NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Google said Wednesday that it will start testing a new broadband network that will deliver speeds of more than 100 times faster than traditional broadband.
The Internet search giant is aiming to link up with states and municipalities to build and test a fiber-optic network that will offer download speeds of about 1 gigabit per second, according to a blog post on the company’s Web site. Google said that speed would be fast enough to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes.
The company said the network would offer wire-line service directly to consumers’ homes at “a competitive price.” The network will be built by Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), but consumers will be able to choose their service provider. Google expects the test will provide its service to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
This super-high speed is only good if the server you’re connected to can push out the data that fast. I have a 40Mbps connection and most sites give me 1 to 2Mbps.
“Google said that speed would be fast enough to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes.”
Google continues to be piracy’s best friend.
This super-high speed is only good if the server you’re connected to can push out the data that fast.
And I’m sure they’re not having a single content delivery server in mind. It’s probably going to be a protocol in line with the Bittorrent protocol.
I would be interested if Google offers privacy… but I think the temptation is too much for them to handle… they’ll probably monitor the heck out of the users in order to get up to the second marketing and NSA information.
Yeah right. The technology is the easy part.
The hard part is right of way of access and the pick and shovel work to bury the cable. Ask Verizon.
Because I am an apartment dweller my choices are limited to DSL and Cable in my market. If I owned a home in my municipality I could get a fiber connection similar to Fios. Frankly I would love to have a fiber connection but its not worth me having to pay a mortgage for.
If you build it they will come…
It seems they’re planning to create demand by building service infrastructure. Bandwidth has been the bottleneck to the networks really taking off as far as services are concerned. This could be the death knell for cable companies that haven’t made the jump to data. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers, if this is done right it could get really big. I imagine hi-def streaming and content downloads at a reasonable price. Why pay for a cable package if you don’t like half the content. Why not pay per content. I like to stream hi-def NBA playoffs, or pay for just the documentaries I like instead of a subscription that includes stations and content I’m not interested in. This is a smart move, and way overdue, now if only Google and Verizon were going into it together, I’d say it’s a done deal.
I’m a triple play Comcast customer who has been “warned” of my excessive download activity. It makes sense. Comcast’s biggest bill to me is my Cable TV. Don’t they have a vested interest in NOT PROVIDING HIGH SPEED INTERNET? And since they can snoop on their customers activities, even if they do install highspeed ((or with their paying more for it “business customers”)) aren’t they doing to bring in the law to stop downloading ((which is what you do when watching movies even from legal sites)) by claim it is pirating, or more simply just say you are exceeding their private limits?
Are we too enamored of technology and not paying attention enough to actual service? I don’t mind at all waiting overnight for something to download. I do mind not being able to download all I want==all I legally want.
Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the rest will get the feds and states to kill this the way big business always does – by lobbying (buying them). it’s even easier now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
Free market competition is for those who can’t buy governments.
We wouldn’t need this high speed if more web sites were optimized.
haha, the wireline telecom industry is a money loser long-term. Verizon has been laying off a ton of its people in that part of the business for a while now.
#7
Google is big business. Don’t count on telecom’s being able to defeat this.
Ffor all the privacy sacrifices, I haven’t once regretted bringing a Google service into my life. I have suffered no consequences from it, and while I do realize there is potential there for me to be exploited; until I see or hear about a documented case of Google selling out an innocent person, I have no issue with using their products. Most of the fear around Google is just speculation of what they COULD do, at the moment the company seems to have a morale compass, when the founders leave that’s when you gotta keep a closer eye.
More broadband competition, this is a good thing. Once people taste those speeds there is no going back. It’s going to be like leaving 56k, just think of all the content that could be created.
Another rip-off.
So, with hhopper’s comment, we should not care for 1GB/sec, since we won’t have faster downloads?
First dark fiber, which Google owns up the wazoo. Now local fiber. Next, white spectrum.
#13 – All three are areas with few regulatory trip wires.
Also, add GoogleDNS whereby Google replaces an ISP’s DNS with their own, Google’s support of broadband over powerline deployments, Google’s abitlity to stream 720p and eventually 1080p YouTube videos, Google’s push into “Cloud Computing” with Chrome, Google Apps, Docs, Voice, social networking, etc.
Google is learning from all of these new initiatives and adapting its other offerings to suit later developments.
Didn’t Google buy up a significant portion of the recently freed up bandwidth (from the FCC) that the television market was using? Sounds like they might not even need copper/fiber to do what they say that want to do.
Didn’t Google buy up a significant portion of all that “dark fiber” some time ago? Sounds like they have a good start on developing a pretty descent network backbone.
Didn’t Google buy up some media companies or at least some controlling interest in a few of them a while back? Sounds like content won’t be much of a problem when they finally do get their “system” up and running.
If I were AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, or any other fat-cat cable/communication company I’d be a little afraid right now. But don’t expect any of them to lower their prices any time soon.
I have a on a few occasions done speed tests and got answers that were so far removed from what I normally experience I shan’t even repeat them.
While sure, it sounds nice to have, in practice is it something worthwhile? I’ve got a 25/15 FioS connection and honestly, I rarely ever get anywhere near full speed downloading. Most online servers cannot feed anything to you that fast, it’s nice for the few that do, but if you’re getting the service solely so that Google can feed you content, I wouldn’t be interested.
#17 Cephus
Way I understood it they’ll be going into the server business too. There are a few sites perfectly capable of hidef streaming right now, I like NBA.com, and just because you can’t get fat bandwidth doesn’t mean it’s the servers fault – this is why Google is going to build it’s own network. It’s not as hard as it sounds, this is what smart people do to make money. Sure Google could woo Wall st. with big fat dividends for a time, like other tech stocks in the past, they’d be the flavor of the week for a while then crap out. Or they could pump that fat cash into something even more profitable.
Sounds like it could be a ploy to kill the possibility of free WiFi (or even just low cost Wifi), in some towns. I should think the trend would be toward fewer “Wired” services. Just as cellphones are over taking the wired telco biz.
I think the wired (cabled) all-3-in-1 service just leaves you vulnerable to a complete loss of communications, should bad weather or accident, wipe out your lines. It’s still based on a branched network, from your home to the Service Provider. Rather than a redundant system of some kind.
Does everyone really need that much bandwidth, for the temporary novelty of downloading movies, a 100 times faster. You’ll just end up with a backlog of downloaded movies, you’ve got no time to watch. And I’ll wager “packet shaping” and “throttling” will still exist, no matter how good the connection.
It’ll be interesting to see how all this works out.
They’ve invested in Clear, so they can work WiMax into the equation.
Back in 2007 they revealed they had a patent for “mobile datacenters” – those shipping containers filled with servers…
with Comcast & FiOS worried about “shaping” [throttling] our usage – unless it comes from their own branded content – it would be nice to have an ISP who just wants to be an ISP, instead of also being a content-provider.
If Google can start caching the data from most of the sites I visit, they could provide that same data at much higher speeds than the original site.
“Does anybody even need that much bandwidth”
How do rational people even make this argument anymore? It’s been the same with drive space and computing power and even electricity. No, you probably don’t need more bandwidth to read dvorak.org/blog. But some of us don’t like the internet being stuck in 2002.
Hi-def video chats with multiple people, immersive 3D websites, server side computing with super cheap thin clients in the home, holographs. There’s a few ideas for bandwidth uses just off the top of my head.
So yes; I want this bandwidth, and a lot more. Along with a much faster computer and infinite amounts of storage and a physics card and so many other things.
Wow, only one person saw the future ramifications for gaming and VR. That will be an incredible market. Heck, it already is, but still lacking an acceptable level of detail in most 3D situations. But with 1Gb speed, the whole thing suddenly gets very real. Like when CGA went to VGA. This will make for some very detailed real-time gaming. It will have a pretty harsh impact on stand alone gaming boxes. Bye bye.
I so want to see this happen….