Bloomington hopes for a ‘bit’ of Google

Some sang songs, some danced, some even renamed their cities. Cities across the country have gone ga-ga for Google.

And now, Bloomington is taking steps to get the Internet giant’s attention.

Bloomington is one out of 1,100 communities  across the nation that submitted applications for access to Google’s new experimental fiber network through the Google Gigabit Project, said Rick Dietz, Bloomington Information Technology Services director.  

Google’s fiber network will provide Internet connection speeds up to 100 times faster or more than the current broadband connections.

While many other applicants focused more on a creative approach for their campaign, Dietz said he decided to focus more on the application.

“We didn’t rename our city,” Dietz said. “We didn’t jump in lakes or rename our first-born children or anything like that. We just took a fairly serious approach to the opportunity.”

Dietz said a few of the areas that were highlighted in Bloomington’s application included IU’s presence and the existence and growth of Bloomington’s eHealth sector, a movement to integrate information technology and the medical fields.

“I think the expertise IU has in managing high bandwidth networks are something that works in Bloomington’s favor,” Dietz said.

Google wants a community that will be able to immediately utilize the additional bandwidth, Dietz said.

Google also wants to pick a community where a high percentage of residents will buy into the network, said David Jent, IU’s associate vice president of networks.

The fact that Bloomington is a college town might give it an advantage in the competition because college students are more likely to buy this kind of service, Jent  said.

“So they’re looking for that sort of innovative feel and technology drive that students bring to the town,” Jent said.

So far, Google has indicated that they hope to make a decision about one or more locations where they would deploy their network by the end of this year, Dietz said.

Last month during a Bloomington City Council meeting, Danise Alano, Bloomington Economic and Sustainable Development director said that she believes Bloomington is able to handle the capacity of the Google fiber network.

“I do know there’s a growing body of evidence that strong IT infrastructure can create jobs,” Alano said at a Bloomington City Council meeting on March 24.

The fiber network would not only benefit the technological sector but the health care and small business sectors as well, Alano said.

Alano said remote diagnosis could be possible if high-resolution images are able to be transmitted from the patient to the doctor very quickly rather than a patient having to travel to a health care facility.

“The ripple effect could be enormous,” Alano said, at a Bloomington City Council meeting on March 24. “The boost it could have to the innovation could be enormous.”