Google has announced plans to start offering ultra-high speed broadband service.
Fiber is good for you, but Google Fiber is even better.
Google yesterday announced plans to bring an ultra-high speed fiber network to a few select cities or communities. What is ultra-high speed, exactly? According to Google, it's about 100 times faster than what most American's have today. One gigabit per second to be exact.
"We'll offer
service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up
to 500,000 people," says the statement.
Google wants municipalities to submit bids by March 26. So, will someone from St. Louis please get on this a.s.a.p.!?
"We're doing this because we want to experiment with new ways to make the web better and faster for everyone," says Google product manager James Kelly in a video posted on Google's YouTube channel.
The fiber network is part of a larger goal for Google to experiment with faster broadband connections that would make it possible to run more sophisticated application over the Internet.
In a separate post, Google's telecom and media counselRichard Whitt, said faster broadband is becoming more important for job creation.
"The FCC is currently finalizing its National Broadband Plan to present to Congress next month," says Whitt is his post "Recently we suggested
that as part of its Plan, the Commission should build ultra high-speed
broadband networks as testbeds in several communities across the
country, to help learn how to bring faster and better broadband access
to more people. We thought it was important to back up our policy
recommendation with concrete action, so now we've decided to build an
experimental network of our own."
Daily RFT received a statement from Rob Stodddard, senior vice president for communications at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
"We look forward to learning more about Google's broadband experiment in the handful of trial locations they are planning. The cable industry has invested $161 billion over the past 13 years to build a nationwide broadband infrastructure that is available to 92 percent of U.S. homes, and we will continue to invest billions more to continually improve the speed and performance of our networks and provide tens of millions of consumers with the best possible broadband experience."