Country's Fastest Broadband Internet Will Soon Chug Along in Chattanooga

The Rupert Murdochian Beck Promised me that government can't do this. Government agencies can't out do the privite idiot corporations - all their commericals ( and fox ) say they are our best source of whatever it is we need. They are the best at everything. Some small city in the "south" operation is incompetent. They can't even pick their noses ruight.

OCM - Was that English?

"The Rupert Murdochian Beck Promised me that government can't do this. Government agencies can't out do the privite idiot corporations - all their commericals ( and fox ) say they are our best source of whatever it is we need. They are the best at everything. Some small city in the "south" operation is incompetent. They can't even pick their noses ruight."

Says the person who cant type. Although I am surprised that the internet capital would be Chattanooga instead of New York I still wouldn't become a bigot against the south because of some outdated ignorant notions that they are incompetent.

Ok, so basically this means you will never, ever be able to keep up with the pop-ups.

"Chattanooga choo-choo indeed" lol

@OCM yeah man I sat here and read that a good 6 times trying to figure out what you were even saying man...I am sure it has a good solid point maybe you could translate. Maybe use google translater?

BTW has no one heard of UTOPIA UTAH ? the Entirely Fiber Optic string of Cities? You are acting like what these people are doing is new? Seriously? http://www.utopianet.org/ They been doing the entire fiber for awhile now....so what is the deal with the go Chattanooga thing? Unless i am completely wrong which is possible. I do tend to not read good...

Who the hell in Chattanooga needs 1gbps?! Oh well, I hope bigger cities will begin to follow their lead.

Does anyone really NEED 1gbps? I'd be happy with 10% of that, but I sure wouldn't pay $350 a month for internet regardless.

The only other option here in Chattanooga is Comcast, and they offer a base of 12down & 2up and only manage to squeeze out about 5mbps either way on a good day (at least that's been the case for me). Plus the basic cable package w/ EPB is _so_ much better. It's been months of anxiously watching the lines being run along my road and fighting off jealousy every time I see another "We're Connected!" sign in someone else's yard. It's a big deal here, especially for folks like myself who work in the IT industry. The PR alone is bringing a lot of new growth to the area. Plus, the act of having to run all of those fibres on a deadline has provided much needed job opportunities to the community.

Rebecca Boyle: the balls it took to caption that picture as such, and a month after his death, astounds and amazes me and reminds me why I read PopSci. = )

This is so clearly an effort to turn Chattanooga into a central hub for internet based companies. Maybe they want to build a little silicon valley down south.

Chattanooga vs NYC: Its a test market. So when something goes wrong, only a small town full of people will be angry and disenfranchised with the product. Construction costs of installing the system would (probably) be exponentially greater in NYC, and it would take a lot longer to get it up and running. Instead of complaining that you can't be part of the test market, be glad that they've chosen a smart place to start. So that one day giganet will make its way to your neighborhood.

sure u could get a gigabit across chattanooga, but what about when you're accessing information from anywhere outside chattanooga? youtube, hulu, MMO games, wouldn't those still only go as fast as the slowest link between you and the other party? we need to fiber the entire country. i have never even seen 1mb downspeeds lol

1) Chattanooga is in a deep valley, which has protected it from the sprawl of many other sothern cities, making fiber optic to the home more feasible that many other cities.

2) The city was already overhauling its entire electrical grid - putting in fiber now ended up costing the city only the cost of materials - the labor was already covered.

3) There was some federal grant money involved and this city does become a testing ground to future projects - particularly since the lines are being run all the way out into the rural connections.

4) LOCAL government - not federal, not state - was in charge of this project through the LOCAL utility. The opening comment criticism Rupert Murdock's and Glen Beck's Fox News based assertions that the FEDERAL government could not do such a think misses who actually did this.

5) The current pricing is based off of relating speeds. If 10mbps second costs $35, why wouldn't 1gbps cost $350? That is still 1/10th the cost per mbps. Once the market is established, then costing will find a balance. After all, an apartment complexs, buisnesses, and schools could offer the potential for ridiculous speed from a single connection - clearly this is more than one private citizen could use. Of course, a small subdivision could easily chip in for one access point and run their own lines.

In time, I am sure the utility will find a way to offer residental service at a residental price.

I live in Japan where Fiber Optic is the norm. I pay about 70 bucks a month for what is the same as a private t-1 line in the USA. It is pretty sweet. Bit torrent runs faster than you can blink. The problem indeed is the USA. The internet works both ways. When I play games or connect to an American site I have to deal with THEIR speeds. at the very least you wont be getting any lag on my end. The ping to Atlanta is still REALLY low.

@ Oakspar

Actually, the federal government is granting money to implement 'fiber-to-the-home' networks in rural areas. My previous employer (small rural telco) just received over $120 million as part of the government's Broadband Initiative Program. The government isn't stepping in directly, but they are providing the funding for the ISP's.

The countries fastest?

My company has been rolling out GigE (if that is what the customer wants) down to our "Slowest economy tier of 20 Mbps" fiber based service for several years in Lake Point and Tooele, Utah. All underground construction. Privately held. $59.05/month for 20 Mbps. How is this TN thing "news". We are not unique. Lots of small companies are doing this.

And if you really really need 10 Gbps, we have DWDM service available...

@beehive - Does your company offer access to every singe household in the entire metropolitan service area?

Hey we've got gigabit network speeds at TTU 100 miles north of Chattanooga. On a quiet day here you can see downloads of 1.5 mb/sec-3.5 mb/sec.

Mr.Wright85 - Are you serious. Nothing of significance happens anywhere but the East and West coasts? Get out a little bit. Chattanooga has alot of big players. Start Googling a little.

Tennessee isn't exactly the south. they are more of a border state if I remember correctly... and run the same line as NC. Anyway only people in the ignorant cities think anyone outside of NY or California are ignorant, or unintelligent. Actually one of the best Jet engine mechanics I know came from Tennessee. Fact is based on living in all of the places mentioned and then some my NY education was the worst and around 4 years behind the grade level I was at... I never understood the grading scale they used for who is the most educated. If Fowler High in Syracuse is any clue to the rest of NY then that state should fall well below Arizona. They were using books in NY for eleventh grade that were issued in seventh grade in Arizona. Not to mention the instructor actually copied my seventh grade instructor from Arizona's work. Exactly the same work pages that Mr. Walsh authored. It was too funny they thought I was cheating because I knew all the answers the first day of class then explained I had already done all the work four years prior. Obviously NY fluffs its markers for education to make itself look good. As you can see from this though they are in a case of extreme lag. Given that they supposedly place above Arizona.

Anyway point of all that is that Tennessee is just as worthy as any other state and more than likely far more deserving than places in New England.

@inaka_rob,

Hey there. I live in the states and I have no problem connecting to servers around the country. Very speedy. Playing games with people in the country is pretty darn fast too. I think the problem isn't that our servers are slow. I can't remember the last time anything I tried to do on the net was slow. But, the bridge between our countries would explain that problem. Connecting to servers in Japan from my end does prove to be slow. Just thought I'd add that.

lol @ mrright,

[Paraphrased]
"Who needs 1gbps?"
"I want 1gbps"

Me too, mr... Me too. ;-)

There are many efficiencies to be gained with perpetual, or near perpetual video-audio interfaces in our communities. We already benefit from police and civilian based security cameras but I can see that a realtime traffic grid display could help us shave hours off of daily gridlocks much as we have been waiting for tech-embedded streets/vehicles to do. Wouldn't it be neat if we were actually taking care of so many things with computers that we could fire half of our 'government'?

Anyhow, there was one guy that thought we could do stuff like that. Aristotle, I think his name was. He was one of those sci-fi nuts. I bet he'd be impressed with a microwave oven. I bet if he were here he wouldn't have a job either.

Has anyone considered the idea that many of our troubles as a people stem from a growing awareness that humanity is being cheated out of something better than greed by pushing the unbridled profit motive thing? Oh, yeah, and that just maybe there are in fact, real limits to how much any system can be violently abused by those entrusted to administer it? We should be making the transition to a computer literate people a paying option for a massive workforce that has no job. Seems like I remember reading somewhere that someone...China, I think, has more people that can hack a computer than we have people...or was it than we have computer literate people? Anyway, a significant number that could be altered; or not. Ya know; I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find a few savants out there in computer land that have still never touched a computer, or if they have it was just database input.

Wow, that's seriously fast if it actually delivers anywhere near that speed. It's more of a showcase stunt though as I can't see anyone paying $350 a month for any broadband service no matter how fast.

@ twobrain: Yeah, and even though the states' know it, and the U.S. Department of Education definitely knows it; the continued usage of terms like 'fluff' or 'padded' in descriptives of the numbers that are being FALSIFIED and then FRAUDULENTLY pointed to as the federal funds are being MISAPPROPRIATED almost alleviates the DELIBERATE CRIMINAL ACTS being committed against the children in a state like Washington that was supposed to receive those funds BASED ON MERIT. But that was before the numbers got 'FLUFFED'.