Want fast internet in Davis?This is the brainstorming and discussion page that covers emerging ideas... feel free to contribute here, but for a quick overview of what you can do now, try visiting the main project page by clicking here

Contacts

These people are acting as points of contact, or are acting as coordinators for various aspects of the Davis effort:

Chamber of Commerce: —KemblePope City of Davis: Katherine Hess Davis Community Network: Steve McMahon, Facebook Organizer: —JohnnyJaber Telecommunications Commission: Zack O'Donnell Davis Media Access: Darrick Servis or Autumn Labbe-Renault City Council: Sue Greenwald

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=343343604694 City of Davis RFI Update Page: http://cityofdavis.org/cmo/google_rfi.cfm

Upcoming Meetings and Events

The effort ends TODAY! Please sign up now!

March 18: 7pm- Google Fiber Now- Upload to Youtube Workshop at Davis Media Access. Bring your videos and we'll guide you through the process of uploading your video to youtube & making sure it is part of the city application.

News

2010-02-18 19:34:32   Reporting Back - I've had ALL positive and enthusiastic feed back from city and community leaders on pursuing the "Google Fiber Pilot Project". At today's Chamber/City 2x2 (of which I'm a voting member) Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor, Councilperson Sue Greenwald, Chamber of Commerce President Bill Alger, City Manager Bill Emlen and Chamber and City staff all expressed the desire to move forward on this in a big way. They've asked me to get everyone together to make it happen!

The City has already appointed 3 staff folks to fill out the 21 page Request for Information. Now, they want to support our grassroots efforts to get the community out in huge numbers... we need this to go viral soon, as the deadline is March 26th.

OK, that's a start DavisWiki community, who's in?? —KemblePope

On March 3rd, 2010, an organizing meeting was held in the Davis Community Chambers st 5th and B St. Topics addressed included:

-Business Model: What makes a good business case for Google to choose Davis? -Unique Davis: What can Davis bring to Google that other communities can not? -UC Davis Partnership: How can we best involve the university in the effort? -Community Support: How do we get everyone in the community to submit a request on Google's site? -Community Benefits: What would we like to get out of it, beyond high speed network access? -Free Market Concerns: Do we need to place some restrictions on Google to prevent it from becoming a monopoly network provider, as Comcast is? -Privacy: What about security and privacy concerns? -Other

March 11: 7pm- Google Fiber Now- Video Camera Workshop at Davis Media Access. We have cameras for you to use for free for this contest. Come learn and get your idea made into video for free!

Press Coverage

2010-03-04 - Community Embraces Google Experiment in The California Aggie 2010-03-03 - Why Google Needs Davis on The Davis Voice 2010-02-23 - Googlephile Davisites Want Faster Internet on The Davis Voice 2010-03-18 - http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/18/2615269/sacramento-area-towns-get-creative.html#mi_rss=Top%20Stories in Sacramento Bee - Discusses a number of competing communities 2010-03-19 - http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=12517&fu=031910 in UC Davis Dateline - UC Davis joins effort as Chancellor Linda Katehi agrees to sign letter to Mayor Ruth Asmundson in support of the city’s application

To Do List

Please list tasks to contribute to the effort here

  1. Create a brand name for this movement by letting people suggest, and then vote on a name i.e. Davis Advocates for Google Fiber; Davisites are Googlephiles; Davis, a Google Friendly Town; etc etc. This needs to be done within 7 days

  2. Do something about Topeka

  3. Identify 7-9 representative groups (DavisWiki, Facebook Group organizers, Chamber, DNC.org, DMA, ASUCD, OddFellows/Rotary, UCD Grad School of Management etc etc) that can send 1 person to attend a 2 hour strategy meeting. Immediately thereafter, have a public meeting in Community Chambers to lay out the plan and offer volunteer opportunities. This meeting should happen in the next 10 days.

  4. We need to be ridiculously creative in how we present ourselves... videographers getting clips of many people reading a scripted plea that get spliced together; a day where everybody in town prints out the Google primary color logo, tapes onto their back and walks around very fast in a city-wide flash mob; get people in colored t-shirts to stand in Central Park spelling out "Google Fiber Here" and get a video/photo from above; etc etc... We need a page for people to propose these outreach/marketing/earned media ideas...

Proposed Slogans

I like "Davis: a fiber friendly community." —WilliamLewis

"Davis: Lighting the fire of imagination with the light of fiber" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Enlightenment from fiber light" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Weaving light and knowledge together" —IDoNotExist

Davis Lightplex (as a name for it - references Google's GooglePlex headquarters, light, and networks) —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Fiber lighting minds" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: From light, knowledge" (Note: references Apollo 13 ("From the moon, knowledge") and Starfleet Academy ("From the stars, knowledge") —IDoNotExist

We need a catchy acronym. Or something with GooFi in it (Davis goes goofy for GooFi?). —CovertProfessor

"Google Internet Grows A Bond In Davis" (GIGABID) — get it? —CovertProfessor

"Davis: Running faster with extra fiber!" —IDoNotExist

"Davis + Google = EPIC WIN" —KemblePope

"ElGoog. People involved will be known as Googs. This is more of a project name. Has that Spanish flavor for Calif." —zmodonnell

"Feel the Fiber - going Google" —BruceHansen

Proposed Logos

If you have a proposed logo, please place it in this section.

Share ideas (or edit the above!)

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2010-02-10 12:33:33   I saw this too. What needs to happen is for Davis city government to pick up the ball and enthusiastically apply and lobby for it. How about we get it on the city counsel agenda and show up en mass to request that the city does that? —JimStewart

  • Also various business associations and other groups (Do University/City infrastructure relations cover anything to do with bandwidth?) There are probably more interested supporters than just the government here. Also, go up — for instance, somebody within Yolo County might take a swing at supporting it. -jw

2010-02-10 12:53:08   A good thing to make a featured page, perhaps? —CovertProfessor

2010-02-10 12:53:09   One potential downside to Davis, from their perspective, is the University already has super fast internet. So you'd want to address this in an argument (perhaps "synergistic effects" or something not so horribly worded) —PhilipNeustrom

  • Perhaps something like "To bring the whole community to a parity with what a certain segment has already adapted to." -jw

2010-02-10 12:59:15   See also this comment (if you haven't already). —CovertProfessor

2010-02-10 13:10:34   I agree with that comment - it would be a good thing to promote on the front page.

On the University having super fast Internet - only a small percentage of students actually live on campus, and performance of Resnet (the network that services the residence halls and campus apartments) is usually not significantly better than cable modem, because it does not have access to the full campus network (it is bandwidth limited).

On passing it off to the Davis City Council - It would certainly help to have them lobbying for this for Davis too! But I think that we may get much farther if a large percentage of the population of Davis lobbies Google directly (esp. through that link that they provide to do so). By keeping it home grown and not on a political agenda, we demonstrate the Davis community's ability to mobilize and coordinate using the Internet, and using our home grown Wiki. This is a strong demonstration that we'd be able to make the best use of Google's GB service. —IDoNotExist

  • Promote what? Just filling out the form? I agree, the goal is fantastic, but to promote it effectively, the cloud of "we could" and "another ideas" should probably be rendered down into a few focused paths that can be presented (i.e., promoted) in a more effective way. In other words, somewhere between a few hours and a couple days worth of incubation would likely lead to a better impact if it goes on the Front Page. ...or, of course (and this is a good idea too, IMO), present it as a "help come up with ideas and develop a project to get gigabit" project, which gets the word out early, and can be "repromoted" when there are specifics. -jw

2010-02-10 14:09:45   Please read Google's Wi-Fi Privacy Ploy. —PhilipNeustrom

2010-02-10 14:29:53   Ick.

Open access WiFi could be provided by individuals and businesses, rather than Google. The GB fiber net would be a different issue. I would not be too happy if they pulled that on all of my network traffic... —IDoNotExist

2010-02-10 15:31:10   Another story that just ran on NPR this afternoon has some similar concerns (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/02/10/pm-google/). Still, I think it would be cool to go for this. Google does have a reputation for "not being evil" and seems like they would be willing to work with the community to address any privacy issues. I would imagine bringing fiber to davis would require a bit of discussion eitherway regarding disruption of existing services, logistics of installation and facilities, etc. At that point, privacy can be addressed and sorted out. I wouldn't expect winning this sort of competition would be immediately binding, unless all the details are explicitly stated somewhere, and at this point I don't think it hurts to try. Lets do it. —jefftolentino

2010-02-10 15:42:05   I signed up, sounds like a good idea. I think Davis is a good community for what google is looking for. —DagonJones

2010-02-10 18:49:46   I'm on board —StevenDaubert

2010-02-10 21:32:46   I personally think that it's important that we get a really coordinated page together that lays things out well. I don't mean to criticize this one at all, but perhaps some additional brainstorming would be useful? I also very much second the suggestion that we need to get the local government behind this. I think in order for this to happen we're going need to get as much support behind it as possible, from community members to local government. I talked to my students today and got a very positive response. I've also been in touch with the Aggie and it sounds like we can potentially get an article printed. If we can organize this well I think that we can really get things moving. —foo

2010-02-10 22:30:56   I'm definitely on board! We should possibly contact the mayor, so they may sign up as well? —flashuni

2010-02-13 11:50:58   When is the next city council meeting? We need to go mob the comment section to get a vote put on the NEXT agenda to have the city resolve to want google to come and do it's thing! —StevenDaubert

2010-02-13 11:58:34   Seattle wants it too. http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222900232&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News —IDoNotExist

Seattle is a bit big for what google is looking for iirc —StevenDaubert

2010-02-13 14:29:51   I'm not aware of any community that has significantly better service and competition in broadband access; those are no arguments for Davis, in particular. This IS a relatively "practical choice" because the boundaries are well-defined, and campus is the only possible jealous neighbor (those on "ResNet"). —DougWalter

2010-02-13 17:36:08   I'm the Chamber of Commerce representative that sits on the City Council - Chamber of Commerce monthly 2x2 meeting. I just sent an email to the Council, City Manager, other City Staff, Chair of the Telecommunications Commission, and a bunch of other active political organizers to assess interest in putting together a visible and competitive effort. I'll report back next week. —KemblePope

2010-02-13 18:55:08   Thank you, Kemble! —IDoNotExist

2010-02-13 19:05:29   Do we want to make this a featured page on the Wiki? It seems very important to the entire community, and that will help to draw attention to it... —IDoNotExist

2010-02-13 19:07:56   At some point, we may also want to contact the media to bring attention to the effort. The fact that we have a technology that can organize the entire community around a project like this is a very good reason for Google to bring the project to Davis. —IDoNotExist

2010-02-14 09:39:11   Here's the link to the facebook group for this: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=338079452165&index=1

I think it should be brought up to the city council, the more the better. Also, we definitely should consider putting this on the featured page. —mperkel

2010-02-14 11:01:01   Thanks for the facebook group link! Is there a way to coordinate the facebook group with the wiki group? —IDoNotExist

2010-02-18 19:34:32   Reporting Back - I've had ALL positive and enthusiastic feed back from city and community leaders on pursuing the "Google Fiber Pilot Project". At today's Chamber/City 2x2 (of which I'm a voting member) Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor, Councilperson Sue Greenwald, Chamber of Commerce President Bill Alger, City Manager Bill Emlen and Chamber and City staff all expressed the desire to move forward on this in a big way. They've asked me to get everyone together to make it happen!

The City has already appointed 3 staff folks to fill out the 21 page Request for Information. Now, they want to support our grassroots efforts to get the community out in huge numbers... we need this to go viral soon, as the deadline is March 26th.

Here is what I propose as an action plan for the next 36 days:

  1. Change this pages name to "Bring Google Fiber to Davis"

  2. Create a brand name for this movement by letting people suggest, and then vote on a name i.e. Davis Advocates for Google Fiber; Davisites are Googlephiles; Davis, a Google Friendly Town; etc etc. This needs to be done within 7 days

  3. Identify 7-9 representative groups (DavisWiki, Facebook Group organizers, Chamber, DNC.org, DMA, ASUCD, OddFellows/Rotary, UCD Grad School of Management etc etc) that can send 1 person to attend a 2 hour strategy meeting. Immediately thereafter, have a public meeting in Community Chambers to lay out the plan and offer volunteer opportunities. This meeting should happen in the next 10 days.

  4. We need to be ridiculously creative in how we present ourselves... videographers getting clips of many people reading a scripted plea that get spliced together; a day where everybody in town prints out the Google primary color logo, tapes onto their back and walks around very fast in a city-wide flash mob; get people in colored t-shirts to stand in Central Park spelling out "Google Fiber Here" and get a video/photo from above; etc etc... We need a page for people to propose these outreach/marketing/earned media ideas...

OK, that's a start DavisWiki community, who's in?? —KemblePope

I like "Davis: a fiber friendly community." —WilliamLewis

"Davis: Lighting the fire of imagination with the light of fiber" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Enlightenment from fiber light" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Weaving light and knowledge together" —IDoNotExist

Davis Lightplex (as a name for it - references Google's GooglePlex headquarters, light, and networks) —IDoNotExist

"Davis: Fiber lighting minds" —IDoNotExist

"Davis: From light, knowledge" (Note: references Apollo 13 ("From the moon, knowledge") and Starfleet Academy ("From the stars, knowledge") —IDoNotExist

We need a catchy acronym. Or something with GooFi in it (Davis goes goofy for GooFi?). —CovertProfessor

2010-02-19 15:39:23   I'm the one who started up the Facebook group. I just saw this posted on the Facebook page today, and I'll be happy to help out in any way possible. I'd really love for this to happen! —JohnnyJaber

2010-02-21 03:01:00   I bet we could use something like luxul products to make easy massive wifi over the core area, and then (grants permitting?) the rest of the city, if not cover the whole of Davis in clouds at least parks, etc. —StevenDaubert

2010-02-28 09:19:59   I think the best thing to advocate for Davis would be new ideas that we'd like to implement city-wide. How about being the first city to have a video conferencing and easy-access portal for people to use. Davis has a huge collection (per capita at least) of Open Source coders that have good experience setting up highly popular software components and websites. I think targeting that as a way to use the new fiber speed would be a good reason for them to sponsor us: IE, they're getting something out of the community. I'd be willing to participate in such an endeavour. —WesHardaker

  • The City of Davis will have to change how they handle video and get rid of the RealPlayer based system. Come to think of it they should get rid of that even if Davis isn't chosen by Google. —JasonAller
    • Fine by me! Actually, much more than fine. Granted just about every video format is problematic on some platform... sigh... (don't you dare mention flash; but I'll accept mentioning HTML5) — WesHardaker

2010-02-28 09:41:42   Keep those ideas coming! —IDoNotExist

2010-02-28 21:34:48   I would totally like to get rid of comcast that keeps crapping out on me... LOL —ThUn

2010-03-02 16:28:44   Tomorrow is the first meeting for the City of Davis' proposal for Google Fiber. I'd like everyone to brainstorm tonight and list as many ideas as they can for the proposal below. —IDoNotExist

Davis Community Network! They are such a cool organization, who could benefit a lot from this and really localize it instead of making Davis into a company town for Google. They already have the community calendar, at http://events.dcn.org, and many other cool resources. —NickSchmalenberger

  • Jason has been bringing them up since the Google Fiber idea was first mentioned, paired with specific people to contact. They are the first example listed under "Reasons Why Davis is an Ideal Candidate". -jw

2010-03-02 18:24:32   DCN will be represented at tomorrow's meeting. —IDoNotExist

2010-03-03 09:58:15   Better mapping capabilities for Bike/Pedestrian routes throughout town with video of the route integrated... Safe Routes to Schools, Errands via Bike route generator, Wildlife/Open Space tours etc. —KemblePope

2010-03-03 09:58:54   Video coverage of all City Commissions, public meetings etc —KemblePope

2010-03-03 10:00:02   Video tutorials and interactive virtual bicycle repair workshops with Davis Bike Collective —KemblePope

2010-03-03 10:49:15   Kemble: Has Google officially requested RFIs as well as the web signup, or is this just something that city governments have done because that is what they normally do? —IDoNotExist

2010-03-03 11:14:59   There is a two-prong approach for communities interested in serving as the pilot project: Municipality submits a completed Request for Information (RFI) and community members submit personal nominations. So, I would assume that if a municipality did NOT submit an RFI (even if thousands of citizens submitted their nominations) then that community would not be considered. —KemblePope

2010-03-03 17:35:56   proposed slogan: El Goog —zmodonnell

2010-03-03 18:13:12   Did we ever decide whether we wanted to try to put across a uniform message in our nominations, or should we each make the case as we see fit? —CovertProfessor

2010-03-03 18:27:38   I'd suggest presenting your own best case, so it doesn't sound like we are creating a form letter. —IDoNotExist

2010-03-03 18:38:45   Please submit your questions and ideas live for the meeting now! —IDoNotExist

2010-03-04 08:55:23   Last night we had the first community support meeting. We talked about a lot of ideas and one that I mentioned was not fully baked and was focused on coming up with a unique angle for the Davis community to support for this proposal. I mentioned that we should not necessarily focus on positives, but look at negatives and how to work them in. After sleeping on it, I have a clearer picture of the concept. We should be CHALLENGING Google to help us promote community Internet applications. One way would be to challenge them to improve/add/fix/etc... some of their apps so we can use them in the community. Here is an example: With a community wide network that is not running on Comcast fiber, we could develop community WIFI. That would allow us to exploit certain Google applications such as Google Lattitude. If you are not familiar with this app, it is a mix of IM and GPS, where you can share you location with your friends and initiate chat sessions or a phone call to them. You share your location with your friends and you always know where they are. If you have tried to use this App. you will notice that it doesn't work very well. If freezes and locks up all the time. Needs to be better so we can use it for public safety, Medical assistance, etc... Community groups can be set up to monitor people (if they so choose) and this has great potential for the entire community. But not until the application is improved. What other Google Apps could be used by the Community if we had solid coverage and what improvements need to be made to do it? I think Challenging Google to work with us to bring better things to the community is a good strategy and far better than kissing their butt over an over again. —zmodonnell

2010-03-04 10:41:47   Live video tied into google maps. Sure is handy being able to check live webcam on the Sierra pass before going up there. What would be useful in Davis? Being able to view traffic downtown might help you decide when to run your errands- or what is going on at that community forum over at Harper? Live information, like consumer reviews, help people make decisions. This in addition to making video archives widely available (the most recent "In the Studio" show at Davis Media Access on the Davis Paintball Center- posted 2/25/10 has 207 views already)... —JeffShaw

2010-03-14 03:24:11   I think we need to look at this from Google's standpoint. To begin the experiment, they need a supportive community with a manageable infrastructure. In this area, I think Davis is perfect. However, after the fiber system is installed, the community needs to be a functioning "poster child" for Google Fiber. Google needs to be able to present the city before-and-after. They need to be able to show that, because of the project, Davis is a brand new city. What could super-fast internet do for us? It might be too late for this, but I have an idea for a video that would really sell this point. It would start off with a brief introduction to the Davis community, highlighting some of its distinguishing features (such as the university, bike paths, cows). Then, we could go into specific institutions where faster internet would help, and get people working there to talk about potential benefits. For example, UC Davis is one of the top research institutions in America. I'm sure some of these researchers could benefit greatly from faster internet, so we have to go and ask them how. Another segment could go to the Sutter hospital, and talk to some of the doctors about medical benefits of fast internet. Then, to show community support, at the end of each segment we could get all of the doctors together to say "Davis doctors for google fiber!" or the professors to say "Davis teachers for Google fiber!" If this was done well, I think it could really put us on the map. We all know how Google likes to give big presentations at their "Google I/O" events, so we need to show them how well Davis could be presented! Anyway, just some thoughts. If anybody is interested in making this video please let me know. I don't have any film equipment, but I'm a pretty good editor and I would love to help out. —JonnyD

Has any further progress been made on this subject? Any updated information we are not yet aware of or is this in Cyber Limbo now? I would love to see Google hit Davis but it seems like this is not going to happen at this point... — Wes-P

  • Google says they will announce the winner at the end of the year. — IDoNotExist

2010-10-22 12:14:47   Stanford??? What a load of crap. Might as well have said "Somewhere close to where we are" and "Where tons of computer technology has already been developed at." A total rip off. I don't even feel good about the decision. If they had said like Fresno or some other place like that then at least I wouldn't feel like everyone got ripped off with this decision. They should never even have announced this idea for fiber if they weren't really serious about a real outreach. Blah. —RiotInDavis

Take a closer look at the announcement—they're starting with that neighborhood to see how the implementation goes, them announcing more locations by the end of the year. —TomGarberson

Fiber is good. It will make the defection that is GOOGLE smoother, more regular and increase it's volume. JoshLawson

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