Internet at 100 times current speed

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin and Round Rock city leaders are looking at a way to bring Internet that is 100 times faster than your current speed to homes in town.

The program, called Google Gigabit, would allow people to download feature length films in five minutes, among other impressive things.

Google is asking for proposals from cities across the country, and would provide internet service for up to 500,000 people on a test basis, the company said on its Web site.

Chip Rosenthal, Chairman of the City of Austin's Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission said he would like to see the Austin City Council support the test here in Austin.

"We're trying to convince the city to do the application process," Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal, a software developer, said Austin is a great hub to attract Google's experiment because of the large number of electronics and software companies and technologically-savvy people in town.

"What Austin can do is really give [Google] confidence that people would be successful [with the service]," he said. "We have a lot of people that are really connected."

The City of Round Rock is looking at the service as well.  "While it may seem like a no-brainer to submit," the city's Decision Points blog said. "We want to do some homework over the next couple of weeks to make sure there are no unintended consequences."

Current bandwidth speeds in the United States are regulated by cable and phone companies and do not reach more than about 10 megabytes per second. Google's service would provide download speeds at one gigabit per second.

Rosenthal also said Texas' deregulated climate for technology provides great incentive for Google. Google will accept applications through March, and make a decision later in 2010, the company said on its blog .