Kentucky companies will soon have access to ultra-fast broadband speeds.
Accelecom is launching a Terabit transport service from cities in the western and eastern parts of the state to Louisville and Cincinnati.
The Louisville-based communication carrier manages commercial access to KentuckyWired's 3,000 miles of high-capacity fiber-optic cable that extends through the commonwealth's 120 counties. It says the new high-speed network offering is a continuation of its plan to bridge Kentucky's digital divide.
The Terabit offering is expected to be available in early 2022.
I asked the same questions you might be thinking right now: What is Terabit ethernet and how is it different from a regular fiber connection? Here's what I found out:
What is it?
Current fiber-optic networks can reach up to a single Gigabit (or roughly 1,000 Megabits) per second, which for all intents and purposes is pretty dang fast.
But Terabit service goes beyond that, ranging between 400-1,000 Gigabits per second.
It's been in development for years and isn't widely used yet, as not many people need that kind of bandwidth. For most of us, far less-than-Gigabit speeds work just fine streaming a show on Netflix or video chatting on Zoom.
Who is it for?
So who would actually use something like a Terabit service then? Well, data centers for one.
Companies processing large amounts of data — like Facebook (erm, Meta?), Google, Amazon and Oracle, just to name a few — need the capacity Terabit ethernet offers. They're the ones pumping through hundreds of Gigabits of data on a regular basis, not the average consumer.
Why does it matter?
With this offering, Kentucky can be positioned to support Silicon Valley tech giants which will ultimately bring in new businesses and jobs for the commonwealth, Accelecom said.
Citing high costs and overcrowding on the coasts, Accelecom said tech companies are looking to relocate to places like Kentucky and a Terabit service can be yet another reason to come here.
As I previously reported, Accelecom made its debut in February 2021, serving businesses, health care facilities, schools, farms, local governments and communities within the KentuckyWired fiber network.
The new company also works with internet service providers (ISPs) to extend their reach to underserved rural and urban areas, essentially pushing the “middle-mile” network the final mile.
By partnering with Accelecom, CEO David Flessas said ISPs will have the ability to offer faster internet speeds in existing service areas and will make it more economical for ISPs to offer services in areas where it may have been unaffordable to do so previously.
