Pittsburgh, Seattle Announce Interest In Google's Fiber Trial

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a press release from the mayor of Pittsburgh that says the city has announced, along with Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the University of Pittsburgh, that it intends to respond to Google's 1Gbps FTTH (Fiber to the Home) request for information. Seattle's mayor, too, wants in on the action, and more cities will surely pile on.

Comments

They w

[Anonymous Coward]

Troy in upstate NY announced the same on Thursday. http://troyrecord.com/articles/2010/02/12/news/doc4b74e2cd9e36e314599627.txt

I bet they'll receive tens of thousands of applications in the coming weeks.

Re:They w

[nine-times]

Seriously, though, who wouldn't want Google to roll out fiber in their city? Even if they already have Verizon FIOS, why wouldn't you want competition?

I'm in NYC and can't get decent Internet to save my life. There don't seem to be many places in the country where the Internet doesn't stink, and Google's talking about 1Gbps? Of course they're going to get a lot of applications.

*raises hand*

[andytrevino]

Google, I too am interested in your fiber trial. Please consider my house in Wisconsin for fiber service.

Love,

Andy.

Madison jumped on too

[Anonymous Coward]

Madison, WI also announced a few days ago that they wanted to jump onto a trial as well. Given the density, the tech love around the area, and the fact that there is already a small Google office in town, I think there's a decent chance.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt_and_politics/city_hall/article_05071f04-1819-11df-bbef-001cc4c002e0.html

Burlington, Vermont

[mysqlrocks]

Several citizens from Burlington, Vermont have contacted Google about this for our city. Someone on the City Council has asked the mayor to approach Google, as well. We actually already have a municipal fiber-optic network, Burlington Telecom. However, they are currently experiencing financial troubles and the City is considering bringing in an outside investor or partner. Google, if you want to come here we've already got the fiber in the ground. Let's talk ;)

Re:Burlington, Vermont

[vermontmcintyre]

I am on the Burlington Telecom Advisory Committee and we have been discussing this amongst ourselves as well. The timing on this is advantageous and important because of the issues Bradley mentioned above. The city in general is focused on this issue, so Google has an excellent chance to make a powerful and positive impact by its mere presence here in Burlington.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[mdf356]

The east half of Seattle (Redmond and neighboring) can get Verizon FiOS, but over here in Ballard and other parts on the West side there's nothing faster than Comcast. *Someone* building out infrastructure would be nice.

Fiber to the HOME trial

[nurb432]

Key word there is HOME, not business, not municipality. I also offer to be a trial at my home. FreeNet would just scream.

tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[SuperBanana]

I bet they'll receive tens of thousands of applications in the coming weeks.

And guess what comes next? A reverse-competitive bidding process, whereby various cities write off their taxes on both the profits and the capital equipment, waive requirements like community access programs, and more- just to get google to give them fiber-to-the-home, something that has no proven public benefit. Which is idiotic- I don't want my tax dollars used to fund capital expenditures for corporations!

Anyone else a little more than slightly freaked out by this move? Google now encompasses search, email, instant messaging, calendaring, social networking, blogging (both content production and reading), cellular and telephone services, online payment, and now actual last-mile services? What's left?

Why does it feel like in 10 years we'll be calling it The Gnet, not the Internet?

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[Dr. Spork]

And guess what comes after that? Total zombification. That's right, the inevitable result of good internet access from Google and your astutely-prophecized inevitable tax writeoffs will be cuts in our regulatory systems that will introduce zombifying chemicals in ordinary tapwater, leaving entire cities of people clawing each other in search of brains to devour. Oh, if only we hadn't squandered that tax money! If only our mayors had been able to resist the lure of faster internet! This is the end!

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[log0n]

Not particularly freaked no.. they haven't been evil thus far. Belief in online privacy is naive and I trust Google far more than I do Verizon, Comcast, etc etc.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[DarkTempes]

Oh, come on. It's not like Google has anything close to a monopoly on any of those services. I understand people (rightly!) getting upset over privacy issues with using Google services but acting like Google is taking over the internet is just silly. They don't own the backbones and they don't even create much content. They mostly stick with ways to find and view content and they are not even close to being the only way to find or view that content online (excluding maybe Google Books).

ISPs/telecoms in the high-speed internet business, for the most part, have regional monopoly or duopolies in the US. I also believe a lot of their intrastructure was promoted in some way by government tax benefits or funding. With that said what's the problem with Google testing the waters to see if they could potentially become a competitor without getting bulldozed from incumbents? Do you really think anytime in the near future Google is going to be able to drive out multiple entrenched companies that are, lets face it, much larger monetarily?

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[TubeSteak]

ISPs/telecoms in the high-speed internet business, for the most part, have regional monopoly or duopolies in the US. I also believe a lot of their intrastructure was promoted in some way by government tax benefits or funding.

A lot of businesses won't build [infrastructure] unless they get some government tax benefits or funding.

Example: I don't recall the last time I heard about a stadium or convention center getting built without [city] putting up taxpayer dollars or passing a law to give them a tax break.

I only use those two because they're the easiest for most people to google since the process usually receives endless local news coverage. Factories are also waaaay up on the tax break & subsidy food chain.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[shutdown -p now]

When "free market" (not that it's actually free... but hey, at least there's "competition") has failed repeatedly for decades, a competent monopoly with a proven track record is more than welcome.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[JustNilt]

And guess what comes next? A reverse-competitive bidding process, whereby various cities write off their taxes on both the profits and the capital equipment, waive requirements like community access programs, and more- just to get google to give them fiber-to-the-home, something that has no proven public benefit. Which is idiotic- I don't want my tax dollars used to fund capital expenditures for corporations!

Anyone else a little more than slightly freaked out by this move? Google now encompasses search, email, instant messaging, calendaring, social networking, blogging (both content production and reading), cellular and telephone services, online payment, and now actual last-mile services? What's left?

Why does it feel like in 10 years we'll be calling it The Gnet, not the Internet?

*hands a tinfoil hat to SuperBanana*

That's called diversification and is a sound business strategy. I think Google's just doing good business by having a finger in lots of pies.

As an IT consultant for many small businesses in Seattle, I can say a service like this is sorely needed. There is simply too little choice at far too high a price right now. This is the third pipe we've needed for quite some time in order to break the back of the current broadband oligarchy. This is clearly in the public interest.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[Khyber]

"They don't own the backbones"

Have you been paying attention to how much dark fiber Google owns? They're probably BUILDING THEIR OWN BACKBONES. I most certainly would if I bought up that vast amount of unlit fiber.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[Nikker]

You worry about Google taking your data when with current regulations all ISP's take your info just the same without any more benefit to you. Google has proven one thing, information is valuable, you think all the ISP's with privacy laws being as they are wouldn't sell some logs for cash? We have passed the point where privacy is anticipated and that is the fault of the public but at least with google you know it's going to happen, then again they have the same thing but better service. It is up to everyone to want privacy on the Internet but for now you reap what you sow, you let them say your privacy is not a concern and the largest ROI goes to the largest ISP(they collect the most stats) so new ones don't get much backing. We've got ourselves into the lesser of evils mind set and don't act on the idea we the public decide what happens, this leads to things like this. Google is buying up fiber because they are worried current ISP's will charge per "service" (video, VOIP, audio, etc) and screw them over on a very large scale, so it's worth it i guess. Google's service will likely be the best because it's in their best interest to be the best and on the plus side they have the money and the know-how to make it happen.

As far as "Gnet" is concerned Google has the position now to make people switch and no one wants to be left out (ISP's or consumers) of Google's search. Wires can be bought, sold, dug up, and laid down the only thing that will change that is our opinion ;)

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[slimjim8094]

What the hell are you talking about?

FTTH has an immense public benefit. With competitive fiber infrastructure, you don't need to rip up the streets for a hundred years, and anything anybody wants to provide over it, they can. Compared to the closed-off coax, and slightly less closed-off copper telephone wire, this is an immense improvement. Or do you not see the benefit in crazy fast, reasonably priced data? Half of what people do in their homes is data, from internet to phone to TV. It's all the same stuff, and if you can deal with vast quantities of it...

This alone justifies all sorts of tax credits. But then think of business! Pittsburgh is already highly-connected, but gigabit connections are datacenter-grade stuff. Basically nobody has it. What kinds of businesses could benefit from affordable, crazy-fast internet? If I wanted to open a small architectural firm that needed to transfer gigabytes of files, I'd be doing it in one of these cities.

Yes, the privacy considerations are significant. I won't argue that, though I don't think snooping on this is Google's intent. I think they figure the more people can access their new and novel services, the better - and the best way to do that is to make FTTH happen themselves. IOW, the goal is not to scan the traffic. Their best bet would be to spin off this FTTH stuff as a separate company.

Look. Us geeks need to be the ones calling out Google on privacy stuff, mostly because nobody else seems interested and we can't let the world forget. But I simply can't see how this can be anything but highly beneficial for any city Google touches.

Re:tax dollars for corporate capital expenditures

[StormReaver]

Have you been paying attention to how much dark fiber Google owns? They're probably BUILDING THEIR OWN BACKBONES. I most certainly would if I bought up that vast amount of unlit fiber.

Good. I hope Google gets moving on this, as phone and cable companies have been overcharging and underserving us for decades. I would much rather have a GoogleNet than the current Verizon/AT&TNet. If Google outcompetes the Telecoms, that's great. I hope they bury AT&T and Verizon, the greedy pieces of shit. I hope my state promises Google a zero-percent tax liability for ten years in exchange for an early place on Google's high speed Internet backbone. Google certainly can't be any worse than what we have now.

Re:Would you move to the winning city?

[Grimbleton]

What, not Pittsburgh?

Re:After Comcast,

[Hurricane78]

Wait for Comcast to sue Google just as they sued the cities, just because they intended to build their own net. (For what? Deprivation from their monopoly? I don’t know.)

They will sue Google at least long enough, to stall things, until they got something ready and bribed their way into the city taking their offer instead.

Man, I hope I’m wrong. It hurts my heart to see a fellow geek without at least 10 Mb/s downstream. :/

Re:Would you move to the winning city?

[symbolset]

Seattle is committing hundreds of miles of in-place fiber, and access to hundreds of thousands of utility poles. If they reach out to the community for contributions of resources and subscription commitments they may not need Google to pull this off. And Seattle has a world-class Peering point shared by All these people.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[JustNilt]

I think you mean the east side and north end of Puget Sound but yeah. Last I heard, Qwest refused to do a fiber rollout and threatened lawsuits if the city did their own. When they finally started offering faster tiers they called it "fiber-like" speeds. Now, in a higher-end neighborhood in Seattle, the fastest DSL available is 1.5M/768k and even then it's rarely that fast.

Qwest upper management is a bunch of asshats that cares only about milking every last dollar they can out of their infrastructure.

Re:Seattle's Mayor?

[shutdown -p now]

It would be a "fuck you" if Microsoft was offering ISP services.

As it is, I'm sure that most Microsoft employees in Seattle area would actually be quite happy with an affordable 100Mbps fiber connection to their homes, Google or not. From company's perspective, too, that would mean improved ability for employees to work from home (which isn't a rare occasion).

Re:After Comcast,

[Khyber]

"Wait for Comcast to sue Google"

Ha! Hahahahahahaha!

Google would bury Comcast with their entire team of Ph.D lawyers, whereas Comcast's vast majority barely have their Master's.

Thanks for the laugh!

Re:Would you move to the winning city?

[Hadlock]

Seattle already has 400 optic fibers between every municipal court, police station, sub station, jail and holding area. It's a pretty substantial network, and all the leg work has already been done to get it across I-5 (that's the major hurdle). Go google "Jerry Hedstrom" in the mid 1990s Network World archives. Seattle probably has more dark fiber strung across (under) highways than any other city in the nation.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[PaulMeigh]

Please do not refer to Redmond as the east half of Seattle. They are Redmond. We are Seattle. Redmond sucks. Seattle doesn't. and so on..

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[Nethead]

The Seattle Metro Area is well covered by Clearwire 4G WiMax. It will beat the pants off of anything DSL does. And for you, it's buying local (Kirkland) and helping to keep local geeks like me employed. And the back bone of the system; I can't say much but (NDA) but trust me, FAT PIPE.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[Kjella]

Now, in a higher-end neighborhood in Seattle, the fastest DSL available is 1.5M/768k and even then it's rarely that fast.

For someone claiming to not be a third world country, you do wonderful impressions. Here in Norway about 10% of the households have fiber now and it's growing rapidly, I think the most optimistic claim I saw was 35% by 2015. About 80% have broadband, with an average download speed of 5.7 Mbit/s and a median speed of 3.4 Mbit/s. That's in a country that is more sparesly populated than the US and where Seattle is bigger than our biggest city.

Re:Publicity Stunt

[hedwards]

The reason they can do it is that the people currently doing it are doing a terrible job. The point of this is that it's good for Google to have people wired with fast connections. They're in the business of selling ad space and other internet services which improve greatly with higher bandwidth connections. There's also the corporate benevolence angle which tends to help as they try to keep growing as large as possible. A positive corporate image can do wonders for keeping people from demanding anti-trust investigations and such.

If they do a halfway decent job in one city it should scare the regional monopoly players enough that they start upgrading and lowering prices to try and keep Google off their turf.

Re:Too big?

[billy8988]

Pittsburgh's population is only around 300k. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh).

Re:Publicity Stunt

[Daengbo]

Except that telcos routinely get money from municipalities for "modernization." The telcos then complain about increased costs while milking the customers for as much money as can be gotten away with.

Maybe Google is trying to "force the hand" of monopolies so that the customer doesn't have to suffer.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[symbolset]

Washington is a weird state. They recognized the value of fiber infrastrucure early because they had DOE projects (notably Hanford) that were well served by operators who were confident the nuclear fuel wouldn't kill them. That meant high bandwidth low latency connections to different points.

And then there's I-5. Washington has this international path that threads from California to Canada. I was there when they buried the fiber optic cables under I5 - they're bundles as thick as your leg. Seattle does not lack bandwidth - and they have their own peering point.

They're not even new to this - Grays Harbor county on the coast and Grant county in the center had programs that resulted in 100-1000gbps service (for many years now!) to the customers before Comcast and AT&T shut down expansion of the projects. They have the bandwidth, but they can't afford the lawyers. It's sick when that prevents progress. Maybe Google can help us here.

We had a law to allow Public Utility Districts to resell bandwidth to ISPs and build out fiber networks from the proceeds, but Comcast and QWest killed it.

Bring on the Google! I'm sure they know how to do this in a way that does not prevent progres!

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[im_thatoneguy]

Again though. Have you ever actually tried USING the service? With 10 users in a prime location it probably works great. My second hand experience with Wimax is that it's better than 3G but significantly worse than crappy DSL.

Re:Pittsburgh Tuxes

[Kjella]

What are they rolling out in Norway? Is it some form of xPON or are they using switched ethernet (like I expect Google will be doing)?

Since I don't have fiber myself, I "only" have a 25/2.5 Mbit cable line I don't know. I do know they lay fiber to inside the house where a converter box makes it into TV, internet and phone signals so it's a full end-to-end fiber network. The biggest provider (80%) is a franchise company so the terms differ slightly but 10/10 Mbit or 15/15 Mbit is their lowest offering. The family package normally has a 30/30 Mbit line but you can get up to 100 Mbit/s if you really want to pay. I think there are trials running with 1 Gbit/s but I honestly don't think there's much market, since they tend to have to actually deliver and not just fake it with "up to".