Build gigabit broadband and they will come: Google Fibre boss Google Fibre boss Kevin Lo says he's confident improvement in speeds will lead to more innovation. Photo: Julie Denesha/Bloomberg Amsterdam: Internet giant Google has sought to dispel what is says is a "myth" that consumers don't want, won't pay for or don't need high-speed, gigabit broadband. Speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam on Tuesday, Kevin Lo, general manager of Google Fibre, said he'd heard the argument bandied around about broadband circles "quite a bit" but that it wasn't true. He based his assertion on Google's recent foray into building privately backed gigabit fibre-to-the-premises networks in Kansas City; Austin,Texas; and Provo, Utah, in the US. "I can say with full confidence [it] simply isn't true," he said. There is huge consumer demand... for faster internet and we believe that faster internet speeds will lead to what we call the next chapter of the internet. We're confident that the next 100x improvement in speeds will lead to more innovation... and our goal at Google is really to give our users and entrepreneurs alike ubiquitous access to high-speed broadband. And we know that they will rise to that occasion and build those next set of gigabit applications that we can't even imagine at this point. His comments came as NBN Co, the company charged with rolling out Australia's national broadband network, begins trialling technology to connect apartments and other multi-dwelling units, such as shopping centres, to its network "node" using a building's existing copper wiring. At present, the fibre-to-the-basement technology can't deliver gigabit speeds, though this is likely to change with the advent of VDSL coupled with vectoring technology. The new Australian government has based its broadband policy on the assertion that lower broadband speeds would fulfil most users' needs and could be delivered faster and cheaper. It has opted for fibre-to-the-node plus existing copper to the premises for the majority of the population, instead of Labor's original fibre-to-the-premises network. Google Australian and New Zealand managing director Maile Carnegie told Fairfax Media recently that she wanted to work with the Coalition government to better demonstrate the economic and social benefits of the NBN. "I'd love to talk about the benefits and how we can change the rhetoric, from cost to disruption," she said. Google prices the superfast connection in Kansas City at just $US70 ($72) a month. For an extra $US50 ($51) subscribers can add Google TV, but there has been no transformation to the city's economic fortunes as yet. Ryan Weber of KCNext, the Technology Council of Greater Kansas City, told Fairfax in July that gains were difficult to quantify. ""We will look at how the city fares in retaining big companies and also attracting others,"" he said. To prove gigabit broadband access was needed, Mr Lo described a number of Google experiments. In one, Google slowed the speed at which search results were returned to users "by just a blink of the eye," resulting in a "significant reduction" in the number of future searches. In another, the company found people spent 25 per cent more time on Maps if they loaded faster. He said 80 per cent of consumers walked away from the web when it was too slow, and 11 per cent of potential customers walked away from a website if it loaded "even with a one second delay." Mr Lo's comments are in stark contrast to those of Steve Unger, chief technology officer of Britain communications watchdog Ofcom. At the conference, Mr Unger said broadband speeds beyond 10 megabits per second in Britain did not result in greater use of the internet. "Beyond 10 megabits it's not obvious that increasing speeds further results in increased usage," he said. There's something of a plateau. Head of networks and access technologies at Telstra, Mike Wright, said of gigabit speeds: "it'd be rare to see anybody consume those types of speed." "There's no doubt high-speed [broadband] does enable new functions and new features," he told Fairfax. [But] I don't know what the upper limit ... is when that sort of extra demand slows in. I think we always see with faster technologies some people will consume a little bit more [than others] ... But usually we see a bit of a boost with the early adopters and then it settles down. Despite this, Google believes people will find ways to use the speeds. Mr Lo said there were three things local governments could do to entice internet providers like Google to build fibre broadband networks in their neighbourhoods: enabling access to existing infrastructure like conduits, ducts and poles; providing accurate maps of that infrastructure as well as other utilities' assets like water mains and gas lines; and removing red tape around construction permits. Local government can play a very, very large role in reducing the complexities of building new fibre networks. The writer travelled to Amsterdam as a guest of Alcatel-Lucent.