Few months ago Google announced the start of a promising experiment. They would select few communities around US to cover them with extremely fast Internet access – as fast as 1Gbps per household that is. Such speed would allow access to extremely complex web based applications, 3D high definition movies, games on demand and all types of other high bitrate media content. Sites around the world already started prepration for providing content with such characteristics (for example – YouTube is offering new content standard – the 4k videos require more than 16 times bigger bandwidth than the normal FullHD content).
Given the fact that one of the main developing directions for Google right now is the creation of Web based office and business applications, video on demand, and few other advanced content providing applications, this move was expected. The entrance to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) niche may frighten some of the well established ISPs on the market, but it will give the sector a nice boost, as in the last dew years things seem to be stuck in the tens of Mbps range. While such speeds are high enough for today’s applications of Internet, in the future this will change. The know-how needed in this high spped optical future will have to be slowly built, with lots of trials and errors, and companies that want o be ready, have started small scale experiments already (a Swedish ISP is rumored to have provided 10Gbps to his granny’s neighborhood – strange enough I guess).
So after the announcement from Google, many communities around the country began applying for the experiment. Some created dedicated video presentations, some are rumored to have hired lobbyist specialists so they have better campaigns than other. With not so clear requirements posted by Google on their page, almost any city community or even little town can apply. Given the great result in Mountain Valley, fully covered by covered with WiFi signal by Google few years ago, and the great satisfaction of this small town by the experiment, interes would be explainable.
Few months later
The number of applications posted reached more than a thousand, from all around the United States. Such high number is surprising to an extent, bus can be also explained by the fact that Google will pay the bigger part of the price of the infrastructure needed for optical fiber network, covering the whole community, not just one or two homes. So, many cities and towns are trying to be on the edge of the wave. Well established “middle class” communities are ruored to have greater chances, bu no one can say who will really win, as Google’s specialists may have other statistical and market research goals than the widely accepted “technical experiment” theory.
A new site has been created by Google for this experiment and for some good publicity – http://www.fiberforcommunities.com/ will be the place, from which Google will spread the high speed optical Internet idea.
So, while Google is keeping the secrecy about the selected candidates , many people around the country await eagerly the decision – will their city be a part of the technological revolution… almost for free?
