Google Fiber Network

If you live in Memphis and use the Web for anything, you're probably aware of Memphis's bid to win a Google Fiber Network. Because Coroutine spends most of its productive hours building applications for the Web, we're obviously enthusiastic supporters of the bid.

Part of the bid process is to talk about the applications and businesses that would benefit from the network. In our nomination, we talked about the Web being the platform of the future and the value of migrating software to it. That's important, of course, but it lacks a certain zing.

We were searching for a bigger idea.

Quick History Lesson

Memphis isn't the only Memphis. In ancient Egypt, there was another Memphis—the original Memphis, you might say. The area around this other Memphis, which lies a bit outside modern Cairo, contains some of the most impressive monuments from the ancient world, including the Pyramids of Giza.

Armed with this tiny amount of knowledge, our Memphis decided two decades ago to build a new arena in the form of a Pyramid. And they did. If you cross the Mississippi River on I-40, you get a big old eyeful of this bad boy.

But then something strange happened. The city built another arena in downtown Memphis (don't ask). The new FedEx Forum opened in 2004, taking all the local sports franchises and concerts with it. The Pyramid was obsolete after just thirteen years of moderate use.

A Crazy Idea

Our children go to school within sight of the Pyramid and we drive right by it on our way to lunch most days. It makes us sad to see it sitting there doing nothing.

Today as we drove by the Pyramid, gleaming in the bright sun of a grand spring day, I joked that the glass shell should be converted to solar panels. The least the thing could do is put power back on the grid.

But then Tim totally one-upped me.

The Pyramid is 360,000 square feet at its base and would accommodate several floors of decreasing square footage. If we won a Google Fiber Network, we'd have the capacity to move tremendous amounts of data.

Let's build the largest data center in the world!