Did you know that 80 communities already have Gigabit networks? Many of the early adopters (i.e. Salisbury, Wilson, Chattanooga) were business-driven. For example, Wilson’s Gigabit infrastructure came early on because SAS, Red Hat and Microsoft have significant presences in the area. You’ll see why these areas jumped at the chance to get Gigabit as we share the benefits that this more powerful network brings to business communities and communities at-large.
What is the Gigabit network?
Gigabit simply refers to the speed of the network infrastructure. The infrastructure is basically the hardware framework that brings the Internet to locations throughout your city. A Gigabit infrastructure is the fastest available today – as long as every component of the network is gigabit compatible (including cards, cables and hubs). If not, the system will simply run at the speed of the lowest common denominator.
One of the key beneficiaries of a Gigabit roll-out is economic development. The attraction of a powerful Internet structure is more critical today than ever before. Roads, water and sewer systems and schools are infrastructure components we’ve been accustomed to hearing about for years. Today, the Internet is as critical as each of these other infrastructures in bringing significant business and development players to any particular region.
Everything from businesses, to hotels, to commercial and residential developers to sport teams considers the quality of Internet infrastructure in their decision making processes.
So what does “a better Internet infrastructure” mean to small to medium size businesses?
1. The Internet experience becomes better.
This means different things to different people.
- Your online software applications perform better
- Incoming and outgoing emails move faster
- Videos on YouTube work better
- Your browser works better and gives you results faster
2. Software development won’t leave you behind.
As Gigabit becomes more mainstream, development will use it as a standard instead of previous slower standards. Those without a Gigabit network will not be able to use (or will get poor performance from) modern apps, websites or systems or updated versions of existing ones.
Relate this to how newer software versions eventually don’t work on older versions of Windows.
3. The speed difference will be obvious.
It won’t just be a little faster. The greater speed will be obvious.
A business – especially one like yours that depends on the Internet to get to Jackrabbit and for your parents to get to your website and your portal – will realize some amazing changes from a Gigabit network.
- You can move between software features quicker.
- Your webpages load faster.
- Forms work better.
- Information is submitted faster.
- Your website’s videos load faster and run without buffering.
- Pages don’t time out.
Relate this to when broadband replaced dial-up. (OK – some of you are old enough to remember it)
Why is all of this possible? With a Gigabit network, you have more power behind your Internet connection to fuel whatever you are doing online.
We’re excited about the Gigabit Roll-out coming to Charlotte, North Carolina where many of the Jackrabbit team are located! It means that we will be able to do things better and faster.
We’re also excited that Gigabit infrastructures will be making their way to you because we know that the more powerful your Internet connection is, the better performance you will have on your computer from all of the online applications you use – including Jackrabbit!
Sources: Alan Fitzpatrick and Charlotte Hearts Gigabit
