Gigabit City, Or Not?

As often happens in the telecom and technology businesses, companies make announcements by press release. Sometimes, the releases are accurate, but the headlines or summaries are factually incorrect.

“The City of Santa Maria will become the Central Coast’s first truly gigabit city under an agreement with Wave Broadband,” reads a summary on a press release announcing that

Wave Broadband will complete construction of the City’s fiber-optic ring.

The release also says the network will “bring reliable, high-speed gigabit service to City departments, businesses, schools, and residents as a whole.” That last clause--”residents as a whole”--seems to refer to public Wi-Fi hotspots to be activate as part of the municipal network.

The release says the municipal network “will also allow the city to offer public Wi-Fi in its revitalizing downtown core,” while Wave evaluate “providing Wi-Fi in residential neighborhoods where traditional carriers have been slow to upgrade internet service.”

The claim of “gigabit city” seems overblown, if the actual words are accurate. There is nothing wrong with public hotspots. But most observers would think the term “gigabit city” also includes residential gigabit service at home locations.

Now, it is possible that whoever wrote the release confuses Wi-Fi with fiber to the home service. It also is possible that Wave is considering some new deployment offering Wi-Fi in residential areas.

That seems out of character for Wave, which has been building fiber-to-home networks for residential customers elsewhere.

The point is, the release is confusing. That is not unusual, unfortunately.