It appears that the completion of Australia’s world beating, super speed, 100 megabit broadband network is now a further six months away and the cost of construction has blown out by more than 1.4 billion dollars. Operating costs are expected to increase by 4 billion plus.
Now let’s fast forward to Kansas City, USA, where Google has just launched a fibre net service which incorporates an interactive TV service and a staggering 1 gigabit (1,000 megabit) broadband service.
The TV service provides an interactive search that that lets you search your DVR as well as content provided by third party online services. It will include a DVR with up to 500 hours of storage of shows and movies in 1,080p High Definition. It also has the capability of recording up to eight TV shows at once. The TV service will include all the regular broadcast TV channels currently delivered by cable, hundreds of Google Fibre TV channels, thousands of TV shows on demand and premium movie channels.

In regard to pricing, there is a $300 charge for each home that gets the fibre service, towards the cost of construction of the link. But for the initial rollout, that fee is being waved.
Google is offering three different packages. The first, a combination of the fast broadband and the interactive TV service, will cost $120 a month. For this customers will receive 1 Gigabit connectivity on both the upstream and downstream without any data cap. It also comes with 1 terabyte of Cloud storage.

The second package is for broadband only customers at a cost of $70 per month with I Gigabit downloads and uploads and 1 terabyte of data storage.

A third package is aimed at the 25% of Kansas City people who have no broadband at present. For a limited period, those that pay the $300 installation fee will receive broadband with a download speed of 5 megabits and an upload of 1 megabit, free for a period of seven years! Customers choosing this option will be able to pay the $300 installation fee at the rate of $25 a month for the first year.

By the way, although the plan was first announced as a possibility in February 2010, construction did not commence until February of this year and will be ready for take-up in September, a total of just seven months.
Also, everyone signing up for the combined package will be given a free Google Android Nexus 7 tablet which can also be used as a remote control.

Doesn’t it make you sick!