WBS: “The Future of the Internet is in Lafayette, Louisiana”

What’s Being Said Dept.

A reporter for Governing Magazine has blogged a nice piece on Lafayette’s Fiber network. An excerpt:

What if you could hold a video conference from your home? What if your doctor could send your MRI electronically to another of your doctors who needs it? What if you could upload a video of your child’s soccer game and send it to grandma in seconds?

…we may all be looking to Lafayette for the future of the Internet.

The post is a teaser for an August story that I’m now looking forward to. It briefly points to the local struggle, to critics of the idea of a city showing such gall, and promises the final story will set out more detail. It’s nice to see the positive publicity—and in a place that may well influence other communities to follow our lead.

One caveat: the author talks about the intranet as having “bursted” speeds of 100 mbps. That’s a misconception; the up to 100 mbps intranet is a real speed, not a short, temporary burst. I get 95-96 mbps on the intranet in a constant stream. —And with low latency to boot. (Bursting is what Cox does when it gives you a few seconds of higher speed on a large download; it’s a widespread cable company extra—and a gimmick allowing advertising I consider deceptive. Cox will not “burst” your video chat or gaming stream. Don’t confuse those numbers with real speed.)

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