With services like Verizon’s FiOS and Intel’s WiMAX emerging as a replacement for DSL and cable Internet connections, it’s clear that the world is moving toward faster and faster connectivity. Today, the average speed for broadband Internet service in the US is 1.9 megabits per second. While this is a huge leap up from the 56 kilobit per second dial-up connections we had not too long ago, it’s nothing compared to the connection that Sigbritt Löthberg of Karlstad, Sweden has.

Until recently when her son gave her one, Sigbritt, a 75 year old, never had a computer. Along with her new machine, her son set her up with an absurd 40 gigabit per second Internet connection– the world’s fastest connection, and thousands of times faster than the average person’s connection speed.

How is this possible? Well, it helps to have Peter Löthberg, who is Sweden’s (and, arguably the world’s) top optical Internet guru, as a son. Peter wanted to prove that both technically and commercially, it’s possible to provide ultrabroadband Internet connections to average people, even over long distances. What else to do than give ridiculous connectivity to his pensioning mother?

To put it in perspective, with a 40Gbps connection Sigbritt can watch 1,500 HDTV channels simultaneously, or download a full length HD-DVD in 2 seconds flat. And to illustrate just how feasible this is now and likely will be in the future for the masses, network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson said this: “The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC.”

(thanks for the tip, Elias! via The Local)

Tags: geekery, technology
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