Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010    Text size: 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google plans to try out ultra-fast broadband access for home internet use.

According to CNET, Google plans a test that will provide 50,000 to 500,000 people with fiber-optic broadband internet access with a network speed of a gigabite per second.

"We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States,” Google product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly said in a blog post. “We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections."

“Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone."

Google’s Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called for better internet access as a matter of national competitiveness.

The average broadband download speed in the U.S. now is 7.12 megabites per second, while the average upload speed is 2.42Mbps.

Google says it wants to test new ways to build fiber networks and to see what applications programmers can write.

Google says it will work with third parties to offer their own internet access services using Google’s network.