Ron Schenone

Hawaii Says Yes To Google – Honolulu Erupts In Excitement!

Posted by on Feb 15, 2010 | 10 Comments

The people in the state of Hawaii are excited by the prospect that Google could be offering the islands 1 gigabite per second Internet speeds. The people of Hawaii are hoping that their state will be selected by Google if and when the company starts its trials of faster Internet services. The officials of Hawaii have stated that they are ready to proceed and have already been in contact with Google officials.

At the Honolulu Star Bulletin a recent article also states:

Google said on its blog that it wants to see what developers and users can do with ultrahigh speeds, such as creating new, bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services. Google also wants to explore new ways to build fiber networks and create a network that other service providers can use to offer the same high-speed service, sort of like the traditional wire-line phone companies did with competing long-distance service providers back in the 1980s.

Hawaiian Telcom’s network is capable of providing such speeds, said Ann Nishida, media relations manager. “We plan to increase them in the future and will share details at an appropriate time.”

“We’re fortunate that we do have a relationship with them … so we feel good about that and hope we can be one of those states” chosen to participate, he said.

Lingle and a team of officials are preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Association conference, and Klompus said “we are happy to go meet (with) and do whatever is needed to do to move this forward on behalf of the governor.”

“This is a great thing and a wonderful opportunity to have speeds 100 times faster than what we have today,” Klompus said. “We need it.”

The powers-that-be at Google will announce the company’s decisions “sometime this year,” Martin said.

For those who have been to the islands before, you may have seen the spotty service available. The last time my wife and I went the service around Kona was hit or miss. Though this was a major benefit since I actually got away from the Internet for a week, it would have been nice to stay in contact with Lockergnome and my blog.

Comments welcome.

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  • http://mah.smugmug.com Ken Jackson

    [b]For those who have been to the islands before, you may have seen the spotty service available. The last time my wife and I went the service around Kona was hit or miss. Though this was a major benefit since I actually got away from the Internet for a week, it would have been nice to stay in contact with Lockergnome and my blog.[/b]

    Ron I live in the the Leeward Isles of French Polynesia and our DSL is metered and speeds are around 56kbps. Last month a lot of the family had picked up virii, from all the crap they pass back and forth on these usb flash drives.. Or from the net. Thinking I was a good sam, I downloaded a lot of malware/virus removers and other proggies to help out with. Needless to say I had a $450.00 internet bill for running over their 12 gig limit (that is total up and down, not each way). My normal monthly payment is about 120 a month depending on the dollars value. We are supposed to be getting fiber optics and it will be thru another company which will be in competition with Mana our government service provider.. I can only hope.. They just completed the Fiber Optic Cable run thru the islands and on to Hawaii…. Boy, betcher bottom dollar I’m hopin…

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  • http://engineeringdelights.blogspot.com/ Alekz

    1 Gigabyte per second != 1 Gigabit per second. I think you mean Gigabit. If you do mean Gigabyte, then it really is a breakthrough.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Thanks Alekz

  • Charles

    Aloha, Chris! I’m living here in Oahu and I could use that kind of speed. I really can’t wait! As locals say here in excitement… chee huu!

  • http://www.cyberspaceview.com Kevin Markwell

    It’d be really handy if it was clear that this is one gigabit (134217728 bytes per second). Elsewhere it says “gigabit being 100 times faster than what they have now”, e.g. http://www.hawaii247.org/2010/02/13/big-island-fiber-initiative-wants-your-support-for-high-speed-internet/

  • http://tracker1.info/ tracker1

    @Alekz and @kevin, To be honest, I’d be happy with 1gBps or 1gbps… Compared to a mid-range 5mbps most of the country maxes out at, it’s a massive improvement. I have a 20mbps connection, though most sites will max out at a 300kbps transfer speed. By comparison, there is no comparison, you’re talking greater than a 100% difference for most people, which is unfathomable beyond that. Not to mention the fact that those speeds are far more than many computer interface channels can even process. I’d be beyond very happy with 100mbps full duplex.

  • YOGESH PAWAR

    WOW……can they provide it at international levels, i mean, back in INDIA, the speed sucks!!!!

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  • http://gakidooscomputerrepair.com Dale Powell

    Remember the DSL/Cable internet comparisons to 56K Dial-Up, how they touted speeds 100x as fast? Well, this would be like that again. Imagine calling cable or dsl slow! With speeds like what Google is talking about, we are going to see some revolutionary applications. Since most of us have 10/100 MBps Network cards, it was the cable/dsl companies that were the bottleneck. Now it is going to be the Network Cards in our own computers that will be the bottle neck (easily fixed), unless you already have gigabit networking already. WOW!!!