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

more competition

[saturnblackhole]

this is great i hope its a huge success, comcast and time warner needs some competition to lower prices and get rid of stupid data caps. just wish i was available to more people.

Re:more competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure more people wish you were available to them too ;-)

Re:more competition

[WinterSolstice]

I see this as a response to the filtering and tiering complaints. Google seems to be attempting to say "Fine, take your toys and go home. We'll just give everyone new toys"

I wish them luck, and hope we're not seeing the founding of the new IBM/Ma Bell empire.

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

[EvanED]

Why are they afraid of telling us exactly what that "competetive" price is, and competetive to what?

Maybe they're still working it out.

Re:more competition

[pluther]

My guess is they have no idea what the price will be before they start experimenting with how the service will work, how people will use it, and how much people will be willing to pay to get away from Comcast.

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:more competition

[A nonymous Coward]

They say 50K connections, potentially up to 500K. No competitor will pay attention to such small numbers, especially as they are certain to skim the cream of cheaply connectable homes.

Re:more competition

[mcgrew]

No tinfoil needed; in this case, Hanlon's razor beats mcgrew's razor*. Marketing types are marketing types, and none of them have the people they're marketing to in mind. The words "competetive" and "affordable" are meaningless, especially (as I said) in this context. Competetive compared to who? My mom's on dialup, for her "competetive" woud be around twelve dollars a month. If they don't know what the price is going to be, they should STFU about the price.

* Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by greedy self-interest.

Re:more competition

[A nonymous Coward]

You do understand the concept of RTFA ... oh wait. I see.

Re:more competition

[mcgrew]

I would expect the service to come down with time

Well, with Comcast, the service DOES go down with time. Unfortunately the more the service goes down, the more the price goes up.

Re:more competition

[GrumblyStuff]

Even if they haven't worked out the details (as repeated more than a few times in replies to your comment), it would be nice if they'd come out and say something that makes Comcast exes shit themselves.

"Double the speed, half the price, and restrictions (download cap, etc.), if any, are shown up front."

Fuck competitive. Knock some socks off.

Re:more competition

[drachenstern]

I see you understood I meant the price of the service would come down with time :p

Can you imagine a life with high-speed internet without Comcast? (or whatever name they give themselves?)

Re:more competition

[Sulphur]

exes shit themselves

You might need subtitles, but it would be good on Youtube.

Re:more competition

[0racle]

'Competitive prices' often means 'Pretty much the same as everyone else in the area.' AT&T and Verizon call their rates competitive, even though they're pretty much exactly the same in every market as one another.

Re:more competition

[aztracker1]

I'd do $120/month for a /29 address block, and 20Mbps up & down. (would go $200/month for >= 100mbit and a /28)

Re:more competition

[mcgrew]

Yeah, I was just being a smartass ;)

You can imagine how my teachers hated me in grade school! as to life without Comcast, I did fine without it. It would be hard to go back to DSL now, though, let alone back to a 33k modem.

Come to think of it, back in the early eighties I was on Compuserve and BBSes with a 300 baud modem (shudder).

Re:more competition

[kobiashi maru]

Hanlon's razor beats mcgrew's razor

what about occam's razor*? *the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one

Re:more competition

[keefus_a]

I too have run out of tinfoil. But I haven't replaced it with blinders either. One of their goals states:

We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers.

The way I read that, Google isn't offering a gigabit connection to the internet. They're offering a gigabit connection to Google. You'll still have to pay somebody else to get anywhere else. And that person may or may not have throttling, bandwidth caps, etc.

I'm sure the guys at Google have considered that, and this is no doubt a shot across the bow of the major ISPs to drop the net neutrality debate. But if they (the major ISPs) are the only ones who step up to the plate to offer ISP access FROM Google, it's hardly a loss to them. And I hate to mention it because I can't recall the specifics, but I remember reading that there are regulatory reasons Google wouldn't want to get into the "official" ISP business due to the way their backbone is built out, and the major ISPs know this.

But what if you could offer the opportunity to get some of the end-user cash to the Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers that don't currently offer end-user service, without really having to add anything to their network. That would be a more beneficial and effective shot on a number of levels.

For one, the big guys of the web (Akamai, Limelight, etc) are already multi-homed to the major backbones. So if you have AT&T service at home, odds are you're never leaving AT&T's network to watch your Netflix movie. In which case AT&T holds all the cards because you're paying for the service, and if they could, they'd be charging Netflix to prioritize their traffic to your house. Netflix has to pay because it's the only way to get the packets to you. This starts making other Tier 1 carriers irrelevant...that is unless they had a cost effective way to offer end-user service.

And if the model holds up, the loophole might just work for municipal broadband. There's a long list of examples for municipalities trying to build out fiber networks and getting shut down by the major carriers. But the "I'm not the ISP" loophole (if it holds up) might be big enough for municipalities to jump on the "GoogleNet" without Common Carrier interference.

I suppose tinfoil isn't needed in some scenarios, but I wouldn't expect gigabit "internet" access any time soon, just gigabit access to Google.

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:more competition

[cskrat]

Must you ruin my optimism?

I just switched to Comcast to get away from Knology and take advantage of their new DOCSIS 3.0 rollout in my area. I'm currently getting around 35/9 (sustained over several gigabytes) on their 22/5 service. I know it's not going to last like that but for now I'm happy deluding myself.

Although I will say that Comcast will have to put in a serious effort to deliver worse service than Knology. With Knology I was paying for 6Mbit and getting 1.5 to 2.0 on a good day and enough packet loss to make bandwidth meaningless on a normal day. My leased modem had a manufacture date from last century. Service appointments were silently rescheduled to another day or canceled entirely. Issue tickets would randomly disappear from their system. And in order to pay my bill by phone I had to call them to give them my CC#, get the confirmation code, hang-up and call back with the confirmation code that I just received to inform them that I just called them 2 minutes ago to make a payment.

So as long as nobody from Comcast breaks into my house at night to violate my cats, I can't see them being any worse than the "competition" here in South Carolina.

Re:more competition

[cskrat]

Some of them will dump if they're not careful with their pointers.

Re:more competition

[haruchai]

Sometimes a change is as good as a bargain. I would rather sweat blood than go back to being a Bell or Rogers customer
ever again but my current provider ( a Bell reseller ) doesn't have the clout to force Bell to upgrade the crappy copper in
the neighbourhood and we all have to swallow their traffic shaping.

Give me a third party with their own infrastructure, better support, and fewer restrictions and I'm willing to pay more for just to give them the finger.

Re:more competition

[budgenator]

I don't know but it sounds like they are planning to lay a pipe to your door that'll pump more bytes than most servers can deliver and I'll be surprised if it isn't close to AUCE 1 gigabit per second for around $40-60 /month. Google is in the business of selling advertising, our eyes are their product slinging insane amounts of data to us makes us happy so the more we see, the more they make.

Re:more competition

[drachenstern]

Yeah, $120 was just a gut first vote... on further reflection I would probably do more like $200/mo for the service, but my wife might not... not until she understood what it meant to watch everything over fiber on the computer, thus reducing two other bills per mo (television, phone) and going to a simple VOIP for landline...

$DEITY I can't wait till April and we hear the results of ANY of Google's deliberations on this...

At this point in time, April 2010 is looking to be an important month!

Re:more competition

[moosesocks]

Here in DC, Verizon is the phone company, and they're not planning to completely roll out FiOS until 2018.

For most of us, Comcast is the only option, and almost everybody would be eager to jump ship. It's the slowest, most heavily restricted, and least reliable ISP I've ever used.

Re:more competition

[mcgrew]

I think Occam's razor applies here; you have a marketing type who's been paid to dissemble for decades. Simple.

Re:more competition

[mcgrew]

No matter how bad any company is, there's always one that's worse. Comcast seems a move up for you; how does that Knology even stay in business?

Re:more competition

[symbolset]

Good guess. Businessweek is forecasting this to cost $3-8000 per home. At 5 year amortization and 8% interest, that's $60-140 per month. Knowing Google, they'll leverage off the shelf technologies and clever networking to come in under the low end.

With cities like Seattle volunteering rights-of way and in-place dark fiber infrastructure, this looks doable. Throw in some guaranteed paid subscriptions by city services like police, fire and so forth to seed the project and we're on! Maybe we don't even need Google for this one.

Google

[russlar]

Seriously, is there any market Google is not going into?

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.

Re:Google

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Privacy protection; and ad-blocking.

Re:Google

[neophytepwner]

Airline industry? Highspeed rail?

Re:Google

[nschubach]

They don't do video game consoles, keyboards, mice, or portable media players... *cough*

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:Google

[killmenow]

I know you're moderated funny, but I could see them eventually getting into that business. How better to learn methods of bypassing ad-blocks than by being a leading producer of ad-blocking technology yourself?

Look at it like this:

1. sell advertising to companies
2. sell ad-blocking tools to people
3. sell enhanced advertising that bypasses new ad-blocks to companies at a higher price
4. sell enhanced ad-blocking tools to people that block the new ads at a higher price
5. GOTO 3

Re:Google

[neoform]

Problem: All the competition is incompetent. Google is not. Google will move in to this area, destroy everyone else, and then there will be no more "competition" (not that there necessarily was any before). In the end, we might end up with but one ISP....

Re:Google

[flitty]

Google is not the ISP. They are laying "open" lines of fiber.

Re:Google

[Z34107]

Problem: All the competition is incompetent. Google is not. Google will move in to this area, destroy everyone else, and then there will be no more "competition" (not that there necessarily was any before). In the end, we might end up with but one ISP....

Even if that happens, we'll still be (slightly) better off. Rather than have incompetent ISPs with no competition, we'll have a competent ISP with no competition.

You can sign up for the beta here.

Re:Google

[brufleth]

The existing ISPs can't be swept aside that easily. Many could in fact provide much better service with a nominal investment in their networks. The only reason they don't bother is a lack of motivation in the market (aka competition). If my options are Comcast or dial up what is their motivation to improve service? Look at cell phone companies. In the last ten years I've gone from 500 minutes a month to unlimited everything with only small price increases. My ISP has provided progressively crappier service over the last 15 years while increasing their prices.

Re:Google

[odd42]

The only-choice-of-provider many of us have, right now, DESERVE to be destroyed by Google with such a plan.

IF Google becomes the only ones on top for a while, how is that worse than the slow one(s) we have on top now?

This is just good news for consumers in threatening to bust the status quo

Re:Google

[Mashiki]

For the love of everything in every power, that people do and don't believe in. I want more competition. If google can bring it, I'll sing praises until I'm blue in the face. I have the option of 2 ISP's. Both with 60-90GB/mo caps, this is nothing but good in my book.

Re:Google

[calmofthestorm]

I agree, however whenever any company gets too large in terms of horizontal consolidation I start to get a bit scared. Sure google hasn't done that much to justify this fear *to me* (MS fud aside) yet, but it's a publically-traded company; it's only a matter of time.

Re:Google

[Adriax]

We're paying something like $750/month each for 3 T1 point to points between our main office and our 3 field offices. Might be per end, might be both ends, all I know is we pay through the nose for this crappy service.
Not to mention all the lost productivity waiting for large files, or even windows updates, to traverse the network.

If google wants a rural test bed, I guarantee they would be well received by state officials in wyoming.

Re:Google

[drachenstern]

While it's funny that they ran this before as a joke, hopefully this time they can come a little closer to reality.

Without coming towards my rear-realty ;)

Re:Google

[sleeping143]

Oddly enough, when I typed "competition is" into Google, the first suggestion was "competition is a sin"...

Re:Google

[Fnkmaster]

I don't have any objection to a successful company generating lots of cash wanting to expand into new markets. But to try to expand in so many directions at the same time seems to risk completely losing their focus and the special factors that made them successful in the first place.

Re:Google

[Whalou]

Competition is GOOG.

Re:Google

[JWSmythe]

    Well, they actually do own a few aircraft. I was only able to track down information on 4 of them. The other three have been well referenced, I just haven't found their tail numbers.

    Boeing 757
    Gulfstream V/550
    Gulfstream V/550

    (yes, two Gulfstreams, it's not an error)

    N2767 Boeing 767-238/ER
    N2165 Dornier Alpha Jet # N2165
    N13471 Cessna 172M
    N42PE Homebuilt(?) RV-9A

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

[hydroponx]

Personally, I'm excited that I might actually be able to host a web server at home without a business account. The extra speed is nice, but I really don't use the capacity of the connection I have now......

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

[neoform]

Well, it's nice to say that. In the short term, we would certainly benefit, long term.. well, that's ambiguous...

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'

Re:Google

[Wyatt Earp]

Thats assuming Google isn't run by dick-wads. They are going to make money buy learning everything they can about us and marketing that data.

Re:Google

[Orange Crush]

Personal privacy is a personal decision. So long as you can opt-out (nobody will force you to use the GoogleNet if you don't want to) then I don't see a problem with it. Having more choices is nothing but good in my opinion.

Re:Google

[thetoadwarrior]

Not likely. I can't see every single ISP deciding to roll over and let Google win.

Re:Google

[Lord Ender]

Google hires talented engineers and doesn't try to crush them with middle-management bullshit. They will be able to outcompete any tech company in any market.

I have plenty of good ideas to improve my company. Where's my 20% time to work on them? That's right, it doesn't exist. The only thing I should spend time on is what my boss's boss's boss has "visibility" of. My talents are wasted here at a "normal" technology company.

Also, we have way over-downsized, too. How can anyone innovate when we're putting out fires 24/7?

Google will rock the horribly-mismanaged tech industry.

Re:Google

[IICV]

Yes, because given Google's recent conduct in China, I think it is more likely that they will not have an NSA closet in every datacenter.

Re:Google

[tattood]

yeah, except now your ISP will also be the holder of all your documents, search history, email, etc....

Just because Google is your ISP, doesn't mean that you have to use Google Docs, Google search or Gmail. If you DO use any of those, they are already the holder of those, so whats the difference??

Re:Google

[tyrione]

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?

I'll take it he works for Google.

Re:Google

[shutdown -p now]

Seriously, is there any market Google is not going into?

Porn.

But I'm totally waiting for that.

Just think of the possibilities: a web-based library that automagically extracts keywords from raw video streams and lets you search over them.

Oh, and it shows you contextual ads, too. "Would you like that nice shampoo for your doggie for just $5.95?". Hmm...

Or how about "private amateur" section composed from Picasa albums which people forgot to make private?

Don't even get me started on how you could integrate collaborative writing of slashfic in Google Wave!

Re:Google

[T Murphy]

AT&T and Comcast have plenty of resources to upgrade their systems and drop their prices. Because they are effectively a monopoly, they don't want to. If Google starts stealing all of their customers, AT&T and the rest will drag their feet and throw lawyers at the problem for a while, but those companies aren't about to go away. They will adapt if they have no other option.

Re:Google

[smhsmh]

Last week I overheard some Googleheads at the bar. They were talking about a new line of business for Google that sounded really neat. Customers could order groceries over the web and orders would be filled at highly-automated local warehouses and then delivered by GoogleVans. Wonder why Amazon didn't think of this first....

Re:Google

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I remember when we were chanting more competition when the Walmart store were being built. Everybody was happy because the prices were lower than the mom-n-pops. At least until Walmart drove the mom-n-pops out of business. Now where's the competition?

Re:Google

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Don't question the logic of a Google lemming.

Re:Google

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Like bank robbers, Google is just going where the money is. Don't fool yourself into thinking they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Re:Google

[Joe Tie.]

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

Re:Google

[Cassius Corodes]

Does the planet you live on accept immigrants? - it seems such a nice place.

Re:Google

[budgenator]

an ISP is a organization that stands between me and my internet and demands a monthly toll from me, all I want is a great big data pipe, i don't need no stinking ISP's crappy website, no stinking ISP's broke-ass DNS and no stinking ISP's Email with 5MB attachment limits, just a great big data pipe to the internet, symmetrical speeds and static IP addresses would give me wood.

Re:Google

[beatbox32]

All of your chatter about "willing and ready to tap" and "dominated" and "dick-wads" has certainly given us all a clue into what you'll be using the service for.

Re:Google

[im_thatoneguy]

The office above us has 6 T1 lines. It costs them something like $1500 a month. We spend $200 on two of Comcast's 50/5mbps business connections and laugh. Why do they spend 10x what they should? The IT guy had Comcast at home and they pissed him off.

The way we see it is you can spend either $1500 for completely reliable internet. Or you can spend $200 for internet that is significantly faster and pay an extra $50 a month for our failover internet which is 6mbps DSL. We've had Comcast go out for a few minutes here and there every few months. After about 4 or 5 seconds the router switches to the DSL automatically.

Re:Google

[TeamMCS]

You make a very good point but I'll add that (within the UK) if a ISP is able to review the content going back and forth through its core routers then it should be held accountable for what data is transmitted. In other words, if they open the box they gotta deal with what's in it

Re:Google

[Mashiki]

You must live in a place where the governments archaic laws regarding ownership don't stop you from having open access and limiting everything you can and can't do. Including what you can or can't watch on TV. Oh this place I'm speaking of is called Canada. So yes, if Google can bring competition I'm all for it. Much like I was in favor of WIND, to bring in more competition.

See some of us in the developed world actually require industry to give government a kick in the ass so we can have more freedom then "you have 2 choices, both of them are bad." Rather then the government oversight board(CRTC) which is full of cable & phone execs pushing away all competition.

Re:Google

[Mashiki]

I'll take it he works for Google.

Most excellent, tell me when I get a fat paycheck please. But sadly, you're wrong. The world doesn't revolve around your myopic view.

Old news

[Tmack]

They launched this a few years back iirc: http://www.google.com/tisp/

tm

Re:Old news

[revlayle]

TiSP is WIRELESS - this article talks about fiber to the home

Re:Old news

[Tmack]

TiSP is WIRELESS - this article talks about fiber to the home

"Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines."

RTFA!

tm

Re:Old news

[Firemouth]

I had this. I don't recommend it as it was pretty shitty.

Re:Old news

[rugatero]

I would say "Whoosh!", but were it not for the preview button my missing-the-point comment would be where yours is now.

Re:Old news

[rsborg]

TiSP is WIRELESS - this article talks about fiber to the home

Be careful, fiber will increase the "data" flow.

Re:Old news

[revlayle]

I is teh dumb - this was joke - wind over hair!!

Re:Old news

[drachenstern]

No, it's increasing the upstream fiber that causes a higher load of downstream content. This is all about downstream fiber in the first place...

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Your logs should be flushed on a regular basis too.

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 :-)

Re:Way to go

[shentino]

I agree.

One reason the ISPs are so high on the hog is also one of the reasons we are so mad at the banks right now. They got a stimulus to put more into infrastructure, adnt hey just swallowed it and didn't do shit with the money but pay off thier execs.

Re:Way to go

[T Murphy]

Nah, they need to get into politics. Get rid of our corporate-run government.

Re:Way to go

[butlerm]

The problem with (big) banks is they want the public to shoulder the risks, while their shareholders take the reward. That is perverse. "Too big to fail" must die. Playing the lottery with government guaranteed deposits equally so.

Why is it, by the way, that we let banks borrow from the Fed at the lowest possible interest rate, but not private citizens? Wouldn't it be rather more fair if any private entity with adequate credit could borrow from the Fed at the same rate the banks do? I mean, why (for example) can't Google borrow from the Fed?

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?

[Patch86]

RTFS?

They want to use it as a test-bed for programmes and services under ultra-high-speed conditions. That's why they're only planning a relatively small roll our (what, less than 1/500 of the US population?).

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?

[UnknowingFool]

Google is already into fiber having bought out a lot of dark fiber years ago. At the time, Google said it was help reduce costs by using their own pipes rather pay a network like AT&T to connect their own data centers. Now the real question is why are they going into providing consumers fiber access.

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

[Amorymeltzer]

Why should you be more fearful of Google doing that as opposed to our current swath of ISPs and Telecoms? Especially given that some of them have been proven to be amenable to wiretapping during the Bush era? Maybe I'm blurring the lines between internet and phone, but a lot of these companies provide both and as the amount of valued information continues to shift away from the telephone jack and to the ethernet cable, it is indeed a valid concern. Sure, some may prefer the Devil they know, but when weighing Pros and Cons, I'm going to side with the guys who didn't need a pardon from Congress, and instead give me excellent email and help me find things online.

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?

[Idiomatick]

Uhm.... people pay them money to use the internets... Man... not everything is data mining. Shouldn't be that confusing how a ISP can make money, they aren't giving it away (that I know of....).

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

[markov_chain]

With a broadband connection 100x faster they can deliver 100x more ads :)

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?

[nschubach]

Now the real question is why

Why not?

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

[swimin]

Apps where more has moved to the cloud.

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?

[chill]

Because it is damn expensive, that is "why not".

The "why" needs to give them a good reason. My guess is this:

1. Google's main revenue generator -- ads -- are very effective. I know a lot of people who hate Internet ads but don't mind Google's because they aren't in-your-face offensive. Considering their revenue, there are a LOT of people like that.

2. The better your experience on the Internet, the more money Google makes.

3. Google, therefore, rolls out products designed to improve your experience on the Internet.

4. Profit! (Goto 2)

This is the same logic I use to believe that Chrome isn't a threat to Mozilla Firefox. All Google cares about is better, faster, stronger Internet experience. They have the tools, they can rebuild it. Chrome isn't a competitor to Firefox.

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

[micromoog]

Most of Google's business model is based on Internet-based client-server interaction. The faster people's connections are, the better their core products work.

Since the state of high-speed internet in the US today is basically an abusive oligopoly, Google has a huge interest in changing that market for the better.

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

[whiteworm]

Mtn. Vw's neighboring town, Palo Alto installed a fiber loop abt 10 yrs ago that sadly remains largely dark, except for several proximate firms that have rented access from the city. For instance, Facebook hdquarters had a tap installed when they moved. I don't think Google can follow, since it isn't sitting near the Palo Alto loop anywhere, however.

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

[Mashiki]

Now the real question is why are they going into providing consumers fiber access.

Easy answer. It makes money, the demand is there or will be soon. That's future guessing the next 10 years or so, there's a monopoly on the market. Something easy to exploit, they have massive capital that they can use to front end this while testing current feasibility.

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

[wiredlogic]

Now the real question is why are they going into providing consumers fiber access.

The bandwidth costs of YouTube alone would justify them deploying their own infrastructure. If they can shift X% of their users to their own network they only have to pay for the overhead of maintaining that network. The rest is savings for them.

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

[DragonWriter]

Why would Google want to get into Fiber?

Among many other reasons, its a net neutrality insurance policy. Google favors net neutrality, but if net neutrality foes succeed (and that's an ongoing threat, because they don't tend to back off even as the FCC reiterates its support for net neutrality principles) it needs its own links directly to consumers as a hedge against other big network providers (particularly those that are also trying to compete with other Google services, whether video offerings that compete with YouTube, phone offerings that compete in some ways with Voice, or something else) -- impairing access to Google's services. If Google can position themselves as a competitive fiber-to-consumer provider, it puts them in a position where such actions by competing service providers that are also fiber providers are riskier because of the potential for retaliation.

Google has a strategic investment in not making the internet into a set of disjoint walled gardens, but ultimately the best way of insuring that is to guarantee that if its competitors try to convert it into such a system, those competitors will lose.

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

[drachenstern]

Except they can claim they're bringing competition to areas that don't have it, such as mine, and encouraging the local content provider to invest Federal dollars in my area as well. The Federal Gov't has already earmarked a large chunk of money for doing exactly what Google is talking about doing privately.

Now, I agree that I wonder if Google is the best one to do this. But, who else is going to try? Another large media conglomerate that owns channels and distribution and newspapers? Like Comcast? Oh yeah, my bad. Talk about a monopoly. Let them complain to the FCC, I'll just mediate and introduce the two: "Pot, Kettle".

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

[drachenstern]

mobile data center service, over-arching cloud storage of data, better googlemaps integration, higher quality pics/video

oh, was that rhetorical?

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

[drachenstern]

where's the like button? it's on buzz, facebook, and even twitter has RT

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

[IMustBeNewHere]

Realistically, what does Google need to offer in the 1 Gbps range that can't be offered at 15 Mbps range?

Google wants to own your hard drive. If you are scanning or printing a document or up/downloading videos and photos to their data warehouse, 15 Mbps won't cut it.

Or, you can waste plenty of bandwidth on streaming HD video like TV, movies, gaming (e.g OnLive). Imagine having a family of four downloading four 72Mbit (BluRay 2x spec) streams at the same time.

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?

[Idiot with a gun]

Plus, many ISPs are trying to strip ads from pages, and insert their own in the fly. Comcast even redirects not found DNS queries to their own ad-covered site. It's in Google's interest to ensure you receive the pages as they were sent (with their ads instead of Comcast's).

Personally, I want it (Google's ads are less offensive, and 1Gbps? Yes please).

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

[Wyatt Earp]

I'll bet they are just going to roll it out around their data centers.

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

[timeOday]

We already have the bandwidth for video, VOIP, and webapps, so what's next?

Really, everything is a subset of video. Your computer's ouputs are a monitor and speaker, so if you can drive those remotely, with sufficient quality, you're done. All apps could move to the cloud.

Now, you say we already have the video for bandwidth; I say the move to video has only just begun. Blu-Ray is 40 megabits, so we at least need that much bandwidth to each person in a household, for all households simultaneously, as an upper limit. (More realistically, X% of that upper limit).

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

[AHuxley]

HD video chat, HD movies, better HD gaming *at* the same time.
The US may also have some bad coverage in areas where short runs of fibre can make a huge difference eg. the border of cartel like teclo/cable operators.
They agree to peer but its a bottleneck for google.
Google also sees the need for its own sandbox/walled garden if Australian capped limits ever gain traction in the US.

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

[Patch86]

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.

Not that I'm saying you're not completely right, there are a few points to remember.

1) It's not illegal to become a monopoly organically (that is through normal growth and moving into new market areas). There are rules about fast-tracking your way to a monopoly (through buying out competitors for example) and lots and lots of rules about not abusing a monopoly position once you're there. But just naturally growing into a powerful company is not actually against the rules.

2) It's not against the rules to enter a market and beat the incumbents with low prices and superior products. That's sorta how capitalism is supposed to go. Unless they're taking a massive loss for the express purpose of putting rivals out of business (that'd be illegal), there's nothing stopping them setting up their own telecoms network and selling bandwidth at a low price, as long as they're making a profit out of it.

The telecoms market is so impenetrable because it has such a massive initial cost of entry (to lay all those cables or buy radio spectrum). But as long as the new entrant has cash to burn (and Google does) then there's nothing standing in their way.

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

[Temporal]

Will they just track every packet you send over the net and sell that data?

Why would you expect Google to sell the data? Can you cite any examples of Google selling user data? What do you think would happen to Google's image if they actually did sell user data?

Who do you think is more likely to sell data on your browsing habits: Google, or your current ISP? Your current ISP could trivially be tracking every host you visit, and everything you do on non-HTTPS sites. That's probably a lot more information than Google has ever had. Do you trust that your current ISP is not misusing that information? What would happen to their image if they were discovered to be selling user data? Do the ISP duopolists even have images to uphold?

Just trying to put things in perspective.

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

[bruno.fatia]

You are missing Step ???

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

[Thantik]

Chrome has extensions now with adblock/flashblock, etc... So yeah...chrome is definitely a competitor now.

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

[Unnamed Chickenheart]

Only three moves? That's pretty easy to beat! (even for me :)

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

[drachenstern]

if you're still watching: too kind of you. thanks.

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.

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

[PingPongBoy]

Google is intent on knowing everything, or at least be linked to every bit of knowledge. If Mohammad doesn't put the mountain online, Google will wire up the mountain. Kapeesh?

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

[gfody]

this could screw onLive's whole plan. their technology enables thin client gaming by basically doing real-time high-resolution video compression well enough to deliver unbuffered/low-latency content over 5-10mbit service. with gbit to the home we can get away with standard technologies. hell, if my block gets gbit service I'd knock up a quick frame server atop cs:source or something just to try it out.

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

[Fastolfe]

The same reason behind Chrome, Android, Google Public DNS, etc. The idea is to make the Internet better, faster, more open, and with more users. I think the idea is that this translates into more usage of (better, faster) Google products.

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

[khallow]

Chrome isn't a competitor to Firefox.

Chrome is a web browser. That alone makes it a competitor to Firefox. Chrome can steal market share from Firefox. That also makes it a competitor.

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.

[eparker05]

I'm inclined to agree with you, but it sucks that innovative companies like Google will have to deal with this.

Notice that prior to laying down the fiber network, they took the town to court to prevent competition:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-your-town-threaten-to-roll-out-your-own.ars

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[alen]

if you think Google is going to have 1gbps of bandwidth for everyone one of their users then you are deluding yourself

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Idiomatick]

100mbps with any RELIABILITY would be pretty industry shifting for North America. I'd prefer they focus on that rather than burst speeds... I suppose if they get it high enough the slow speeds will be enough assuming it doesn't drop much... But that is quite a big statement, even for Google. 1gbps for 500k ppl and cost competitive? No company in the world has lines to homes like this... World's fastest have been hovering around 60Mbps for quite a while now. Entering a new market and completely dominating everything in comparison on a global scale.... that'd be impressive. Even for Google.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Random BedHead Ed]

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.

Perhaps they will. But consider: this is not a profit engine for Google, in much the same way that Android isn't a profit engine. Google says this service is to test new high-bandwidth technologies, and I don't doubt that's true, but it's probably also true that they're just trying to upset this market because the established cable companies are a threat to their other businesses, both because of their slowness to raise the bandwidth bar and because of their marriages to legacy content distribution.

Because of this, Google probably doesn't care whether they own this service or not. I bet if the big networking dinosaurs sued Google, Google could settle with them by agreeing to spin off the fiber Internet company, yet still accomplish all of the original project goals. It would be like if Google had to cut Android free - it would still satisfy Google's main goal of creating an open platform that's more friendly to their mobile web services than Apple's or Microsoft's is likely to be.

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:Here is what is going to happen.

[TemporalBeing]

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.

Perhaps they will. But consider: this is not a profit engine for Google, in much the same way that Android isn't a profit engine. Google says this service is to test new high-bandwidth technologies, and I don't doubt that's true, but it's probably also true that they're just trying to upset this market because the established cable companies are a threat to their other businesses, both because of their slowness to raise the bandwidth bar and because of their marriages to legacy content distribution.

Because of this, Google probably doesn't care whether they own this service or not. I bet if the big networking dinosaurs sued Google, Google could settle with them by agreeing to spin off the fiber Internet company, yet still accomplish all of the original project goals. It would be like if Google had to cut Android free - it would still satisfy Google's main goal of creating an open platform that's more friendly to their mobile web services than Apple's or Microsoft's is likely to be.

And at the same time it would end up exposing the carriers for what they really are, and it would end up being a big PR problem for all of them.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[russlar]

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.

Maybe. Except that, if they base their anti-trust claim on the basis that Google would own both the content and the connection to that content, then Comcast's acquisition of NBC would also be subject to this same suit.

I can't see Comcast suing itself.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[amorsen]

When Google offered 1GB mail storage, that was industry changing. They didn't end up with 1GB storage per customer though, most people use far less. The trick was to avoid the pitfall of only getting the heavy users.

Perhaps they can pull the same trick with fiber.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[dbcad7]

Fiber is already being built and available to some.. AT&T and Verizon both offer it. It is a long slow process of expansion. Regardless of how smart or nice Google is, I highly doubt they can implement anything any faster.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Tubal-Cain]

...it's probably also true that they're just trying to upset this market because the established cable companies are a threat to their other businesses, both because of their slowness to raise the bandwidth bar and because of their marriages to legacy content distribution.

Not to mention the threats against Net Neutrality.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[blackraven14250]

And at the same time it would end up exposing the carriers for what they really are, and it would end up being a big PR problem for all of them.

....which helps to achieve Google's goal of a neutral, faster internet, thereby enhancing user experiences and enabling them to provide new services while remaining able to connect to all of its users regardless of ISP.

You should have finished your thought.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[AHuxley]

The " long slow process of expansion" is just riding rust belt tech into the ground for a few more years.
Min cost, max profits and marketing spin.
They have the US divided into sectors and constant revenue streams.
They do not have the US gov offering internet.
They are just milking it and not wanting to move forward until the tech is cheap and they can lock in more revenue for large and small users.
In theory they would roll out the best tech the could to cement their gov grant to be the only player.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[IICV]

No company in the world... except for in Japan or Sweden. And I'm sure there's others, as well, since I was just searching Slashdot articles.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[RajivSLK]

Well, we have 100mbps in Victoria and Vancouver BC right now. (That's in North America btw)

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[bbn]

World's fastest have been hovering around 60Mbps for quite a while now.

Huh?

271.16 down, 124.48 up

All 1645 apartments are wired up with 500 Mbps symmetric here.

We pay 6 USD/month for this service.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Aquitaine]

We have 100Mbps here in New York City (via Cablevision) - at least the parts of us lucky to have cablevision rather than Time Warner. It's $100/mo and they offer 5 static IPs as well for a bit more.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Idiomatick]

Cutting ping time further seems technically infeasible though. Being Google they can mirror their shit everywhere to drop ping as much as physically possible, but don't expect further decreases without a change in the field of physics.

Also, the feeling of speed is much controlled by ping... FOR NOW. Google is running this experiment to see how they can utilize super high speed lines. It is something that we haven't really touched on much. We'll see if there is a good reason for it, I think as 1gbps becomes common we'll find all kinds of things to do with it. And I agree, we need something remotely symmetric to be able to grow. Web 2.0, hands of the people and all that crap.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Idiomatick]

Ugh... did you just hope Google massively oversells their lines like /. complains about all ISPs doing for years....And get modded up?

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[Idiomatick]

The 3ms ping time tells me that your ISP is the same as the place you speed tested at and they unlocked caps. Try a city over?

From the site:
"Som standard opkobling har du mulighed tilslutninger fra 2 Mbit/s og op til over 10 Mbit/s " for 49dkk, or 9usd/mnth ... Obviously you didn't buy their standard line but I can't find offerings for 500Mbps on their site.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[bbn]

The 3ms ping time tells me that your ISP is the same as the place you speed tested at and they unlocked caps. Try a city over?

It even goes through Cogent:

traceroute to speedtest.zensystems.dk (91.143.114.90), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
  1 79.98.193.129.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.193.129) 4.219 ms 4.173 ms 4.160 ms
  2 79.98.199.153.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.153) 0.132 ms 0.311 ms 0.376 ms
  3 79.98.199.149.customers.telelet.dk (79.98.199.149) 2.009 ms 2.252 ms 2.221 ms
  4 ge-2-3.bgp1.ip.telelet.net (77.75.166.237) 1.888 ms 1.886 ms 1.905 ms
  5 gi9-8.ccr01.cph01.atlas.cogentco.com (149.6.136.57) 2.259 ms 2.272 ms 2.282 ms
  6 ge1.b2.dix.zensystems.net (91.143.114.13) 3.288 ms 3.229 ms 3.196 ms
  7 91.143.114.90 (91.143.114.90) 2.938 ms 2.841 ms 2.967 ms

From the site:
"Som standard opkobling har du mulighed tilslutninger fra 2 Mbit/s og op til over 10 Mbit/s " for 49dkk, or 9usd/mnth ... Obviously you didn't buy their standard line but I can't find offerings for 500Mbps on their site.

That is from the upstream providers own offering.

This is an apartment complex that wired all apartments and bought internet for everyone. You do get some better prices that way. I don't see why a large place could not do the same thing in the US too. Cogent is selling internet for 1 USD/Mbps. Buy a large shared 1 Gbps from them and share the cost between the tenants.

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[cthulhu11]

Am I the only one who suspects that this is aimed at improving service for Google *employees*?

Re:Here is what is going to happen.

[badkarmadayaccount]

I can see GOOG counter-suing.

meanwhile,

[martas]

in Big Internet Bloodsucking Company headquarters:
CEO: [loading gun] "Jimmy, tell my wife... Tell her I never gave a fuck about anyone but myself. Ha! Hahahahahaaa!"
[pan to wall. shot heard, brains splatter]

Re:meanwhile,

[characterZer0]

They need not worry. They already bought and paid for the local politicians to make sure nobody else comes in.

Re:meanwhile,

[Lunix Nutcase]

He wasn't talking about Google, fuckhead. He was talking about the already entrenched ISPs. You know, the companies that were being mocked in the GGP's post.

Re:meanwhile,

[JazzLad]

I can't believe I am bothering to reply to an AC, but he was referring to the "Big Internet Bloodsucking Company CEO"

Re:meanwhile,

[Trails]

That would require reading, but he probably got some of his populist-angst-froth in his eyes, making this difficult.

Oh no...

[sadness203]

Now they take it to the next level, they will harvest all the information directly to the source of it, one hundred time faster than before. *Insert all the possible paranoia*

Re:Oh no...

[lorenlal]

Well, they could. So what? Instead of Comcast, Cox, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, etc, Google can get their stats direct. Yes, there's a much bigger pipe, but you and I are still generating the traceable data as fast as we can.

Of course, I see another possibility for this. You know how many of these ISPs are trying to make providers pay for "preferred" access? Maybe Google is seeing this as a way to ensure net neutrality in the market, or possibly turn the tables. We shall see if it makes it far into the market, and if it ends up making a real difference.

I, for one, would welcome such a bandwidth overlord.

Re:Oh no...

[poached]

I think google just wants to make sure it's chrome os and cloud based apps can succeed and compete with MS's traditional desktop offerings.

I mean, making these AJAX based apps are relatively easy but not going to work if the user experience is horrible. Google is investing in the future, and not many companies are doing that.

Community Organization?

[Itninja]

I just tried to 'recommend my community' and apparently one needs to be part of some community organization to make the recommendation. I wonder if 'my house' can be considered a community organization?

Re:Community Organization?

[srealm]

Filling in the community organization is optional (not a required field).

Re:Community Organization?

[matzahboy]

It's too expensive for Google to roll out cables for a single home. Communities mean that the cables transferring the data are shared, and it is therefore cheaper for Google

Re:Community Organization?

[lazyforker]

mod parent "Informative" please. Same thing here. I just nominated the whole of New York City. I frigging hate Time Warner but it's the best/only option I have. Verizon's nowhere near getting FiOS in my 'hood and there are no other providers.

It doesn't matter right now

[Johnberg]

I have a 20Mb fiber line and seldom get speeds above 1Mb. Once I get off the ISP's network, the speeds are throttled down either by other carriers or the destination website.

Re:It doesn't matter right now

[Snarkalicious]

True. But someday the exact wrong combo of people will have control, and on that day net neutrality, as a concept that applies to the wider populace, will die (perhaps to later be resurrected, but by then, the damage is done). Then, everybody is selling bullshit. Google is positioning itself for that day. If they can emerge as the top dog when it ceases to be a question of personal freedom/privacy and begins a new life as an issue of corporate volition (due, in no small part to the political boondoggle that is corporate personhood), they'll be the top dog for a looooooong time to come. Christ, I'm negative today.

Re:It doesn't matter right now

[ls671]

> The goal isn't 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.

So if you are connected to Google network, I assume that you will get close to the maximum speed while using Google applications. So, they will able to test "new generations of apps, and deployment techniques that take advantage of it."

Re:It doesn't matter right now

[csartanis]

Your point is? Nobody needs to load content from one website at 20mbit. If you want to max your connection, learn what a torrent is and download yourself some legal content.

Re:It doesn't matter right now

[u38cg]

I don't have any point to make, I just want to say, I hate you. Fna!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes

[eparker05]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes#Google_TiSP

Me too, me too

[ls671]

Me too please ;-)))

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome, then maybe you Americans can start catching up with the rest of the world :) Funny, 10, or even maybe only 5 years ago, I would had been very impressed by just hearing 1 Gbit. Nowadays, eh. Sure, I only have 100/100 Mbit, but I have no restrictions whatsoever (and I use my fair share) and I pay $10. I could go for the 1 Gbit package, but why pay 5 times as much ($50) per month for something I don't see myself needing. Maybe in a year or so :)

Re:Wow!

[ergean]

I don't know how it works, but we have it here in Romania.

I guess it has to do with the fact that the internet was expensive until around 2004 and forced all most every one around here to join in some sort of small networks/ISP. After 2004 the major cable companies started to buy all the networks with more then 500 users and lowered the price to a level almost every one can afford it.

I have 50/50 right now and I pay 25 ron ( ~8.5 USD) with no cap.

Yes.

[ChinggisK]

Ostrich farming.

Re:Yes.

[abigor]

It's a "head in the sandbox" virtual machine.

Re:Yes.

[mujadaddy]

Get with the times, gramps: Alpaca are where it's at!

Re:Yes.

[nacturation]

For the love of mod points, someone mod this one up. Brilliant!

Re:Yes.

[Tumbleweed]

Ostrich farming.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of an ostrich carrying a pack of SSDs.

Re:Yes.

[eleuthero]

yes, but the latency is awful!

Re:Yes.

[newell98]

They use sheep to mow their grass on campus. Close enough?

Re:Yes.

[Tumbleweed]

>> Never underestimate the bandwidth of an ostrich carrying a pack of SSDs.
> yes, but the latency is awful!

Yeah, and it's more of a UDP than a TCP connection, too. When they stick their head in the sand, you could be waiting a _long_ time for your data. *shrug* Still, it's funny to think of what the NSA has to go through to catch them to tap your communications. :)

Re:Yes.

[EnsilZah]

Also, Porn.
Or ostrich farming porn for that matter. (Googles "ostrich farming porn").

Re:Yes.

[blackraven14250]

Eh, all they have to do is corral a relatively stupid animal into a fenced off area, and put a sock over its head. Then, it'd be really easy for them to get to it.

Re:Yes.

[timeOday]

Seriously? There are sheep working at google and I still can't get hired there?

Re:Yes.

[zill]

Not to mention the high packet loss rate. They should have chosen something less delicious for the transport layer.

Re:Yes.

[zill]

Also, Porn.

I believe you're mistaken, sir. Google is the porn central terminal of the internet. 89% of all traffic to porn sites are referred by Google.

Re:Yes.

[tattood]

If you are fine with eating grass all day, I'm sure there is an opening.

Re:Yes.

[EnsilZah]

I have very little reason to doubt that assertion but they are only the intermediary, I meant to say that they themselves do not engage in content production.

Madison, WI!

[mim]

Best choice to test market is a political seat and major university town which is in need of this sort of upgrade!

Re:Madison, WI!

[LWATCDR]

But it is cold and it snows and I am don't live there.
I sent the link to my local government and hope they will do something with it.
Part of me hopes they pick some small towns in the midwest right now only get's dial up. But I don't live so the truth is I hope they will pick here.

Re:Madison, WI!

[Purity Of Essence]

All spelling and grammar errors are intentional.

Good God, I hope that's true.

Re:Madison, WI!

[not already in use]

Well, Google just opened up an office here in Madison... let's hope!

Time to upgrade the home network?

[shawnmchorse]

Almost everything inside my house is still running at 100Mbps (or less, over 802.11g/n wireless bridges). And even then, my router still melts if I actually let BitTorrent run full out. I sense a lot of upgrades needed before I could even come close to taking full advantage of a 1Gbps line.

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[scubamage]

Most of the time the ISP supplies a supported router. I'm sure google would be no different. If not, cheap routers aren't that hard to come by.

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[Tumbleweed]

I sense a lot of upgrades needed before I could even come close to taking full advantage of a 1Gbps line.

That's called 'incentivizing'. :)

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[icebraining]

Usually that's not related to the actual throughput. The problem is that those routers don't have enough RAM to keep up with all the connections bittorrent opens, and many lock up or slow down.

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would be constrained by the fact that no one else has 1G/s available for me to even use

I suspect Google would.

It would still take 6 hours to back up my MythTV storage. But that seems reasonable to me - current connections would be about 5 months.

Gigabit to the home is probably about what we need for real Network Computing, accounting for the information density of the human sensory systems.

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[NuclearRampage]

That's what http://www.smoothwall.org/ can fix. Even with BT going over 1.3MB/s it doesn't slow a bit.

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[drachenstern]

if you torrent AND use the default modem/router that the provider gives you ... hmmmm, maybe you should try some other forums?

Re:Time to upgrade the home network?

[drachenstern]

When cars barely went 20mph, and horses were still king of the road, no layman really foresaw high speed intercity highways being an absolute public necessity. On top of that, very few expected huge oval tracks where tens of thousands of fans would turn out to watch 40 men drive around in circles for 4 hours.

When most of the people in the country lived on the Eastern seaboard, most of the population didn't see a NEED to settle the Western territories (except for that whole "be your own lord" thing...) but they knew it was important to stake out the largest stake they could.

I'll stake out the largest plot I can and prepare for something that I can't see, but that I know will be important in the future.

Also, distributed games. :D

I'm shocked

[Locke2005]

23 comments about a 1 gigabit home connection, and not one of them has even mentioned the word "porn"?!? Man, you guys are slipping...

Re:I'm shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

23 comments about a 1 gigabit home connection, and not one of them has even mentioned the word "porn"?!? Man, you guys are slipping...

I was going to post something about that earlier, but my typing hand was...otherwise occupied.

Better late than never.

Re:I'm shocked

[Archangel Michael]

On the downside .... goatse at fiber speeds eewwwwww.

Re:I'm shocked

[nacturation]

23 comments about a 1 gigabit home connection, and not one of them has even mentioned the word "porn"?!? Man, you guys are slipping...

It's the Astroglide.

Re:I'm shocked

[GenP]

They just assumed Google would be passively data-mining Layer 7 like crazy and intended to keep a secondary connection for...sensitive...traffic.

Re:I'm shocked

[f8l_0e]

They're not slipping, they're just busy flogging themselves thinking about how much porn they can download at that rate.

Re:I'm shocked

[tool462]

1Gbps connection would be overkill, as there is another bottleneck in terms of porn consumption.

Let's just say my pipe would be saturated.

Re:I'm shocked

[MarkRose]

Sorry, I was busying thinking about how wanktastically fast it would be.

Re:I'm shocked

[Ambiguous Coward]

23 comments about a 1 gigabit home connection, and not one of them has even mentioned the word "porn"?!?

No worries, I got this...

Man, you guys are slipping...

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID

Re:I'm shocked

[u38cg]

As another /. poster pointed out, there's a point where porn becomes gynaecology.

Re:I'm shocked

[the_one(2)]

You say that like it's a bad thing

No article, just a blog post

[Areyoukiddingme]

Google really understands Slashdot. Everything pertinent in the blog post fits just fine in the summary. No need to read the "article." It isn't an article. It's just a blog post soliciting proposals.

Seems an odd way to go about it. It's missing the one thing that is relevant to market demand: price. I don't know whether my community would care to be part of it because I don't know how much it would cost the users. I know for a fact that people are only willing to pay so much for high bandwidth, and past that, they decide it's not worth the cost.

Worse, most internet hosts throttle or load balance their outbound throughput to any one destination. I had 20 megabit downstream service for a while, and the only way to come remotely close to saturating it was bittorrent. And I never did saturate it. I managed to sustain over 10 megabit only twice, ever, and that was hard to do and didn't last. Even most streaming video sites transmit at no more than 300 KB/s (2.4 megabit), and many, if not most, transmit slower than that.

Sounds to me like the whole thing is going to be a disappointment to them. Truly high bandwidth demands will only emerge when truly high bandwidth (1 gigabit) is widely deployed and widely subscribed to, and when major servers move from truly high bandwidth to absurdly high bandwidth (10 gigabit through to the backbone). All of their scenarios can be satisfied by deploying fiber to just a few premises, like hospitals and clinics, which is a big dumb duh idea anyway. It's not already done? The nebulous "let's see what happens" goal they have depends on lots of people having access to lots of bandwidth. Network effects have to kick in before a network is valuable. Build it and they will come, but there's no way to predict what they'll actually use it for. It will take large numbers of bored programmers fiddling around with their high bandwidth to generate something to use all that bandwidth, and they won't bother if 90% of their potential audience has 1/1000th of the bandwidth.

In short, it's the network, stupid.

Re:No article, just a blog post

[kalidasa]

I would imagine that Google will also deploy gigabit worthy applications.

Re:No article, just a blog post

[icebraining]

I had 20 megabit downstream service for a while, and the only way to come remotely close to saturating it was bittorrent. And I never did saturate it. I managed to sustain over 10 megabit only twice, ever, and that was hard to do and didn't last. Even most streaming video sites transmit at no more than 300 KB/s (2.4 megabit), and many, if not most, transmit slower than that.

So what? You don't use more than one app at the same time? I like being able to use bittorrent, plus download files (over HTTP), plus listening to Internet radio, at the same time. And now I've setup a Tor node.

Really, there's plenty of ways to exhaust your connection. But yeah, most people won't take advantage of it.

Re:No article, just a blog post

[nns6561]

Just because you can't use that much bandwidth doesn't mean the rest of us can't. I've managed to hit 50 Mbs downloading when I had a real broadband connection.

Re:No article, just a blog post

[PPalmgren]

20 megabits should be enough for anyone

Re:No article, just a blog post

[Areyoukiddingme]

That I did neglect, I admit. It's difficult to get any single flow near a gigabit, but when there are lots and lots of different flows doing different things, it does get easier. I suppose I should have remembered bittorrent's fundamental design and generalized...

IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing this is going to be IPv6 to the home? Any confirmation?

When you build a network that fast the use-to-idle time drops very low. What is the cost of operating the links when idle? Maybe at a certain speed it makes more sense to go with a low-bandwidth carrier and invoke (turn on) high-bandwidth when needed?

Re:IPv6?

[mjwalshe]

IPV6 why not replace smtp with X.400 while your at it :-)

Google isn't stupidly altruistic

[MSTCrow5429]

Would be much easier to data-mine if you control actual pieces of the network...

Re:Google isn't stupidly altruistic

[dtml-try MyNick]

And cheaper....

Why spend thousands upon thousands of dollars developing services hoping that it will be picked up by the crowd while you can make money and have acces to every packet sent....

Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[Overzeetop]

Seriously. Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech) was supposed to have 10bT to every home back in the 90s - the Blacksburg Electronic Village they called it. You would think we'd be sitting pretty for even higher speed by now. It never materialized. We've got Verizon (copper only, 3Mb max speed) or Comcast (formerly Adelphia, ~7Mb max speed, when the moon is full). There are a few other minor players, but they are either geared towards the large apartment complexes or businesses (and make Verizon look inexpensive). Heck, I'm close enough in that my power is from Virginia Tech electric.

I don't need huge total volume, I just want blisteringly fast for shortish periods.

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[O('_')O_Bush]

*highfive* for a Blacksburg Brother!

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[Nimey]

My small (8500 people) hometown in southwestern Missouri was going to have something like that as well - I believe it was called an Acorn televillage.

The developer only built one house before it went bust, and the house was never occupied.

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[micromoog]

I don't need huge total volume, I just want blisteringly fast for shortish periods.

In other words, porn.

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[Bicx]

I don't need huge total volume, I just want blisteringly fast for shortish periods.

I don't normally stoop this low, but I have a cold today, so.... That's what she said!

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[Happy Nuclear Death]

Hokie alum here. Ack, sorry to hear that never worked out, but not that surprised. I know I suffered with VT modem pool "service" in the very late '90's until 2001.

If it makes you feel any better, I now live in a huge city in the southwest US, but options are about what you describe: slow DSL or somewhat faster cable. Actually you're better off than I am; my DSL options are 1.5 Mbit or nothing. Pathetic. Qwest is NEVER going to upgrade its infrastructure. You can get faster ADSL - maybe as much as 7 Mbit - in a few parts of downtown, but that's pretty much it.

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[corerunner]

I've lived in Blacksburg since 2002, and I was just talking about BEV to a friend (VT alum) who moved away a year ago and saw this Google blog post today. In my current house, which is close enough to walk downtown, I still can't get DSL. Fortunately Comcast 8Mb is just barely good enough for my purposes, but I don't make heavy use of torrents or anything like that.

At least I only pay $30/mo, and I still get to stream my favorite shows to my TV, although the quality isn't close to digital cable. I doubt this will improve in the foreseeable future though. We aren't getting FIOS and I'll be surprised when I can get better service for less than double the cost.

Re:Ooh...ooh, pick me!

[Overzeetop]

Really? My Verizon DSL both at work (~$50) and home (~$30) regularly maxes out at the rated 3Mbps, just about any time of the day.

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).

When will Google stop?

[Jetrel]

I for one welcome my new Google overload. Long live the Google!

For the love of all that is good...

[Taibhsear]

in the world, please compete with Comcast and the other monopoly ISPs. The speeds in Chicago finally got upgraded a bit but the throttling, bandwidth caps, and retarded pricing shenanigans still have to go. Comcast is still one of the leaders in customer service douchebaggery so any competition is greatly appreciated. (RCN and Verizon FIOS are the only thing even close, speed wise, but they have never been available in any of the areas I have ever lived in in Chicago.)

Re:For the love of all that is good...

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

Does it bother anyone else when people start their comment in the subject and continue it in the body? It severely interrupts my reading flow. Is it just me?

It would be nice

[hesaigo999ca]

It would be nice to see if they have some for Canada as well, I am looking forward also to them offering their successful venture once it is up and running to the public as a replacement to most disgruntled ISP clients that are tired of not having any choices.

Omaha needs some love

[Enderandrew]

Omaha is right next door to your new data center in Council Bluffs, IA, and a telecommunications hub for the country. You know you want to roll out here.

No Northern Locales?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I take this:

To that end, we'll use our RFI to identify interested communities and to assess local factors that will impact the efficiency and speed of our deployment, such as the level of community support, local resources, weather conditions, approved construction methods and local regulatory issues.

to mean that they're not going to deal with winter in this round.

Re:No Northern Locales?

[chuchmo]

Unless I'm misreading, I take it to mean the opposite: they're going to assess the factors that impact the efficiency and speed of deployment, such as weather conditions. It would be difficult to assess the deployment to northern areas without testing deployment to northern areas. I suspect if you can gather support from your community, you might have a chance.

Unfortunately, I won't, as they specify it's only for Americans.

Is today fiber day or something?

[rickb928]

I get this post from a friend of mine in Maine. Looks like our government is sporting over some recovery funds and one of Maine's more aggresive ISPs is gonna spend it making fiber around the rural areas of Maine.

And he better hurry, or Google will beat him to it! Oh, wait... Google will be looking for density and volume users. Where volume is spelled with dollar signs.

Now, are other states also going to start pulling fiber to add to the existing dark fiber, so we can continue to be ready to serve rural America?

Not that anyone will actually get service out in the woods with any of this fiber, though GWI in Maine deploys long-range DSL and does at least as well as the cable companies. Maybe better.

It's GNU/Linux!

[countertrolling]

And here it's NSA/Google to you mister..

More advertising dollars

[cjjjer]

I can see it now Google wants to put a settop box (GoogleTV??) in every house, running the latest ChromeOS it can then stream content and ads to you while you browse the internet and watch TV media and read Print media from your TV.

Makes perfect sense.

Re:More advertising dollars

[pwnies]

Awesome. Sign me up.

Faster better stronger.

[tstubbendeck]

I'm all for more competition in this area I think comcast and timewarner need a run for their money. I wish google the best. If this succeeds ill wait to see jsut how open they keep it. But the extra speed would be nice regardless.

What the fuck Google....

[TypoNAM]

I keep trying to fill in "Why should Google build a fiber to the home network where you live?"
but I keep getting this bullshit response:
        "* Ensure this value has at most 1000 characters."

It seems the same morons who run youtube's comment handling also maintain that submission forum
because I checked in OpenOffice and the text has only 840 characters in it!

Re:What the fuck Google....

[drachenstern]

bytecount... I had to open it in notepad++ to see that my 998 characters were being regarded as 1004 due to \n\r and it needed only \n throughout

This fits in with the big Google picture...

[jabjoe]

Wouldn't a thin client computing world, sorry cloud computing world, require a fast network like this? Then we wouldn't need to store or compute anything locally, and all that data can be used to target adds to us...

Already got 'Fibre to the home' with Telus

[KPexEA]

It's great, blazing fast. Not available in all of Telus's areas yet but works great here in Anmore.

Re:Already got 'Fibre to the home' with Telus

[shutdown -p now]

I've got that too (Richmond), but I still get about 10Mbps for incoming traffic at best times. And Google is talking about 1Gbps here...

So...

[EnsilZah]

When do they gain satellite launch capability?

Re:So...

[Locke2005]

They're working on that on that private island they've purchased in the Pacific, but so far it's been pretty hush-hush. They are, however, currently hiring henchmen.

I already have gigabit internet

[thue]

I already have 1Gb/1Gb internet to the home, practically without a traffic limitation (I could have over a terabyte per month, and nobody would care).

It is boring :(. If everybody else on the internet has a slow connection, then you can hardly ever download/upload with more than 50Mbit. What is the point of 1000Mb/s, when Valve Steam won't download with more than 10Mbit/s? The last time I needed more speed was when I tried an internet speed test (result: 250Mb/200Mb, 2ms ping).

So my connection is really not much more useful than a 50Mb/50Mb connection :(. Except to show off with internet speed tests :).

Did I mention that I pay $10 per month for it?

Re:I already have gigabit internet

[DragonWriter]

It is boring :(. If everybody else on the internet has a slow connection, then you can hardly ever download/upload with more than 50Mbit.

If Google succeeds in rolling out gigabit internet connections in test markets and then expands beyond that, gigabit connections will rapidly become less boring, because more people will have gigabit connections.

Most home user cant afford a decent 1gb router

[Trieuvan]

My condo happens to have fiber optic internet included in HOA dues. Problem is my router (dlink 4300) only does 100Mbits. I did try to upgrade to dlink 655 and it crashed every few days . I guess the only option is to build your own router which is not feasible for regular users.

Re:Most home user cant afford a decent 1gb router

[arcade]

This is Slashdot ffs, and let me just say - building your own router is rather simple.

Buy yourself a nice little motherboard with to integrated 1Gbps network cards.

Install your favorite OS of choice, as long as it's either Linux or *BSD.

Configure iptables/ipf/pf/your-packetfilter-of-choice, and if necessary - NAT, and enable ip forwarding.

Voila. One home gigabit router. Have fun. (You might also want to setup dhcpd on the box, but hey, that's also done in no time at all).

I hope this works

[cyberzephyr]

I really hope this works, we have been getting mugged by the powers that be (i.e. companies that hold control of those lines) for far too long. Lower prices are a good incentive to me.

The point of Capitalism

[mozumder]

is to reach a monopoly status.

Capitalism only works when there are millions of sellers and millions of buyers.. it is the LEAST profitable system when that happens. When competition happens, suppliers go out of business, because there is no incentive for buyers to buy a more expensive product. Once THAT process is complete, monopoly conditions exist, and prices become out-of-control.

Capitalism is a process, not an end result.

6 years and another 1G

[justkeeper]

Reminds me of Gmail all over again, Google seems determined to increase the industry standard again.

Seattle

[city]

I officially declare QuADBI (Queen Anne Denizens for Better Internet Access) open to any who would like to join my organization to bring better internet access to our neighborhood of Seattle, WA. I filled out my form referencing QuADBI and invite you all to do the same... hell, do it even if you don't live in Seattle. I assure you that we are an organization that will not stop until we have Fiber to every home, unless I get distracted by a shiny object. But seriously if you live here, join me.

No keyboards or mice

[drachenstern]

That's because the keyboards would need a new blue button, and who can afford to squeeze a new button on to their desktop? I mean, seriously!

The mouse would probably need two more scroll wheels too, but only four buttons. And a toggle for street, satellite, terrain, panorama, still-work-in-progress#1, still-work-in-progress#2, labs, still-work-in-progress#4

But they would be open-source hardware, since we would need to be able to add new keys from time to time since it would be in beta for a while

Re:Find the high bandwidth killer apps.

[drachenstern]

Video streaming instead of polluting the airwaves with more EM, bundling several phone calls concurrently with a lot less wasted electricity from towers that could be shut down, actually using web-apps instead of waiting on them to load, MAN systems based on WAPs on a freemium model, increased sharing of real knowledge, and video streaming.

Yet I get the feeling you already mentioned one of those... ;)

Coming Home to Roost

[thebian]

A moral lesson for the deregulated.

I'll bet there were a lot of smug phone company executives who thought at the time of the breakup of old Ma Bell that there will never be anyone willing to lay down enough wire to seriously challenge them.

Then they got cable TV and wireless phones, but a lot of the data moving business is still in the hands of the Baby Bells.

This ought to cut them down a notch.

But then we'll need a new search engine. I won't search where my bandwidth comes from!

I'm sure your ISP is recording every move you make, and Google is recording half the stuff that moves on the web. A Google ISP brings the two together and will be a privacy nightmare.

Re:Coming Home to Roost

[mjwalshe]

well cabeling such a large a geographicaly dispersed country like the states is not going to be cheap or easy. Nor will the federal nature of the political system make it easy to do this on a truly national scale.

Re:Columbia, MO

[mcgrew]

No, Springfield, IL. Because god knows Homer needs more bandwidth!

You must be young.

[Singularity42]

It's always young people who are the most negative and cynical. You'll grow up.

Re:You must be young.

[characterZer0]

I hope you are right. Eventually I will figure out how to get a piece of the action and then I will not complain about it anymore.

Re:Find the high bandwidth killer apps.

[uncledrax]

"Video streaming"

To put this in laymens terms.

Television.

That is all.

google, it's a floor polish and a dessert topping!

[Thud457]

you do realize that google owns the NSA, right?

Re:Sweden

[Wyatt Earp]

No, most of the world doesn't have broadband. Yea, small countries generally do have better broadband than the US.

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

[dukeofurl01]

Newegg has Solid State Disks on sale right now...

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? :)

What Google will be like as an ISP

[Animats]

Google as an ISP:

• Users will get a branded browser with all Google's junk in it.
• Everything you do will be recorded for ad targeting purposes.
• You have to use Google's DNS.
• Users get Gmail accounts that put ads in every message.
• Only content from Google's servers is delivered at full data rate.
• No, you can't run a server.
• Only Google's VoIP service works.
• Bing will run really slow.

Re:What Google will be like as an ISP

[shutdown -p now]

You forgot:

- no-one will care about all the negative points anyway
- most geeks will switch to it on day 1 of its availability in their area
- a lot people will switch over time

Its about time

[pyaolyangshen]

They own a friggin satellite, they Own so much space of the intranet, I'm not surprised they'd out the other big companies who sell tiny gateways to individual consumers - We could have easilly had faster connection but these companies tend to restrict how much. The intranet is incomparably VAST!!!!! So hell yeah, why wouldn't Google want a piece of that market, and They will totally kill the competition with their generous connection plans. HAH. - and thanks lucian.

Do you realize the potential for gaming?

[CrazyJim1]

The higher the bandwith = the more players you can have in the game

Home server?

[jameskojiro]

But is it fast enough and stable to handle the bandwidth load for my own web service I want to host out of my house?

What the...

[No Grand Plan]

I applaud Google's decision to enter the fray.

What I don't understand is that, when I went to the 'sign me up... please!' page, I decided to run the network speed tests. I pay Charter in the Southeast for what I thought was 5 mbps (advertised) internet; the tests tell me I'm getting between 9.55 and 26 mbps. Twenty six. I had to run each of them about four times, I was in such disbelief.

Why do I think that Charter is somehow accelerating all network tests I run after visiting the Google page?

Re:What the...

[No Grand Plan]

I don't even know if it's a docsis 3.0 or not. I've had it for years, but I guess they could still have flash-upgraded it without my knowing.

Really doesn't surprise me that the 'results' I'm getting aren't genuine...

Note to Google: Infrastructure sucks

[Zorlon]

Having worked at UUNET/Worldcom I can tell you that building and maintaining infrastructure is a pain. What is Google going to do when a backhoe digs into their fiber feeder? I predict it will be 'beta' for a while and then dropped quietly.

How about customer service? Where is the 800 number? Oh I am just 'Labs' experiment? Sorry for bothering you. What is the name of that guy in the video, can I call him?

Perfect for geeks

[saikou]

But for everyone else, it'd be difficult - "If your Google High Speed Home Connection is down, please email us and we will get back to you in 2 to 5 business days"? :)

Seriously, this probably would work out better for small compact communities with lots of users. Except I bet those are either in exclusive contracts already (apartment complexes, universities that provide their own network, etc), or are too far from nearby Google node with no easy way to plug them in.
Getting permit to run a new fiber to individual home is very expensive. So for homeowners with existing homes (versus communities being built out) this is also probably not realistic.
Perhaps this could be expanded later with small local wireless segments, but again, given how "interactive" google's support is, this won't work for regular users.

Interesting experiment, not holding my breath though *sigh*

Laundry

[pgn674]

From TFA:

Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it's creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can't yet imagine.

How about drying laundry?

Re:Google 20% time

[jvin248]

You don't have to ask for that 20% time. You take it. Work out fantastic new solutions, products, or projects that save time and make money for the company. You'll get advancement and accolades. Sometimes the sheep will think you're a maverick - so ymmv.

When DSL came to our neighborhood

[symbolset]

The salesperson who brought us DSL got a little party in her honor.

Same thing happened with cable internet. We were so happy to fire Ma Bell.

First company to bring gigabit fiber to this door gets a party too. I would rather have Google's fiber than Verizon's - Google's got no motivation to drive up real services like multiple IP addresses or perform filtering or capping. I could see going with Google for the triple play of video, voice and data - and we're paying a lot for that. Comcast hasn't been awful compared to QWest, but that bar was not high.

Re:Google Already Has Some Stuff...

[SwedishPenguin]

I just did a traceroute to Youtube of my own from my home computer.
I was routed through a few of my ISP's routers until I came upon this:
sto-cr3.google-gw.bahnhof.net (Bahnhof is my ISP)
After which I was sent off to Mountain View, CA without any intermediate steps (I would have thought they would use a more locally situated server...), and then routed through a few of their routers until finally I arrived at a Youtube websever.
Similar results were acheived from one of my servers, I was routed through my server host's ISP to "some.stockholm.router.google.com" in Sweden, after which I was routed directly to Mountain View, CA.

Bring it on

[jejones]

The cable companies and RBOCs are long overdue for competition. I'll switch in a heartbeat.

This has happened before...Blacksburg, VA

[WyrdOne]

Back in the misty reaches of antiquity (at least in net terms) of 1993, there was a collaboration between Virginia Tech, City of Blacksburg and Verizon. What resulted was something called "Blacksburg Electronic Villiage".

They wired the entire town with fiber, and residents could get a 100mbps Ethernet connection to a Internet connected municipal network.

Made frontpage news on Wired and other computer related publications of the time (remember this was at the dawn of the internet and .com boom) as the "Most connected town in america" and even made it into Guiness world record as such in 1998.

However, project mismanagement and cost overruns by Verizon caused the project to fold in early 2001. A local ISP has taken over portions of the network once maintained by the project and continues to provide 100mbps ethernet services to some of the community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksburg_Electronic_Village

What Apps for this?

[gibson123]

This is really great, I'm hoping they use my area in CA to test. More importantly, I wonder what Google has up it's sleaves in terms of apps for all this bandwith beyond the obvious of video etc....Here is another article: http://www.cio.com/article/538314/Google_to_Launch_Super_Fast_Gigabit_Networks

Canada

[DarthVain]

Please come to Canada Google with your fiber ISP goodness. Bell and Rogers need to be knocked on their ass. Google is likely the only one that can't bully out of the market also.

Comparison

[fulldecent]

Of course... this is 1Gb shared bandwidth...

But for comparison, Princeton's entire campus has peak utilization at 1Gb

Realtime chart: http://www.net.princeton.edu/

Target smaller cities

[chrisgeleven]

I hope Google uses this as a chance to get small cities with fiber connections instead of targeting large cities like Seattle. Cities that may not get a chance to upgrade to fiber in the next 20 years due to sheer stupidity by their local phone or cable company. For these areas, the second Google announces they maybe in the running, these companies will work incredibly hard to get their networks up to speed to compete.

Open Access Network

[butlerm]

The big news here is this: Openness and choice: We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we'll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

This is similar to the UTOPIA model - A layer 2 network infrastructure that multiple ISPs can use to provide layer 3 services. If other ISPs step up to the plate it is not entirely clear that Google needs to be an ISP on their own network at all. Google wants essentially what UTOPIA wants, and the less capital they have to put into it, the better.

I suspect Google's real goal here is to jump start the provider independent network market - the one that the Baby Bells don't want to be in any more. It is certainly in Google's strategic interest to do so. The Baby Bells would rather set up walled gardens and charge royalties on everything. Essentially the exact opposite of the intent of the Communications Act of 1934.

The only way to fix that is to either establish provider independent local access, or make ISPs into (heavily regulated) common carriers. There will never be enough facilities based competition to guarantee neutrality by any other means. Ten fibers to your house? I don't think so.