Google has announced a continuation of its plan to get its hands on every possible piece of information about its users via the creation of a high-speed 1Gb/s Internet service for home users.
As reported over on Physorg.com, the announcement comes from product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly who state that Google is looking to "build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations" offering 1Gb/s connections as standard.
The small-scale trial is looking to hook up at least 50,000 users, with up to 500,000 connections being on offer should initial trials go well. Sadly for anyone here in the UK, Google is only looking at trialling the service in the US for now.
The 1Gb/s connection speed is made possible by using fibre-optic cabling directly to the home - known, oddly enough, as Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) - coupled with Google's own massive consumption of bandwidth, making a few thousand home users browsing at 1Gb/s seem like a drop in the ocean.
Google's Richard Whitt believes that the ultra-high-speed connectivity will allow the company to "experiment with new ways to help make broadband Internet access batter, faster, and more widely available," along with allowing "many new innovations [...] including streaming high-definition video content, remote data storage, distance learning, real-time multimedia collaboration and others that we simply can't imagine yet."
The service - to be offered at "a competitive price" to "underserved" communities - will come as manna from heaven for those looking for faster 'net connections, but should sound a warning bell in privacy enthusiasts: by using Google as your ISP, the notorious data warehousing company gets to see all the traffic that you every transmit on the Internet. Basically, if you were concerned at the privacy implications when Google launched its public DNS service this should be giving you the heebie-jeebies.
Sadly, there's no announcement on exactly when the trial network will go live - nor the lucky community or communities to enjoy the service - except a vague hope that it could be up and running "before 2011."
Would you sacrifice all of your data to Google in return for a 1Gb/s Internet connection, or do you value your privacy more than bandwidth? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
As reported over on Physorg.com, the announcement comes from product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly who state that Google is looking to "build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations" offering 1Gb/s connections as standard.
The small-scale trial is looking to hook up at least 50,000 users, with up to 500,000 connections being on offer should initial trials go well. Sadly for anyone here in the UK, Google is only looking at trialling the service in the US for now.
The 1Gb/s connection speed is made possible by using fibre-optic cabling directly to the home - known, oddly enough, as Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) - coupled with Google's own massive consumption of bandwidth, making a few thousand home users browsing at 1Gb/s seem like a drop in the ocean.
Google's Richard Whitt believes that the ultra-high-speed connectivity will allow the company to "experiment with new ways to help make broadband Internet access batter, faster, and more widely available," along with allowing "many new innovations [...] including streaming high-definition video content, remote data storage, distance learning, real-time multimedia collaboration and others that we simply can't imagine yet."
The service - to be offered at "a competitive price" to "underserved" communities - will come as manna from heaven for those looking for faster 'net connections, but should sound a warning bell in privacy enthusiasts: by using Google as your ISP, the notorious data warehousing company gets to see all the traffic that you every transmit on the Internet. Basically, if you were concerned at the privacy implications when Google launched its public DNS service this should be giving you the heebie-jeebies.
Sadly, there's no announcement on exactly when the trial network will go live - nor the lucky community or communities to enjoy the service - except a vague hope that it could be up and running "before 2011."
Would you sacrifice all of your data to Google in return for a 1Gb/s Internet connection, or do you value your privacy more than bandwidth? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review
October 14 2021 | 15:04
Want to comment? Please log in.