Items tagged with fiber
If you thought that Google’s underwater FASTER fiber cable system was fast, Nokia is here to show that “Anything you can do I can do better.” Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, a division of Nokia, announced today that it has set a record with a staggering 65 Tbps data transmission via an undersea fiber link running over a distance of 6,600 kilometers (4,100 miles). To put that achievement into perspective, Nokia says that the 65 Tbps capacity is enough to stream 10 million HDTV channels… simultaneously. Nokia says that this high water mark also provides 13,000 times more capacity than the first undersea amplified transatlantic system, which was deployed in 1995.Underware fiber cable install...
Read more...
Image Source: Flickr (Mike Mozart)The race is on to bring gigabit Internet service to as many residential homes across the nation as possible. One of the participants is AT&T, which announced plans to expand its fiber-optic network to 11 more metro areas. The expansion is part of a broader initiative to bring AT&T Fiber, the new name for what was previously known as GigaPower, to at least 67 metro areas, including 45 metro areas by the end of the year. "Customer demand for high-speed connectivity is exceeding even our high expectations. Today we’re also introducing the AT&T Fiber umbrella brand, which lets us bring ultra-fast internet to even more residential and business customers...
Read more...
In early August, we reported that 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had no authority to prevent states from imposing restrictions on municipal internet. This was a result of the FCC stepping in last year in an effort to use its authority to “remove barriers to broadband investment and competition”. However, the courts sided with the states, which said that the FCC’s order impeded on state rights. In the end, this ruling was not a win for the consumers, but clearly favored firmly entrenched big brand operators like Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and AT&T, which lobby hard to keep competition at bay (see Google Fiber’s fight in Nashville, Tennessee)....
Read more...
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you have a new option when it comes to tapping into high-speed fiber internet. AT&T announced this week that its 1Gbps GigaPower fiber internet service is now available in the area. More specially, AT&T GigaPower will be available to residents of San Francisco, San Jose, Dublin, Mountain View, Santa Clara and San Ramon. AT&T joins Comcast, which brought its 2Gbps Gigabit Pro fiber internet service to the San Francisco Bay Area last year. Interestingly enough, Google is the laggard here, as the Mountain View company has yet to launch its Google Fiber service in the San Francisco Bay Area. And even when it does launch, it will be limited to...
Read more...
If there’s one thing that monopolistic (via region) ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner Cable hate, it’s competition. If your small town or city is looking to startup its own high-speed fiber Internet service to provide its residents with the speed and access that the big boys just won’t offer, chances are that the telecom lobby will strike with a vengeance. And if municipal fiber Internet wasn’t "bad enough", cable companies also have to contend with services like Google Fiber, which is slowly starting to creep across the United States in major markets. So what happens when municipal fiber Internet joins forces with Google Fiber? Well, that’s enough to make well-entrenched players call in for...
Read more...
When Google released its Fiber Internet service five years ago, it was quite something to behold. While most of us were dealing with modest broadband speeds (or worse), the big G was offering Internet speeds that could max out our home routers. At 1Gbps, Google was allowing people to both download and upload up to a theoretical 125MB/s, which is what most hard drives will peak at. It's still impressive. Not long after Google began hitting some cities with gigabit Internet, we began to see a number of other companies follow suit. Unfortunately, almost all of these are ISPs that focus on a certain area, so a wider rollout is in most cases unlikely. One such ISP is Chattanooga's EPB Fiber Optics,...
Read more...
We’ve all been there before; you’re sitting at your desk — either in your home or at your office — when the internet goes out. Given how connected we’ve all become these days, this can often lead to sudden panic, followed by tremors and profuse sweating (ok, we made that last part up). If the problem isn’t with our own home or work networks, it’s most often a problem with the internet service provider (ISP) — be it routine maintenance, faulty equipment, or a natural disaster that is causing the outage. While inconvenient, these service interruptions are to be expected from time to time and is something that we all get used to. But what happens when that outage is caused by vandals just looking...
Read more...
You think Google Fiber’s 1Gbps speeds are fast? That’s mere child’s play, my friends! Or how about Comcast’s 2Gbps Gigabit Pro? Fuhgetaboutit! The folks at Verizon are chompin’ at the bit to deliver Internet speeds at least five times faster than what’s possible with Gigabit Pro. Verizon announced today that it has completed successful trials of a high-speed fiber-to-the-premises network that offers symmetrical upload/download speeds at an eye-sizzling 10 Gbps. The telecommunications company is using new optical line terminal (OLT) technology, which is capable of generating four wavelengths (colors) of light, each with the capacity to deliver 10Gbps downloads and 2.5Gbps uploads. But that’s not...
Read more...
Researchers at the University of California in San Diego have just crafted a new fiber optic technology which could dramatically improve our Internet's backbone, as well as reduce costs. While fiber optic connections to the Internet are a luxury for home and business, they're imperative for the outside sources that bring us our data. The backbone of the entire Internet is laced head-to-toe in fiber, as it's the only possible option for delivering and sustaining the bandwidth needed to serve everyone. But, its current design has a couple of caveats. At the forefront, current technology doesn't allow signals to be sent without some severe distortion -- severe enough that the receiving routers would...
Read more...
Still licking its wounds following the spectacular collapse of its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable (TWC), Comcast is refocusing its energy on expanding 2Gbps fiber Internet across the country. Comcast kicked off its 2Gbps Gigabit Pro service in Atlanta, and later in parts of Florida and the San Francisco Bay Area. Gigabit Pro is now expanding to none other than Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was just seven years ago that Comcast threw down the gauntlet, suing the Chattanooga Electric Power Board (EPB) to block the creation of the city’s own fiber Internet and cable TV service. The EPB only took this step after it fought for years to persuade Comcast to improve its Internet speeds. After Comcast...
Read more...
Google and AT&T have been slowly rolling 1Gbps fiber Internet services across the United States. Google struck the first blow when it launched Google Fiber in Kansas City, Kansas, and AT&T has followed suit as Google Fiber’s shadow in many markets (and in markets where Google is not already available, AT&T has seen fit to price gouge customers). Now, both AT&T and Google are about to get some competition from Comcast, which is set to launch an even faster fiber-based service this year starting in Atlanta, Georgia. Starting next month, 1.5 million Atlanta metro area residents will have access to Gigabit Pro, Comcast’s fiber Internet service that will offer symmetrical (upload/download)...
Read more...
Google Fiber launched in Kansas City, Missouri in September 2012, and now AT&T is looking to creep in and compete toe-to-toe with its own ultra high-speed fiber network. AT&T’s U-Verse with GigaPower network is launching not only in Kansas City, but also “parts of Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe, Overland Park, Kan. and in surrounding communities located throughout the metro area.” "We're proud to launch in these cities as the first locations where we will offer ultra-high speeds to local consumers and employers in the Kansas City area," said AT&T Kansas president Mike Scott. "The AT&T GigaPower network will help encourage economic development in the area by facilitating a new wave of...
Read more...
While AT&T is pausing its fiber network rollout in 100 U.S. due to its opposition to President’s Obama’s proposed net neutrality rules and Google is delaying its fiber expansion in 34 markets, it looks as though US Internet is forging ahead with an even faster fiber service. US Internet this week announced that it has already switched on a 10Gbps fiber Internet that services parts of Minneapolis, MN. "The launch of our 10 GBPS Internet service will make Minneapolis the first city in the world to receive access to the Internet at speeds never before experienced in our country, or any other country for that matter, both in terms of 10 GBPS download and upload speeds," said Joe Caldwell, Co-CEO...
Read more...
At a time when many are still in awe of the speeds that can be reached with Google's Fiber service, Danish researchers have come along to show us what those fiber wires can really do. The "High-Speed Optical Communications" team at DTU Fotonik in Lyngby, Denmark, have managed to secure a world record by achieving a transfer speed of 43Tbps across fiber using just a single laser. This achievement far exceeds the previous world record, of 32Tbps. Making this world record possible is a brand-new fiber cable; unlike regular fiber which contains a single thread, or core, this new fiber contains seven. Despite that, the resulting cable is no thicker than standard fiber cables. To help put things...
Read more...
