How do you use 1Gbps Internet links? Chattanooga residents find out

With the caveat that much will depend on how Google prices its symmetrical 1-Gbps service in Kansas City, Kan., results from Chattanooga, Tenn. suggest that prices will have to be substantially lower than anything consumers yet have seen, to entice people to pay for a full 1-Gbps worth of capability. See http://chattanoogagig.com/.

EPB's fiber network currently covers all 600 square miles serviced by the community-owned Electric Power Board, which has also provided electricity for decades. EPB rolled out a 1-Gbps upgrade in the fall of 2010, but it "hasn't been flooded with calls" for the service, says David Wade, EPB COO.

Indeed, even this may be overstating current demand; only six or seven Chattanooga residents and "several businesses" have ordered the high-end service, which launched with a $350 per month price tag.

Most customers likely are buying the typical triple-play packages of video, phone and broadband access at speeds up to about 30 Mbps that EPB sells for about $120 a month. EPB also sells 50 Mbps connections and 100 Mbps connections as well as the top-end 1-Gbps service.

In November 2010, EPB said it was "ahead of our business plan projections. Since our launch last September (2009), we have signed up 18,873 homes to our EPB fiber optics services."

That is a 15.5 percent take rate. The EPB goal is a 35 percent take rate, and EPB believed in November 2010 that it would reach that level by 2012 or early 2013. See http://www.muninetworks.org/tags-90.

So Google faces a bit of a quandry. Does it really want to make money providing access, or does it want to provide a testing ground for new applications and consumer behaviors. The goals might be contradictory.

How do you use 1Gbps Internet links? Chattanooga residents find out