Bend Bulletin – Sunriver makes pitch to Google

John Stearns, the business editor of the Bend Bulletin, wrote a great article for Sunday’s business section on Sunriver’s bid for Google fiber.

You can read the article here.

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Top reasons why Google should chose Sunriver

Yesterday I posted on the Bend Tech Blog about why Sunriver is a great choice for Google Fiber. I am reposting those reasons here, and adding a few more:

1. Reach – for the cost of wiring 6,000 homes, Google would expose the benefits of gigabit fiber to over 1 million visitors per year. These visitors come for holidays and vacations, as well as business meetings and conferences based at Sunriver Resort. Compared to Topeka – Sunriver can reach 10 times the people at 1/10 the cost.
2. Shovel Ready – Sunriver is governed by an owner’s association (SROA) and owns and controls its own roads and utility rights of way. We are served by Chambers Cable – and Sunriver is the only cable system Chambers owns. The SROA board voted unanimously to approve the Google fiber project, and we have gotten enthusiastic support as well from Chambers Cable. Both entities are ready to “dig for Google” starting as soon as possible. We also have fiber to the node throughout the Chambers Cable system, and over 90 miles of conduit to over half of the homes.
3. Education – Sunriver is served by Three Rivers Elementary – a K-8 school in the Bend Lapine School District. Three Rivers has the slowest Internet connection in the district. In addition, over 62% of its students qualify for the federal free or reduced cost lunch program due to their family economic status. We are over 20 miles from the nearest higher education facility and high school students are bused 20 miles to Bend.
4. Telemedicine – Most medical services are over 20 miles away in Bend. Many of our retired residents end up moving to Bend as they grown older and need more medical care. Google’s RFI envisions “ sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist”.
5. Impact – Portland, Seattle and similar large cities have all applied as well. As many of us know, these are excellent cities and great places to “be from”. The impact of Google’s project on Sunriver will be immediate, large and very measurable.  The impact on larger cities will be much less immediate, obvious or measurable.
6. Proximity to Google HQ – Sunriver has its own airport – which can support both business jets and turboprops. We are just an hour flight by jet from Google’s Mountain View headquarters.
7. Four Season Climate – Sunriver has four distinct seasons and Google states that they want to learn about deployments in all kinds of weather conditions.

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Sunriver community members make the case for Google to come to Sunriver!

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YouTube video in support of Sunriver’s Google Fiber RFI

Sunriver Owner’s Association has made a great 10 minute video of community members and leaders making our case to Google for selecting Sunriver as one of the communities involved in the Google Fiber for Communities initiative. Unfortunately our bandwidth here is apparently so poor that attempts to upload it to YouTube have failed for various reasons after 4-5 hours!  I guess this is further evidence that we really have a need!  🙂

We will be working diligently to get our video up on YouTube – please check back here soon!

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Sunriver Owner’s Association release

Today, the SROA Board of Directors approved a motion to submit a RFI (Request for Information) to Google. Google has said that it will pay to have 1 gigabit of fiber optic cable brought to all homes, businesses, schools, etc., for up to 50,000 to 500,000 homes. Sunriver’s RFI is proposing that Google work with Chambers Cable to bring this capacity to the 6,000 homes passed by Chambers. The estimated cost for this project (which Google would pay) is about $5 million.

Why is Google offering to do this? We believe they are trying to do for homes and small businesses what Apple iPhones did for cell phones. There are currently over 150,000 applications that work on iPhones. Google believes a similar thing could happen in the home if the capacity was available and wants to find out.

Even though it is expected that Google will receive thousands of RFIs from communities across the country, we believe Sunriver has an excellent chance of being chosen to participate in this project? Why? We have identified many compelling reasons.

First, and most importantly, for the cost of wiring 6,000 homes, this technology will be exposed to over a million potential users every year. How? Because this is how many visitors come to Sunriver every year.

Second, we are “shovel ready.” This means if we got the go ahead, work could begin immediately.

Third, within Chambers’ territory, we have a broad spectrum of demographics…from Caldera and Crosswater to Sunriver to Spring River. Google could see how the different demographics represented by these areas come into play with this technology.

Fourth, Sunriver airport is only a short flight from Google headquarters in California.

If chosen, this would help put Sunriver on the national map. It would help tourism, property values, and definitely entice work-at-home technology workers and businesses to come live and work in Sunriver.

Why are we sending you this email? First, to let you be among the first to know what is going on, and second, to solicit your help. Google’s RFI indicates the more support we can demonstrate from the community, the better our chances of being chosen. We’ve gotten great support from the Resort, Property Managers, the Chamber of Commerce, Three Rivers School, the Nature Center, and Chambers Cable. But we now need owners to lend their support. It is critical that you act soon as our RFI has to be submitted before the March 26th deadline. Below are the steps you can take to be included in our RFI:

Go to the Google RFI site at: http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/public/options

Click on “Nominate Your Community”

Fill in your affiliation, i.e. permanent resident, second home owner, etc.

Be sure to list City as “Sunriver”, and State as “OR”

Fill out the rest of the questionnaire about how this will benefit you and the community…increased rental income in a depressed economy, being able to conduct business from my Sunriver home, be able to monitor Sunriver home remotely, etc.

Optionally – if you want to do a short YouTube video – upload it to YouTube, and input the URL to it into the questionaire so Google can find it.

Do the bandwidth tests Google suggests (preferably in the evening), fill in the results and hit “Submit.”

Send us an email at infosroa@owners.org letting us know that you’ve sent Google an email, posted a YouTube video or submitted results of your internet access bandwidth test.

Thank you for your interest.

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