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Google Fiber is coming on July 26, Kansas readies to open its pipes
We're always being told we need more fiber in our lives. For most people, that might constitute a second bowl of cereal in the morning -- for the lucky Google Fiber-receiving residents of Kansas City (or Kansas City) however, it means big spoonfuls of super fast internet. While the project has been in the virtual pipes for a while, finally it looks like we're ready for the next step. July 26th, Google advises, is the date for diary. Better pencil that one in, and consider any last-minute hardware upgrades.
Israel announces plans to build national broadband network, increases fiber intake
Israel is home to a burgeoning tech industry, but the country's broadband infrastructure hasn't really been able to keep pace. In terms of broadband penetration, in fact, Israel ranks just 21st out of 34 developed nations, according to statistics gathered by the OECD. All this may be changing, however, now that the country's state-run electric company has announced plans to create a new national broadband network. According to the AP, the forthcoming network will use so-called fiber to the home (FTTH) technology, which is capable of providing connections at speeds of between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. That would be about ten to 100 times faster than the connections most Israelis have today, and could offer obvious benefits to a wide array of businesses and industries. The electric company is aiming to have 10 percent of the country connected to its new network by next year, and to have two-thirds covered within the next seven years.
Visualized: Sweden's Dreamhack in pictures
What does a legion of Swedish LAN party-goers and a 120Gbps internet connection look like? Something like this. Dreamhack, officially (according to the Guinness Book of Records) the world's largest LAN party, offered up all sorts of gaming thrills along the lines of StarCraft II and Counter-Strike to the 12,000 attendees. It looks like the air was thick with excitement, perspiration -- and hopefully a little air freshener.
Cisco, Telia to activate 'world's fastest internet connection' at 120Gbps, sounds pretty Swede
If the Swedes can dry a load of laundry on a 40Gbps internet connection, just imagine what they could do with 120Gbps. Melt polar caps? Solve the debt crisis? Dry three loads of laundry? The possibilities may be limitless, but we'll all find out soon enough, because Cisco and Telia are aiming to break the 120Gbps barrier by the end of this weekend. It's all part of this week's DreamHack, a Swedish digital festival that the Guinness Book recognizes as the "world's largest LAN party." This year, the two companies will attempt to set up a 300 kilometer-long connection from Jönköping to Stockholm, designed to serve (in theory, anyway) up to 750,000 people at blazing speeds -- of course, only 20,000 or so will be at DreamHack. The project has been in the works since last summer, with Telia constructing the fiber network, and Cisco handling hardware duties with a pair of power-packed CRS-3 routers (scalable to a total capacity of up to 322Tbps!). The companies say that the connection, if successful, would set a record for network "capacity utilization," allowing all 750K users to stream music simultaneously and to download an entire movie in just .047 seconds. It'll take us a lot longer to pick up our jaws from the ground.
Multi-gigabit wireless broadband within our grasp, capped data plans laugh in our face
Bring it on, LTE-Advanced. In case you've been looking for ways to eat up your capped data plan any faster, a researcher from Samsung proclaims that speeds up to 5.5gbps (yes, with a g) might be reachable within the next five years -- as long as all the stars align, that is. Jerry Pi demonstrated the idea, which involves the use of millimeter wave spectrum that lies between 3GHz and 300GHz. If -- and that's a big if -- the spectrum can be secured, the next hurdle will be the engineering challenge of deploying a wireless broadband network at such high frequencies; even tiny oxygen molecules, let alone walls and trees, would easily break up a signal at that range. Pi mentions that he and his fellow researchers are working on a few ideas to get around these obstacles, and outlines everything in significant detail in his 100+ slide presentation, which can be accessed below. Don't get us wrong: the idea of broadband data speeds hitting 5.5gbps makes us salivate, but it would definitely need to come with an unlimited plan. Just sayin'.
G-Technology demos dual-drive 8TB G-RAID HDD, with a dash of Thunderbolt
Not to be outdone by Seagate's 4TB GoFlex Desk, Hitachi's G-Technology unit has now unleashed a jumbo-sized external HDD of its own, with the 8TB, dual-drive G-RAID. Demoed at this week's IBC conference in Amsterdam, the company's new storage house consists of two 4TB drives nestled within an aluminum enclosure, each of which clocks in at 7,200 RPM. Configured for OS X, the G-RAID also sports a Thunderbolt port that offers transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps, though it can also support Windows with some simple reformatting. G-Technology will begin shipping its 4TB drives in October (with eSATA, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 ports), whereas its "4TB-based" Thunderbolt-equipped drive won't hit the market until Q4 -- though it's still unclear whether either model will ship as single drives, or as a two-headed, 8TB beast. Pricing remains a mystery for the moment, but you can find more details in the full PR, after the break.
Google receives 'more than 1,100 community responses' for gigabit fiber network
Ever wondered what it looks like when the entire nation wants a piece of Google? Well, we've already seen some crazy action in a few cities, but here's a bigger picture -- a map showing the vast lot of locations that have signed up for Google's experimental 1Gbps fiber network service. What's more, the number of community submissions almost doubled between 10am and the 5pm deadline, resulting "more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals." Yep, that sure is a lot of paperwork to go through, but Google reckons it'll have a location or two picked "by the end of the year." Meanwhile, let's hope that these Googletown-wannabes will churn out enough nutso videos to keep us entertained.
