Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google's Dark Fibre Plans?

Posted by Hemos on from the reduce-reuse-recycle dept.

sebFlyte writes "According to news.com "Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...(i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network." Is the search giant planning to build a global fibre-optic network?" Or perhaps simply use unused fibre that they can get for cheaper then from the datacenter providers; although at least from my talks with the datacenter folks, Google's not paying much per Mbps as it is.

8 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. I wouldn't be surprised to see 'em buy a Level 3 by xmas2003 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Seems like buying a Level 3 (or similar sized network provider) would be an easier route, as these guys got hammered in valuations due to over-capacity and a lot cheaper to buy existing capacity rather than building your own.

    BTW, the Light Reading guys were the ones who "broke" this story back on January 6th

    --
    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
  2. GoogleISP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe this is the beginning of Google Broadband. With all the other non-search areas they've gotten themselves into, maybe they're looking to take on MSN and Yahoo in the ISP realm.

    GoogleISP: Dark fiber to your city, fiber to you home coming soon.

    And after they can give everyone a super high speed broadband connection, it's just one more step to selling a subscription for the comping suite of web-based apps that GMail proves they're so good at.

  3. Re:Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined. by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thinking about it... maybe Google is planning an entrance into the ISP market?

    I mean, Google might be getting cheap rates for www.google.com, but that probably wouldn't extend to customers, plus accessability wouldn't be that great...

    I'm not quite sure what Google's angle on the market would be, except perhaps high-speed/low-cost, but that doesn't seem as elegant as Google's usual offerings...

    --
    "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

    - Seneca
  4. Re:I wouldn't be surprised to see 'em buy a Level by Tancred · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would be. It's far from their core competency and there's so much competition in the telco business that everyone sells at cost anyway. Maybe a datacenter chain like Equinix would be a better acquisition target.

  5. This isn't about what you think by mbpark · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hello,

    Considering what Google has built internally for server management and redundancy, I would hypothesize based upon available data (i.e. GFS) that they're looking to light up fiber between their data centers, while running either TCP/IP or IPv6 (with modifications of existing IGP and routing protocols, more than likely BGP or OSPF) between them.

    This is a very smart move on their part, if this is true. This would allow them to do their own internal traffic control and shaping over a private network, and develop/modify algorithms for efficient transfer of data over said network, without having to "play" by Telco/ISP rules.

    In other words, they're more than likely building their own global network to more efficiently transfer data over the Internet by completely bypassing it for their inter-server traffic. This is a very smart move, if true.

  6. Nice business idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They're going to create a global super computer. Local servers gives higher performance. What do you think the Google bar is for? Coming versions will ask you if you want to donate your free CPU cycles to Google. Google in turn will sell these to corporations that needs CPU power.

  7. Re:Not surprising... by tristan-jt2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Based on stuff I heard in another life, Google used to get transit contracts with the fastest connection they could get, but the lowest commited rate. The syncs used to take place in the proverbial top 5% of the 95th percentile.

    As in: they used provider A for 36 hours, provider B for the next 36h, provider C for the next 36h, etc... (bear in mind it was not surfer facing transit, just used to sync up the DCs.)

    They've probably reached the level where they've got too much data to get away with that scheme. So they've got a pretty simple choice:
    - Pay for the commited rate they really need.
    - Link the 2 Data Centers with dark fiber lit with 10GigE.

    Based on the over provisionning most fiber companies did when they built their networks, there's a lot of room for negociation when you're shopping for fiber, especially when you can hang the promise of a huge internationnal network in the balance.

    The second option is pretty much guaranted to turn out to be much more affordable.

  8. Seeking assets by michael_cain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One possible explanation is that Google is looking for something to do with their current $55B stock valuation. Other than making the founders incredibly wealthy, the high stock price by itself isn't particularly useful to the company. But it can be used as collateral for loans to acquire assets that could be useful both now and in the future. Given the massive storage and computing resources that Google already manages, I suspect that they can manage their own fiber network for very little incremental expense (I'm less sure about the physical care of the fiber -- who fixes your dark fiber when someone cuts it?). As they attempt to provide more and more services, they may simply want more control over the underlying transport.