Community Corner

City Launches Free Wi-Fi Today

Today, Google and Douglasville officials announced that downtown Douglasville is a new tech hot spot.

Today, Google and Douglasville officials announced that downtown Douglasville is a new tech hot spot. Google, City of Douglasville officials and community leaders hosted a cord-cutting in downtown Douglasville to celebrate the launch of free Wi-Fi in O'Neal Plaza. Attendees and speakers include Mayor Harvey Persons and Jason Wellman, Google’s Douglas County Data Center Operations Manager.

“The joint business partnership to accomplish a project of this magnitude is yet another strong statement of business partnerships that are imperative to help make a city and community a premiere locale,” said Douglasville Mayor Harvey Persons.

“This amenity will serve the Douglasville community, our local residents, and our visitors in our on-going endeavors ” to help make Douglasville ‘The’ premiere place in America to live, work, play, and raise a family,” he said. "This amenity will help many people in our community reap the benefits of connecting socially with the world. We are also looking forward to using this new technology tool to provide opportunities in the areas of business and education to our citizens. We want to thank Google and the other business partners that helped make a project of this magnitude possible for our community."

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“We are very excited to ‘cut the cord’ and offer Douglasville its first free public Wi-Fi hot spot,” said Google Douglas County Operations Manager Jason Wellman. “We appreciate Douglas County’s continued support of our data center, and we look forward to an ongoing partnership that will boost Douglasville’s economy.”

A Google community grant of $165,039.77 to the City of Douglasville supports the Wi-Fi network. Network Utility Force is responsible for maintaining the network. Additionally, in a separate agreement, Google gave $15,000 for a Google-sponsored Wi-Fi splash page.

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Since January 2013, the Douglasville Wi-Fi project has been working to place 31 Wi-Fi nodes in and around the City of Douglasville’s downtown and Jessie Davis Park. Sixty acres of the downtown area, including Jesse Davis Park, will have free Wi-Fi access. This project, supported by the City of Douglasville and Google, represents a shared commitment to Douglasville’s economic future.

Free Wi-Fi will attract more people to the downtown area, which is good for business, the community and the economy. Additionally, parents will now be able to share pictures and scores on social media from their child’s activities directly from the parks.

When you connect to the Wi-Fi, which is named "Douglasville", your browser will take you to a landing page where you will see instructions and terms of service to access the Wi-Fi. Businesses within the 60 acre radius will also receive window decals and other information handouts to let visitors know that they are in a free Wi-Fi zone.

Every city has a central meeting spot to attract visitors and residents. In order to make a location more appealing, Internet access is becoming increasingly important. Access to the Internet is a requirement for success in education, work and life, and the Douglasville region plans to keep up as new technologies develop. This technology initiative will help bridge the digital divide for the Douglasville community.

Google has had a data center presence in the Atlanta region since 2003. Over the years, the company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build and operate the site in Douglas County. Google has created more than 350 jobs on site, and works hard to support the communities in which its employees live and work.


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