Seattle is on its way of getting a high-speed fiber network, both for the homes and businesses. These plans were first announced by the Mayor, Mike McGinn earlier this month. According to Mr. McGinn, this sizeable project will be undertaken by the broadband developer, Gigabit Squared.
Initially, the high-speed fiber network will be provided to twelve neighbourhoods in Seattle. The limited roll-out is meant to act as a test scenario for the stakeholders involved. Eventually, the service will be expanded to other parts of the city.
Authorities as well as businesses have pinned high hopes on this project, citing that this could spur new opportunities and also equip facilities such as hospitals and universities with the much-required bandwidth to significantly enhance the services they make use of.
The project is rather huge, at least as far as the plans are concerned. Gigabit Squared intends to hook up the aforementioned twelve neighbourhoods to the offering that provides fiber network connectivity to homes and businesses. This part of the project will involve 50,000 households and the speed of the internet provided will be up to 1000 times faster than the conventional solutions.
The second part of the project aims to provide gigabit wireless connectivity to different areas by setting up fiber transmitters atop 38 buildings around the city. This will enable Gigabit Squared to target a significant portion of the population.
Finally, the twelve neighbourhoods which would be getting the direct fiber connectivity will also be able to enjoy next-gen wireless cloud services through mobile access. The neighbourhoods that are included, as per Seattle’s official website are thus:
Area 1: the University of Washington’s West Campus District, Area 2: South Lake Union, Area 3: First Hill/Capitol Hill/Central Area, Area 4: the University of Washington’s Metropolitan Tract in downtown Seattle, Area 5: the University of Washington’s Family Housing at Sand Point, Area 6: Northgate, Area 7: Volunteer Park Area, Area 8: Beacon Hill and SODO Light Rail Station and Areas 9-12: Mount Baker, Columbia City, Othello, and Rainier Beach.
Source: Seattle.gov
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