Google Expands Into High-Speed Internet Access

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as they’ve consistently broadened their direct-to-consumer network service.  First, the wireless broadband made available in the Mountain View area, and most recently airports.  Their purchases of fiber over the past years was not done without a long-range plan, being that their business thrives whenever they remove barriers between themselves and consumers.  By eventually offering an alternative to Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and others, they’ll be able to offer end-to-end solutions that further the quantity of data they have for selling and analysis.

With speeds upwards of 1Gb per second, it would eliminate one significant barrier to the quantity of rich web-based applications and their quality – high definition video streaming comes to mind.  And all of this will eventually ‘trickle down’ to the enterprise.  Cisco has to be concerned, as the ability to evolve Google Video from a video sharing service to real-time video collaboration becomes obvious.  And with the announcement of Google Buzz and the (eventual) maturing of Google Wave, Microsoft’s unified communications platform and SharePoint suite will also come under fire.

Official Google Blog: Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network