Way back in the mists of time (actually in July last year when Gibbsblog was called “Gearblog”) I wrote about Broadband In Gas (BIG), a nifty idea for providing Internet connectivity via the nation’s natural gas supply system. This concept is still alive and well and apparently gaining some traction …
The allure of BIG is that it can provide upto 6 Gbps to residential consumers at a connection cost of only $200 each — compare that to Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) connections at $400 each and cable at $800! And as gas is supplied to over 62% of American homes BIG is very appealing indeed. According to an Ars Technica article the company developing and promoting BIG, Nethercomm, is planning to start trials in San Diego, Chicago and Atlanta but no start date has yet been given. As Ars comments “we may have to file this in to the ‘3 to 5 years’ bin, which is as good as saying that we may never hear about it again.” Sigh.
