Back in March, Tempe became one of thousands of cities to throw its name into the hat in hopes of becoming Google’s chosen city for free installation of a border to border high speed fiber network.
Tempe had already dedicated itself to being a forerunner in citywide technology infrastructure. We were the nation’s first city to try border to border WiFi with a company, using more than 400 of our city’s street lights to hang technology gear. In Tempe, we understand that to lead is to innovate. We have a major university and many, many schools and colleges dedicating to cultivating creative young minds. Arizona State University is a leading research institute. About 20 percent of our jobs are technology-based and many more are technology intensive.
When Google announced the opportunity to compete for the free high speed fiber, within moments our residents, our work force and our students flooded City Hall with emails, Tweets, Facebook posts and even old fashioned phone calls. They were demanding that we get into the race for the fiber. We immediately gathered together groups of tech users from around our community to create something that showed we understood what was at stake – not just for Tempe, but for the world. You can see some of the elements of our entry here: http://www.tempe.gov/googlefiber/
Our community understands that the future is undetermined. The ability to use a faster backbone opens the floodgates to unknown greatness. We don’t know what we can do yet with speed that allows incredible new opportunity. We do know that Tempe is one community changing the world for the better already – we are leading the country with innovations in climate change, solar energy, medical breakthroughs and space exploration. Can you imagine what we could do if we could do it even faster?
I will be speaking to the Fiber to the Home Council conference on Dec. 8 at 3 p.m. at the Arizona Biltmore, http://www.ftthcouncil.org/ This convention brings leaders from around the world to discuss the desire to bring high speed fiber to every home and building possible. I am excited to meet these dedicated people with such vision.
Did you know that the USA ranks 10th in network speeds behind South Korea, Estonia and Slovenia?
No one knows which city Google is going to choose for their free fiber – we’re not counting ourselves out of the race yet! But Tempe is not going to just rely on this one contest to gain such a necessary technology tool. We are working with Cox Communication and others to see what can be done to bring 1 GB speeds to homes, schools and businesses. We’ve already had some success with the Tempe Elementary School District, where they are using 1 GB fiber.
Could you use high speed fiber for your home? For your business? At your school? For your research? Let me know what kinds of projects would interest you most at onnie_shekerjian@tempe.gov.
This is just one example of the work we hope to accomplish on the Tempe City Council’s Technology, Economic and Community Development Committee in the coming year.
