By now you've surely heard that Google is considering bringing its fiber network to Nashville. It's become such a huge story that our local tech community pretty much missed that Facebook spent $19 billion last week to own the rest of the world's dirty texts.
Nashville's a hip, forward-thinking, city so it's no surprise that Google would target us again. For the tech scene, it's huge. It really speaks to the momentum we in the industry have felt for the past few years and it gives us added cache to attract top talent from around the globe.
But what does it mean for the non-tech business community? Here are a few of my first thoughts.
1. All your employees are going to want to work at home (and they'll have a good reason).
When the news first broke, I had the content director at my agency, who used to live in Kansas City, reach out to his friend there about how Google Fiber has changed that city. She got back to him with a message that looks like it came straight from Google’s PR department. "Amazing," "mind blowing" and "life changing" were a few of the words she used.
I ran a speed test at my office, and it showed Google Fiber's download speeds were 200x times faster than our current speed. Since the service is only available for residential (they're developing a small-business network but details are scarce), get ready for all your employees to want to work at home where they have faster Internet. Sorry, not sorry -- I'm still planning to make my peeps work from our office everyday. (They'd probably want to anyway -- office ping-pong has that power.)
2. It will connect the unconnected.
Break out your best Oprah impression. "You get Internet. You get Internet. You get Internet." If Google maintains its pricing structure for Fiber, then many will choose to get the basic offering free (after paying a one-time construction fee). The Internet empowers us -- with knowledge, with job resources, with Benedict Cumberbatch memes -- and now your business will have a new digital audience to connect with thanks to the free factor.
3. It's going to raise everyone's game.
Comcast and AT&T are the two players in town that will be most affected by Fiber's arrival. They'll need to improve their service to stay in the game. That means competitive prices, faster speeds and better customer service.
If you do end up saving a little dough each month on your Internet, why not put it back into the community? Hire another employee. Add a few more bucks to the church collection plate. Donate to one of our city's awesome nonprofits like the YWCA. That's what I'm going to do.
Hannah Paramore is president of Nashville-based Paramore | the digital agency, an online marketing firm.