by community volunteers in Austin, Texas. The official City of Austin response to the "Fiber for Communities" RFI is posted at: www.cityofaustin.org/biggig
Over the past six weeks, more than 15,000 Austin, Texas residents have participated in the local effort to support the Google Fiber for Communities initiative. We've called that effort "Big Gig Austin." This website has been created by volunteers to show how our community came together in support of the project. We want to show you the outstanding level of community support that you'll find here, in Austin, for your effort to build an open, ultra-high-speed, fiber broadband network.
The Austin, Texas response has been community driven, and demonstrates the strong spirit of collaboration that exists between Austin elected officials, city staff, and members of the community.
We've heard from a lot of folks in the community. What's been impressive to me is how many different folks we've heard from – not as the result of any orchestrated campaign by any particular entity, but completely independently. A whole host of folks came across this news, reached out to City Council and said, "This is something the City of Austin needs to go for." –Councilmember Chris Riley [video]
When Councilmember Riley made this statement, there truly was no "orchestrated campaign". The community interest in gigabit broadband was immediate and spontaneous. About a week later, our Big Gig Austin initiative would form, to coordinate our community response.
This illustrates the technological sophistication, ingenious creativity and spontaneous initiative that's native to Austin. Those are just some of the characteristics that make Austin the perfect place for Google to locate the "Fiber for Communities" pilot network.
Austin, Texas