Google to Offer Super-Fast Net Service

Google to Offer Super-Fast Net Service
By BRAD STONE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/technology/companies/11google.html?hpw


SAN FRANCISCO — Google says it plans to get into the Internet access business.

Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The company says it plans to get into the Internet access business.
In a post on its corporate blog, the search and advertising giant said it planned to build and test a high-speed fiber-optic broadband network capable of allowing people to surf the Web at 100 times the speed of most broadband connections. The trial could be offered to as many as 500,000 people.

“Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone,” two Google product managers, Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, wrote in the blog post.

Google said that over the next six weeks, it would solicit proposals from communities interested in the service, and then announce trial communities later this year. It did not say when it expects the trial service to be up and running.

Google cited 3-dimensional medical imaging and quick, high-definition film downloads among the applications of such high-speed Internet access.

Since 2006, the company has operated its own wireless network in Mountain View, Calif., where it is headquartered. In 2008, it bid unsuccessfully for wireless spectrum in auctions held by the Federal Communications Commission.

Google has also been a strong advocate of so-called net neutrality. It has been pushing the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules preventing Internet service providers from charging customers more for certain kinds of content on the Web.