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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.
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.
Seriously, is there any market Google is not going into?
Anybody want my mod points?
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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 :-)
Why would Google want to get into Fiber? Will they just track every packet you send over the net and sell that data?
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.
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?
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Ostrich farming.
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.
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've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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.
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.
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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).
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.)
That would require reading, but he probably got some of his populist-angst-froth in his eyes, making this difficult.
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.
Reminds me of Gmail all over again, Google seems determined to increase the industry standard again.
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.
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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.
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.