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Can Google Save Us From Slow Internet
CoveredTrax writes "As part of the beta test of their new gigabit fiber network, Google has provided Stanford University with mouthwateringly high-speed Internet. Since the program was announced, the service, which is now being provided free to students and faculty in the Palo Alto area, has got a lot of people to asking (sometimes begging) that their city be next on Google's list for communication salvation. But can Google save us all from inferior web access? And more importantly, is it a good idea to let them?"
when google gives us free high-speed access and tons of other services to which we will all benefit greatly! But the cost will always be our privacy. Understand google's profit comes from advertising and then piece together how they will benefit. I'm not in favor.
all those problems you mentioned, comrade Lenin has already addressed. Please go see him.
Anyone who thinks that Google is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts is silly.
Google doesn't care whether you have high-speed access. They want to be able to trace your browsing and other internet usage habits, and they want to make sure they can serve up their ads in a way that minimizes the requirements on their resources.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
If only America would elect a liberal supermajority for Congress followed by a liberal president so that all that stuff could easily get solved. Oh, wait...
As a current student and network admin of a small fiefdom at Stanford, I can tell you that the story is partially incorrect; Google is currently installing their fiber in the "faculty ghetto," a large Stanford-owned neighborhood by the school's foothills. They are not providing fiber to students - all student housing, academic buildings, and the campus core have separate mouthwateringly fast internet, Internet2, and wireless (via the SUNet).
More importantly, though, Google is *not* installing fiber in Palo Alto. One of the things that likely helped Stanford's case when we were selected is that the school owns *all the land* and even, as far as I know, all the utility lines on our campus. When you buy a house at Stanford, you actually only buy the building – you only lease the land. Because of that, when Stanford says "we're gonna install fiber," it's probably not tied up in regulatory messes, multiple contracts, competitive bidding, or the like. It takes the school's approval process, which may or may not be slow, but that's the only one; we don't have to ask the county, the city, or AT&T if we can do something - something that definitely speeds our adoption. I'm kinda scared that those kinds of facts might hurt further development of Google fiber.
Chattanooga achieved 1Gb/sec on EPB's network without any help at all, and both AT&T and Comcast fighting them every step of the way. The fight went well on up the court system hierarchy but the end result is that the fastest service in the U.S. is now here in tiny Chattanooga. I'm proud of that, and can attest firsthand for the quality and cost savings of their service. We went from roughly 600.00 for phone and internet on our business to 100.00/month. Now, why should we wait or expect to burden Google with this, when the very power to attain this resides in your very own communities.. Takes a little doing tho. Good Luck@!
Everyone is wondering what's in it for Google. There is a lot in it for Google. This is a really excellent way to shut up the telco's etc... about net neutrality mumbo jumbo. If they want to charge people for bandwidth usage, and premium bandwidth, then Google is saying that if they make it too expensive for google to reach the target eyeballs, google'll go get them themselves, so f*** off. The monopoly co's will be SOL. So they test by asking some small companies to run the fibres for them, and get a good idea of the costing involved. Their business plan will be ready to execute if net neutrality goes south. Google will know exactly when it becomes cheaper to build your own than to pay the bandwith protection ... ahem... premium. Once the break-even gets to a few years, they're off.
I love what google does, but they always have a way of making the good things they do pay for themselves. I'd prefer municipal broadband, treated as a utility with a CO in each town where the fibre terminates and one can connect to the ISP of choice, but it isn't looking like I get to choose, so Google's option is, by far, the best thing on the horizon.
Its intentional, 85% of the fiber in the ground in most areas is not lit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Overcapacity
They took $200 billion taxpayer money and ran off with it,
they are just more of the pirates running the country into the ground.
http://www.tispa.org/node/14
We paid for the upgrade already, we got the shaft as usual.
Pirates of the Potomac taking bribes to hand off our money to corporate pirates.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Dozens of municipalities here in Sweden laid their own fibers and provided open and equal access to ISPs (and IPTV, IPPhone). Building owners/coop-associations generally have to pay to get the last few meters pulled into the building, but the fibers are there already.
I think publicly owned infrastructure is the only model that can provide true competition, if one of the ISPs own the fibers they will always have a leg up on the others no matter how many laws regulate their behaviour.