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Confirmed User
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 352
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Google wants to build 1 gigabit per second Network
Can't wait to see it happen -
Quote:
Google Inc. on Wednesday announced its latest move intended to bolster Internet access and indirectly enhance its online businesses, by building a high-speed broadband network that could prove to be 100 times faster than today's infrastructure.
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Mountain View, Calif.-based Google announced on a company Web site that it's planning to build and test its network "in a small number of trial locations across the United States." The goal, Google said, is to develop a network that could download a full-length feature film in less than five minutes.
"We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections," Google product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly wrote in the announcement.
"We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people," they wrote. Google said it is now attempting to "identify interested communities."
Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski said in a statement that the Google initiative "will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed Internet apps, devices, and services."
Google has taken an active role in contributing to the FCC's National Broadband Plan, which is expected to help lay the groundwork for a revamp of infrastructure needed to provide more widespread, high-speed Internet access.
The FCC is expected to present its broadband plan to Congress next month. According to a recent Forrester Research report, some 16 million new broadband Internet subscribers should emerge in the U.S. over the next five years.
Shares of Google fell slightly in afternoon trading, to $535.87.
More access, more advertising
Google has made a number of forays into bettering the infrastructure required for broader Internet access.
The company has been at the forefront of a group of technology firms that successfully lobbied the FCC to open up unused, unlicensed TV airwaves, or white spaces, for wireless Internet services in 2008. See related story.
Google is currently working with others to establish a means to make use of those vacated TV airwaves without interfering with wireless microphone and other adjacent signals.
In addition, Google set out in 2007 to buy a valuable chunk of licensed wireless spectrum at FCC auction. The company's efforts resulted in the ultimate winner of the spectrum, Verizon Wireless /quotes/comstock/13*!vz/quotes/nls/vz (VZ 28.90, +0.03, +0.10%) , being compelled to adhere to rules keeping the airwaves open to outside devices and services.
Google has also won its own high-quality wireless spectrum for unspecified "experimental tests," through its investment in broadband provider Clearwire Corp. /quotes/comstock/15*!clwr/quotes/nls/clwr (CLWR 6.24, -0.06, -0.89%)
Google also has the right to "wholesale" the Clearwire spectrum as an operator, thanks to its investment. See related story.
While Google's infrastructure initiatives could help meet increasing public demand for Internet services from a variety of companies, Google also stands to financially benefit by gaining more users of its search, video, maps and other advertising-supported offerings.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, said in a statement that, "Google is not the only company with the know-how and capacity to build this kind of network, but somebody had to go first."
"Maybe network providers with different ideas for what is possible will step up as well," Kerry said.
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Original article here |
02-10-2010, 03:34 PM
