Google : A future 1 Gbit/s ISP

Google will launch a high speed, wide bandwidth experimental network in the United States offering a 1 gigabit per second connection to half a million Americans.

After South Korea and Japan, the Portuguese cable provider ZON inaugurated Internet access branded "very very high speed" at the end of 2009, providing a connection speed of 1 Gbit/s. For such a speed, the Portuguese price is $345 a month. In the United States, it is Google who is looking to implement such a network at a competitive price.

Google’s new project is experimental, with the implementation locations yet to be named for this "super fast internet" installation. An investigation has been opened until the 26th of March 2010 to identify areas that would be interested in participating in such a test.

Google is looking to install FTTH connections (Fibre To The Home) which would provide speeds of 1 gigabit per second to an initial trial of 50 000 subscribers, with it being envisaged that the experiment would then spread to 500 000. "We will be providing Internet speeds 100 times faster than what the majority of Americans have access to today", indicated Google, while also stating that the networks would be open to competition.

According to Google, their objective is to "experiment with new ways of making the Internet better and faster for everyone". The groups activity has definitively spread out from their core search engine business, with their aim being to also see how developers and users would utilize such "super fast speeds ".