DEVELOPMENT: County joins in Google pursuit

By Joyce Miles<br><a href="mailto:joyce.miles@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joyce</a>

Niagara County is doing a Google search for high-speed economic development.

The county has joined forces with the village and town of Lewiston, the towns of Niagara and Grand Island, and the cities of Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda, to bid for Google’s interest in building a high-speed fiber optic network here.

In early February, Google announced it intends to build the network in a handful of areas. It invited communities nationwide to complete its Request For Information and try selling themselves as the most ready and willing hosts — and customers — of the novel network.

From Duluth, Minn., to Woodlands, Texas, to Gainesville, Fla., to West Hartford, Conn., scores of communities are responding.

The 35-question RFI is extensive; in addition to asking for some obscure data, like how many utility poles are in the applying area, it asks applicants to get into the Web page and YouTube video production business and prove there’s strong community support for a Google project in their neighborhood.

It’s a lot of work in a brief period — the RFI deadline is March 26 — and communities in every region of the nation are throwing themselves into it. The potential payoff is too sweet not to.

For the community it picks, Google will build the infrastructure that supports ultra high speed Internet connections — think roughly 100 times faster than DSL, cable and existing fiber optics networks — and in doing so could make that community a go-to place for cutting-edge enterprisers. Google reportedly has said its technology would allow users to stream three-dimensional images online, or download a feature-length film in five minutes.

“Wherever it goes, it means high-tech jobs. People will want to go there for those jobs,” said Larry Helwig, director of data processing for Niagara County. “It won’t create another Silicon Valley, but it’ll be a huge economic boost to whoever gets it, because there’s nothing like it anywhere in the country. ...This is big time.”

The Legislature is set to formally approve Niagara County’s involvement in the Google RFI when it meets next week. Work on the RFI has been on ongoing among the municipal partners for a couple weeks already, according to Helwig; at a meeting Thursday, the partners picked Niagara County to be the lead agency/one point of contact in the RFI.

J. O’Connell & Associates, the county’s grant writer, is assisting completion of the RFI. The county is contributing staff, from the economic development and data processing departments; and its GPS will be mined for answers to geographic/topographic questions. A meteorologist, a Brockport State College professor and members of infotech Niagara, a regional information technology trade association, have been recruited to help out as well.

A Facebook account and Web site will be launched shortly, Helwig said. Residents will be invited to add testimonials suggesting why a Google network should be laid in Niagara.

Shows of strong community support and readiness are sought by Google in the RFI process. According to The Associated Press, “Google doesn’t want to spend time dealing with right of way issues or objections from neighborhoods that aren’t crazy about having Google tear up streets to install its network. In 2007, (it) abandoned a much simpler plan, to offer Wi-Fi in San Francisco, after getting bogged down in the municipal bureaucracy.”

The proposed network area takes Grand Island in Erie County and, on Niagara’s western/southwestern edge, Lewiston, Niagara, Niagara Falls, North Tonawanda and western portions of Wheatfield and Cambria, where Niagara County Community College is located.

Initially, greater Lockport was drawn in too, but it’s been dropped because connecting it with the larger area was too much of a stretch, according to Helwig. The western-end municipalities are served by National Grid, while Lockport is served by NYSE&G; and “when we go (down) Route 31, we’d cross an area that’s not too densely populated,” he said. Either of those things might count against Niagara in Google’s view.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.

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