Monday, September 13, 2010

The US' Fastest Internet Speed Is Coming to Chattanooga, Tennessee

The US' Fastest Internet Speed Is Coming to Chattanooga, Tennessee

If you've ever heard of Chattanooga in Tennessee, chances are you're either a resident or you remember this remarkable UFO house constructed in the '70s. From today, it'll be known for offering the fastest internet connection in the US—1Gbps.

Of course, the 1Gbps speed from EPB won't be a patch on the 40Gbps that this Swedish granny was drying her laundry on two years ago, but 1Gbps is actually 200 times faster than the average speed the rest of the US receives.

Any Chattanooga citizens dreaming of lightning-fast downloads will have to fork out $350 a month, though the CEO of EPB admitted that they "don't know how to price a gig...we're experimenting. We'll learn."

In a quote reminiscent of George Mallory's infamous answer to the question of why he chose to climb Mt Everest, the EPB CEO Harold DePriest told the NY Times the reason they're launching a 1Gbps service is "because we can."

Non-Chattanoogaians after similarly-fast speeds will have to look to Google to provide the answer. Bad luck if you weren't one of the 500,000 lucky individuals chosen for their fiber network experiment.

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