Google To Take Its Fiber Service To The Next Level

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Google has some really big ambitions of making its super-fast internet service, Fiber, even faster– probably even 1,000 times faster. A recent job opening at Google Fiber seeks a photonics engineer who is up to the challenge of innovating Internet technology to allow “scalable access network bandwidths beyond Gb/s per user in a cost effective manner,” notes a report.

Google going beyond gigabites per second

Presently, Google’s Fiber service provides speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. Compared to the basic 11.7 megabits per second speeds that many in the U.S. have today, its nearly 100 times faster. The next major step is the terabit per second, but it’s still something that will have a hard time in becoming reality, the report says.

It would be an almost unimaginably fast move from gigabits into a terabits per second speed. Terabit service is definitely the next-generation. On gigabit Internet service, you can download an HD movie in only 7 seconds. Just imagine downloading that HD movie in 7 milliseconds.

As of now, Google Fiber is only available in a small handful of cities, and its 1Gbps service is not the fastest worldwide. There are many other companies offering 10Gbps download and upload speeds in certain regions.

No fixed timeframe

Fiber optic cables have a benefit of being relatively “future-proof;” for example, researchers in London have achieved 1.4Tbps speeds on existing fiber optic cables. Right now, it appears that most of the research in terabit fiber optics is focused on using the technology for the Internet backbone that transmits data between data centers and continents, the report says.

However, Google’s job posting focuses on “per user” data more than gigabit per second and does not explicitly mention terabit per second speeds. Though Google looks focused on going beyond gigabits per second, it does not mean that the company is going to deploy the technology anytime soon.

The job posting could be the search giant’s way of attracting really smart, ambitious people to join its team and focus on a huge “moonshot.” However, it still shows that the company’s vision for Fiber is much bigger than the broadband Internet and television service currently available in most cities.

As of now, there have been no comments from the Internet firm on the matter.

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