Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on the new partnership planning to bring fiber (FTTH) network to Seattle. CivSource reports…

Today Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced that the City of Seattle has reached an agreement with broadband developer Gigabit Squared to develop and operate an ultra high-speed fiber-to-the-home/fiber-to-the-business broadband network. The plan will begin with a demonstration fiber project in twelve Seattle neighborhoods and includes wireless methods to deploy services more quickly to other areas in the city. This project follows another similar one announced for mid-South Chicago neighborhoods earlier this year. Gigabit Squared is part of the Gig.U and Air.U group of organizations working to expand university and municipal broadband networks in an effort to support economic development nationwide.

Private-public partnerships have been touted as the way to go both in the National Broadband Plan and the Minnesota Broadband Task Force reports. It will be interesting to see how it works with Gigabit Squared in Seattle.