[1st-mile-nm] [sfx: Discuss] Form to nominate Google fiber for community

[Steve Smith]

Tom Johnson wrote:
> Hey, it can't hurt, can it?
>
> Here's the site to nominate Santa Fe for Google largess:  
> http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/
Without volunteering to lead such an effort, I think it would be (even) 
better if those interested in bringing really good bandwidth to the SFe 
area were to get together and develop a good story about how/why this 
would matter to SFe and/or why/how SFe is either "unique" in it's 
need/value or how it is somehow "representative" such that a Google 
success here would lead to a template or model for lots of other regions 
similar to our own.

What makes SFe unique?  The sfX city ED contract suggests that SFe has a 
lot of underemployed creative talent that would be best served by our 
becoming a magnet for lots of distributed contract/project work.   
Entertainment and High Tech alike seem to thrive on high-bandwidth.    
High Bandwidth with Low Latency and High Reliability is a constraint, 
not a driver.   If we have it, things will be possible that would not 
have been otherwise, but it is not as clear that having it will lead us 
to do any of these things spontaneously.   sfX is one of the places that 
might help to demonstrate or explain some of this (if/as we become more 
successful).   There is a bit of a chicken-egg problem.   It is hard to 
demonstrate the things that come with high-bandwidth, low-latency, 
high-reliability networks if you don't have one.

The First Mile initiative and others in the area are probably better 
equipped to establish the case than sfX is... but I think we can help to 
make their story more compelling. 

Maybe someone can do some demographic analysis?   How many semi-isolated 
cities are there of Santa Fe's size?  Are they all bursting with 
disaffected creatives just looking for a chance to exercise their work 
from afar?   It seems like there is an argument in them thar numbers 
somewhere.   Spokane WA, Eureka CA, Flagstaff AZ,  St George UT,   
Fayetteville AR, Knoxville TN, East Bumfuddle NW, etc.

Is our uniquely ancient city-plan/infrastructure and multi-cultural 
nature relevant?   Does that make us someone worth helping because we 
"deserve" or "need" it, or does it make us a "good example" for other 
places with similar but different circumstances?

Google uses numbers like 50K-500K people served by one of their 
installations.   That suggests that regions of that scale (on the low 
end in my interest) are what SFe could become a template for?

Google doesn't play pork-barrel games.  If they choose us, it will be 
for a reason.   Rather than try to guess their motivations and game 
them, maybe we should just try to do our own (self) analysis and try to 
see why we *would* be a good candidate for their largess, put it out 
there and see what comes of it.

I think we might consider asking 1st-Mile to focus us on what we can 
contribute to an argument they may already have in their back pocket...  

- Steve

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