Help Fishers, Indiana Get Google Fiber

One-Mississippi.

One second. It’s how we counted when we were kids playing flag football or hide-and-seek. One-Mississippi is how long it takes you to download a 3MB song to your computer.

Five-Mississippi, six-Mississippi, seven-Mississippi.

That’s how long it actually takes at my house. I have high speed Internet, and we usually average 3 – 5MB per second. At least it’s supposed to.

But if you’ve ever tried to get online between 3:00 – 5:00 (when the kids come home from school), your Internet speed drops like a rock. It’s bad again on Saturday afternoons, and again on Sunday nights.

But what if you could get 1GB (yes, one gigabyte) of speed in your house?

1GB equals 1,000MB (actually, 1024MB). At that speed, you could download 333 songs in One-Mississippi. That’s not a typo. Three hundred and thirty-three songs in a single second. That’s how fast 1GB is.

One-Mississippi. We just downloaded almost the entire Beatles catalog (It took two more seconds to finish “Hey Jude.”)

This is the exciting part: Google said they plan to build and test ultra-high speed fiber networks in a select number of communities across the United States.

The Town of Fishers and the Fishers Chamber of Commerce are working on a submission to get Google Fiber run throughout the entire town of Fishers.

We’re competing with cities and towns all over the United States. Even our friends up in Anderson, IN are in the running.

But we want it here in Fishers. Call me selfish, but since I live there, I would love to see it in my hometown. It would be great, not only for the homes and schools in Fishers, but for the businesses.

Imagine the possibilities: Video production companies can upload their videos in seconds, not minutes. Video conferencing will be a snap. Software companies can collaborate around the office or around the world. Movies on demand will be just as fast as watching regular TV. And yes, you can download your MP3s in a fraction of a second.

Think about what 1GB per second can do for the technology industry here in central Indiana. Many of us are fond of calling this region “Silicorn Alley.” But with speeds like this, Fishers can quickly become the entire hub of Silicorn Alley. (Or would that be the stalk?)

Think of the jobs it will create for Central Indiana if many software companies started relocating here. Think of what it can do for home sales and the surrounding economy, and even the state’s brain drain if companies began locating to Fishers, just for 1GB per second.

So, please, even if you don’t live in Fishers, take a few minutes to stop by the FastFishers.com website and nominate our not-so-little town for Google’s Fiber.

Video Proof of Our Craving for Fast Internet

This past Sunday, about 200 Fishers residents gathered to produce a community video to show Google how badly we want Google Fiber in our town. My friend, Alison Moore, of the Fishers Chamber wrote lyrics to a Lady Gaga song, and we sang. We sang our hearts out, and sang about our love for Google and the promise of Google Fiber.

Yes, I even sang. That’s how bad I want this. I sang a freaking Lady Gaga song! Now, if I can sing a Lady Gaga song, you can certainly take just 3 minutes to show Google why our town deserves the new network they’re going to give to a few lucky cities or towns in the United States.

And when you’re done, and if we get it, you’re more than welcome to come up here and try it out. We’d love to have you.

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