Broadband 'could go interplanetary within decades'

Although broadband remains a fairly young technology, a Google analyst has predicted it will spread to the stars within the next few decades.

Web expert Vint Cerf suggested that wireless broadband communications between shuttles or space stations may not be that far off.

"I think were going to end up with an interplanetary backbone over the next 20, 30, 40 years," Cerf said during a talk at Google's analyst day in Mountain View, California.

Such a system would allow data to be shared directly between spacecraft and could potentially include the spread of VoIP telephony away from the bounds of the Earth.

But any broadband in space concept that does arrive will likely involve Google, according to Cerf.

He said that the web search giant hopes to be dealing with all the "data coming back from space, which we'll help to organise just like we organise [everything else]".