Monday, October 25, 2010

Stanford faculty homes get 1Gbps fiber, thanks to Google

By Nate Anderson | Last updated 4 days ago

If you live in Stanford University's campus-owned faculty/staff housing development, you're in for a treat—1Gbps fiber optic Internet, courtesy of Google.

The search giant today announced plans to build a small testbed network connecting the 850 homes in Stanford's Residential Subdivision, pitching it as the next logical step up from its Googleplex testbeds. The project is "our first 'beta' deployment to real customers" and will help Google "take what we learn from this small deployment to help scale our project more effectively and efficiently to much larger communities." Construction begins in early 2011.

So why Stanford? "Most important was Stanford’s openness to us experimenting with new fiber technologies on its streets," said Google, which has been experimenting with things like micro-trenching. "The layout of the residential neighborhoods and small number of homes make it a good fit for a beta deployment. And its location—just a few miles up the road from Google—will make it easier for our engineers to monitor progress."

The project doesn't affect Google's high-profile plan to build a much larger 1Gbps fiber network throughout an American city. Plans for Google Fiber are still in development, with city selection due by the end of the year.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/stanford-faculty-homes-get-1gbps-fiber-thanks-to-google.ars

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