Hong Kong ISPs provide 1 gigabit per second internet connections for about US$26. I was in Hong Kong a few weeks ago and there were posters and salespeople all over Tsim Sha Shui and other areas of Hong Kong selling. Some other places are selling 1 Gbps connections but for ten times or more cost than in Hong Kong.
City Telecom made provides symmetric 100Mbps connections for about US$13/month. Several companies provide 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home offering; a fully symmetric, 1Gbps connection costs HK$199… or US$26 a month.
The Hong Kong broadband network currently offers a FTTH/FTTB 1 Gbps service is available to over 800,000 households.
EPB Fiber Optics (Tennessee) announced September 2010 that by the end of 2010 it will offer ultra-high-speed Internet service of up to 1 Gbps to the end user’s home or business. The utility plans to charge $350 a month for its 1 Gbps service tier, a high-ticket price tag that will likely only appeal to a handful of businesses, even though the service will be offered to every customer in its service area
South Korea’s government has pledged to roll out gigabit ethernet to homes by 2012. Korea also plans wireless networks of one-tenth that capacity, or 100 megabits per second South Korea has a $24.6 billion budget for the rollout.
A Daily Blend notes what 1 gigabit per second can do – 1Gbps connection allows you to download at the speed of 128 megabytes per second. This will allow you to download a 700MB movie in just 5.47 seconds, a 4.7GB DVD would finish in 37.6 seconds, and a 50GB Blu-ray disc would appear on your computer in 6 minutes and 40 seconds
Where else is 1 Gbps available (or will be soon)?
* Cologne, Germany: Netcologne, a German city carrier, is looking to launch a service that will allow consumers to buy 1 Gbps connections in the city of Cologne sometime this year. Nearly 70,000 homes in Cologne currently buy broadband from the service provider.
* Canberra, Australia: TransACT, an Australian service provider, is trailing a network with speeds of up to 1 Gbps for residential customers.
* Portugal: Portugese cable operator Zon Multimedia has announced the availability of a 1 Gbps service for home users. It costs about 250 euros ($342) a month. (via)
* Amsterdam: GlasvezelNet Amsterdam (GNA), BBNed and InterNLnet have conducted a pilot of 1Gbps symmetric fibre-optic connections. The trial was carried out in the Amsterdam districts of Osdorp, Zeeburg and Oost/Watergraafsmeer. This Open FTTH effort has been rolled out in Amsterdam and is available to about 100,000 households. Reggefiber, another Dutch carrier is going to upgrade all its networks to 1 Gbps in 2010. Reggefiber is active in > 40 cities, half a million homes passed with 320,000 homes connected, thus making it one of the largest 1 Gbps deployments anywhere.
* In Japan, both NTT and KDDI are offering 1 Gbps services to residential buildings.
* Sweden has a 1 Gbps network which has been in place since 2007. There are several other such offerings in Scandinavia. Singapore is also building a 1 Gbps network that will be ready by 2012.
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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