Mother Jones
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Who needs superfast internet, anyway?
A few dozen cities in America have next-generation broadband networks that offer speeds of 1 gigabit per second — about 50 times faster than a typical connection. These super-fast connections were supposed to revolutionize Americans’ experience of the internet and rev up the country’s noncompetitive broadband market.
….But six years after the first super-fast connections went live, even proponents concede no “killer” gigabit application has emerged. Most of their potential, critics say, is simply ignored by users. And building gigabit networks nationwide would be a colossally expensive undertaking.
I find this amusing because my local cable company is moving toward gigabit internet and has flooded my TV with breathless ads about what we can do with it. So far, the answer is: make 3D sugar concoctions, play some kind of holographic game of tag, and force grandpa to dance by taking control of his artificial digital legs.
“That’s what I’m going to do with Gigablast,” says the 3D food kid at the end of his ad. If that’s really the case, it makes me less likely to bother with it, not more.
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