[evo_9]

Is there any rime or reason to the cities that Google chooses to put fiber into? Is it a matter of more friendly local government, less resistant local teleco's, a combination thereof or some other factors?

Just seems the locations aren't exactly tech hubs so I'm trying to get a better idea of how the expansion works.

[jscheel]

Nashville is becoming a pretty good city for tech.

Google has taken a pretty good interest in us lately: http://archive.tennessean.com/article/20130925/BUSINESS04/30...

We have the second-fastest growing market of tech jobs: http://fortune.com/2014/12/23/tech-job-trends-2015/

We are attracting a large amounts of college grads: http://www.businessinsider.com/city-observatory-report-on-th...

Of course, I'm partial since I live here. Unfortunately, I'm in an area outside of metro that I'm sure won't get fiber.

[sciurus]

Yes, there's a lot going on in tech in Nashville, as a look at http://cal.nashvl.org/ will attest.

[clarkm]

Raleigh-Durham, Austin, and to a lesser extent Provo, are definitely regional tech hubs.

Another interesting observation is that all four of the new cities surround Chattanooga, TN which has had municipal gigabit fiber for years now. I wonder if that had anything to do with Google's decision-making process.

[nostromo]

Friendly local government is a big factor.

For example: Google looked at Seattle's NIMBY laws regarding utility boxes on sidewalks (each requiring a lengthy community approval process) and said, "Nope!"

Seattle's new mayor is now looking how to streamline the process to make the city more Google friendly, should the opportunity arise again.

[techsupporter]

That rule (SDOT 2-2009) was repealed in October, 2014 and replaced with new, better requirements, including removing the "abstentions/no answer counts as a 'no'" when seeking a permit to place a cabinet, removing almost all restrictions on small-height cabinets, and stops owners of property adjacent to the easement from being able to block the entire process on their own.

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/seattle-approves-bill-allows-fi...

[dingaling]

> Google looked at Seattle's NIMBY laws regarding utility boxes on sidewalks (each requiring a lengthy community approval process)

Which is good, as sidewalks are for walking, not utility installation pads.

In much of the UK outside conservation areas BT has powers to install cabinets as it sees fit. Combined with utility poles there are now some pavements on my town impassable to prams.

[TorKlingberg]

The parent was downvoted, but this is actually true in the UK. The are utility boxes in some really strange locations. Such as a bicycle lane that runs straight into a box, then just continues on the other side.

[AlfaWolph]

The area of grass past the sidewalk is often part of the easement as well. That's where all the utility poles are set as it is.

[vijayboyapati]

Please Google, come back to Seattle! Pleaaaassseee!

[rayiner]

Google has been expanding into southern/western cities where the government is willing to play ball. If you try to build fiber in SF, people hold it up because the cabinets are ugly: http://stopthecap.com/2011/07/27/att-installs-first-of-495-u...; if you do it in New York people turn it into a civil rights/social justice issue: http://www.speedmatters.org/blog/archive/new-york-mayor-bill.... Seattle: http://crosscut.com/2014/12/29/business/123222/google-fiber-....

Places like Kansas City and Atlanta are much more development-friendly. In Atlanta, it doesn't matter how ugly your development is--we're talking about a city bisected by a 15 lane highway. Moreover, these are "up and coming" cities who see fiber as a competitive advantage. San Francisco doesn't feel the need to offer fiber to get tech workers to move there. Heck, they're trying to get the tech workers to move out. A place like Atlanta is the exact opposite.

[codemac]

The RTP area has a large tech industry for the size of the area. SAS, epic games, redhat hq, cisco, ibm, netapp, emc, blah blah blah are all there.

They also have incredibly shitty ISPs, and lots of land to build out other ISPs.

[b0b_d0e]

As mentioned elsewhere, its a combination of factors at least for here in Provo. Provo does have a sizable number of tech startups like LucidChart and according to this report it was number 11 on the tech startup list http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/moving-up-provo-orem-a...

Also, as part of the deal for coming to Provo, Provo city sold the existing fiber network to google for a single dollar and google's job was to upgrade the system to gigabit. The whole infrastructure was in place for the most part, so it was a good deal that they couldn't pass up. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Google-Fiber-Provo-iProvo-P...

[notatoad]

The reason Kansas City was selected was supposedly because they were the most willing to give access to utility poles and let google dig up streets/alleys where necessary to run the fibre. I don't know if that's the case with these more recent expansions, but i suspect it is.

[cookiecaper]

KC was selected for a lot of reasons -- tons of cities were desperate to be the first Fiber city and would've given any accommodation necessary. KC had the perfect coalescence of geography (quite flat, minimal bodies of water, etc), market availability, and governmental cooperation for the pilot.

[ReidZB]

Nashville, at least, has an insane amount of healthcare tech jobs at the moment. I don't know about the other cities, though.

[xienze]

Dude, Raleigh is home to the Research Triangle Park, one of the largest research parks in the country. Pretty much all the major tech companies have a presence here. Plus, three major universities all in the same general area. It's not some podunk little town.

[jadell]

Technically, RTP is fully inside Durham. Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill each house one of those major universities, and the region as a whole is known as "The Triangle" or "The Research Triangle."

[Zigurd]

Go where your adversaries are weakest. The reason your SP sucks and doesn't care is that they bought your elected and unelected officials.