If forcing Hampton City Councilman Randy Gilliland to change his name to Randy Googleland might help the city in its bid to become a test site for Google Fiber, he's up for it.

But what cities need to find out and what many have yet to address is how might citizens and businesses use and benefit from the proposed experimental ultra-high-speed broadband network that would offer 1 gigabit of bandwidth, an unheard of amount of Internet speed?

One of the criteria for consideration to be chosen a test site, is that Google wants to know how the community would use it.

About 50 Hampton residents and businesspeople gathered last week at the Hampton Roads Convention Center to discuss just that.

Increased productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship could result wherever such a high-speed Internet infrastructure was built, attendees said.

One attendee said the ability to access an ultra-fast network would make proposals from government contractors more attractive against competition.

In attendance was Marty Kaszubowski, a veteran of the local technology scene, who suggested that broadband has been and will be an enabler of startup ventures.

"There's no way to predict who those guys are or what great ideas they will come up with," Kaszubowski said. "But here's a chance to put down some infrastructure and trust me, brilliant people will figure out what to do with it."

Hampton Assistant City Manager John Eagle agreed.

"It used to be if you didn't have a railroad [in your town], businesses wouldn't set up shop," Eagle said.

The discussion also delved into more high-level techie-type ideas, such as converting all city Web sites into HTML 5, the latest incarnation of the script language that is the foundation of Web pages. Others said it's important to find out how citizens might use Google applications such as the experimental online communication platform Google Wave.

Other local cities are also gauging how citizens would use the network and benefit from it.

The city of Virginia Beach posted a survey on its Web site about citizen interest in Google Fiber and barely a week later nearly 700 residents have responded.

"At the moment, it's overwhelmingly in favor that residents feel they can benefit from bringing faster connectivity to the city," said Gwen Cowart, director of Virginia Beach's Department of Communications and IT.

Cowart said respondents said they will benefit from increased productivity and the ability to telecommute from home with the help of faster bandwidth.

The March 26 deadline looms for cities to get their proposals in. One attendee said Hampton needs to get more creative. It already has a Web site, www.first2fast.com.

Hampton Mayor Molly Ward said she's not sure if she's willing to jump into freezing water to entice Google to choose her city as a test site for its experimental ultra-fast broadband network, referencing a widely reported incident in which a mayor jumped into Lake Superior.

"I don't think Google is looking for a gimmick," Ward said, but that was before someone suggested Googleland.

Eagle revealed at the meeting that the city of Hampton is even considering appointing what it calls a "Google Czar" and would consider tweaking its regulatory environment that governs fiber communications in the city to become "Google-friendly."

Perhaps hinting at Google's ultimate intentions for entering the broadband fiber arena, a timely bit of news was leaked to the press last week that Google, Intel and Sony have been teaming up to develop Google TV. According to The New York Times, the platform would utilize a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes to "bring the Web into the living room."

Google already has on a small scale broken into TV advertisements through a program called Google TV Ads. nib