MADISON, Wis. -- Madison is the among cities around the country hoping Google will chose it to test its new fiber-optic network, and the city hosted a public meeting Thursday night to garner support and ideas for the Google network in Madison.

The network is expected to be more than 100 times faster than current Internet connections.

Residents who turned out to Thursday's meeting said they want Google's new fiber-optic network and they're willing to work to get it.

"What Google is doing with this project is they're saying it's not a zero sum game, it's a win-win game. Once this fiber comes into a home, you can be a customer of Charter, AT&T, TDS or many other providers," said David Devareaux-Weber, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Information Technology, at the meeting.

The city said a strong case on infrastructure is the key to wooing the Web giant to test its super-fast Internet connection in Madison.

"It's really all about the business of providing this network and secondarily about the innovation," said Alder Mark Clear.

"I just wanted to show that my generation has a huge interest in this too, and I'm surprised that there's not as many people here tonight of my age but there is that interest out here," said Tyler Brill, a Herzing College student.

But some at the meeting said getting to people beyond that crowd will be important in securing fiber in the future.

"The 2 percent of the population that's wants fiber, cable, whatever, wants it bad. I'll just be blunt, coming into a city I didn't care about that, I already had those people. It's sort of like campaigning for votes to the people who are already going to vote for that candidate. It's the people who we don't know about," said Al Chiozzi, of Broadband Infrastructures.

Thursday's meeting was somewhat of a rally point for Google fiber supporters. A citizen group has started a Web site in support, as well as twitter hash tags and a Facebook group in hopes that the community will contribute.

The city said infrastructure is important because Google said it wants to rapidly deploy the fiber line once it chooses a city.

The city is encouraging residents to log onto Facebook, Twitter under the hash tag madfiber or madfiber.net and share why they want Google fiber.

Madison officials have said the Google Fiber network could bring more than 1,000 jobs and $97 million in infrastructure investment to the city

Applications are due to Google on March 26.