Gig.U Asks Universities and Telcos To Work Together for the Internet of the Future

A new initiative seeks to create "testbeds" for extraordinarily high-speed Internet access in partnership with 37 universities across the U.S., an attempt to succeed where federal policymaking efforts have so far failed to generate innovative approaches to Internet infrastructure. That initiative, called Gig.U, was expected to release its first public call for information from vendors who want to start talking about how to make this project work.

Championed by the chief architect of the National Broadband Plan, a 376-page policy framework released last year, Gig.U asks vendors to come up with ways to develop experimental networks at speeds of one gigabit, or 1,000 megabits, per second, in partnership with community coalitions anchored by universities. The initiative would provide Internet access 100 times as fast as the 10Mbps speed many providers offer as part of current middle-tier access common in American homes. It also happens to not only step squarely into a large, expensive, and heated ideological debate over the future ownership of the Internet — it also asks some of the main combatants to come to the same table and cooperate. But more on that later. First, what "gigabit Internet" means and why it's worth reading about.