It was interesting this morning to pick up the Times, which carried a piece proclaiming: World's fastest internet will send the Encyclopedia Britannica to Shoreditch in 7 seconds. After all, the idea that super-super-fast, two gigabit internet access could be available in east London - not a million miles from Guardian Towers, of course - is my kind of tech porn.
The whole thing comes courtesy of the Shoreditch Digital Bridge, a social project owned by an East End trust that launched late last year and is aiming to bring net access to a deprived neighbourhood. With £12m of government funding, the scheme will roll out later this year and bring the internet into 20,000 homes in Hackney.
But the question is whether the story's accurate. And the answer? Not exactly. Geeks should take note of a few details.
First off, this might be among the world's fastest commercially available internet connections, but it is dwarfed by projects like Teragrid, for example. That runs up to 40 gigabits - 20 times faster than Digital Bridge's maximum, used by a network of American universities and companies.
And because each two gigabit connection is shared across 1,000 homes, you'd need to make sure that nobody else was using the net (or watching TV) to get that maximum speed. If everyone else was online, you'd only get a maximum of two megabits per second - already the standard speed for providers like BT (and soon they'll be going much faster).
And over in South Korea, the world's most networked nation, home users can boast dedicated connection speeds of 100Mbps each. OK, so it's not as fast - but you don't share it with anyone.
But we shouldn't hold any of this against the Digital Bridge - after all, everybody uses theoretical top speeds as the standard. You never see cars marketed with the phrase "could do 0-60 in 7 seconds, but will most likely take about twice as long".
Actually, there's a lot missing from the Times report that makes the project seem like an incredibly interesting one. For starters, you won't even need a computer - just a TV screen and a keyboard. The rest can be hosted back at the network centre in Docklands. Secondly, the whole lot is only going to cost Shoreditch residents £3.50 a week, which compares very favourably to market rates.
I spoke to Dan Hodges of Digital Bridge, who told me a little more about the project.
"We're looking to aim it at ordinary users," he said. "It's aimed at bringing the web to demographics who have traditionally been bypassed by the internet revolution.
"We're installing the first pilot systems now. The rollout will be in a fortnight, and the system will go live some time in June."
And the good news? It could be coming to you. Mr Hodges said that although the project was a wholly-owned part of the Shoreditch Trust, they had been in touch with a number of other local authorities who are interested in the idea.
So maybe not all the way over to Guardian Towers yet, but I've got my fingers crossed.
