Google Fiber Chief: People Will Use 1Gbps Fibre Broadband If You Build It

‘Build it and they will come’: that’s the message the executive in charge of Google Fiber is spreading around the world, and one that Australia should listen to.

The AFR reported this morning that Kevin Lo, the head of Google’s Fiber project that sees fibre internet deployed in certain cities around the US, has told the Broadband World Forum that the switch up to super-fast fibre networks will kick off a new generation of apps for us to use.

Lo added that the change from dial-up to broadband created all the applications we cherish on the internet today, before saying that the switch up to a fibre world would do the same.

Google Fiber is a service that sees the internet giant roll-out fibre networks across selected cities in the US to show the world what can really be done with a fast internet connection. Speeds of up to 1Gbps are possible on the network, and high-tech businesses from all over the world are moving to these new fibre hubs to do business.

It’s definitely worth reading Kevin Lo’s full quotes on the AFR.

It’s a sage lesson for Australia, which has just elected the Coalition government. The Coalition and its Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull ran on a platform of deploying a thinned-down fibre-to-the-node network rather than one that ran directly to the home because ordinary Aussies wouldn’t need all that bandwidth just yet.

It’s argument between the chicken and the egg: if you build a fast fibre network, will the users make stuff to put on it, or should the stuff actually exist before the network goes ahead?

It seems that in Kansas City, Google is certainly seeing the fruit of ‘build it, and they will come’. [AFR]


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