[BPt111]

Would u see Google Fiber or something close in CT ?


HARTFORD – Three Connecticut cities want to start discussions with ultra-high speed Internet providers to bring businesses and residents connections to the World Wide Web that are 100 times faster than they now have.
Officials from New Haven, Stamford and West Hartford joined state officials and business leaders Monday to announce the effort to bring true high-speed Internet service to this state.
"There is an overwhelming need today … for cheaper, easier acccess to ultra-high speed Internet service," Elin Swanson Katz, Connecticut's consumer counsel, said during a news conference on the concept.
Cities and regions across the U.S. have in recent years managed to get businesses like Google Fiber, AT&T, CenturyLink and Cox to put in ultra-high speed systems in their communities. Connecticut has no such system, and state and local officials warned the lack of such service is putting this state in the slow lane of the information highway.


Katz warned that it will be at least three-to-five years before any Connecticut city could see this sort of ultra-fast Internet service. "We're talking about major infrastructure," she said. "It's not going to happen overnight."
Google staged a competition several years ago to choose the first city to receive it's ultra-high speed Internet service and Kansas City won in 2011. Katz said Google Fiber's service in that city "is just starting to roll out now."
Charles Ward, a chief information officer and technology analyst for a private investment firm in West Hartford who appeared during the news conference Monday, said Google's customers in Kansas City are now paying $70 a month for the gigabit service, and that real estate prices "have sky rocketed" because of all the young people moving in to work at high-tech start-ups.
Ward said his company's Internet service in West Hartford is, by contrast, "costly and slow."


"We have to move forward," said New Haven Mayor Toni Harp. She said the slow Internet service for many Connecticut consumers is now rated at 9 megabits per second, and is holding up economic progress. Ultra-high speed service at up to 1,000 megabits per second, would allow information to "glide almost effortlessly around Connecticut and beyond, " Harp said.
Naiara Azpiri, vice president of a high-tech New Haven-based start-up named Veoci, also a participant in the news conference, called the project to get faster Internet service in Connecticut "extremely important to us" because her company serves a global customer base. Veoci is a web-based emergency management software company.


Harp, West Hartford Deputy Mayor Shari Cantor, and Stamford Mayor David R. Martin said they are also hoping other Connecticut municipalities will join what they envision as a "gigabite capable network in targeted commercial corridors."
Katz said that major Internet service providers are already offering this type of service in virtually every region of the nation except Connecticut and most of New England.
The only areas in New England that do have gigabit Internet service is one section of Maine linked to the University of Maine's system, and Burlington, Vermont.

New Haven was selected, in part, because it was one of 1,500 communities around the country that sought in 2010 to have technology giant Google wire their cities at no charge with ultra high-speed Internet capability. Kansas City, Missouri, was selected by Google in 2011 and the company offers ultra high-speed service at a cost of $70 per month.

Katz said officials in Kansas City “were so upset they weren’t selected that Google cut a deal with them” so that both cities are now wired with Google’s fiber optic cables.



Blair Levin, who advised the Office of Consumer Counsel, said he is bullish on the state’s chances of making this happen. Levin is executive director of Gig.U, a group of over 30 leading research universities around the country seeking to expand broadband Internet service into adjoining communities. Levin said the regulatory environment in the state, where lawmakers voted two years ago to make it possible for public private partnerships to use utility poles for their networks, is considered very favorable among ultra high-speed Internet providers.

“There is no downside to trying to make this happen,” said Levin, a graduate of Yale College and Law School. “And the alternative is doing nothing, in which case we’re dead.”

Two years ago, Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, managed to get a bill through the General Assembly that allowed existing utility poles to be used to create high-speed Internet systems. But no Internet provider has yet taken advantage of that legislation.
"I don't think we're behind the curve," Katz said of the lack of progress in Connecticut toward gigabit-speed service. "The whole [New England] region has had challenges for reasons I don't completely understand," she added.
According to Katz, the requests put out by the three cities this week "doesn't involve municipal financial support" for creating any of these new systems.
Companies interested in talking with the cities about high-speed networks should respond with any questions by Oct. 15, and full responses must be back by Nov. 18, Katz said.

[FutureTown]

Can we please flood the entire NYC metro area of CT with Verizon Fios? Ugh. Although...internet speed compared to rest of the country aren't so bad. But still!

[western mass and love it]

Verizon fios is dead. If you don't have it you never will.