Upgrading America: The One-Year Anniversary of Gig.U

One year ago, 37 research university communities from all across the United States, came together for the mission of accelerating the deployment of next generation networks and services. A project of the Aspen Institute’s Communication and Society Program, Gig.U has its roots in the National Broadband Plan.

The Plan recommended that in order for the nation to retain technological leadership, our country should create a critical mass of communities with world-leading—not just world class—broadband networks. Over the last year, we have dedicated ourselves to the hope that we can provide the United States a strategic bandwidth advantage. By combining that advantage with the minds that occupy and surround America’s greatest asset for the 21st Century Information Economy—our world-leading research universities—America can lead the world in answering one of the great questions of our time – what happens if we eliminate bandwidth as a constraint on innovation? We have a long way to go, but in the last year, we have come a long way in making the map for a country, and indeed a world, unconstrained by bandwidth.