After more than two years of anticipation, Google finally announced
on Thursday that the company's ultra-high speed internet service Google
Fiber would become available to the residents of its test community
Kansas City starting in September.
Offering an internet
connectivity speed of one gigabit per second, Google said the service
will be about 100 times faster than the speed most Americans have with
current broadband connections, reported Xinhua.
Instead
of a broadband connection, Google Fiber is composed of thin optical
fiber lines that run directly from a person's home to a data centre,
which is then in turn connected to the national internet backbone.
According
to Google, it is this "direct connection" from a person's home to the
national backbone that will allow users to experience such high internet
speeds.
Google said it was inspired to develop Google Fiber in
line with the Federal Communication Commission's 2010 National Broadband
Plan, which calls for making high speed internet more widely available
in the US.
Despite the fact that internet was invented in the US,
according to content delivery network Akamai's 2011 State of the
Internet report, the US ranks only 12th globally in internet connection
speed, with an average connection of 5.8 megabits per second. South
Korea ranks first, with an average speed of 17.5 megabits per second.
In
an interview on telephone, Google Fiber spokesperson Jenna Wandres told
Xinhua that Google had already done advocacy work around the
development of the National Broadband Plan and improving US internet
connectivity, and that it set the stage for the company to do even more
once the Plan was released.
Wandres added Google hoped greater
internet accessibility and speed could additionally lead to more
technological innovation, and set the stage for the future of internet
browsing.
"When we think back about the way we used to use the
internet when we were still listening to a dial tone, there were all
sorts of innovations that we couldn't even imagine - we were sitting
waiting for it to dial in," Wandres said, comparing how much the
internet had changed since it was first developed
"We're
hoping that with Google Fiber and its higher speeds, these things will
lead to new and unpredictable innovations that as a whole will move the
web forward in the US," she added.
After months of laying the
infrastructure and groundwork, Google Fiber will finally start
home-installation after the pre-registration deadline Sep 9. The
internet service is priced at $70 a month, which is competitive with
most US broadband internet providers.
Google also announced the
new internet service could be paired with a television component, Google
Fiber TV, which Google says will include regular broadcast channels and
thousands of TV shows on demand.
Although Google already owns
video-sharing site YouTube, it will be the company's first venture into
serving as a television provider.
The Google Fiber project first
started in February 2010, when Google announced that the company planned
to build an ultra-high speed internet network in a select US city that
was willing to partner with them.
According to Google, the
response was overwhelming. The company received invitations from almost
1,100 US communities and close to 200,000 individuals, all expressing
their desire for faster internet service. Some cities even tried doing
stunts hoping to attract the Google Fiber project, with one city mayor
even jumping into a frozen river and posting the request on YouTube.
Ultimately,
the Midwest community of Kansas City was chosen as the Google Fiber
launch site in spring 2011. According to Wandres, Kansas City was chosen
because of its business-friendly infrastructure, community involvement,
and supportive officials.
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