That improvement in latency could be explained by the activation of the line, with Renesys pointing out that Telefonica recently began providing Internet service to Cuba. More specifically, Telefonica began providing service to ETECSA, Cuba’s state-run communications company, on January 14. That is the date Renesys thinks the ALBA-1 cable, which has been finished and ready for prime time since 2011, was turned on.

Interestingly enough, the findings suggest that the cable is only accepting traffic in one direction for the time being. It seems that Cuba is receiving traffic through the cable, but outgoing traffic is still sent through the island’s slower satellite Internet service. It’s also worth pointing out that latencies still aren’t where they should be, as Renesys says that routing speeds could still be much better, despite the fact that they’ve improved thanks to Telefonica’s service.

So, while we haven’t heard anything official about the line, it’s at least somewhat likely that the cable is enjoying some traffic. Unfortunately, the line wouldn’t be too much use to most residents of Cuba, as unrestricted access to the Internet is a rarity there. We’ll be keeping an ear to ground for more on this, so stay tuned.

If you’re like me and have been holding out hope that Google would roll its insanely fast fiber service out to the rest of the country, those hopes are all but dashed. A new research note from analytics firm Goldman Sachs is estimated it would cost Google $140 billion or more to roll its Fiber service out to the rest of United States. Google, which happens to be one of the wealthiest tech companies out there, has $45 billion cash on hand.

That number is according to Goldman Sachs and is based on the company’s annual CAPEX budget of $4.5 billion. The analytics company also says that even if Google wanted to target only half the homes the US, the rollout of that network could cost as much as $70 billion.

That means Google would have to take out a massive loan to rollout its fiber service to most major markets around the country. Google obviously had some sort of plans for its fiber service or it wouldn’t have undertaken the expense of rolling out a pilot program in Kansas City. I’m still hoping Google might team up with another company or to in rollout crazy fast fiber-optic Internet, TV service, and phone service around the country.

[via BGR]

Google’s Gigabit Internet package costs $70 per month and comes with a one-year contract that you’ll need to sign. It boasts download and upload speeds of up to one gigabit (obviously) with no data caps, and also comes with a network box and 1TB of Google Drive storage. Normally, Google would charge a $300 construction fee that covers the cost of stringing fiber optic cables to your house, but with this plan that fee is waived.

Unfortunately, Google Fiber is only available in Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO at the moment. In order to get Google Fiber in your neighborhood, you’ll have to head over to the Google Fiber website and pre-register for service. Once you’ve done that, you need to convince your neighbors to pre-register for service too, as Google will only bring its fiber optic service to “fiberhoods” that meet pre-registration requirements. So, rally your neighborhood and show Google that you’re all interested, or get left in the dust as Google brings its network to other neighborhoods. This may be one of the only times you’ll nag your neighbors about something that’s mutually beneficial, so get to it. Stay tuned for more information on Google Fiber!

Though this announcement doesn’t include one whole heck of a lot more information on the system than we saw at the launch of this project, we can see that the end-goal for the situation is what Google set out for it to be. As Google vice president of Access Services Milo Medin said back in 2011, Google’s goal was and is, “is to deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today.”

Those of you in Kansas City that want to take part in this system can sign up at Google.com/Fiber – and Google will also be bringing more information on the project on the 26th of this month as well. For now have a peek at the presentation video that acts a bit more like a commercial than anything else above, and get ready for speed!

Have a peek below at our timeline of the history of Google Fiber as well – come to Minnesota next, please!

It’s still on the books that President Obama plans on closing the detention center, currently housing 169 inmates at this very moment, but all substantive measures aimed at doing so have been blocked thus far in Congress. The fiber optic cable project will be coming (if approved) after the relatively recent construction of a football field for inmates at the detention center, it having cost $744,000 USD on its own.

“It would be a mistake to assume that some potential use of fiber optic communication lines is any indication of how long the detention center will be around. Our goal remains to close the detention facility. We have no plans to close the naval station there.” – Breasseale

The land on which the Guantanamo Bay naval base is built is still being leased to the United States from Cuba, that deal having been initiated all the way back in 1903. The prison there has been detaining “terror suspects” since 2001, and the entire facility was marred with controversy since its existence was first hitting the airwaves in the early 2000′s as well. The US Defense Information Systems Agency has conducted a “feasibility study” for the fiber optic link and have found the potential cost to be around $40 million USD.

[via PhysOrg]

Our resident Londoners here at SlashGear say they’ve never had an issue with packets dropped to coworkers in Tokyo making me rather curious to the true need and expense of the project. The end goal will see latency between London and Tokyo reduced from 230 ms today to 170 ms for a savings of 60 ms. It’s hard to fathom billions spent to save literally a fraction of a second. Two cables will cross the Northwest Passage running through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago the third will skirt the north coast of Scandinavia and Russia.

One of the Canadian bound cables is called Arctic Fiber and the other is called Arctic Link, the Russian coast cable is called Russian Optical Trans-Arctic Submarine Cable System. The newly laid cables will offer a more direct run between London and Tokyo, which is where the reduced latency will come from. As it stands now packets sent from the UK to Tokyo have to travel about 15,000 miles compared to the roughly 10,000-mile trek using the new cables.

Considering the time needed to blink your eyes is between 300 and 400 ms, the latency between Tokyo and London is already less than the blink of an eye. The reduction in latency may seem small, but apparently it can have a big difference in money made or lost in algorithmic stock market trading.

[via ExtremeTech]

Google has chosen Kansas City as its first trial city for Google Fiber, an ultra-fast 1-gigabit fiber optic broadband network that will provide internet connection speeds 100 times faster than current average connection speeds. Google is on track to deploy the new broadband network in Kansas City later this year.

The use of a flat, flexible molding strip means less need for digging, which in turn produces less damage to property and the environment. The molding can run along driveways, along a crack, pressed into the ground or buried in a shallow trench cut in the ground. This method can significantly reduce the amount of time and cost required for deployment.

At MWC 2012, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said that he envisions Google Fiber in almost every city by 2020. Schmidt also expressed sympathy for network operators as many of Google’s service use up a lot of bandwidth while operators struggle with bandwidth limitations, government regulations, and the inability to raise prices or charge services such as YouTube for the usage. Schmidt seems to be suggesting this as part of the reason Google is pursuing the build out of its own infrastructure, which will also be an enabler for the company’s other services.

[via CNET]

The content could then be shot out over its high-speed fiber-optic network for people to watch. Filings show that Google is seeking to register a C-band receive-only earth station along with a Ku-band receive-only earth station, both near its data center. That application outlines the 4.5 m satellite dish array along with permission to access transmissions from satellites, including Intelsat 9, which carries international television programming.

The data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa is a few hundred miles away from Kansas City, which is the city Google selected last year for its massive fiber optic project. That project will see the city wired for high-speed fiber-optic Internet service. The building of that network was delayed in part due to arguments over where Google could run fiber-optic cables on the existing network utility poles.

[via DataCenerKnowelge]

The project will initially involve building a solid fiber backbone. Once this infrastructure is completed, then Google Fiber can connect into homes across Kansas City. It will involve laying down thousands of miles of cables across Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.

The cables contain many glass fibers about the width of a human hair and can deliver data at 1Gbps speeds. The network will be tested for supporting gaming applications and intensive graphics programs.

Data speed is like oxygen, right? Oxygen you take for granted until it disappears. And then it becomes everything.

Cable and DSL weren’t originally designed to transmit and receive digital signals. Originally it was all just the system of copper lines that transmitted analog signals for commercial telephone systems. DSL takes advantage of some property of electromagnetism that I don’t entirely understand to send the signal through the field surrounding the twisted pair. Cable internet, likewise, was bolted-on to the Cable TV system after-the-fact.

It’s not there already because the physical infrastructure that would actually funnel all of the clips of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber to millions of computers through laser beams just doesn’t exist. The beams are not there yet. This allows for some really smart and creative business minds (a.k.a. Google) to have an opportunity to fill these gaps, demand seems to be growing just a little bit faster than the old telecom giants are able to keep up. This is why this project is so important, this allows Google to begin investing some real capital into the Real Stuff that makes up the internet. This market has massive barriers to entry, and Google is taking the leap over the wall.

It’s not all on the telecoms to make these changes to the US network. The Federal government has gotten involved in spreading high-speed access. They have a website that promotes, “Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century.” As a part of the National Broadband Plan those fine folks put together this interactive map of broadband coverage throughout the US.

Note though, Google’s entire project hangs on the approval of KC’s Board of Commissioners. I wonder how many telecommunications lobbyists linked with AT&T and/or Verizon made appointments, phone calls, or visits down to KC’s City Hall today?

This could give Google the leg-up it needs to start building it’s own broadband empire in infrastructure, the only place it matters. Google has been looking to open large parts of the US telecommunications networks, starting with the FCC Auction for the ~ MHz spectrum last year. They have been unsuccessful thus far. It doesn’t really matter that much to consumers which company gets to provide them with fiber. That’s a battle that’s going to be fought in board rooms and City Council meetings over the next decade or so. But the best part of this whole project, if it goes through… This will link the entire town of Kansas City together with hair-thin fibers of glass and laser beams, and that’s a step in the right direction.

One of Google’s more ambitious projects, the Google Fiber Project, seems to be hitting some small snags. While Google wanted to get everything up and running as quickly as possible, it looks like a few unforeseen variables have caused the teams taking part in the project to slow everything down, and even delay the selection process for cities that expressed interest in running the Fiber Project. With an announcement originally scheduled for the end of the year, Google has instead decided to wait a bit longer.

Milo Medin is Google’s new Vice President of Access Services, and in a new blog post at Google’s official blog, says that Google is now aiming for an “early 2011″ selection date. However, just because they’ve extended the amount of time to select the right place(s) to launch Google Fiber, that doesn’t mean that the selection process is opening up again. Quite the opposite, as Medin points out that the process is still closed, so no new entries will be considered.

A very limited trial of Google Fiber was launched at Stanford, to be used by Stanford University professors. In total, there are 1,100 different cities around the United States that tossed their hat into the selection process. With that many cities to consider, it’s really no surprise that this is taking Google a little bit longer to select where they want to launch their high-speed infrastructure.

[via Google Blog]

“Circuits, apparatus, and methods that provide a connector system that can supply both power and data to a mobile computing or other type of device using a single connection. Further examples also provide a power and data adapter that can provide power and data to a mobile computing device using a single cable. Further examples provide an easy disengagement when a cable connected to the connector is pulled. One such example provides a magnetic connector that uncouples without binding when its cord is pulled. Another example prevents power from being provided at a connector insert until the connector insert is placed in a connector receptacle.” Apple patent

Apple doesn’t suggest that the fiber optic technology it has in mind is actually Light Peak, but the company is known to be working with Intel on the new system. The idea to combine a fiber optic link with power would allow for a broader range of ports on a multi-function AC adapter, as in Apple’s illustration above, as well as taking advantage of the easily-detached magnetic port.

Interestingly, the new MagSafe would also apparently be backward compatible with previous, power-only versions of the connection. An alternative system included in the patent suggests a dual-headed cable, with a split AC adapter section and docking array that could, for instance, be placed on top of a table. As with all patents, it’s worth taking this with a pinch of salt – trying to protect the concept doesn’t necessarily mean a company has any intention of actually using it – but given Apple’s historically ruthless attitude to cutting out older ports, switching to fiber optics would certainly make some degree of sense.

[via 9 to 5 Mac and via Patently Apple]

The research is being funded by DARPA and is looking to perfect the brain prosthetic interface and the program has been granted $5.6 million to continue its research. Allowing the brain to control prosthetics isn’t the only thing the technology has a potential use for. The tech could also be used for other man to machines applications like brain implants to control tremor, neuro-modulators to control chronic pain, and implants for people with spinal cord injuries.

The goal of the project is to develop a compatible link between living tissue and computer technologies to the human nervous system with hundreds or even thousands of sensors embedded in a single fiber optic fiber. The researchers say that the fiber optic tech would not be rejected by the body like other materials and would not be attacked and destroyed by the body’s immune system.

And, there’s a lot of cable in there. 15,000 feet of fiber optic cable, actually. As for the petri dishes, there’s about 100 of them, adding a little bit more light to the already luminous creation. It definitely looks like the chandelier is coming out of the ceiling, almost as a part of the house. And that’s exactly what the designers from MADLAB were going for. They intended the piece of beautiful architecture to feel like a living piece of the establishment.

The designers also hope that while the chandelier is great in of itself, that the owners of the house will take to different parts of the house, and use for whatever it is they feel they need to use it for. Or, if they just want another area of the house to look awesome, this is one way to make sure of it.

[via DVICE]

Google has announced that the deadline for communities and individuals to respond to Google’s fiber optic plan and possibly have networks installed in their cities. Google reports that it received more than 1,100 responses from communities and more than 194,000 responses from individuals.

Google has a map that shows the highest concentrations of interest in the country and most were on the western parts of the country. California and Texas also had high concentrations of consumers interested in the fiber optic networks. Google reports that it will evaluate the interest over the coming months and determine where to start the network build.