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Google Fiber Holds Off on Big Announcement

Google’s “Fiber” experiment is a fairly simple concept: the company wants to provide lucky communities with the fastest internet access yet conceptualized for modern access. The one gigabit per second connection speed, a rate that would allow roughly 125 megabytes to be downloaded per second, was announced back in February, along with an invitation for communities to apply for the program.

However, while the selection of a location (or locations) for the experiment was expected by the end of the year, a recent Google Blog update told us that the announcement would have to wait until early 2011. The reason cited wasn’t a lack of technology or resources — but a surplus of interest, since over 1,100 different communities applied for the coveted Google guinea pig status.

Of course, with access rates 100 times as fast as current high-speed connections, an “open access network” that allows for connections through any interested ISP, and pricing expected to be competitive with current DSL/Cable rates, it’s no wonder that so many areas are interested. This list of eager communities included Topeka, Kansas, who briefly (and unofficially) renamed itself “Google, Kansas.” This amusing stunt earned enough attention from the search engine giant that it became the punchline to one of Google’s famed April Fools Day pranks.

Google’s admonition for patience as they make a decision was also accompanied by another announcement: a new Vice President of Access Services, one Milo Medin, is joining the Google team.

Meanwhile, Google has been hard at work developing the technology for wide-scale Fiber deployment. First, the company established the one gigabit fiber on the Google campus itself. Then they opened up an early-stage network for 850 Stanford homes. There’s no hint that there will be any problems with providing the connection itself, once Google can actually decide where to do it.

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Rob D Young

Rob has been insatiably obsessed with Google, search engine technology, and the trends of the web-based world since he began ...

Google Fiber Holds Off on Big Announcement

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