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Groups Launch $200M Gigabit-per-second Broadband Project
alphadogg writes "An Ohio startup company has raised $200 million to fund gigabit-per-second broadband projects in six university communities across the U.S., the company announced Wednesday. Gigabit Squared will work with the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U), a coalition of 30 universities focused on improved broadband, to select six communities in which to build the ultra-fast broadband networks, they said. The two organizations will select winning communities between November and the first quarter of 2013, Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared, said. The new project comes at an important time, when many commercial broadband providers have stopped deploying next-generation networks, said Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U and lead author of the FCC's 2010 national broadband plan."
Ah, but you're missing the catch. The service imposes a 2Gb cap, after that you're throttled down to EDGE speeds.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What about Internet2 (internet2.edu)?
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
What are they going to use it for, pron & torrents?
Sometimes it's very convenient to have a fast connection for research purposes. I'm a physics student, and if I need to analyse some data at home, I have the choice between downloading a data file (anywhere from 100 kB to 40 GB) and processing it locally or using some kind of remote desktop, e.g. networked X11. Having a fast connection would mean that I don't have to do something else while waiting for it to download / display.
That said, for my first year I did live in university accommodation, and the connection was very fast. The problem was that they had some lame traffic shaping / blocking system that for example blocked me from accessing my home directory (AFS). So this could be a great help to students, but they should keep blocking to a minimum to avoid interfering with research.
That depends a bit on where you download from/what part of the world you're in. I'm in Sweden, with a 100Mbit/s downstream, and I often reach 11.5MiB/s from websites, doing game updates etc even during peak times(Most Swedish ISP's don't work like US ISP's, so forget most of the conceptions you have gotten from using US ISP's). Most torrents fail to reach that speed, due to seeders being, well... bittorrent users...
One big problem, in the nordic countries, is some CDN's being cheapskates. If a file happens to be hosted on both Akamai and LimeLight Networks, the Akamai download will be 3MiB/s at best(which is rarely), while the LLNW download will reach 11.5MiB/s even at peak. You can also tell when Windows Update points you to a LLNW CDN, rather than Akamai, because updates download much faster.
Thus the irony of Akamai's State of the Internet report, when they are one of the speed bumps....
It makes a huge difference to go beyond 100 Mbit, but many systems can't handle a full gigabit. Also, many servers can serve exactly one client at 1 Gbit. I wish 10 Gig became more common and cheap, so most servers could use it. With a single SSD you could serve a few clients at gigabit speeds.
Private telecomm company GWI has already announced plans with the University of Maine (also part of Gig.U) to do this in the nearby Orono and Old Town communities.
I'm curious to see the outcome a few years down the road, how it really affects anything.
Fiber to Gated Communities? I suspect only the already well-to-do enclaves near 'leet unis will be the only beneficiaries for some time, such as Palo Alto, Research Triangle, Ann Arbor... Grambling State? NDSU? Don't hold your breath.