Old news-Duluth lost out to Kansas City for Google Optic fiber Network (St. Paul: appointed)

[Radical_Car]

This is a little old but I don't recall it being posted before. I recall people talking about this earlier, and I apologize if it has been posted already a few months ago or something.

StarTribune.com | User comments

Kansas was basking Wednesday in what may be the most publicity it has received since a tornado carried away Dorothy and Toto.

The reason: Kansas City had beaten out more than 1,000 other cities to win the free Google fiber-optic network.

But there was no joy in Duluth, which had failed in its high-profile bid for a network that would have made the city a national technology showcase while helping jump-start economic development. To make matters worse, Kansas City's win follows a spate of rumors in Duluth last week that the city had won.

The prize is staggering: a futuristic network that would provide 1-gigabit-per-second download speeds to individual homes, or 100 times faster than what passes for high-speed Internet in most U.S. households. At that speed, consumers could quickly download movies, and doctors could "see" patients who were miles away.

While Duluth wasn't the only Minnesota city to apply for the Google prize -- others included Austin, St. Paul, North St. Paul and Falcon Heights -- it ran the splashiest campaign last winter with a series of YouTube videos.

One showed Mayor Don Ness jumping through a hole in the Lake Superior ice to attract Google's attention. Another depicted a "press conference" by a fake Duluth mayor with a Norwegian accent who at first belittled Topeka, Kan., for renaming itself Google for a month, then offered to name Duluth's firstborn children Google Fiber. There also was a supporting video featuring a much younger Sen. Al Franken as the "Duluth Answer Man."

"The Google initiative effort was very positive for Duluth," Ness said in a statement Wednesday, noting that the videos attracted national attention and that Duluth has benefitted from other new fiber optic projects that improved the city's Internet connections.

In Kansas, the mood was ecstatic.

"I'm declaring today Google Day in Kansas," said Gov. Sam Brownback.

Google said in a statement that it had found what it had been searching for "a location where we could build efficiently, make an impact on the community and develop relationships with local government and community organizations."

Steve Alexander • 612-673-4553

[aluminumpork]

I was involved in Duluth's bid at "Google headquarters" and helped build several components of the online campaign. We were all disappointed, but should all feel lucky that we are still getting fiber; just not on the scale of Google fiber. Enventis has been quietly running fiber through Duluth neighborhoods and northern Minnesota in general with their Greater Minnesota Broadband Collaborative. I'm not sure how many neighborhoods they've hit in Duluth so far, but I know that I've got fiber less that 50ft from my house in the Jefferson neighborhood.