I am baffled. Many of those push-pins are in red states, where normally the corporations’ word is law. How can this be?
Note that a number of those cities are ones that either already have Google Fiber or are on the books to get Google Fiber. Also present is Chattanooga, TN which, to my knowledge, already has gigabit provided by the local municipality.
Not that this is any less cool because of that.
I am very sad that Seattle, WA is not on the list. Recently moved here, and Comcast is the only provider (which was a bit of a shock in such a large tech town, TBH).
My city is installing google fiber right now. I dont need TV, so my only options are 5mbps or a full gbps. If google provides similar sevice standards everyone else does, I would expect that servise to average about 3.5mbps which isnt enough for my home. Likewise, im not paying $70 a month for 5x the internet speed Im ever going to use.
I was so excited for fiber, now im stuck with time warner.
Spot checking some of the cities in red states that I know anything about, I think many are “blue (or bluish) cities.” Austin, TX and Raleigh, NC both fit this description to some extent, anyway.
There are a lot of blue cities (and counties) in those red states.
Alabama is missing and definitely fits your model.
Goddamn, godless, Communist Hippies! I’m sure corporate America will rally round and put things right.
I used to work for Leverett MA handling their Solid Waste so I’ve got some insight into why they are doing it.
As part of a plan to expand broadband into more rural communities in MA Verizon/Comcast were offered non-compete agreements by the state for a period of years after they expanded broadband access to ~10% of the communities households.
What this meant in Leverett was Verizon putting in enough for 10% of the community to get DSL, then deliberately stopping. They had no plans of expanding to cover the whole community, they simply wanted to lock out Comcast from being allowed to operate in the same region.
Now the unique thing in Leverett’s case is it’s a rural community that is just a town over from Amherst where UMass Amherst sits on a Backbone. So it’s really not a stretch for them to get high speed.
Last I knew the town was fighting with the state to get around the stupid law that was supposed to encourage broadband expansion, but instead was being used to further prevent expansion to all but those lucky 10%. I don’t know the current state of things.
Right?? I was astonished to find that, in this tech paradise, my choices were Comcast or one of the apartment complexes that have their own service. Fortunately I discovered my house had been wired for FiOS and Frontier was an option.
Among Comcast’s many flaws is the fact that they simply cannot comprehend a person not wanting cable TV. They kept trying to shoehorn it into my packages.
Sadly, no communities in Michigan. 
Trying to shoehorn it into your package? They forced me. The best deal they could give me for internet had to have cable tv also so the cable box is sitting in its packaging in the closet. It’s twice as expensive in Atlanta to get internet without cable tv. It makes no sense. NO SENSE! http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--tF0TCZQC--/d0v38yylbplzssxsap87.gif
Excellent. I’ve been waiting for this!
Well, no. I’ve been waiting to see how the powers that be spin their attempts to destroy the initiative.
Are these the greater metropolitan areas, or just the cities proper? I find it odd that Boston signed on but Cambridge didn’t, for example.
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Well by “shoehorn” I really meant “bait and switch me by pretending to offer me a package I wanted and then telling me it had cable (and not the phone line I wanted) at the last minute.” I never even actually HAD Comcast and I still have horror stories.
As gjbloom notes, the video is gone.
Does anybody know what it was or where a different copy might be found?
/edit: this may have been it:
