Items tagged with fiber
Google Fiber was far from being the first fiber-to-the-home Internet provider in the United States, but it has no doubt garnered attention in ways that earlier, smaller, more local fiber outfits simply could not. Google Fiber has made the notion of widespread fiber across the U.S. one that isn't so far-fetched, and by developing an ISP that gives everyday consumers access to 1Gbps service at a reasonable rate, other outfits are following suit. Just this week, mobile operator C Spire announced a new project that "promises to transform communities into magnets for investment and economic growth by bringing the technology of tomorrow to thousands of homes in cities, towns and neighborhoods in its...
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When Google first unveiled its 1Gbit fiber Internet service last summer, it seemed unlikely that such speeds would become common anytime soon. However, there was great hope that with Google's pressure, other ISPs would be pushed towards offering their own 1Gbit services. This past April, we did see some evidence of that, with AT&T promising to roll out its own 1Gbit service in the Austin, Texas area. Things don't stop there. It seems that some of the biggest ISPs are being seriously slow to catch onto the 1Gbit option, with Verizon charging a staggering $210 in some areas for a 300Mbit/s connection. The gotcha here is that the upload is 65Mbit/s (as someone with 0.5Mbit/s home upload, it...
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Make all the jokes you want about Nebraska, but that state knows college football, beef, corn, and living the good life, and now its largest city (which is a rapidly growing area, by the way) will be one of the precious few metropolitan areas in the country with gigabit Internet. ISP CenturyLink announced today that it will be piloting a fiber network that will deliver gigabit speeds to some 48,000 homes and businesses on the west side of Omaha. CenturyLink already has a fiber network there, and the company will upgrade it to fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology to allow for the high Internet speed. Omaha, Nebraska skyline Those using the service will also have access to CenturyLink’s...
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You know, it's hard to be picky. Google Fiber, or a local fiber company -- so long as the Internet speeds trump those provided by generic coax-based ISPs, who are we to complain? Numerous towns around the nation, including many in Tennessee and even the small town of Wilson, North Carolina, have their own small-scale fiber ISPs. These companies compete directly with the huge cable and DSL providers, and now, also with Google Fiber in a handful of cities around the U.S. But when you think of Vermont, one of the least populated states in the nation, you probably don't think of the world's quickest connection speeds. But maybe you should. Vermont Telephone Company, which covers around 17,500 homes...
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As expected, the Provo Municipal Council unanimously approved the measure regarding bringing Google to town to take over the city’s struggling iProvo fiber network. Google will retrofit the network for its Google Fiber service, which will make the relatively small town of Provo just the third locale with the gigabit Internet and TV service. The Salt Lake Tribune grabbed some more specific details, including confirming that Provo is selling the network to Google for the ceremonial price of one dollar. Google will offer its 5Mbps Internet service to Provo residents for free for 7 years and also ensure that all homes have access to the service. (Whether that means that Google will waive the...
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You know, this is finally starting to feel like a trend. And it's certainly a trend we're happy to get behind. The trend of high(er)-speed Internet is seemingly sweeping the developed world, with fiber-based solutions and ISPs offering 1Gbps+ speeds becoming less of an exception compared to yesteryear. Now, even customers Down Under will soon be able to enjoy the blistering speeds that folks in Kansas City already have access to. Australians will soon be able to thank NBN for installing 1Gbps access, as the network is set to go live prior to the end of 2013. To put this in perspective, a 1Gbps connection could download an entire movie in just seconds. It'd be "several hundred times faster" than...
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Earlier this week, Google suddenly and unexpectedly announced that it was planning to roll out Google Fiber service to Provo, Utah. The city has an existing (though older, and somewhat unfinished) fiber-optic network that Google can apparently just retrofit to suit Google Fiber, which is a much cheaper strategy than building a gigabit infrastructure from scratch. According to the AP, the fiber network initially cost the city $39 million, but it may sell it to Google for one dollar. The smallish city’s residents have been paying $5.35 per month per household in utility bills for about a decade to pay for the network, and the city will keep paying on its construction loan for the project...
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Google announced that the next lucky locale to get Google Fiber service will be Provo, Utah. Instead of starting from scratch and building the infrastructure, the company is in the process of purchasing iProvo, which is a pre-existing fiber-optic network, from the city of Provo. That network, however, is over a decade old, so Google will have to perform upgrades and also finish building out the network to reach all the homes along the network route. There’s one catch, though: the city council has to vote on it. “Our agreement with Provo isn’t approved yet—it’s pending a vote by the City Council scheduled for next Tuesday, April 23, and also is subject to satisfaction...
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We've said it in the past, and we'll say it again: if there are two mainstream tech industries that could use a disruption, it's cable TV and broadband Internet. Google is actually doing a fair job of disrupting both, and if you had any worries about Google investing in Fiber for Kansas City and then forgetting all about it... let this calm those fears. Google has just announced that its Fiber initiative is going over so well, that it'll soon be expanding. Olathe, Kansas is a nearby suburb of the metro Kansas City region, and it's actually known as "Silicon Prairie" in some parts. This week, the Olathe City Council approved an agreement to bring Google Fiber to their city. Olathe has become one...
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A couple of years ago, avoiding 3D was a full-time job. It was everywhere. It was on TV. It was on advertisements. It was in the cinema. But despite the huge marketing push, consumers at large still felt it was a joke, and it's tough to convince consumers to wear those funky 3D glasses while enjoying content. That said, there's still a market for at-home 3D content, and it's a bit too early to call the latest push a complete flop. To that end, those fortunate enough to be in Google's Fiber footprint will soon gain 3net and ESPN3D. Fiber TV uses fiber cables to deliver plenty of channels, as well as a Storage Box that you can fill with 500 hours of HD recordings, and a growing VOD library. And...
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Google filed an application with the FCC to build an experimental wireless network at its headquarters in Mountain View. Google has asked for many of the details of this network to be kept confidential, but a few details have been made public. Google's application with the FCC reveals the company's plans to place about 50 base stations on its campus to support 200 user devices over the next two years. According to the application, Google plans to use LTE for the experiment, with devices that access frequencies between 2524-2546 and 2567-2625MHz. In one of the documents Google filed with the FCC, we learn of the company's plan to deploy 5-10 base stations that will be mounted on ceilings or walls...
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Folks have long since argued about what government aspects are too wasteful, and which ones don't actually have a positive impact. But as technology fans, it's hard to knock this idea: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has called for at least one gigabit community in all 50 states by 2015. It's a new challenge that should provide a solid background to the rural broadband initiatives that are already ongoing. While America sees plenty of innovation, it's actually lagging far, far behind many other nations when it comes to broadband infrastructure. Places like The Netherlands and South Korea have far greater average speeds than the United States, and while the U.S. is certainly a huge landmass to...
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Over the course of the past few years, you might have noticed that component vendors have been working hard to shed some old technology that's been keeping us from progress. We've seen EFI replace the typical BIOS, for example, and GPT become more prevalent to allow us to use hard drives greater than 2.2TB in size. Next up? "Silicon Photonics", a technology that Intel has been working on for the past decade that helps make the word "bottleneck" non-existent where inter-system communications are concerned. At the Open Compute Summit, being held in Santa Clara this week, we've already learned of the "Open Compute Platform" that AMD and others are touting - hoping to improve interoperability...
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It's unlikely that Google Fiber will ever blanket all of America. After all, the cost for that could easily put Google in a serious bind after spending billions upon billions on infrastructure. But for the Kansas Cities in the middle of America, things are looking great in terms of Internet. Google first started rolling out fiber Internet and TV services to select neighborhoods in Kansas and Missouri earlier this year, starting in Hanover Heights and Dub’s Dread. Now, Google's announcing five more locales where fiber services will soon be. In 2013, the company plans to finish rolling things out in Dub's Dread, and then moving to Piper Schools, Delaware Ridge, Painted Hills, Open Door and...
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If you live in Seattle and you’re a heavy bandwidth user, here’s some good news: you may be getting a fiber connection right to your house in the near-ish future. Seattle and the University of Washington have teamed up with Gigabit Squared to test a public fiber network that will bring high-speed Internet to homes and businesses in several test neighborhoods. This is part of Seattle’s Seafi initiative. Image credit: Gigabit Seattle The plan is to also bring Gigabit broadband to multi-family housing. So far, 12 neighborhoods have been selected, including some areas at and around the University of Washington. These demonstration neighborhoods encompass more than 50,000...
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Google knows all about dealing with regulations. The company seems to be up against various governments all the time, mostly over privacy issues revolving around cookies, Street View, or just how much Google knows about you. The company also had to deal with a fair amount of red tape when setting up its Fiber initiative in Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS. But according to a new report from the region, things could've been much stickier had it gone for a triple-play bundle. Right now, those in the the two cities can grab a fiber-based TV and Internet package from Google. Pricing is outstanding, and speed / quality is insane. Those two cities are the envy of the Internet nation right now. But...
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AT&T announced plans to invest $14 billion over the next three years in order to expand and enhance its wireless and wireline broadband networks. The investment plan, called Project Velocity IP (VIP), includes an expansion of AT&T's 4G LTE network, the acquiring of additional spectrum, and the deployment of small cell technology, macro cells and additional distributed antenna systems. By the end of 2014, AT&T plans to expand its 4G LTE network to cover 300 million people. This represents an increase from the company's original plan to offer 4G LTE to about 250 million people by the end of 2013. AT&T plans to offer 4G LTE service to 99 percent of all its customer locations in its...
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Google is preparing to launch its fiber network in Kansas City next week. According to a special page that announces the target launch date, Kansas City residents can expect the service to launch on July 26. The fiber network will offer 1 gigabit per second fiber-based broadband connectivity. Although Google hasn't provided many additional details surrounding the launch, interested users can go to google.com/fiber and sign up to be notified when additional information is available. Google announced the fiber project in February 2010. The company said it expected to launch the network this summer, so everything appears to be on track. Currently, it's unknown how much of the network has actually...
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The world could certainly use all the fiber we can get, and it looks like Broadcom is lining up to be yet another company that sets the stage for the next major push in broadband expansion. It just announced intentions to acquire BroadLight, a Delaware-based company that provides highly integrated networking and fiber access PON (Passive Optical Network) processors. With the addition of BroadLight, Broadcom expands its broadband access portfolio to support customer requirements for rolling out next-generation fiber networks worldwide. "The need for increased bandwidth for IPTV services, HDTV broadcasting and high speed Internet access are driving momentum for deploying fiber networks,"...
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Google made quite the deal about selecting Kansas City, Kansas (and eventually, the Kansas City everyone knows over in Missouri) to be its first major consumer test market for Google Fiber, but there's another small town in America taking part in the trial: Stanford. Being so close to Google's California headquarters didn't hurt, and of course, having one of the most well-respected schools on the planet there probably didn't hurt either. According to some residents of the town, the 1Gbps broadband service is now being rolled out, totally free for a year, as Google takes those 12 months to analyze what it's like to be an ISP. Reportedly, the service is still being rolled out, mostly in communities...
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Verizon's FiOS fiber network has always been impressive and it has always been promising compared to standard coax networks. The mere thought of having a fiber-optic link direct to your home has been quite appealing to many. But a few months ago, Verizon reportedly decided to pause, or halt altogether, their roll out of more FiOS locales. We're unsure if their plans are shifting, but it's clear that they still care about FiOS, and they're still taking to time to brag about the network they have created. With all this talk about pushing broadband services to rural locations and the like, Verizon is talking about pushing even higher speed access to FiOS customers. The company recently completed...
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The recession has a lot of negative effects, but largely, the technology industry has continued to flourish. Unfortunately, one of the greatest competitors in the Internet industry seems to be scaling back their efforts, and the tough economic conditions are primarily to blame. Verizon made the news in a big way a few years ago, promising to really add a dose of competition to markets that only had a couple of ISP choices (mostly from cable and DSL providers). The FiOS Internet service was unique; it provided a fiber-based alternative that delivered fiber all the way to the home, which enabled users to purchase speeds well over 100Mbps. Those speeds are practically unheard of, but FiOS was forcing...
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