Google's Experimental Fiber Network

gmuslera writes "Not enough speed from your ISP? Google seems to go into that market too. 'We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.' The goal isnt just to give ultra fast speed for some lucky ones, but to test under that conditions things like new generations of apps, and deployment techniques that take advantage of it." If they need a test neighborhood, I'm sure mine would be willing.

Comments

Way to go

[LeotheQuick]

ISPs are yet another market where companies have been allowed to sit high on the hog because of the cost the advantage they have in their existing infrastructure. Any sort of competition that can give these companies a good kick in the arse is a good thing in my book. Now Google just needs to get into the banking business :-)

What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Why would Google want to get into Fiber? Will they just track every packet you send over the net and sell that data?

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[MozeeToby]

A) There is undoubtably money to be made installing ultra-high speed internet, the market is large and the suppliers are few. It's entirely possible that they simple intend to move into the ISP business
B) It's in Google's best interests for everyone to have a high quality internet connection. Specifically, this is probably more about creating a market to test the next generation of web based apps than it is about anything else. Presumably, ultra-high speed connections will be more common in a few years, and Google would like the opportunity to see what exactly people will use them for. We already have the bandwidth for video, VOIP, and webapps, so what's next?

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

They could well have a tracking agenda, they are an advertising company, and a fair few ISPs have been seen sniffing around NebuAd and Phorm and their ilk. It certainly wouldn't surprise me.

However, if they just wanted the tracking data, there are almost certainly cheaper, easier, and very much quieter ways to get 90% of the effect. They already have ads on some huge percentage of webpages, and set cookies all over the place, not to mention the people who stay logged in to iGoogle and the like all the time. I'm sure the additional data they could get by being the ISP would be a bonus; but I'm a lot less sure that it is a bonus worth going into the infrastructure business, and bringing down the combined marketing/lobbying wrath of every cable and telco incumbent in the US over.

More likely, they have two basic concerns: Network quality and network neutrality.

If available net connections suck, webapps will suck and online experiences generally will suck. More people will continue to use desktop apps, or iPhone style purpose-specific applications, which will mean fewer people looking at adsense ads and using webapps. That would make Google a sad panda.

If the incumbent carriers, telco and cable, are in the position to do so, it will be immensely tempting for them to sell access to "their consumers". At worst, this will mean Google gets blocked entirely. At best, this will shift money out of Google's margins and into Comcast and Verizon's margins. Google really has to shiv them before they shiv google on this one.

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[Anonymous Coward]

A test market is going to be a much smaller subset of the market, practically by definition.

Realistically, what does Google need to offer in the 1 Gbps range that can't be offered at 15 Mbps range? I don't know, and I honestly don't care about their needs, but I do want to see this leap forward (and maintained by some other company).

What I want to see is them get in, and have the rest of the industry suddenly trying to surpass them.

What will probably, really happen though: Google will be looked into by the Justice Department for attempting to monopolize the market (which, to be honest, isn't too far off when you consider phone, Chrome OS, email, search, and now the ISP itself would be owned by Google), and the other ISPs will claim that the market is being entered unfairly and litigate instead of innovate. After all, this is the market that wants to tell everyone 25 GB is enough for a month. How could they claim that, while giving users enough bandwidth to exceed that amount in less than 4 minutes? I hope it happens, but with litigation proving to be more powerful that freedom (what if people used this for copyright infringement!?!!! Clearly, there is no other benefit!!...), I cannot really see it happening.

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[bill_mcgonigle]

They don't. They want to embarrass the real ISP's into building decent networks so the network-neutrality issue goes away and they don't wind up having to pay the ISP's for traffic they're sending to its customers.

Google is always playing the chess board three moves ahead.

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[amorsen]

Google gets bandwidth quite cheaply in general. Lots of ISP's would happily string a cable to Google or offer them server hosting for free, just to not have to pay for the traffic through their transit providers.

Tier 1 ISP's are probably different, but there aren't all that many of those.

Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking?

[chill]

You missed my meaning. Google would be just as happy with Firefox succeeding as with Chrome. Their purpose is a faster, more capable Internet experience. Whether that is with Chrome, or with Firefox, or even IE, they don't care as long as the speed and capabilities are there.

All browsers lead to Google, which is their core purpose.

Here is what is going to happen.

[eparker05]

The big names in networking (AT&T, Charter, etc.) are going to sue Google on antitrust grounds because it is easier to hire lawyers than to upgrade failing and obsolete networks.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[FlyingBishop]

Which will pan out about as well as Palm's attempt to get Apple in trouble for breaching the USB standard.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond reliability, once you get to those kinds of speeds, there's a separate metric that contributes more to the feeling of speed. 1gbps might sound really cool, but if every connection has above a 100ms latency, the connection will feel slower than a 10mbps connection with 2ms latency for most internet activities. The only thing that benefits from a ridiculously-high transfer rate is large file transfer.

And it's great to quote a transfer rate like 1gbps, but that won't mean much if the upload speed is ridiculously asymmetric. If the connection is symmetric and you can upload at that speed as well and they've got a reasonable policy on running servers that's very different from a 1gbps/10mbps connection that doesn't allow servers.

Also, it seems like they're targeting residential customers. And most people have wireless networks in their homes. So what good is it to connect a 1gbps connection to a wireless router that can't keep up. Even with 802.11n, you're still not too much beyond a 100mbps connection.

So I agree with you. I'd rather have a reliable, symmetric 100mbps connection with really low latency and a policy to allow home servers. If they can give me all that and bump it up to 1gbps, I'm not going to complain, but the other stuff is more important.

Re:Google

[_PimpDaddy7_]

I don't care.

If this means more competition to the likes of Comcast and Verizon with internet in the home, so be it.

I am so sick of the cable companies stranglehold. It's obvious the FCC won't do anything about competition.

I'd gladly welcome Google.

Competition is GOOD.

pulling a gmail

[speed of lightx2]

When gmail first appeared, the two big free email services were yahoo and hotmail. Hotmail have you 2MB to play with, and Yahoo was a bit more generous with 5 (if I remember correctly). That seemed to be the status-quo until google offered with gmail 200 times more free storage (plus features).

Re:Google

[mc1138]

I hope they'll take this a step further and offer up this sort of connection to corporate customers. I work from a company with a 20 Mbit connection and probably pay a lot more than what this connection is going to be offered for. Granted I'd still be fine paying more than a home user to guarantee uptime etc, but really, hopefully this will be a shot in the arm to other providers to wake up and not nickel and dime people for services that can't meet demand. It seems like Google is doing what they can to keep the US from falling behind the rest of the world.

Re:more competition

[Eric52902]

Or, for those of us who've run out of tinfoil, maybe it just happens that they haven't hammered out the details. That seems far less likely than the marketspeak angle though, huh?

Re:more competition

[drachenstern]

Gigabit to the home not on Comcast? Um, sign me up for $120+/mo...

Or is that just me? I would expect the service to come down with time, and I realize this is a big gamble on their end, but $DEITY I would love to see anyone else in my neighborhood @now

Re:Google

[TubeSteak]

this is nothing but good in my book.

We already bitch and moan about our privacy and how much information we want any single company to have.
Now you're excited about giving the internet's biggest data-miner 100% of your browsing traffic and behavior?

Re:Google

[not already in use]

Google seems willing and ready to tap any market that is dominated by dick-wads that have gotten too comfortable charging too much for too little. More power to them. They're going to make a lot of money off of innovating and giving people their money's worth.

Re:Google

[Stick32]

The funny part is that if Google does hit it big and dominates the market Comcast will probably be the first to start crying 'monopoly'

Mark Shuttleworth

[RichM]

Apparently Mark Shuttleworth has a 1Gbit connection to his home or thereabouts.
People often forget too that downloading at that speed is dependant on hard disk throughput. You'll struggle to get above 50MB/sec which is about 400MBit a sec.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[mibus]

People often forget too that downloading at that speed is dependant on hard disk throughput

Only if you're intending to save it to disk. Streaming multiple HD video streams (one for you, one or two for your kids) etc. etc. will use gobs of bandwidth with zero disk activity - and is only going to get larger (3D, 4K-resolution, etc).

Granted, you'd still have plenty of room left over in your gigabit, but I'm sure we'll find something useful to use it for. (Astronomers working from home? :)

Re:more competition

[mrxak]

Heck, give me a service that's better than Time Warner Cable, and I'll pretty much pay any price they want. Right now I'm waiting for the local phone company to finally go under so Verizon FiOS can come in. I'll get their top-tier service just on principle.

Re:Google

[Joe Tie.]

We? Personally I consider privacy a somewhat dated concept, and don't really care.