Google to build high-speed community networks in US

Google would offer ISP services at a “competitive price” but would also open its networks to the competition. In a blog posting the company announced it was looking for communities of at least 50,000 and up to 500,000 people and asked for submissions from council leaders or individuals.

“We want to try out new ways to build and operate fibre networks and share what we learn with the world,” said James Kelly, product manager on Google's infrastructure team.”

“We're going to operate open access networks, meaning we'll share our networks with other service providers giving users more choice.”

Google said that it also wanted developers to work on new 'killer' applications that could take advantage of this new bandwidth and would be looking to open the techniques it uses for building and maintaining the network with the rest of the world.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski applauded the news.

"Big broadband creates big opportunities," he said in a statement.

"This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed Internet apps, devices and services."

Google has run free Wi-Fi in Mountain View, where it has its headquarters, since 2006.

The open nature of the trials is consistent with Google's advocacy of net neutrality and open networks, as well as releasing tools to help users spot network throttling in other ISPs.

“We hope this will serve as an example to other network operators that the open model should not be feared, but should be emulated. Profit and openness are mistakenly seen to be in conflict,” said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition.

“Ultrafast and open broadband will not only provide a new and exciting platform for the next generation of internet services and apps, but will hopefully inject new life into the extinct third party ISP marketplace.”