Google announces candidates for Google Fiber

Google Inc. announced today that several Triangle communities are being considered as potential future sites for Google Fiber, a "last mile" Internet to homes and businesses that promises to be a hundred times faster that what most customers now have. The company's list of 34 cities and towns around the country includes Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Cary, Morrisville and Garner. Google said these areas will be evaluated for the service in the coming months. Read the Google announcement.Duke's Chief Information Officer Tracy Futhey said the announcement is welcome news for the Duke community. She chairs a regional coalition called the North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN) that has been seeking to build an ultrafast network that would stimulate innovation and collaboration. Futhey said Google's interest in the region reinforces Duke's ongoing efforts to bring ultra-fast networks to the state. Although Wednesday's announcement is not a commitment that Google will bring fiber to the region, it is a great opportunity for Durham and the other communities, she said."The Triangle has long been a center of innovation, thanks to the collaboration between the universities and the communities," Futhey said. "Today's announcement may lead to an opportunity to extend the type of abundant, high-speed broadband access available on campus to off-campus residential locations. In doing so, we hope the region will continue to be a technology leader."Duke was an early participant in Gig.U, a project aimed at accelerating the deployment of ultra-high-speed computer networks to 30+ leading U.S. universities and their surrounding communities. The goal of Gig.U was to promote the deployment in those communities of competitively priced access to gigabit internet speeds.To further that goal, in 2012, Duke joined three other universities and six municipalities to form NCNGN (pronounced NC Engine). The 10-member group includes the municipalities of Cary, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem and university partners Duke, N.C. State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University/Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. NCNGN members are working with multiple vendors on plans to provide citizens with competitively priced gigabit internet access. "Our process is ongoing, and we're invested in bringing this kind of connectivity to our region as quickly as possible," said Elise Kohn, NCNGN program director.Bringing ultra-fast networks to the region will extend the potential for real-time collaboration and leading-edge innovation beyond Duke's campus and into the homes of faculty and students, Kohn said, as well as allowing the Triangle to help shape and drive the applications that are developed.Cities such as Kansas City and Chattanooga, Tenn., are already exploring new medical and education applications as a result of the 1 gigabit per second connectivity. Starting this week, Google will work closely with regional leaders on a joint planning process to explore what it would take to bring Google Fiber to the area. Google will provide an update on which cities will get Google Fiber by the end of this year.