Fastest Net Service in U.S. Coming to Chattanooga ($350 a month)

[Yves]

Fastest service at a price...

Fastest Net Service in U.S. Coming to Chattanooga
The New York Times
September 12, 2010

By Steve Lohr

In the global race to see who can offer the fastest Internet service, an unlikely challenger has emerged: Chattanooga, Tenn.

The city-owned utility, EPB, plans to announce on Monday that by the end of this year it will offer ultra-high-speed Internet service of up to one gigabit a second. That is 200 times faster than the average broadband speed in America.

Only Hong Kong and a few other cities in the world offer such lightning-fast service, and analysts say Chattanooga will be the first in the United States to do so. “This makes Chattanooga — a midsized city in the South — one of the leading cities in the world in its digital capabilities,” said Ron Littlefield, the city’s mayor.

There is one caveat: the highest-speed service will cost $350 a month, a price that may appeal to some businesses but few households, even though the service will be offered to all the 170,000 homes and businesses EPB serves.

(...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/technology/13broadband.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=all

 

[andysayshi]

Pardon me, boy?

 

[Corny]

and how fast is 200 times faster than the average broadband speed? this is worthless without a real number ..

 

[Adrock-JD]

It's not just about your "available" speed.

My high speed broadband service downloads at about 11.84 MB/sec most of the time if I check it on http://www.bandwidthplace.com/

On weekend nights and holidays it can be slower.

However, I have yet to find any website which allows anything over 1.5 MB/sec downloading. Most are about half that rate on a good day. The more people hitting the site, the slower it downloads.

$350 per month is also a joke. How many households can afford that?

Here's a test I just ran

I believe that would make 1 GB/sec 83 times faster? 1000/12

 

[Corny]

^ massive parallel downloading.

 

[Adrock-JD]

^ I hadn't thought of that.

 

[T-Rexx]

and how fast is 200 times faster than the average broadband speed? this is worthless without a real number ..

"...up to one gigabit per second..."

$350 per month is also a joke. How many households can afford that?

It's aimed primarily at businesses (although homeowners can participate if they're willing to fork over the cash). But the price may not last long.

“We don’t know how to price a gig,” said Harold DePriest, chief executive of EPB. “We’re experimenting. We’ll learn.”

 

[T-Rexx]

Here's a test I just ran

I believe that would make 1 GB/sec 83 times faster? 1000/12

I just ran my own test on my 3G connection = 0.27 Mbps

1000/0.27 = 3,704 x faster than my current wireless 3G connection.

 

[Kulindahr]

is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?

Yeah, like it rolled out of Back to the Future III