InstantNewsWestU.com

City Manager Michael Ross can imagine doctors living in West University Place relaxing poolside while instantly downloading a patient’s latest MRI from the hospital. He sees high-powered lawyers taking breaks from workouts in West U. to download and review massive legal files from their companies’ servers.

With these types of visions in mind, the city today submitted an application to Google, beseeching the technology behemoth to choose the city of West U. for an experimental fiber optic network that would make Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than they are now.

“Those abilities for people do more from home, or more from our recreational facilities or libraries or anything else just has enormous attraction,” Ross said. “I think it could put a city like West University even more so on the map.”

But West U. has a lot of competition. According to the Google Blog, by 10 a.m. pacific time the company had received more than 600 applications from cities, and more than 190,000 responses from individuals. All of them are begging and pleading Google to choose their cities for Google Fiber, a new project that is seeking locations for an experimental communications network.

“The interest has been pretty significant,” said Google spokeswoman Erin Fors.

Google Fiber would transfer information at 1 gigabyte-per-second, which is basically light speed compared to the typical 100 megabytes-per-second speeds available in the majority of the United States. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes.

According to the company’s web site for the project, Google hopes eventually there will be universal ultra-high speed broadband networks across the country that will allow people to do previously unimagined things on the Internet.

“Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web, and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York,” the Google Fiber site says. “Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3D video of a university lecture.”

Some cities have resorted to crazy antics to attract the eyes of Google. The mayor of Duluth, Minnesota jumped into 35-degree Lake Superior and posted a video of the stunt on YouTube. In much warmer temperatures, the mayor of Sarasota, Florida went for a swim with sharks. West U. chose a much more tempered approach — The city hired a professional videographer to interview stakeholders about why the community is a good match for the network.

West U. has several characteristics that make it a strong candidate, Ross said. For example, many West U. residents work in fields that require the transfer of large amounts of information: Doctors, university professors, attorneys, and the like. Residents are highly educated, affluent and technologically connected.

Ross said he hopes Google notices the city’s location and high population density. With more than 15,000 people living in only two square miles, Ross said he thinks it’s “logical” for Google to come here.

“The bang for the buck for Google to come into the city and put in this infrastructure, you’re hitting a lot more people for a lot less wire than you would in a Sugarland or some other town in the country where it’s much more spread out,” he said.

Google Project Manager James Kelly wrote on the Google Blog this morning that the company plans to review all the applications and narrow down the choices for locations. Google employees will visit the top candidate cities and meet with local officials to learn more. The company hopes to choose sites for Google Fiber by the end of the year.

“This enthusiasm is much bigger than Google and our experimental network,” Kelly wrote. “If one message has come through loud and clear, it’s this: people across the country are hungry for better and faster Internet access.”