Deadline Arrives for Google High-Speed Interent Contest

(March 25) -- Think of it as a technology lottery. Google has dangled a tantalizing offer in front of America's cities and towns.

Sometime this year, the search engine giant will select a U.S. community where it will, free of charge, lay a new fiber broadband network that will bring Internet speeds 100 times faster than anything that has come before it.

The contest was announced in February and the deadline for applications is Friday.

Don Ness, mayor of Duluth, Minn., has thrown his support to the Google Twin Ports Initiative.

Julia Cheng, AP

Don Ness, mayor of Duluth, Minn., hopped into the frigid Lake Superior to help promote his city's efforts to become a test site for Google's experimental fiber-optic network.

On Wednesday, San Francisco officially joined places like Asheville, N.C.; Scranton, Pa.; Duluth, Minn.; Greenville, S.C.; and Madison, Wis.; to name but a few, in the hunt to become the place with the fastest Internet on earth.

With support from Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution to enter the city into the sweepstakes.

"High-speed broadband Internet access will determine which cities thrive in the new economy. San Francisco has the opportunity to close the digital divide and create thousands of new jobs by deploying this network," Newsom said in a statement.

Once Google constructs the network, it plans to offer the souped-up high-speed Internet service to between 50,000 and 500,000 people at fees the company says will be competitive with those charged by other Internet service providers.

"Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone," Google said on its Web site.

The company said a number of factors will go into its decision as to which community will be chosen as the winner. Weather conditions, existing broadband networks, potential community involvement, as well as the overall impact the project will have on a given location will all play a role.

Efforts to draw attention to a given city or town have extended well beyond a simple application form. Topeka, Kan., renamed itself Google, Kan., for the month of March. The mayor of Duluth, Minn., hopped into wintry waters of Lake Superior. Bellingham, Wash., (along with dozens of other cities) started a Facebook page. Residents of Grand Rapids, Mich., held a flash mob. The mayor of Sarasota, Fla., even swam in a tank of sharks to try to get Google's attention.

Google says it will make its decision before the end of the year.