Digital Nirvana, the Bay Area and GoogleNet

Updated twice

Om continues his remarkable reporting on the local broadband front. First, he raves about the introduction of the EVDO protocol by Verizon in San Francisco (see here too). EVDO is a wireless radio broadband data protocol, and is important because it allows for significantly faster downloading speeds than existing networks. (Update: In fact, its close to broadband quality, of the type you’d get on a DSL line. Mike Langberg has an informative review here, of Verizon’s offering — which is divided into two services, one for computers, and the other for cellphones. Also, it’s being offered here throughout the Bay Area, not just for San Francisco as we wrongly imply above. Langberg’s piece has the prices and everything. Both of these guys are calling this a new era of sorts, with Langberg gushing about it being a “kind of digital nirvana.”)

Also interesting is Om’s continued coverage of Google’s moves to rollout a communications network. His NPR interview, here (download’s audio file), is worth listening too — he says Google has secretly been buying up miles of dark fiber, and calls the Google guys “the sharpest knives in the drawer….anybody could have thought of this, but not many people did.” Meanwhile, here’s another piece, by Business Week, that tries to join all the dots linking Google’s strategy, explaining the possible significance of various acquisitions and partnerships lately, including Feeva, Current and Android.

Update II: The hawkish Mike at TechDirt points out the pricing isn’t that great.