By Monica Chen
mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
DURHAM -- If Google builds its experimental ultra high speed network in Durham, doctors here would be able to diagnose their patients virtually, more people would be able to work from home, and schools would be able to connect their resources and teach students remotely.
These were some of the ideas tossed around at the second meeting on Durham's response to an "Request For Information" for Google Fiber on Thursday.
About a dozen interested people gathered at the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, where they went over the missing pieces in the city's application and planned next steps to generate more interest for Google Fiber in the community.
The application, comprising 26 pages, asks questions about Durham ranging from the number of its high tech jobs to average annual temperature to rates for pole attachments for telecommunications carriers and internet access providers, among others. Wanda Page, deputy city manager, is in charge of the application.
The people who assembled on Thursday tried to guess at Google's intent for asking certain questions.
"One of the things that Google is looking for is ways that that ball is already rolling," said Sam Poley, spokesman for the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.
"I think they're looking at... how we're already reaching out to the rest of the population," said Kevin Davis, the blogger behind Bull City Rising and an assistant director in Duke University's Information Technology department.
Ted Voorhees, deputy city manager, estimates that for the amount of infrastructure that Google would install in Durham, the price tag for the company could run up to $600 million -- money that Durham citizens and businesses won't have to spend.
The RFI put out by Google for communities ranging in size from 50,000 to 500,000, has triggered a frenzy across the country to submit information by the March 26 deadline.
Facebook groups for Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Greensboro have already been created. The group "Bring Google Fiber to Greensboro, NC!," has more than 2,500 members.
In Durham, there also has been a Facebook group set up with more than 700 fans. DCVB has created the Web site, www.hifiberdurham.com, to gather shows of support from residents.
Poley, who is heading the effort to get the word out about Google Fiber, said they are planning to get thousands of people onto the field of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to spell out the words, "We Want Google."
Davis, who is heading up the Innovations team to gather information on how residents will use Google Fiber, will be distributing a questionnaire.
The network, according to Google, will provide Internet speeds pf 1 gigabit per second, the equivalent to 1,000 megabits. By comparison, Time Warner Cable, the dominant Internet provider in Durham, offers Internet speeds up to 10 megabits per second.
To illustrate the speed of pme gigabit per second, Davis said that if the Library of Congress were to scan everything in its collection and put it online, someone with Google Fiber would need only one day to download all of it.
Julian Lombardi, assistant vice president of the Office of Information Technology, compared that huge increase of Internet speed to the advent of the telegraph in the time of the Pony Express.
"People actually have a hard time imagining what to do with that bandwidth," he said. "The benefit of something like this is a completely different architecture of how information is transferred."
"This is a marvelous opportunity to propel us in a direction that represents the future," he added.
For Jonathan Clarke, an intern at DurhamCares who attended the meeting, Google Fiber would present an opportunity to bridge the digital divide.
"Everybody would have an equal opportunity for a fast speed," he said.
