xiik – Interactive Marketing

I think it’s safe to say that we are pretty greedy when it comes to our internet speed. A recent post by CNN got me thinking about how my personal views on the internet have completely shifted in the last 5 years. What used to be “fast” is now considered practically idle; even having today’s version of high speed internet myself, I am always wanting it to be faster. I have internet speed greed. And I know I’m not alone!

This particular article discusses Google’s desire for a faster internet nationwide to keep up with consumer appetite for rich media. But we aren’t talking a few more megabytes per second (MBps) faster. Oh, no: “It would be a blazing-fast upgrade, capable of downloading a full-length HD movie in under 90 seconds,” says CNN. Now that’s what I’d call fast! Since Google can pretty much do anything it wants, this initiative will bring fiber-optic internet connections to as many as 500,000 people in a small number of local areas. It will be capable of one gigabit per second (Gbps), more than 100 times faster than the typical U.S. broadband connection speed today.

You have to hand it to Google for pushing the limits. CEO Eric Schmidt put things into perspective a bit: he plans to completely revolutionize internet connection speed “as a way of narrowing America’s innovation deficit.” Truth be told, we are not the only nations addressing internet speed greed ahead of time. Korea plans to roll out a 1-Gbps countrywide connection by 2012. Unfortunately for us, to bring Google’s plan nationwide in the U.S. would involve so much capital investment that even Google themselves could not fund it. For now, it will remain a research project and hopefully global greed will spark other American companies, like Verizon or AT&T, to innovate further when enhancing their own lagging networks.

To compare your speed to others around you, check out Google’s Speed Dashboard.