Google on Wednesday announced the installation of its first site testing internet speeds of 20 Gbps – more than double its fastest offering.
The internet giant installed the site at the United Way of Utah County, which provides resources and community outreach programs.
“We are so excited to have Google Fiber bringing us a 20 Gbps connection,” said Bill Hulterstrom, president and CEO of United Way of Utah County. “A 20 Gbps connection allows us to explore the future, to do other things we have not done before to better connect to the community, to better connect to the services, to better connect the people.”
While Google was already testing 20 Gbps speeds with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the United Way represents the first test site in the nation. The deployment follows an announcement by Google in May that it was looking for locations to test its radically faster service.
Google has been expanding 5 Gbps and 8 Gbps throughout the nation, with plans to launch in Logan, Utah, next year. Customers have been pleased with the connection and speed, with plans starting at $70 a month.
Those higher speeds – not to mention the 20 Gbps option – are faster than most households really need.
However, organizations like United Way use significantly more bandwidth than the average household.
“We are so excited to have Google Fiber bringing us a 20 Gbps connection,” said Bill Hulterstrom, president and CEO of United Way of Utah County. “A 20 Gbps connection allows us to explore the future, to do other things we have not done before to better connect to the community, to better connect to the services, to better connect the people.”
Google chose the University of Missouri-Kansas City as the first organization after putting a call out for test locations. The college’s School of Science and Engineering departments use massive amounts of bandwidth to compute big data sets. One focus is making “virtual reality less virtual and more reality,” said Nick Saporito, head of multi-Gbps and commercial product for Google Fiber.
In May, Google began looking for eight organizations to test its 20 Gbps service. The company accepted applications from businesses, non-profits, and education systems in Austin, Texas, Huntsville, Alabama, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Salt Lake City, Utah. It was looking for places that used a lot of bandwidth conducting research or downloading and uploading massive datasets.