Any community that hopes to be chosen as a site for Google’s new ultra-high speed broadband network has to consider itself a long shot. The competition is going to be that intense. But Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan have plenty to gain just by seeking a stake in this coveted “Fiber for Communities’’ project, and a profound opportunity to be realized if we are chosen.

If you are interested in showing your support for Ann Arbor’s efforts, go to www.a2fiber.com May

Google has excited the interest of communities across America with the announcement that it’s looking for a handful of trial locations where it will build a network that would deliver the Internet at a speed that is 100 times faster than most people experience it today.

It is giving interested communities until March 26 to submit proposals. Ann Arbor, U-M and other local partners have come together to put in a bid for the project. Former U-M President James Duderstadt is expected to be part of the local effort. The odds of any community being chosen are long, and some communities that take an honest assessment of their potential competitiveness may rightly conclude that it’s not worth the effort. Ann Arbor, however, has attributes that make it a good candidate, including the presence of a leading research university that was deeply involved in the build-out of the NSFNET network back in the late 1980s, a key element in the commercialization of the Internet. Ann Arbor also has the advantage of being a digital community, with high access to and use of broadband. The presence that Google already has here doesn’t hurt either. Many other communities will put their best foot forward as well and will be able to make a good case, too. But the highly competitive nature of this quest is no reason for Ann Arbor not to participate. The kind of local partnerships that can be created and strengthened would benefit the community, regardless of the outcome. It’s also an opportunity to get an assessment of our ability to compete for a 21st century project like this. What we learn about our strengths and weaknesses could help make us more competitive in the future. That said, the potential economic benefits of a project like this should be enough to make Ann Arbor want to compete for it. The communities that are wooing Google see ultra-high speed broadband as a tool for retaining talent and businesses and also for attracting new jobs. There also would be prestige associated with being selected, and that is something the winning communities could use to market themselves as places of progressiveness and innovation. In fact, innovation is what this project is all about. By creating ultra-high speed Internet service in a select number of communities, Google would be making a strong statement about the need to increase broadband speed in this country. A study last year by the Communication Workers of America ranked the United States as 28th among developed nations for broadband speed. But Google has said the greater goal is to see what kind of innovation occurs and what new kinds of applications and services emerge when a speed of 1 gigabyte per second becomes available in households across a community. YouTube would not have been possible back in the days of dial-up service. What services, yet to be invented, would continue to revolutionize the Web if current broadband speeds were increased a hundredfold? And what community would not want to be at the forefront of such creative development? Google will choose a handful of sites based on several factors, including strength of community support and participation. If you are interested in showing your support for Ann Arbor’s efforts, you can go to www.a2fiber.com for information on how to spread the word about this project and how to encourage Google to choose Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor has nothing to lose by pursuing this project. It represents the kind of technological innovation that could make our city and our state more competitive not just nationally, but globally. If the community enthusiastically gets behind this effort, that will make our chances all the better.