have the best opportunity to develop those killer applications for gigabit fiber.

Can't type more now, but I look forward eagerly to more announcements about Google Fiber spreading and maturing.

Go Google Fiber!