backtop

Print 68 comment(s) - last by dailyjohn.. on Nov 24 at 7:18 PM
I hate my ISP a lot more today

Google announced back in 2010 it was seeking communities to participate in an experiment involving insanely fast fiber-optic broadband. The plan was called Google Fiber and ultimately Kansas City was chosen. The first homes and businesses with Google Fiber had their 1 Gbps service turned on yesterday.

However, anytime we see internet providers offer theoretical peak speeds, we usually take them with a huge grain of salt. However, it looks like Google Fiber is actually incredibly fast in the real world.
 
A Google Fiber user named Mike Demarais ran a speed test only minutes after his service went live according to ArsTechnica. He achieved 696.38 Mbps download and an impressive 620.49 Mbps upload.

"The first thing I did was BitTorrent Ubuntu," Demarais said. "I think that took two minutes, let me try it again right now."

The home where Demarais accesses these incredibly fast internet speeds is operated by Homes for Hackers, and is owned by Ben Barreth. Entrepreneurs can live in the house rent and utility free for three months at a time, only needing to pay for their own groceries.
 
Homes for Hackers is billed as an attempt to kick start high-tech businesses within the city.

Google offers a few different plans for customers. For $120/month you get Gigabit internet (up/down), HDTV service, a Nexus 7 tablet, and 1 TV box. If all you need is gigabit internet, that will only run you $70/month. Google is even offering a "free" internet service (guaranteed for at least 7 years) that provides 5Mb down/1Mb up. However, customers have to pay the $300 "construction fee" that is waived on the two paid packages.
 
There are no data caps on any of Google's packages (including the "free" one).

Source: ArsTechnica


Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Typo
By jtemplin on 11/16/2012 2:57:21 PM , Rating: 2
You were a little ambiguous. He probably thought you meant the dollar value was incorrect, you were just pointing out the poorly edited sentence.

Its kind of annoying when people assume nobody can convert megabits and -bytes (except for them, o keeper of knowledge), as seems to be happening all across this comment section.

Your point was that going from 2 MB/s (16mbps, as you know) to 1gbps would be a massive increase. Then this guy decides to try and lecture you on the conversion as if you didn't realize 2 MB/s is way less than 1gbps, which you DID understand. Why else would you have stated it would be a massive upgrade for your connection...


"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer

Related Articles










botimage
Copyright 2013 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki