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Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet?
KhanReaper writes "As reported on On the Media and Business 2.0, Google appears to be purchasing dark (unused) fiber optic cable across the United States with the intention of building its own alternative parallel internet that would presumably be called GoogleNet. Possessing such a thing could allow Google to offer internet access in the form of free wifi or other means and create a powerful captive marketing audience which Google could monopolize. Outside of these marketing opportunities, such a development in infrastructure could help reduce Google's long-term content delivery costs were it to take on more bandwidth-intensive activities in the future."
Its to connect datacenters together so that all of Googles search databases have the same information. Just maybe that is the reason the would need a high speed internet of their own.
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At least there's never any confusion over what google's inventions are going to be called.
Curious to see exactly what they have in mind..
Twenties Retirement
Free Wi-Fi.... It'll be free, but think of Gmail and AdWords and privacy.
Hey, if it's free internet, I don't care if it's from SCO, sign me up!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
... "Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Universe?"
Google hires an operating system engineer.
Clearly Google is writing the operating system to a super space robot that will be used to eradicate Microsoft!
Google buys a company that makes photo organizer software.
Clearly Google is doing this so that they can recreate iPhoto, as a preliminary step to creating competing products to iCal, iDisk, Apple Mail, and finally Mac OS X itself!
Google hires a janitor.
Clearly that janitor is secretly a superhero with super-strength which Google will use to eliminate all crime on earth!
Google buys up some disused fiber-optic cable.
Clearly Google is going to make their own internet!
As Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said after the attack on Pearl Harbor "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
They're forking the internet again!
There would be no bigger prize than GoogleNet. Like the internet and Internet2 before it, GoogleNet will be hacked and polluted with porn, movie uploads, warez and viagra spam.
I don't give it a month before it loses its virginity in the back seat of a Cisco router.
This GoogleNet idea is an interesting one, but I expect such a proprietary internet would lack would be shunned by the hackers and outlaws that bring true innovation to the technology world.
That being said, Google is much more open to developers than the other monopoly we're familiar with. And they have been collecting money and PhDs at an alarming rate -- they have something big planned.
Clearly Google realizes (like Microsoft before them) that he who owns the platform wins. By building a "better" internet, GoogleNet could be the next Win32 API enabling Google to have an earth-shattering money machine. Perhaps Google's stock is not over-valued afterall.
Sam
In other news "Microsoft Seeks to Develop Parallel Universe".
"GoogleNet" sounds a bit too much like "SkyNet" for my sensibilities. Of course, if any company were to bring about Armageddon, I'd trust Google to do it in the most efficient, user-freindly and non-evil way.
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
As much as I love Google as a search engine, I do have to say that this one is just a little bit scary. Can they really create their own internet, and still do no evil?
So what if they do. Just because Googlenet shows up doesn't mean the old internet ceases to function. If it becomes a draconian mess, no one will use it, and it will slip into irrelevance like Gopher.
The whole censorship thing has been blown out of proportion and has been beaten to death (and beyond) on Slashdot. Please don't bring that up again. Personally, I think that they don't have any moral obligation to oppose censorship, but they do have a moral obligation to follow the laws of the countries that they're doing business with, and so they are justified in complying with Chinese requirements. You can denounce the Chinese internet policies as much as you want, but I don't think you should be blaming Google.
Free wi-fi is a very cool idea, except some cities have tried to do it and the process is getting bogged down in court. It is possible that the same may happen to Google in its attempt.
Of course it is. After all, Google does no evil [/sarcasm] If this is truly the purpose they have for the fiber optic, they have truly taken Microsoft's "embrace and extend" to a whole new level (and would officially be evil, let the google apologists begin). Having said that, this is all speculation on why they want the fiber optic, it could just be they want to open up an ISP or to create an intranet only for their own data centers (and not for the public).
...They get it right.
In my opinion, what Microsoft seems to suffer from is getting things to market as fast as possible to remain (or at least appear to remain) competitive. The problem is, that once a product is in the wild, a lot of bugs and security flaws turn up which results in patching the software for the remainder of the time you own it.
The release and patch process is what the Mozilla Foundation seems to be falling into lately as well.
Google, on the other hand, seems to take a more "future use" approach to what they do, giving their products better longevity and as a result, a better experience to their users.
If they (Google) can "get it right" with a parallel network, they basically trump everyone in the market today who has laid claim to making the Internet better. If Google applies their anti-spam engine to network nodes, spam virtually faces extinction. And you know, if they watch what I surf and how I surf and it results in a better experience for me then I for one welcome our new Google overlords.
R(k)
Yes, how dare they obey the laws of a land they are opperating in. I suppose you also think Google is evil for complying with DMCA takedown notices in the USA or the anti-nazi laws in Germany or the competition in advertising laws in France?
May be at First. After they have consolidated required market share, charges will apply to anything you do. It is a corporation, you got to think of shareholders and their profits.
We are seeing another monopoly happening.
I'm indifferent on the matter
Behold the glorious bragging rights
Couldn't be just that they need cheap conection between their computing nodes?
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If there is one thing I have noticed as of late, it is the fact that the Slashdot audience as a whole, especially those in charge of posting stories, have had a sudden swing in viewpoint about Google. Now all of the stories about Google have negative undertones, and there's always a hint of disdain in the way the story is worded.
The gradual making of a new evil entity, and new Slashdot scape goat is nearly complete! We're all being set up to hate Google now. Gotta love it, Google has not charged me for a single thing. They provide me with excellent free email, outstanding search, a nifty map site, and even a suitable chat client now. And how much have I paid them? Nothing. I for one still love Google, say what you want about them buying the world.
I think that some of us are not paying too much attention. All the buzz lately, in technology communications industries, the USPTO, the FCC, and just about anywhere you turn on the Internet, has been about broadband, wired, wireless, mesh, all kinds of broadband... for Google to buy up a small part of the worlds existing as-yet-unused-broadband infrastructure only means that Google wants to still be relevant in 3 years time. I don't think it means anything more than that... it is what every telecomms company should be doing to ensure relevance in the comming All-IP all the time world.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Google technicians have lost the ability to administer part of their server farm. It appears that a group of systems has independently begun buying up unused networks for a yet unknown purpose. Wireless access points popping up all over the world with the SSID GoogleNet have prompted some paranoid conspiratorialist to claim an autonomous attack on privacy is underway. Others claim it's a plan create an alternative network, and once completed will overcome and destroy the Internet. At this point Google could levy any access fees they feel like and reach total network dominance.
When asked for a comment, a Google representative just shrugged and said, "Uhhh, dunno, but if I don't run I'm going to miss my free lunch."
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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What it would do is create more competition in the backbone internet connectivity market and internet market as a whole.
However, Google presumably decided it was cheaper to buy entire fiber links between datacenters in the long run than renting capacity from existing network providers. And who is to blame them? I'm sure that Microsoft own lots of fiber, I'm sure that lots of 'evil' and 'cuddly' companies own fiber, it doesn't mean they are making 'Intarwebnet Two' or whatever, and you don't get stories about it here.
It is just random speculation because Google are newsworthy.
Google to create its own Internet? Unlikely.
The whole reason that Google is an important company is that it crawls through the publicly-accessible parts of the Internet in order to index its contents.
If Google is to retain its premier position in the search engine market, then it will very much so remain firmly connected to the existing Internet.
This is why I agree with the parent post: It is quite reasonable to believe that Google might require this bandwidth for its own purposes.
There is nothing at all wrong with this. The Internet, after all, is merely a network of networks. All this means is that behind Google's accessible IP addresses lurks a mammoth network of its own.
Instead of transmitting data 1 bit at a time, it will transmit 8 bits, so will be 8 times faster.
Lemming.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yo, Eric Schmidt*, let me tell you about this little debacle called "Iridium", wherein a once proud US technology titan, name of "Motorola" [you might have heard of 'em - back in the day, they had this bitchin' little CPU called the 68000 series], thought they could dominate [maybe even monopolize] the US communications bidness, by launching a whole mess of satellites into geosynchrynous orbit; invested billions of dollars in the thing, which, at one point, was widely believed to have been the largest privately financed infrastructure expenditure in the history of mankind.
Care to venture a guess as to the return on their investment? A big fat goose egg, that's what. Actually even less than that, if you factor in the fees that the bankruptcy lawyers must have charged them.
*It's a real testament to Novell engineering that this moron didn't drive them into bankruptcy, as well...
I don't quite get the description. It appears that they might provide another avenue for Internet access, and add to existing infrastructure, but how exactly does this ammount to a parallel internet or separate entity from the rest of the internet?
Didn't I hear that Google hired Al Gore? Maybe they are making their own internet...
Why not. Perhaps it's better if all of the Googleness, including all of the breathless press coverage, could be confined to a stand-alone network. All of those that have been Touched By The Googly Appendage will live blissfully within a completely self-containted universe where all news is about, and reported by Google. CommanderToogle's new site, slashdot.goo, will have new and improved moderation choices:
1) Completely About Google
2) Mostly About Google
3) At Least Somewhat About Google
4) Funny, But Not At Google's Expense
5) Troogle
6) Undergoogled
7) Overgoogled (very rare - can there be too much Google?)
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Free wifi is getting bogged down in court because it is the government competiting with companies, and you can see the point of the companies who want to make a livelihood from these services.
Google is a company. There is nothing wifi providers can do if suddenly GoogleWireless is free or cheap across the country. Google is hardly a monopoly, just a rich company, and if this expansion of services will lead to longer term benefits to the company (there will be a few duds, of course) then they should be doing this stuff.
What I'd do if I was a company is offer free wireless whereever you can, but rate limited to 5KB a second or so unless you are subscribed to the service. If you are poor yet somehow have a wifi enabled computer/PDA/phone/toaster, then you will still be able to get wireless access everywhere, which is the point of these free metropolitan networks.
afaik, dark fiber refers to a rented optical fiber without any service attached to it, the customer must deal with light transmitters and receivers, as opposed to a fiber that is live with some IP/tunnel/data/whatever service. Dark fiber does not mean "unused".
You're right that the tone has changed, but it isn't completly unwarranted. We like Google for all of the products and services they've offered us (free), but only a fool could watch a business acquire the kind of widespread power and dominance Google is working towards without atleast a little apprehension.
Yeah... last time I read about this (maybe 18 months ago?) it seems like the theory was they were going to offer free telephony and put Ma Bell outta biz. The truth is: these articles are scarcely more than conspiracy theories... we'll know their intentions when they annouce them.
Maybe if they _do_ form their own seperate network they can implement more secure (thus incompatible) mail protocols.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
That's the obvious and reasonable interpretation, yep.
:P
However, it might not be particularly unrealistic to suspect that Google might be considering starting an ISP.
Right now the ISP market is kind of shrinking because last-mile issues are effectively preventing anyone from providing broadband service unless they already own a high-bandwidth wire going directly into your house. However if 802.16 and similar technology delivers on its promises, it could remove this obstacle-- meaning that you'd be able to break into the ISP market with little more than the kind of purchases Google is making right now.
This theory is most definitely a stretch! However, unlike Business 2.0's "make a second internet and provide free access for some reason!" theory, at least it isn't stupid.
Also, who's to say Google even has a plan as to what to do with this dark fiber? As even Business 2.0 notes, now is a really good time to buy this stuff; you can get it cheap. Anybody ever heard of buy low, sell high?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Who is the lemming? I think this is about it for me in reading comments in slashdot. Really has become too tiresome, with the boring anti-MS blah, blah, blah. And now possibly as the parent suggests, anti-Google blah, blah, blah.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Google may also be more geek friendly with their TOSs too. They have a track record of not being dickheads, so you never know.
All I want is 3-5Mb/s down and 1-3Mb/s up...and an ISP where I can say what protocalls/ports get open or blocked and where I can run some basic servers (no, I do not want to run a website from an ADSL, but too damn many things fall under the "Non-permissible server" title as defined by most ISPs.)
Well, yes, I think a strong case can be made that obeying an evil law (and I do think censorship is evil) is itself evil. Interesting that your short post should mention the existence of Nazis, as I do believe that in Nuremberg, it was decided that in FACT obeying evil laws was still a crime. Now, before I have to pull 10 people out of my throat because they jumped down it, I am not saying that censorship is as bad as say death camps. But that doesn't make censorship not evil, just because something else is more evil.
San Francisco Photographers
You appear to be the only person in this universe to hvae read it that way, but several thousand people in a parallel universe where the only difference from this one is that the universe is known as the "interverse" made this mistake.
Letter To Iran
In all honesty, and it's been talked about already in this topic. That Google is simply buying fibre to connect their networks.
Now with the amount of fibre they could be buying, why not put up free access points and come up with a good advertising delivery mechanism behind it. Could well be the targetted location based internet advertising that so many marketing companies have wanted to do for so long. "Buy a coffee at Joe's! Mention this ad an get a free donut!"
As well, could you imagine the communication costs that they are incurring as we speak? The amount of data that would be traversing their network at the moment would be out of control. Why not just buy some fibre now, setup another company to manage it and slash your comms costs? Especially if they are ordering in the hundreds of gigabits of data which I am guessing they probably are (Think about it for a second)..
Gmail going live, there's another few terabytes worth of data burnt each week having to store all that... All the extra internet content that gets loaded on each day, and they have to index it... Site redundancy.... The lists go on and on...
So what if they setup a second internet? Let them! If it encourages competition, why the hell not? MCI and AOL and everyone else isn't exactly going to sit on their hands and let their market dissapear in front of them are they?
In all honesty though, what are the chances of them making a change in business tactic from being a content search facility and marketers to being an internet service provider.. I don't think it fits in with their business model.
The only thing I think they could be doing is connecting datacentres and possibly (Not having seen WHERE they have bought fibre) they could quite easily be trying to get peering arangements with all the major ISPs to try to distribute the input load onto their network as it could quite well just be getting beyond the point of stupidity and manageability.
BTW, how much are they paying Akamai at the moment?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Most Geeks will attest to their dislike of the Sun (not SUN MICRO), this will work better as public acceptance grows. No more will we have to waste money on Foreign oil to light our internets.
And most important of all, on a dark internet nobody knows your downloading porn.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
It's funny to watch Slashdot. A single article said Google is evil, now, reading the posts, according to Slashdot Google is evil.
What was Google guilty of? Raising salaries for software engineers (heaven forbid we should make money comparable to our corporate masters) and draining talent (which just means that people want to work there). Oh, and it's hard to get venture capital because venture capitalists want ideas that can compete with Google. I guess that I'll have to put off getting hired by some lame website that sells toe-nail clippers.
Get a clue. Seriously. Tell me what they are doing that is evil.
Who is Katrina? Why was she eating curry if it affects her so badly?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Makes sense along side all of the other specualation of Google's wireless wantings and Google's recent stock selloff. Along side Google Talk's VoIP play, Google is the single corporation responisble for connecting everyone in America for the second time around.
I wouldn't worry about Google being evil this time around, though. Those anti-trust laws that broke up Bell are still right in place, and Google apparently doesn't want to go it alone (trying to bring in other VoIP services).
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I don't think Google could pull this off, at least at the scale that this article discusses. I doubt that there is enough dark fiber remaining in an amount comparable to even Akamai, one of the largest networks in the world.
Moreover, I doubt something like GoogleNet could even overtake the Internet as we know it. What I can see, however, is a GoogleNet in terms of a web service combining Google's all over the place software approach into a single unified framework.
Finally, as usual, I hope Google isn't discounting the presence of Microsoft. Microsoft, has in-fact, the world's largest VoIP and gaming network with Xbox Live, a fact that many people often seem to forget. And to think, it only took them a fairly short while to get it up and running.
Weirdly enough, though, Al Gore is on the board of directors of Apple Computer.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The moment Google 'forks' the Internet, they lose value because less people can use their services. The fact is that Google is one of a handful of companies that knows that they NEED open protocols. They have a corporate culture document that says 'do no evil' because doing evil would detract from their bottom line, and top management wants everybody in the company to know it.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Gspot... no?
Umm... what have they done that requires apology? Buying up cable that people are willing to sell? How evil is that?.
Having said that, this is all speculation
Quite so, quite so. So why don't we save the villification until such time as they actually transgress? Just for a change.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
As I recall Bank of America owns a ton of dark fiber that they use to trasmit private data because the fiber was a lot cheaper then renting capacity. That doesn't mean that Bank of America is going to be opening BOANET and giving away free Internet access tomorrow.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
They're buying up all this dark fiber to connect all of their data centers, and possibly implementing IPv6 on all of their networks.
My guess is they're jumpstarting the migration to IPv6 with their own backbone. Offer free WiFi, but it'll be IPv6. Not only does everyone (possibly) get free WiFi, but they also get their own net block.
*scratches chin*
Now THAT would be something.
So, am I supposed to start up by GPC, wait for my GoogleOS to load, open up my GoogleFox, connect to Googlenet, and search Google, while chatting with my friends on GoogleTalk? Geeze, do they really think Google will control EVERYTHING? I think they're a little smarter than to overextend themselves THAT much. Google's fastest growing product: GoogleHype. It's still in Beta though...
And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be bannana-shaped.
AT&T split up volountarily. The FTC occasionally blocks mergers/acquisitions (or the EU regulators with GE/Honeywell), but they haven't done any trust-breaking in years. IBM was investigated for 20 years or so, MS... speaks for itself.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
In communist Russia, that thinks you... I mean, should that you think... uh... screw it, someone else do it.
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
What if this turns into a 'private' network, with Google in total control
They control TLDs, they control access, they control content..
Dont laugh, it could happen.. Remember Compuserve?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is no good evidence, or inclination, that such a independent Googlenet exists or is getting worked on. Quite hypothesizing on bullshit stories from bad reporters.
Google is buying unused fiber. The location and extent to which (to my knowledge) hasn't been specified. The most LIKELY reason they are doing this? To take out a middleman in their operating budgets!
Why, when Google's livlihood comes from Internet services and thus, bandwidth, should Google be paying someone else to get from point A to B? Google should buy their own fiber between datacenters (and elsewhere, maybe connecting to directly to major Internet hubs or ISPs) and save gazillions on bandwidth.
The more Google grows, the more data they have to store, replicate and feed out. More data means more bandwidth.
Everything about Googlenet and wireless is bullshit speculation. The most obvious GUESS at what Google is doing is trying to lower operating costs, as any good business should do.
This is the best chance we have for rapid world-wide deployment of IPv6. Nobody wants to convert their existing networks, but if you're building out something new, why not? You heard it here first: the entire current internet is effectively just a relatively small subnet in IPv6 address space.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
You can close your connection anytime you like, but you can never leave!
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Google plans to offer broadband over powerlines. Al Gore plans to help create the next internet, and bring internet TV to the masses with current TV. Apple plans to offer Itunes over the new internet, through Googles new internet based linux operating system.
Now all we have to do is bring Nintendo into the fold and get some of the gaming companies involved. I look forward to the day where I can play games online through wifi from anywhere.
Here are some URLs to back up my statements.
Al Gore, Google, Current TV, Broadband Over PowerLines
Information on who Google is hiring Google Hiring
Google will hire all the best Phd students from the elite universities first. Once Google becomes so large that they run out of Phd students from elite universities, then they will begin hiring us! So I'm now in love with Google. Google if you are reading this PLEASE PLEASE give me a job, even if I'm just doing something completely stupid, I'm sure with all the millions of jobs you are creating that you'll find something for me.
I hope Google continues to innovate because these innovations are creating jobs by the millions. Building a new internet would create millions of jobs for all of us. Building a new OS would create thousands of jobs. I hope Google gets involved with the gaming industry and lets me have access to a video game search engine. I hope they let us gamble and bet on games. I hope Google creates a new video game stock market where we can bet on the success or failure of games. GIMME MONEY DAMNIT!
You did. You even went out of your way to point out that Google might be merely buying cable for selfish reasons that benefit only themselves, as opposed to actively trying to shaft the rest of the world.
It's balance of a sort, I suppose.
Then there's the
bit, which makes it sound just a teeny a bit to those of us who have "difficult with English" as if you might be implying something. Similarly the "truly" in could be taken to suggest that you very much doubt this to be the case.Now, if you think they have anything to answer for, by all means let's hear it. If not, I suggest we save the scarasm and innuendo until they actually do transgress.
That better?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Should have included this in my post.
s p
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1813919,00.a
12-city dark fiber network
They leased the dark fiber, they didn't buy it, but from where I am sitting that is fairly similiar. The fiber was used to replace their OC-3 connections from data-center to data-center, apparently at a great cost reduction.
This is almost assuredly what Google is attempting.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
I don't know where people got the idea that Google was creating InetDos...Om Malik's article talks about dark fiber and free WiFi hotspots, not internet backbone. He even goes so far as to mention the fact that Google has been working with Feeva, a company that provides free Wi-Fi hotspots and suggests that Google build a large broadband network. He never says replace the Internet.
"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise location? The gatekeeper of the world's information could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop." -Om Malik
If you think about it, replacing the Internet makes no sense for Google. Not only are they not an infrastructure company they aren't set up to service this kind of business. Have you ever tried to get customer service from Google?
Besides, Google's model works better the more open an environment is. More pages = more space in which to display their advertising inventory.
It seems to me that Google's real play is voice...advertising subsidized voice.
Think about it; you just signed up for GoogleTalk via SMS. Google now has your cellular number and knows everything you search for.
What would you say if they offered to subsidize your cellular calls in exchange for LISTENING to brief targeted messages served to your phone prior to placing a call? If the ads were relevant and the exchange was fair; say 10 minutes calling per ad served don't you think a few million minutes of calls would be delivered this way?
I wrote more about this here: http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/images/googCertainly it is obvious that Google has recognized the significance of the small screen to the future of search. They understand the value of connecting an advertiser to an interested customer and vice versa. They've created maps and mapping tools to help you locate what you want. It only makes sense that they take themselves off the PC and into the MOBILE in the most pervasive way the consumer that will allow. You watch; turn by turn directions over your cell phone to the location of your choice, all courtesy of GoogleNav is not far away.
There is no "I" in B-O-R-G.
According to sources inside the company the new universe would be called a Googlelarity. Instead of marketing discrete groups of users, Google plans on marketing entire civilizations after seeding suitable planets with protolife and making content delivery part of the evolutionary process.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Why would their buying of dark fiber necessarily mean they're going to carry VOIP over it? Can you imagine the amount of data they need to synchronize between data centers for their index of pages, and for Gmail? Seriously, buying 10Gbps of fiber capacity and one-time CapEx for the equipment must be cheaper than buying 10Gbps of transit from a major carrier.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Yes, but is it an evil internet?
/me puts pinky to the corner of his mouth
to the dark side.
Brought to you by
your friendly neighbourhood
Google.
You can't handle the truth.
So what I ask- There are millions of private networks out there. Banks and credit agencies own unmeasurable amounts of copper and fibre throughout each and every city you could imagine. Tons of private companies link branch offices all around the globe and datacenters. Country's governments are linking to other governments and other organizations to ensure a reliable transport. The phone company owns tons of fibre and copper. Major Internet providers (MCI, Verison, etc) own large percentages of the global Internet.
Keep in mind, ATMs (1.5-155Mbit) are very common amoungst all organizations. Over longer distances and in larger volumes (or with growth strategies in mind), fibre is popular as well.
Google is buying circuts, possibly to build some sort of network. Okay? So what? This is all speculation. Maybe they want to make a reliable link for their own content and databases? Maybe they're doing content distribution? Maybe they want to set up some more links to certain areas and join the likes of MCI, Verizon, etc at the top of the Internet for options that other ISPs could route through.
Or maybe they are trying to start their own unconnected network... Who knows! But there is NOTHING even remotely unusual about a company buying up private circiuts for its own use. Most big corps have many of them linking offices, dataceters, and various parts of the world.
NEXT
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
All I have to say is if they do this I want them to make my daily porn intake a enjoyable experience.. Please no pop-ups as I see Pam Anderson pop out of her shirt!!
How's this for a conspiracy theory then:
- Free/cheap WiFi for all
- All HTTP requests transparently proxied through Internet Accelerator
- Content cached, indexed, etc at each of these proxies
Suddenly the need for regular spidering has been quite dramatically reduced.
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
I am surprised no one has brought up Epic or Google 2014. The predictions when this came out were cool. Watch for a similarity :-D
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
Pfft. I work for a company that provides dark fiber, and there is literally tons of use for it. We drop fairly large cables in the ground (432/864), use a few strands ourselves, and lease the rest out. People use it for everything from fast-e over media converts on up to mass OC192 DWDM stuff. Some are carriers, some are normal companies. Dark fiber is usually alot cheaper in the long run that purchasing point to point or switched circuits from a carrier. Hell, Google's been doing this for a while, to connect some of their clusters, and to run their own circuits to ISPs. Theres nothing really new about any of this - companies have been doing this sort of thing for years.
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Aside from use of this high-speed private network for its own internal database-communications use, and for its nifty new long-distance voice chat toy, Google needs this fiber for its media delivery platform: significant torrent master nodes archiving vast repositories, supplying fat-pipe seeds with data for torrent distribution.
These fat-pipe seeds will be commercial ventures, perhaps paid by Google for their service; just as we'll pay Google for access to their media banks.
We won't purchase DVDs of TV series seasons; we'll torrent them, paying a buck or two a viewing, and very likely simply erasing the episode after we're done -- it's cheap enough to get again, and how often does one *really* want to watch an specific episode? Too much new stuff to bother with the old!
Ditto for computer/console games: download them when you want them, delete them when you're done. Or not: games have good replayability, and the vid companies can make money off a user-pay multiplayer network.
And, importantly, ditto also for internet memes. Like the Coral cache or Akamai.
For any popular, largish-file sharing, torrenting is an excellent delivery mechanism for non-realtime use, and Google would stand a very good chance of becoming a dominant "Network Television/Network Radio/Network Bigfiles" company.
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Google Future History
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
Google is in a space where anyone with a better algorithm can raise venture money, like Google did, and enter the search market.
To strengthen their position, Google has integrated the Ad business via Adwords to not be at the mercy of a third party like everyone else was. Google has done a LOT to strengthen their position.
However, the one thing Google has NOT ever done, and has made clear that they WON'T do, it lock users in. They do have a bunch of patents to try to keep a new competitor out, but they haven't tried the lock in.
The founders have made it clear that they believe handcuffs on users counter-productive and don't believe in them.
They have consistently made it clear that they believe that they are the most innovate company, and have no need to block competition, they will simply out-compete.
That's their corporate mission, identity, and culture. Don't Be Evil is a clever way of putting. However, the company has been focused on winning by being the best, and believe that the best way to fight as a tech company is to be the best, not lock consumers in.
I applaud that, and respect the company, and have no problem with them dominating ANY industry, as LONG as they don't try to create barriers to entry or customer lock-in, they aren't a monopoly, and will never be a monopoly.
If Google was the ONLY search engine, they wouldn't be a monopoly, because without barriers to entry, they can't extract "monopoly rents," they are forced to the competitive rates because with no customer lock-in or barriers to switching, they are in the competitive space, which is where Google seems to want to play. Go Google!
Alex
Google believes that barriers to switching, or vendor lock-in, is counter productive. In many ways it is. Customers LIKE to have choices, and lock-in deters them from choosing you. They have decided that avoiding the lock-in deterrent is a worthwhile trade-off from not having the lock-in down the road.
Instead of looking for industries where they can establish barriers to entry, they have chosen to just be the best in the industry.
Google has made it their corporate culture to do what we as consumers should desire, a company that doesn't erect barriers to entry or barriers to switching.
As long as they are willing to compete whenever and where ever they are, I say, AWESOME. If only EVERY industry had players willing to do that.
NOTE: I say this as someone who owns no Google shares, engages in SEO and has been mistreated and banned by Google more than any other engine, and is generally floored by the way they run their company. OTOH, I respect an entity that is willing to play in a competitive marketplace, instead of looking for sleazy tactics to monopolize industries.
Alex
This is a fact. Fact's are good.
This is wild speculation. Wild speculation is bad.
What's been happening to
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
As some stupid amount of all internet traffic is P2P and increasing would they not save a hell of a lot of money by providing internet to everyone in america, they would then have to pay nothing for the P2P bandwidth going outside their network, and surly would make a hell of a lot more money?
Nick
It might be way beyond old, but it's also way beyond true.
The article never says they're going for "Internet Google." Of course, the article title on Slashdot does. If you say anything bad about Google, you get 10 people bitching at you, and modded down, no matter how rational you are.
If you say something good about KDE, you get 5 people telling you how bloat it is, and how Gnome is better. If you say something negative about OSX, you better get a new phone number because some OSX fanatic will probably track you down and kill you.
It's the same old shit every day on Slashdot, and for the supposedly more intelligent people that work with computer systems every day, it's a lot like a herd of lemmings.
But I still read it, because if you have the sack you can sift through all the crap sheepish posts and get some really thoughtful ones. And that, at least for me, makes it worth it for now.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -