Google made headlines last summer when they powered up their first self-built gigabit Internet service available exclusively to lucky Kansas City residents. While enthusiasts around the country remain envious of the 1,000 Mbps download and upload speeds that locals have enjoyed for more than six months, not everyone believes there is a market for such a connection.
During a speech at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference earlier today, Time Warner Cable chief financial officer Irene Esteves downplayed the impact that Google Fiber is having on consumers. The executive said Time Warner was in the business of delivering what consumers want as well as staying a little ahead of what they think they will want.
As of now, she said the company simply doesn’t see the need of delivering similar speeds to the average consumer. Residential customers reportedly have shown little interest in their top tier Internet package. She pointed out, however, that they are already delivering speeds of 1 gigabit to business customers – demonstrating at least that they have the capability to do so.
That’s not to say that Time Warner is totally ruling out the idea of delivering similar speeds to residential customers in the future. Esteves said that if Google finds applications that require such speeds and there’s a need for it, they would build their product base to deliver it as well.
Until then, it looks as though Time Warner customers and virtually everyone else will have to be content with existing speed grades until a real need arises – or Google decides to expand to other cities.
