Google is working on 10 gigabytes per second (Gbps) data transfer speed, which may become a reality in the near term.
The company currently offers fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) service in the U.S. called Google Fiber, which provides broadband Internet and television services to limited locations only. The company rolled out its first Google Fiber service in certain locations of Kansas City where the current data transfer speed is 1 Gbps.
Google has already announced that the company has chosen Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, which will also get Google Fiber soon.
However, during the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference on Wednesday, Feb. 12, Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette confirmed that the company is working on the technology that can bring 10 Gbps data transfer speed.
Pichette explained that Google Fiber is currently moving at a 10-year pace, which means that the service will achieve high speed of 10 Gbps by 2022. However, there is no reason that the Internet web giant cannot push hard and quicken the process to bring the technology in shorter time span.
Google has the vision to bring next-generation Internet to the U.S., which will allow stable connection for data intensive applications. The average U.S. connection speed is 7.2 megabytes per second (Mbps), which means that Google is looking to speed up the Internet by at least 1,000 times.
Very few customers need access to 1 Gbps Internet speed. However, faster Internet speed means people into streaming media, cloud storage, video chats, software updates, and multiplayer games will benefit the most.
With the development in technology, Internet users may want to stream higher-resolution 4K video, which may require high data transfer speeds. Netflix is already planning to bring streaming of 4K content that is expected to require 15 Mbps data transfer Internet connection, which is around twice the bandwidth needed to stream Super HD content.
Google is not the only company which is trying to work on the 10 Gbps data transfer speed technology. In 2013, some researcher in the UK said that they were working on a similar project. The UK researchers indicate that they were expecting to achieve high-speed 10 Gbps data transmission speeds using Li-Fi. The Li-Fi system uses a micro-LED light bulb that transmits 3.5 Gbps across each of the three primary colors of visible light: red, blue, and green.
