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This week in 10 Gigabit Ethernet news, TMCnet Contributing Editor Gary Kim discusses ongoing attempts to reach the 1 gigabit per second threshold.

Kim says work is already underway for Hawaii to be the first state in the nation with 1 Gbps connectivity at all public schools, libraries and universities. In addition, Google is looking to find out what might be possible by building such a network in Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan.

“Some argue, with reason, that very-high-speed broadband and development of new applications that take advantage of that bandwidth represent a bit of a “chicken and egg” problem, and that is a reasonable view,” reports Kim.

“But ‘build it and they will come’ turned out not to be true for many application and service providers in the Internet and telecom bubble of the late 1990s. And some fear that might be the case again. Of course, it also is reasonable to say that most people who think that run ISPs. On the other hand, many of the supporters of the ‘build it and they will come’ approach represent non-profit entities that do not have to concern themselves with revenue, as such.”

In other news:

In a bid to modernize outdoor wireless networks, the well known cloud networking company Meraki announced the launch of its two new outdoor 802.11n cloud controlled wireless access points (APs)---the Meraki MR62 and MR66. Designed to provide integrated management, security, and performance to WiFi (News - Alert) networks in harsh outdoor and industrial indoor environments, Meraki MR62 and MR66 have been selected for 2011 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Two companies, Business Only Broadband (BOB) and TourTechSupport, have teamed to offer the VoIP services and Internet bandwidth for Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago. The companies will also provide the rich media (video and high resolution photo images) to media outlets all over the world via the festival's FTP site.

Migros Group, Switzerland's largest retail company, has deployed a cluster of FortiGate-3951B high-end network security appliances to provide perimeter security for the entire group network.

The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium of system and component vendors committed to the expansion of Ethernet technology, announced its Energy Efficient Ethernet subcommittee interoperability plugfest for products designed to support IEEE Std. 802.3azTM-2010 Energy Efficient Ethernet.

The TeraPHY TN8000 10GBase-T transceiver family has been released by PLX Technology (News - Alert) into full production. With the10-Gigabit Ethernet performance offered by the transceivers, a fundamental shift in the global transformation of data center connectivity is therefore ushered in by PLX.

Digital Lightwave (News - Alert), a provider of networking products and services, announced that the CSA 4100 module for its NIC (News - Alert) Platform will support 40G/100G SONET/SDH, OTN and Ethernet testing. The complete transport testing solution leverages pluggable CFP modules and it can support testing at SONET/SDH 40G (STL-256.4), OTN 43G (OTL-3.4) and 112G (OTL-4.10), as well as Ethernet 41G and 103G.

Level 3 has selected a new service, AWS Direct Connect. With this, AWS will be offering dedicated network connectivity and services and will support high-bandwidth customer adoption of its platform.

Calix has wrapped up a deal to extend its broadband communications access systems and software to WCTA and Breda, the companies that have won contracts under federal stimulus program to provide high-speed broadband service to rural communities in Iowa and Minnesota.

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