Google Announces 1 Gbps Broadband Experiment

I'm still a bit stunned by Google's (what I consider biggest yet) announcement - that they will build multiple fiber-to-the-premises networks that deliver 1 Gbps.

It's an audacious bet, and a signal to every current provider of broadband that their days of business-as-usual, charging by the bit, asymmetric service, are nearly over.

I won't parse the announcement - anyone bothering to read this blog is intelligent enough to grasp the obvious implications.

But I will point out that even though Google specifically mentions fiber, that doesn't preclude the use of Broadband Wireless Internet Access, though it will take a huge leap for the wirehead bigots at Google to grasp that wireless has a place in their experimental 1 Gbps network.

If I were running Google's experimental 1 Gbps network, one of the places... several, actually... I'd want to see it deployed is in urban areas, where it is frightfully expensive deploy new cable. The conduits are mostly full, and boring new conduits is frightfully expensive, and ripping up the streets is no longer an option. Enter Gigabit wireless - good for up to a mile, and yes, reliable if you engineer it right. Not cheap, but perhaps cheaper than a mile of fiber in precisely the wrong place.

Google's ultimate goal is to see what changes - business models, services, usage patterns, new applications, etc. when ordinary users get access to the Internet at 1 Gbps. The important part is that the speed of Internet Access is 1 Gbps, not that it's delivered with fiber.

So, look for those few companies who make BWIA gear that does operate at 1 Gbps to get a boost, because there's clear application now for their systems. Finally, they can make a case that wireless links at speeds of 1 Gbps have practical application.

Doug Lockie, Lou Slaughter, Dana Wheeler, Brian Andrew to name a few... well, they were a few years ahead of their time.

By Steve Stroh

Copyright 2010 by Steven K. Stroh. All rights reserved.
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Comments

[Abhijitbarua]

Interesting to watch how real convergence of network , data centers and content are happening in front of our eyes. We had CDNs, ASPs/SaaS, Clouds but now backward integration with the network, will severely change the value chain, like what happened to ISPs in many parts of the world.