The DeKalb County cities of Avondale Estates, Chamblee, Decatur, Doraville and Dunwoody are waiting to hear if Google will select them for testing a new ultra-high speed broadband network.
To meet the 50,000 threshold, the cities formed the “Atlanta Urban Area Partnership for Google Fiber.” Officials from the cities are hoping that their partnership will provide a competitive edge against bigger competitors like Austin, Seattle and Pittsburgh.
According to Google’s announcement, the networks will deliver Internet speeds more than a hundred times faster than what most Americans have access to today – over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. The IT giant will offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
The cities submitted their application last week. You can follow along and find out more at the the Facebook Fan Page created for the effort.