Austin High rallies for Google fiber

Published 11:32 am Thursday, March 24, 2011

Austin student Blas Estrada races principal Brad Bergstrom in a demonstration of Google high speed as opposed to the existing broadband in Austin currently during a rally Thursday morning at Austin High School. -- Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

Austin High School students can gig it.

Members of We Gig It! the community group raising awareness of Austin’s efforts to bring Google Fiber to town, held a pep rally at Knowlton Auditorium Thursday morning.

“We’re trying to show the AHS community the benefits of Google Fiber,” said Tyler Bramwell, AHS student and Hormel public relations mentorship student. Bramwell helped organize Thursday’s rally to show students that, with Google Fiber, they could download songs and videos within seconds, as well as download full-length movies within minutes.

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“(We want to) get them to really care about Google Fiber,” Bramwell said.

Austin is ranked sixth in a social media contest out of almost 1,100 communities. About 16 percent of Austin’s population supports the We Gig It! effort on Facebook. After today’s rally, organizers hope students boost their support further. Organizers want Austin to be at 20 percent by April.