Could Google Fiber Save Network Neutrality?

nmpost writes "Could Google Fiber, set to launch next week, be the savior of network neutrality? Some speculate that the program is Google's answer to attacks on network neutrality by the big internet providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. These companies complain about the price of upgrading and maintaining their network, and want to charge websites like Google extra money to allow customers fast access to its sites. This practice would violate the long held spirit of the internet, where all data traffic is treated equally. Google may be out to prove that fast networks can be built and maintained at reasonable prices."

Comments

Dibs

[pubwvj]

Dibs on first run to my house!

Re:Dibs

[Lando]

Hmmm,
      Modded as funny, but I might consider moving to Kansas City based on this.

yay?

[Anonymous Coward]

yay.

Re:yay?

[Joce640k]

Yay! Let's hope they can put those whining, money grubbing telecom companies out of business.

Not likely

[bearded_yak]

Even the best efforts tend to become commercialized. Look at Google Shopping's new upcoming direction.

What is to stop them 3 years later from creating a paid class system? And who would be able to honestly blame them? After all, it would be THEIR network.

Re:Not likely

[noh8rz5]

More likely, they'll track every packet of your data in order to build. Profile of you, then sell it to the highest bidder. Scary!

Re:Not likely

[drpimp]

Pfft! You act like telecoms are not already doing that.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Google is [relatively] competent

Re:Not likely

[Githaron]

Just use a VPN.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yeah this supposes that everyone in the world puts money above all other values. In reality, that only describes a subset of humanity. If it described everyone then every opportunity to commit a financially advantageous criminal act would be taken by everyone every chance they got.

The reason civilization holds together isn't because we pass laws and intimidate people into obeying them. The reason civilization holds together is because most people want to live within the boundaries society sets. In fact, the generalized will of the people is where those boundaries came from in the first place. Even draconic enforcement just couldn't coerce a population into overcoming impulses that assail them every hour of every day.

What we have in America and elsewhere is a economic system which fails to punish sociopathy early on. In fact, it does just the opposite, it rewards it differentially with career advancement. The people at the top ARE different- they're worse, much worse, than the average person.

I heard some woman talking on BBC a couple nights ago about how the CEOs involed in the LIBOR scandal are really no better or worse than you or I, they just have bigger opportunities. That is exactly wrong. The bigger the potential to wreak damage on larger numbers of people,. the MORE earnest and conscientious the average person becomes with dispatching his or her duties. That's called "having a conscience"

Of course from a sociobiological point of view, we can forgive her for talking this way. Having been selected as a commentator on the behaviour of the executives of banks means she has had and likely continues to have some opportunities for socializing with them. So of course she's going to use this interview as an opportunity to signal her willingness and availability for copulation with the powerful males in her tribe. Still, if anything other than her limbic system had had control of her mouth and behaviour, any of the above facts might have popped into her head and resulted in a smarter and more insightful interview.

Not everyone is a sociopath and consequently not everyone prioritizes the accumulation of personal wealth above all other values. I count the execs at Google amongst the more morally normal people in business.

Re:Not likely

[Red Flayer]

What is to stop them 3 years later from creating a paid class system?

Why would we want to prevent that?

Seriously... as long as there is no discrimination based on source (i.e., everyone gets the same pricing), what is the problem with tiered services?

To me, that's the crux of net neutrality, to have it similar to common-carrier status. Anyone can pay for different service levels, and the volume discount is formulaic, not negotiated.

Re:Not likely

[Kjella]

Yeah this supposes that everyone in the world puts money above all other values. In reality, that only describes a subset of humanity. If it described everyone then every opportunity to commit a financially advantageous criminal act would be taken by everyone every chance they got.

But it describes pretty much 100% of all for-profit companies, they're not a person and they don't as such have a conscience. Whatever things they claim to do for charity and the environment and whatnot is usually a PR exercise that's ultimately designed to bring them even more money. No matter what those executives want they have shareholders who want profit. They have employees that want to make profits to get their bonuses. Any corporation rewards those that make money for it, it's the essence of capitalism which means that's what you get from top to bottom and the sociopaths that care about nothing else floats to the top. It might not be how people act, but it's how corporations act and Google definitively is one of them. Don't expect those executives to keep it from turning into just like every other big company.

Re:Not likely

[aztracker1]

Sell what, the data? No way, that will be closely guarded... and utilized to do better ad targeting... Honestly, I don't mind it so much when google keeps it all in-house... unlike all the others who sell all of said info to "partners"

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually has helped I think.
Almost every Google ad I see is unobtrusive, Many are somewhat relevant, once in a great while clicking on the ad takes me to what I was looking for.
And Google gives me a detailed list of my history with them and allows me to remove the stuff I do not want saved. (Umm...Assuming I would ever do anything that I would want removed. Which so far has ummm never happened.)
Google, So far, has been the best massive, money making corporation I have ever come in contact with.
I am beginning to trust that they are smart enough to make a lot of money and not have to fuck their customers in the ass to do it.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Any corporation rewards those that make money for it, it's the essence of capitalism which means that's what you get from top to bottom and the sociopaths that care about nothing else floats to the top. It might not be how people act, but it's how corporations act and Google definitively is one of them. Don't expect those executives to keep it from turning into just like every other big company.

In the case of Google, though, the top executives are also the largest shareholders and have so much money that financial rewards are effectively meaningless to them. Of course, many CEO types still keep trying to increase their net worth even after they've got more money than they could possibly ever spend, because it becomes the way to keep score, and they're all about winning. But Larry Page isn't a typical CEO type, his degrees are in computer engineering and computer science, and you just have to listen to him for 30 seconds to realize he's a geek to the core. He claims that he's motivated by the opportunity to do great things that make the world better, and that the need to make money is just a means to that end. You can call him a liar, but there's really nothing in his history to support your claim.

Of course, that's now, and Google probably will eventually come under the control of a bean counter, or of a leader whose focus is on "maximizing shareholder value" in order to maximize his own net worth. But I think that's really not what's going on now, and it won't be the case for many years.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

VPN has bandwidth limitations that would negate having a gigabit.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use a VPN.

Then all your traffic gets poor QoS

Re:Not likely

[phantomfive]

Look at Google Shopping's new upcoming direction.

In all fairness, can it possibly be worse than the current Google Shopping?

Re:Not likely

[phantomfive]

The reason civilization holds together isn't because we pass laws and intimidate people into obeying them. The reason civilization holds together is because most people want to live within the boundaries society sets.

This is exactly true, more people need to realize that. It is true in business, too. If you have to settle every detail in a contract, then it can really slow things down. If business partners can trust each other, then it makes things go faster. There's a book about that too.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

All you anti-Google trolls need to try harder - in this hypothetical situation, why would they want to sell their most valuable data to other companies? They'd be complete idiots to let it outside of the company.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It's true that corporations are inherently sociopathic (and now in control of our elections thanks to SCOTUS) but don't think in Manichean terms, the world or something in it as purely good or evil,. because it's beneath you; you're smarter than that.

Not every corporation is compelled to interpret "maximizing shareholder value" in the crassest, most short sighted way and many don't. Google can easily make the case that net neutrality is in the long term best interests of the company. In fact, doing the morally right thing can always be cleverly framed as such, just as doing the wrong thing is currently framed as such.

Google (whom I do not work for) does seem to me to be a company apart. When people were trying to get corporations to divest from South Africa, it became apparent to them that some corporations were already doing the right thing. Reagan's "constructive engagement" from that time was just the opposite- an excuse to do the wrong thing. Corporations have the power to make moral choices in this world, don't let them kid you their hands are tied.

Google have pretty much lived up to the "don't be evil" slogan, a bout of WIFI panty-sniffing excepted .

Our job is not just to call them out when we see them but also to see them clearly as they really are. Comcast and Verizon and ATT are purely evil in that they want only money and the larger society can go fuck itself. They have no sense of civic duty nor do they care about the fate of this nation or its peoples , except as a PR move. I'd pay double what I pay now for broadband service from Google just to give them a healthy profit from which to expand. I'd treat it as a form of civic obligation and a kind charitable giving and investment in my own and everyone else's future.

Go Google go.

Re:Not likely

[bennomatic]

...says the Anonymous Coward.

Re:Not likely

[bennomatic]

I don't know. I have mixed feelings about Google these days. I used to be a staunch defender, but the whole Google+ debacle turned me sour on them. I have no great love for FaceBook or anything, but after signing up for G+, hearing crickets and then finding I couldn't delete my profile without deleting my whole Google (e.g. GMail et al) account, the whole thing just stank to me. I've even stopped using Chrome for the most part, where it used to be my main browser. Now I only use it on my Mac when I need Flash because I've recently un-installed Flash from the rest of my system. Basically, Chrome is my Kingdom Rush browser.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

> The people at the top ARE different- they're worse, much worse, than the average person.

You feel the rich are psychopaths because you are incapable of becoming rich without resorting to psychopathy and so see the world through that filter. Most people at the top got their through talent, intelligence, and hard work.

By calling those at the top psychopaths you excuse your own failures as being somehow "moral". Most likely you are just average (most people are).

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people at the top got their through talent, intelligence, and hard work.

And luck. Lots and lots of luck.

Re:Not likely

[Fjandr]

There's a significant difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. That said, it is quite true that the business environment rewards sociopaths inordinately over non-sociopaths. The actual proportion is nearly impossible to know, however, as sociopaths who succeed in business are those who have exceptional adeptness at manipulation and the spinning of fabulously intricate and entirely plausible webs of utter bullshit (while only rarely being caught doing it).

The error is in believing the current system is the cause of this, rather than coming to the true conclusion that sociopaths have an inherent advantage when it comes to concentrating power through manipulation. They are almost purpose-built (the ones who don't spend their time abducting and killing, anyway) to excel in games of social engineering, which is the basis of both business and politics.

The other error is in equating the successful businessperson with the rich in general. While the former generally belongs to the latter group, the latter group as composed of many who are not the former. The bulk of the world's concentrated wealth is more likely to be held as an accident of birth than as a result of being a highly successful sociopath, and in that they are much more likely to be average than clinically insane.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Google (whom I do not work for) does seem to me to be a company apart.

You really need to open your eyes and stop buying into propaganda. I agree to a certain extent that Google puts some effort into behaving, but at the end of the day they are a for-profit company bent on creating a digital empire.

Google have pretty much lived up to the "don't be evil" slogan, a bout of WIFI panty-sniffing excepted .

Google now has a long history of disregarding privacy, and the WiFi sniffing is just one example. Other examples are not deleting email when requested by the user, the Buzz privacy fiasco, pervasive tracking (including forcing cookies on Safari via a loophole), and keeping data around for too long. Most of these problems have been addressed after public outcry, though the pervasive tracking is still there.

Comcast and Verizon and ATT are purely evil in that they want only money and the larger society can go fuck itself. They have no sense of civic duty nor do they care about the fate of this nation or its peoples , except as a PR move.

So is that why Google dodges taxes using tax havens?

"Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google's income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich" -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries. "

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast and Verizon and ATT are purely evil in that they want only money and the larger society can go fuck itself. They have no sense of civic duty nor do they care about the fate of this nation or its peoples , except as a PR move.

So is that why Google dodges taxes using tax havens?

"

you have to be a complete and utter idiot to want to give money to the government if you don't have to:

why? well it's simple: government has a decades long history of of financial mismanagement. You now have states like louisiana that have a 45% budget deficit, and politicians are stil doing business as usual.

The debt of european countries may be getting all the press but Us debt is actually growing faster then the total european debt.

There hasn't been a bit of outstanding government debt actually payed back in at least 4 decades. That's true for the USA and it's true for virtually all of Europe (the one exception is Norway, but that's their government run oilfields). When it comes to government debt it's a situation of 'the emperor has no clothes'. If any non-government entitiy was robbing peter to pay paul like the government has been doing for litterally decades when it comes to government debt it would be called a ponzi-scheme.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Bitch all you want about government, but they do provide essential services that everybody benefits from. If you don't think that's the case, try moving to a country without a functioning government like Somalia. When the rich dodge their taxes, it's just more burden that has to be taken up by everybody else.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I come to that conclusion because 1) I am in that environment and I can see the system working to reward sociopaths and 2) beyond my personal experience, I have the shared experience of friends and 3rd parties accounts. It's really not a piece of introspection, but thanks for the hate.

Re:Not likely

[foniksonik]

You do know that if you do not participate in G+ they can not collect more info and you can remove any profile info you put in. Don't think of it as a G+ account, for you it's just a GMail account. It's the same one you happily used to log in and manage search history, analytics, Picasa in its time, Google API keys, Google Play, etc. Same as it was.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fine as long as I can use my service however I like within reasonable limits. Part of the problem is that existing providers are selling something better than they are providing. There needs to be more truth in advertising in regards to speed, capacity, and availability. I don't mind paying what I do for the level of the service I get, but the level of service I get is not 'unlimited' and actually averages to about 90% of the advertised speed. Don't advertise 20mbps speeds and streaming lots of movies/music if you have a cap that can hit that limit with reasonable use.

Aside from that we have a competition problem. If the incumbents don't want to allow competitors to use their networks, then they need to lay off the legislation preventing municipal networks starting up.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

That's a problem with the system.. if your competitor is doing it then you sort of are forced to do it too. I agree it's wrong. You need to talk to your senator and congressman about it.

There is a sense in which corporations are forced to follow the worst of their lot down a bad road. The reason for this is because too many in Congress wont' close loopholes . The reason for that is because they need rich asshole's money to stay in office. The reason for that is because we don't have publicly funded elections. The reason for that is because that's "socialism" according to SCOTUS and a large number of the posters on this board.

The definition of fanaticism is continuing to follow your agenda even as it leads you off a clearly visible cliff.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Right but in other areas of society we do have guards and processes to weed out sociopaths and prevent them from ascending to positions of power, so it's a matter of motivation and values, not capability.

Take policing. These past years, the effects of the systematic professionalization of policing - including psychological testing, requirements for a bachelor degree, extensive background checks has moved us far away from what we had in the 60s when anti-war protests devolved into what amounted to class warfare between college kids and working class policemen. Further back in history the police WERE the criminal gangs that needed to be paid off etc etc.

Even greater effort is applied to excluding sociopaths from the intelligence services since it's been proven over time sociopaths simply can't be trusted under any circumstances. Good luck getting through the CIA's vetting process if you're a sociopath.

Sure , if we permit corporations to operate as what amounts to independent pirate ships then a sociopath has a green field of opportunity before him. But if we come to expect more of corporations then things can change. People carry around with them the unconscious and unexamined idea that privately held corporations are somehow unaccountable to society in their hiring and advancement processes and quite frankly, why should that be so? Corporations are a type of privilege which is ultimately a fiction of law and therefore subject to law. We clearly have a problem with the people in power positions within corporations and apparently they can't be relied upon to self-police.

Anyone who claims we don't have a problem that impinges on society apparently wasn't around in 2008. LIBOR-gate is just more of the same.

With better and better brain imaging abilities coming online yearly, chronic liars and conscienceless predators will soon enough no longer be able to hide behind their smiles, nice suits and easy manner. We have every right and in fact duty to apply relevant science to process of assuming positions of power in society. Tough shit to anyone who doesn't like it.

Re:Not likely

[Fjandr]

That will require getting the lunatics away from the controls at the asyl^H^HCongress first. The former tasks were small potatoes in comparison.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

What's wrong with that is we know what it results in- only the rich having significant access to the media.

This is EXACTLY what we had in broadcast TV- the price of reaching an audience was open to everyone- everyone rich that is.

Right now I can present my website and fill it with all the stuff I want and I can get slashdotted and be the envy of everyone at FoxNews. If we change it so that I can only afford a pipeline that is the equivalent of public access TV, then we're back to square one WRT the democratization of speech.

That's what's wrong with that.

Re:Not likely

[doccus]

Unfortunately, "providing essential services" doesn't appear to be very high on the list of priorities these days for governments, what with this mad rush to privatise all the services that *used* to be run by the gov't, because they couldn't be run at a profit.. like health care, social services, transportation, etc etc..

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

That's a problem with the system.. if your competitor is doing it then you sort of are forced to do it too.

You can't have it both ways, and your excuse doesn't hold up. You made the claim Google was special and didn't feel the need to do whatever their "evil" competitors were doing to maximize profits.

Google could afford to pay these taxes, and they are in no way "forced" to dodge them. If you're going to make flag-waving arguments about Google and "sense of civic duty" and "care about the fate of this nation", then Google needs to be held to those standards. They should pay their taxes instead of using loopholes, advertise that they do, and lobby the government to close the loopholes.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Well you'll be shocked to learn that I actually agree with you. I don't think it excuses Google. I imagine without knowing (since I don't work for them) that Google would rather not do shit like that since it doesn't comport with what I know about them otherwise:

http://www.manufacturing.net/blogs/2012/07/google-made-in-the-usa

http://www.google.org/

http://www.google.com/landing/givesback/2011/

but the point requires an adult mind to bring adult judgement to a real world situation which is not black and white- something you're just not cut for apparently. Comcast and Verizon and ATT have REPEATEDLY shown themselves to be rapacious ,exploitative and dishonest. If Google wants to protect NN by laying down fiber and bypassing that group of assholes then I say bully for them and more power to them. You have to be a bigger cynic than I am to just make blanket statements based on one or two selected data points. Sometimes in a war both sides do very bad things, but that doesn't make both sides morally equivalent. Sometimes when you fight a war you have to give a go at engaging Communist China, or save big money the way your competitors are doing , or do something else unsavory That's life in war time. But the real question is not answered by those bad actions unless like ATT and Comcast and Verizon they become so persistent and pervasive that they have, in fact, turned evil. The real question we're trying to get at is "what's in their heads? Where are they trying to get to by doing this?" That is effectively the state in a hidden Markov model and we can only approximate and build more or less good models to try to get at it . My HMM tells me that Google is acting in accordance with their value system in seeking to lay down fiber and establish NN once and for all.

Sorry, but you can't separate me from my well honed capacity to form accurate judgments about the world and people in it by flinging some sophomoric "et tu" feces at me like an angry little monkey.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Well you'll be shocked to learn that I actually agree with you.

You have a funny definition of "agree", as you then proceed to go out of your way to make excuses for them and put them on a pedestal.

but the point requires an adult mind to bring adult judgement to a real world situation

It requires a critical mind instead of a fanboy mind, which you obviously lack.

http://www.manufacturing.net/blogs/2012/07/google-made-in-the-usa

I hope it works out and leads to more, but it's a token effort and could just as easily be passed off as a PR stunt.

http://www.google.org/

http://www.corp.att.com/edu/

http://www.google.com/landing/givesback/2011/

Wal-Mart tops list of charitable cash contributors, AT&T No. 2

Comcast and Verizon and ATT have REPEATEDLY shown themselves to be rapacious ,exploitative and dishonest.

And it when it comes to things like privacy, I gave you plenty of examples where Google was acting in a self-serving manner, which you ignored.

If Google wants to protect NN by laying down fiber and bypassing that group of assholes then I say bully for them and more power to them.

I do too, but ultimately it's in Google's self-interest to do so, and the whole point is that you can't blindly trust Google to not take advantage if they ever gain a dominant position. The other thing, going back to privacy, is that being the ISP means you see all traffic.

Re:Not likely

[Branciforte]

Google now has a long history of disregarding privacy, and the WiFi sniffing is just one example. Other examples are not deleting email when requested by the user, the Buzz privacy fiasco, pervasive tracking (including forcing cookies on Safari via a loophole), and keeping data around for too long. Most of these problems have been addressed after public outcry, though the pervasive tracking is still there.

 

The WiFi sniffing was not to collect personal data. It was a 20% project to get an idea of what sort of traffic was on WiFis these days. No one ever looked at the actual data, and none of the data ever left the lab.

Not deleting email was just a matter of the way data is replicated in the datacenters.

The Buzz fiasco was just a mistake.

I don't see how Google was abusing a loophole when the 2009 Google code was written two years before the 2011 loophole was written.

And as for keeping data for too long, I don't know what you are talking about. Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.

As for pervasive tracking, all google cares about is what sort of car you like. They could care less about any actual personal data.

Tax havens are an unfortunate fact of life. All big companies have to do it. Fix the loopholes and level the playing field. Don't expect individual company to drop their competitive edge when the other companies aren't.

Welcome to the real world.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Cheering on the activities of a company which comport with their stated purpose is not fanboi-ism especially since they could could have, but chose not to, go the ATT / Comcast / Verizon route and benefit themselves to a greater extent by withdrawing the benefit from others.

Some people are just haters, that's all. You're nothing special, clever or even insightful.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Cheering on the activities of a company which comport with their stated purpose is not fanboi-ism

It is when you ignore all the reasons to hold some reservation, when you put a company on a pedestal and then ignore or excuse past and current transgressions, and generally kiss their ass like an uncritical sycophant.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

WiFi sniffing was not to collect personal data. It was a 20% project to get an idea of what sort of traffic was on WiFis these days. No one ever looked at the actual data, and none of the data ever left the lab.

It shouldn't have been collected, and it was recognized as a privacy concern but they went ahead with it anyways. Google then lied about it by saying it was a "mistake" and "unintentional". They then asked the FCC to black out embarrassing findings that contradicted their public statements: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

Not deleting email was just a matter of the way data is replicated in the datacenters.

Deleting it is just a matter of replicating the deletion.

The Buzz fiasco was just a mistake.

I'm seeing this excuse a lot. That's quite a "mistake" to make.

I don't see how Google was abusing a loophole when the 2009 Google code was written two years before the 2011 loophole was written.

Reference? I did a search for: "google safari 2009 2011 cookies" and didn't find what you are talking about.

And as for keeping data for too long, I don't know what you are talking about. Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.

Believe me, I'm even more baffled by your comment. Google hoards information, as their whole business is based on knowing as much as possible. I have no idea where you got this idea that Google likes to throw away data: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/google-keeps-your-data-to-learn-from-good-guys-fight-off-bad-guys/

As for pervasive tracking, all google cares about is what sort of car you like. They could care less about any actual personal data.

But governments, hackers, and misbehaving employees do.

Tax havens are an unfortunate fact of life. All big companies have to do it. Fix the loopholes and level the playing field. Don't expect individual company to drop their competitive edge when the other companies aren't.

I've already addressed this in another comment.

Welcome to the real world.

Well, duh, that was my entire point. In the real world Google is a for-profit company that will ultimately act in their self-interest and not according to the angelic standards some think they follow.

Re:Not likely

[Branciforte]

WiFi sniffing was not to collect personal data. It was a 20% project to get an idea of what sort of traffic was on WiFis these days. No one ever looked at the actual data, and none of the data ever left the lab.

It shouldn't have been collected, and it was recognized as a privacy concern but they went ahead with it anyways. Google then lied about it by saying it was a "mistake" and "unintentional". They then asked the FCC to black out embarrassing findings that contradicted their public statements: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

Like I said, it was not to collect personal data. That data was picked up as extra payload. The data was just part of an experiment to see what the distribution of traffic was like on WiFis these days. The data was never used for any commercial purpose. Everything in that article backs up what I said, except for the wild speculation on the part of the author. Just because it was transferred to the Oregon datacenter for storage doesn't mean it was used commercially. It was just in the engineers files. You say things like "embarrassing findings", when the fact was that they didn't want personal names released to the public.

Not deleting email was just a matter of the way data is replicated in the datacenters.

Deleting it is just a matter of replicating the deletion.

Yeah, I sorry, but it is not that simple. In a huge system like Google's, thing are marked for deletion, and then overwritten later on when the space is needed. There is no point in zeroing out anything, since the data is all encrypted anyway.

The Buzz fiasco was just a mistake.

I'm seeing this excuse a lot. That's quite a "mistake" to make.

So, you are saying that it was not a mistake? That they did it intentionally? That there was some motivation for them to, what was it, reveal status messages to peoples' contacts?

No, it was a stupid oversight. It slipped by.

I don't see how Google was abusing a loophole when the 2009 Google code was written two years before the 2011 loophole was written.

Reference? I did a search for: "google safari 2009 2011 cookies" and didn't find what you are talking about.

You're not looking hard, or you are using the wrong search engine. Try, "google ftc focused on 2009 help page". It's all over the place.

And as for keeping data for too long, I don't know what you are talking about. Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.

Believe me, I'm even more baffled by your comment. Google hoards information, as their whole business is based on knowing as much as possible. I have no idea where you got this idea that Google likes to throw away data: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/google-keeps-your-data-to-learn-from-good-guys-fight-off-bad-guys/

Google might extract general trends from your information, to help guess what you might be searching for. But the actual information is disposed of fairly quickly. I think it's six months or so.

As for pervasive tracking, all google cares about is what sort of car you like. They could care less about any actual personal data.

But governments, hackers, and misbehaving employees do.

Yeah, good luck breaking into a Google datacenter. You have no idea.

Welcome to the real world.

Well, duh, that was my entire point. In the real world Google is

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It is when you ignore all the reasons to hold some reservation, when you put a company on a pedestal and then ignore or excuse past and current transgressions, and generally kiss their ass like an uncritical sycophant.

Wow. Glad I don't do that.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Major quote fail. Use preview.

Like I said, it was not to collect personal data. That data was picked up as extra payload.

Then they should have just collected the data they needed on the fly. They recognized the privacy concern and then ignored it.

You say things like "embarrassing findings", when the fact was that they didn't want personal names released to the public.

A lot more than just names were redacted, as can be seen by the original redactions at the behest of Google. The FCC told Google in their letter, "Disclosure of this information may cause commercial embarrassment, but that is not a basis for requesting confidential treatment."

Yeah, I sorry, but it is not that simple. In a huge system like Google's, thing are marked for deletion, and then overwritten later on when the space is needed. There is no point in zeroing out anything, since the data is all encrypted anyway.

Laughable. If they can update data on the fly, which they do, then they can delete it as well. And it doesn't matter that it is encrypted when law enforcement demands a copy.

So, you are saying that it was not a mistake? That they did it intentionally? That there was some motivation for them to, what was it, reveal status messages to peoples' contacts?

It was an intentional product decision to publicly share contacts by default in order to fill out their social network. See, for example, this article:

"When you first post to Google Buzz, there is a dialogue box that reads "Before participating in Buzz, you need a public profile with your name and photo."

It also says -- albeit in tiny gray letters against a white background, "Your profile includes your name, photo, people you follow, and people who follow you."

But it does not say that these publicly viewable follower lists are made up of people you most frequently email and chat with."

But the actual information is disposed of fairly quickly. I think it's six months or so.

Try reading the article. Your original claim, "Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.", is completely demolished:

"Google logs an astonishing amount of data, including the search logs from its flagship product. It keeps this data indefinitely, so searching for a combination of yourwife'sname and youraddress and "rat poison in her cereal" is not a particularly smart idea (though search users do this sort of thing anyway).

But the company does "anonymize" this data eventually. The last octet of the IP address is wiped after nine months, which means there are 254 possibilities for the IP address in question (.0 and .255 are reserved addresses). After 18 months, Google anonymizes the unique cookie data stored in these logs.

This isn't especially ambitious; Europe's data protection supervisors have called for IP anonymization after six months and competing search engines like Bing do just that (and Bing removes the entire IP address, not just the last octet). Yahoo scrubs its data after 90 days."

You're not looking hard, or you are using the wrong search engine. Try, "google ftc focused on 2009 help page". It's all over the place.

That's because the 2009 date references a help page, not code as you claimed. The code was intentionally written to work around Safari's cookie blocking. There seems to be a pattern here of you not having your facts straight.

Yeah, good luck breaking into a Google datacenter. You have no idea.

First, I mentioned three agents: Government, hackers, and misbehaving employees. You only addressed one of them. Second,

Bust the Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Force AT&T to share the right of ways taxpayers own!

Re:Bust the Trust

[dgreer]

Then tell you PUC to decrease the regulatory hurtles to become a carrier.

Of course, you still have to lay 20,000 miles of duct, but, it's a step in the right direction.

A better solution: stop passing laws that favor AT&T and the other big incumbents. That's what drove the small ISPs out of business.

Re:Bust the Trust

[pubwvj]

Actually, tax payers usually don't own the rights of way. Rather the rights of way is over land owned by private people and leased or taken by easement either voluntarily or involuntarily by government for utilities. Tax payers have little to do with it.

I know a little bit (re-read "lot") about this as I own a a fair bit of land with rights of way for the utilities over it. The joke is, for much of it, most of it, I'm the only one it serves since I'm the last mile and a half.

Re:Bust the Trust

[sjames]

So who are these people who own property and aren't taxpayers?

Re:Bust the Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations and sufficiently wealthy individuals who know how to hide their finances.

Re:Bust the Trust

[sjames]

Even they cannot typically hide from property taxes.

Re:Bust the Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

For the billionth time.

TAXPAYERS DO NOT OWN ANYTHING.

The fact that you pay taxes that are used to buy something does not mean you have an ownership interest in that something.

You do not own the nuclear missiles your tax dollars pay for. Nor do you own the $500 screwdrivers or $3000 toilet seats in the Pentagon.

Similarly, you do not own the roads, telco lines, or anything else your tax dollars subsidize.

Get over yourself, already.

Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

CAN be built fairly inexpensively but it has to be done with a purpose.

I've long proposed that Municipalities build their own networks, and then lease the management and fiberplant with specific parameters about things that are important to them. THEN that would provide the impedus for competition.

They could do FIBER, CABLE and Copper in one bundled set and pull it to each home. Competition from the start.

Re:Fast Networks

[cpu6502]

Or better yet: The state could run 100-fiber bundles under all the state-owned roads, and let the customer decide. If you want Comcast connect to the Comcast fiber #1. If you want Verizon choose fiber #2. If you want AppleTV or MSN or Time-warner connect to fiber 3 or 4 or 5. Et cetera.

Re:Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

Exactly, but why do that at the house, why not run ONE cable set to the house and everything else goes back to a CO somewhere, where it is a simple cross connect by a skilled technician.

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

Or better yet: The state

And with those words, you would drive half the people of this country into hysterics. We can't even agree to a public option...I doubt highly that enough of us would agree to fund something like that no matter how beneficial we all know it would be. Look at what they're doing to NPR...

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Because having the state run that one fiber to your house would be SOCIALISM!!!!1! Anyone else would charge you for the service. Unless, of course, you opted to have their skilled technician plug it into fiber # x, where x = their own service. That's free.

Having anyone else do it just leads to finger pointing and problems (see also: DSL in places where deregulation hasn't caused the phone companies to kick the competing DSL providers off their phone lines... "Hello? Qwest? My DSL is down!" "Must be SBCs fault!" "Hello? SBC? My DSL is down!" "Looks good here, must be Qwest's fault!")

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet: The state

And with those words, you would drive half the people of this country into hysterics. We can't even agree to a public option...I doubt highly that enough of us would agree to fund something like that no matter how beneficial we all know it would be. Look at what they're doing to NPR...

Yes, because broadband internet in places where companies don't want to provide it, why, that's exactly as complicated as healthcare!

Look you got an agenda and want a "public option" for healthcare, fine, good, but don't pretend it's exactly as simple.

Re:Fast Networks

[ExploHD]

I've long proposed that Municipalities build their own networks, and then lease the management and fiberplant with specific parameters about things that are important to them

Like Utah's UTOPIA? It's on the Utah's republicans hit list, btw.

Re:Fast Networks

[ThatsMyNick]

Thats pretty awesome! One of the providers has a 100 mbps connection for $50. I get 12 mbps connection from comcast for the same rate.

Re:Fast Networks

[PRMan]

But...but...but...Socialism!!!

Re:Fast Networks

[pubwvj]

Yes, it really isn't that expensive. I put in my own fiber network for our farm, home and business. Small, but then we're smaller than Google (surprise!) and I had a very good reason. Fiber is immune to lightning strikes which are a huge problem up here on the mountain. Next I would like to lay fiber the mile and a half down to the phone company. It pushes the lightning strike problem that much further away from us.

Re:Fast Networks

[s73v3r]

Yes, because broadband internet in places where companies don't want to provide it, why, that's exactly as complicated as healthcare!

Sarcasm aside, it actually does seem to be that way. There are even people on here who don't think municipalities should be able to create their own networks. They feel it should be private all the way, even in the face of evidence that the private providers don't want to do it.

Re:Fast Networks

[InsaneMosquito]

How does one go about convincing a municipality to do this though? We've seen stories here about some high speed networks being built, but what is that first step that convinces a city council to say "Yup, we need that"?

Re:Fast Networks

[Areyoukiddingme]

Sure you could. All you have to do is use precisely loaded words in carefully constructed sentences. And lie. A lot. People will buy it. People will buy anything if you lie to them long enough.

Lying works. Lying is a growth industry. Lying is the most successful sales technique the world has ever seen. It began with organized religion thousands of years ago and ended with Fox News (which is nearly indistinguishable from organized religion).

It could be done. Not ethically, perhaps, but it could be done.

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

The excuses against it are precisely the same as the excuses that would be trotted out against this, and you know it: "Why should I have to pay for it? Government only gets in the way! If the free market won't do it, that probably means that it's gonna cost too much anyway!! It's regulations, regulations are why those people can't get internet! ARGHGHGHG!!!! BARGGHGGHGHLLE!!!!!"

If you've missed the selfish, asinine streak in people these days when it comes to anything involving government doing any fucking thing, you're either blind or deliberately obtuse. You could probably get people to vote down public water utilities in some parts of the country right now...that's how batshit retarded it is getting.

Re:Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

Here's the difference between Municipal run Media/Internet and my solution which is FREE ENTERPRISE. IF your municipal "Cable" sucked, who could you turn to? Nobody. IF the Comcast/Time-Warner/Roadrunner/Verizon/ATT who got the 5 year lease on the plant sucked, you could fire them and replace them with someone else.

Competition is good.

The problem with Liberals AND Conservatives alike, they don't know where the boundries ought to be. The Plant to the house (last mile) is just like the Road in front of my house. It is Infrastructure. I does need to be maintained and improved from time to time. However like a road, I'm suggesting that it is available for anyone to use.

Read my reply to one of the earlier posts in this thread, I said everything could be run to a CO where a tech would manage the connections for the providers, and switch you to the new provider etc.

The problem is that we need to think OUTSIDE the "Nationalized" model and the "unregulated" crap both sides seem hell bent on moving towards.

Net Neutrality would not be an issue if we weren't hostages to the "Local Monopolies".

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

And even when the people try to do something about it, why, that's when those reps start getting leaned on...

Re:Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

Let me guess, you're into Porn and Hookers and drugs? No, those things don't lie to you at all ... NOOOOO.

I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls.

Re:Fast Networks

[hondo77]

Here's the difference between Municipal run Media/Internet and my solution which is FREE ENTERPRISE. IF your municipal "Cable" sucked, who could you turn to?

My municipality's elected representatives.

If my "free" enterprise cable internet sucked, who could I turn to? Nobody because the local cable is a private monopoly, which is the opposite of "free".

That road of which you speak, the one that is available for anyone to use, was built by the government.

Re:Fast Networks

[butlerm]

UTOPIA is great, if you can get it. The problem is that your city needs to sign on, and you and preferably several of your neighbors need to each agree to pay ~$30 a month to lease a fiber connection (or purchase the the right to use one indefinitely for ~$3000). Then you pay your ISP / IPTV / telco provider to deliver service to you over the shared Ethernet network. Build out has been relatively slow, in part because they originally projected that most customers would sign up for Internet, television, and phone service over the network, where in reality most want just plain Internet service.

Utah is a heavily Republican dominated state, and UTOPIA is certainly not on the Republican hit list. It is mostly on the hit list of lobbyists for CenturyLink (Qwest) and Comcast. They tried to have the state prohibit such networks several years ago and failed. UTOPIA is now a fait accompli and the chances of it being shut down by legislative action are non-existent. They need those revenues to pay the bonds back. The only question is can UTOPIA succeed enough with its new revenue model to make new cities want to sign on. I sure hope so.

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Jackson, WI, the village decided to start a telecommunications utility. After spending a fortune, they had a service with nearly no subscribers that cost more than private alternatives, offered crappy service and lost money. Eventually, they decided to sell it off. The word "fiasco" barely begins to describe it.

Tell me again how municipalities are the solution.

Re:Fast Networks

[shentino]

Monticello tried it already and they got their asses sued off.

By the time they won the incumbent telecom had already built their own network right out from under them.

By no means am I against municipal internet btw, I cite this as an example of just how greedy an incumbent monopoly can get.

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

The "private monopoly" that was created by the local government's grant of an exclusive "right" to provide a service to paying customers? Hmmm... Sounds like I'm still stuck talking to my elected representatives.

Ever see the process of granting a cable company a monopoly? I have -- twice -- and it's every bit as bad as you can imagine (or maybe worse, given your advocacy of the government solution.)

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

rock bottom prices on fibre transceivers too!

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't even agree to a public option...

Putting fiber optic cable into the ground is much harder to screw up than running a medical system. Heck, George W Bush could do it.

Re:Fast Networks

[davydagger]

see the problem is there is no competition on cabling infastructure is there is no real choice. Its not feasable for more than one company to run more lines

A good analogy for what they are doing is if the phone companies started charging more for dial up connections to known ISPs, or blocked them altogether back in the day.

we tend to work OK with the majority of roads being public, I think we could do OK with public infastructure for electricity, gas, water, and now internet. Not to say that the.

As for so called "unregulated". it will be very regulated alright, just by whatever company owns the infastructure. I am very much for a free market, and I like the idea that more competition reduces problems. But in some areas, private ownership won't breed competition, and cannot be voted upon.

Re:Fast Networks

[Trilkin]

Mismanaged, poorly advertised and people entrenched in their existing service because if they break from their Triple Play packages, their other services go up in price.

If they offered free VOIP service that would allow customers to use their existing phone number to go with the internet service and actually made that service competitive, then it might've worked. Problem is, private companies tend to have a -HELL- of a lot more money to spend on things than a municipality does.

Re:Fast Networks

[ATMAvatar]

Its not feasable for more than one company to run more lines

That doesn't prevent them from doing it on occasion. Amusingly, my house has cable TV drops from both providers here. They were both installed before I moved in, so I could not give you specifics as to why they are installed, but there you have it. When I chose one provider, the guy who came out to activate the lines informed me that neither carrier would run to the other's lines, so only half my cable drops could be activated.

Re:Fast Networks

[MarkRose]

How expensive was it? For how much cabling?

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet: The state

And with those words, you would drive half the people of this country into hysterics. We can't even agree to a public option...

I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

I think I can safely say everyone here thinks that it's their own business if a town, city or municipality wants to run fiber for their residents. .

But you say that somehow if a State (not the Federal government) wants to run fiber between their towns, cities and municipalities it's a bad idea? And "half the people of this country" will be driven "into hysterics"?

And somehow you're equating this to a Federal government program (not a State program) that will force every American to buy health insurance?

Re:Fast Networks

[Belial6]

Or better yet: Municipalities should build a conduit system. One that is about the size of the current storm drain system should do. They should then lease out the right to anyone that wants to pull cable. New players could wire up a city in no time if they didn't have to dig. Existing players could upgrade their networks at a fraction of the cost if they didn't have to re-dig. Municipalities could do the job that they have extensive experience with instead of trying to become experts in a new and ever changing industry.

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

We have that happening now in Oz !! The Aust Government is building National Broadband Network (NBN) http://nbn.gov.au which is Fibre to the Home (FTH)..
Majority of Australians are in favour of this..

Re:Fast Networks

[ThatsMyNick]

The solution is simple, the city owns the last mile infrastructure (preferably fiber). The ISP compete on providing service over this infrastructure. The ISPs also pay a monthly fee to the city to use their fiber.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

You answer the question and then immediately state why the answer either a) isn't workable or b) is the result of your own (or general populace) inaction.

In both cases, the reason for the problem is your municipal government. In the first case, it should be obvious because the system in its entirety is run by the municipality. In the second, you even state the reason explicitly: the "free enterprise" solution isn't really free enterprise, because your municipality's elected representatives voted to give the company a monopoly.

There are no free markets when it comes to data connections, but it's that argument that keeps people on both sides so occupied that they don't do anything about the real problem: their elected representatives.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

I've worked in a number of CATV clusterfucks, but never seen one of those before. The fix is about 10 minutes time, and it doesn't require either company's consent.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Yup, they screwed the pooch there.

Contrast that with a system that works: http://www.chelanpud.org/fiber-optics.html

The system has been built-out using local bonds, and is now being restructured so that it and future improvements are self-sustaining financially. $45/mo for 50Mbps symmetrical isn't bad for a rural area, and you have a choice of private service providers; the network is provider-agnostic.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

I think the comment was the result of conflating of the original context in which "state" was used and the idea of the Federal government as "the state."

That said, there are probably a lot of people who would disagree with a State doing that, but simply because they are trying to retain consistency with being anti-government rather than understanding the true, and different, roles which are appropriate to State governments and the national government. That is discounting, of course, those who actually have a vested financial interest which could be jeopardized by such an outcome.

I, for one, would welcome a well-managed State or municipal project to provide general infrastructure, the duplication of which causes needless complexity. Ideally, it would be done by local utility districts at the county level, linked by backbone construction at the State level (barring the unlikely event that such is actually not within the State's power as a result of their Constitution, though I am not familiar with such a State). In the end, the only actual impact on the incumbents would be a removal of their ability to control market deployment of, well, anything. Somehow, I doubt that would actually end up harming their bottom line much. The problem really is they, like most entities, hate the idea of any loss of control over something they consider their own property.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Rephrasing is key: this is an application of States' Rights.

And I'm not a fan of socialism on the national level. It doesn't bother me on the State level, though, as that's where it belongs. It's a lot easier to hammer your State reps when they get out of line. National reps aren't accountable to voters because they believe they have a mandate up until the instant they lose their re-election bid. As such, they should have commensurately limited power over the day-to-day affairs of ordinary individuals.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

First, hit up people involved in the creation of a successful project: Click Network, Chelan Fiber, or UTOPIA.

Figure out the goals of the community leaders in the area in question. Gather the pros and cons, and write them up in a way that satisfies as many points of view as possible. Try to approach it in a manner which incorporates the typical talking points of local groups who might oppose it.

Lastly, get out and talk to people. Local politicians are usually very sensitive to pressure from within their electoral districts, much more so than state or national politicians.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Bah, I accidentally hit Submit instead of Edit...

That should be: Chelan Fiber

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

Oh, I've been hearing people bitch about the state (as in the state of Wisconsin) and screaming that their local municipalities should have the power and people in Madison and Milwaukee shouldn't be telling people in the small towns and villages throughout the state how to live. Perfect example, the Gogebic Taconite mining bill that was shot down in the state senate.

The anti-government hysteria knows no bounds. I can only imagine how retarded it's going to get from here on out...

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect example, the Gogebic Taconite mining bill that was shot down in the state senate.

So you saying a mining bill was shot down, obviously, because people are anti-state? Not, maybe, oh I don't know, anti-mining?

Re:Fast Networks

[__aaeihw9960]

Pricing, please. Saying it isn't that expensive does not equal a price. What distance? Man hours? Price for materials, etc.? We're looking into viable options for our own farm/property, and fiber's on there, I just can't find any reliable pricing structures.

Re:Fast Networks

[complete loony]

Australia's copper network runs like this ATM. The copper from your house to the exchange was historically owned by telstra and would require a phone service line rental from them. Though they were forced to lease the lines wholesale to other phone providers. In the exchange, telstra initially were the only people operating DSLAM's to connect ADSL customers. And again they were forced to lease the ADSL connection to other internet providers. Then we had other providers installing their own equipment into the exchanges. Followed by forcing telstra to lease the copper to ISP's without needing them to provide a traditional phone service, which is where we are now. This is much better than the monopoly we had before, but could still be better.

The new NBN being rolled out is following a similar model. NBNco owns the fiber, but is only responsible for the link from the house to a peering point. All of the internal structure of the network is hidden, the connection is exposed as a p2p ethernet link. After that, any company with a sufficient number of customers (their pricing model sucks for any small players) can provide whatever data service they want over that link; TV, phone, internet, or anything else you can think of.

But as I said their pricing model is (was?) horrendous. Sure they'll lease a 20Mbps link to a residence for a flat $25 per month no matter where that residence is in the entire country, which isn't too bad for a completely new network. But they also gouge the data provider at the peering point, charging $20 per Mbps per month. eg it will cost you $400 per month to provide enough bandwidth for your first customer's peak usage. 2 customers? well, then you'll need 40Mbps on the off chance they both want to use their link at the same time. After that, you probably wont need to purchase much more bandwidth until you have hundreds of customers.

But I digress. Anyway I think it's a perfectly good idea to setup a local monopoly that is *only* responsible for building and maintaining the link from each house to some central location. Just make sure you aren't being ripped off in the fine print. Then let everyone compete on a level playing field to provide services over that link.

Re:Fast Networks

[cpu6502]

>>>>>Or better yet: The state
>>
>>And with those words, you would drive half the people of this country into hysterics.

Not if you label the 100-fiber installation as a "public road project". The state already maintains the roads with pavement, metal barriers, and electricity. Now we're just adding internet.

As for NPR and PBS, we live in an age of hundreds of channels and billions of webpages. We don't need government-run channels because the "need" is already being fulfilled. NPR/PBS made sence in the 1960s when they were born and the number of channels was 3. Today they don't.

Re:Fast Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

The state could run 100-fiber bundles

And there-in lies the inherent problem in your proposal. You suggest this as a way to open up competition, but why should only 100 companies be permitted to compete with each other? You'd previously suggested a mere 50, so clearly you understand the risks associated with putting an upper limit on the number of competing companies since you've now increased it to 100, but what about later down the road when you think "actually, 200 might be better. No.. 500. No.. 1,000". Far better, as another pointed out, to run one cable to each house, and that cable connects to some central office where it then gets patched to whoever you are contracted with for your internet service. Should make increasing the number of companies much easier in the future.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

While I agree with you on the general point, the below applies to the particulars you post:

That's an interesting example to use. I'm not sure who you're calling the anti-government people in the mining example, those trying to get the mine into Wisconsin (the Republicans), those trying to prevent it (Democrats + 1 Republican), or those unwilling to compromise at all on the contents of the bill (Gogebic Taconite)?

I doubt I'd support any of their positions if I knew more about the deal, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm really at a loss how any of that issue is an example of anti-government legislation.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

I took it as anti-government types decrying state involvement in a mining issue that could have been decided more locally.

It's an illustration that anti-government sentiment doesn't stop at the federal level. Those calling for states' rights can call for county rights if they disagree with their state government. And then there's city rights, neighborhood rights and finally their individual right to not cooperate. Not all those people hide behind "states' rights", of course. Some are consistent and honest about their view of individual rights.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

I'm not sure who you're calling the anti-government people in the mining example

I think AngryDeuce was referring to people upset at the WI state Senate for not passing the mining bill.

This seemed to be the lone Republican's reason for not voting for the bill:

He cited changes to current law that would have allowed mining companies to fill in rivers, streams and shorelines.

Re:Fast Networks

[pubwvj]

I don't have the exact numbers now because I did it well over a decade ago but it was under $1,500 and about 500'. The primary cost was the optical to ethernet connectors and the hubs. The fiber wasn't all that much. I had it custom fabbed for the lengths I needed - e.g., the company put the end connectors on so it was all just plug and play. Very nice. Now prices should be even lower. Google price search something like this and you'll get more meaningful modern prices:

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=shop&q=fiber+optic+cable&tbs=p_ord:p

This fall I may install the copper cable that goes down the mountain from me to the phone company but perhaps I'll replace it with fiber. The copper cable has suffered badly from the lightning strikes/EMPs in the over 20 years it has been there. Even the best grounding and surge suppression in the world doesn't do much to protect against that. But, fiber is immune to EMP/Lightning.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

We don't need government-run channels because the "need" is already being fulfilled.

The "need", if it exists at all, is for a source of news and other programming that does not have a corporate slant to it.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

States' rights seems rather arbitrary. If some group you're a part of oppresses you, you're going to hate it no matter the size of the group.

Wyoming has around 568K people. There are over 30 individual cities in the U.S. with more people than that. Is 37M people too many? Should California be run by county rights?

Re:Fast Networks

[pubwvj]

When I do replace the cable I'll probably write about it on my blog. Watch:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/

Probably fall-ish. If it doesn't happen before we freeze in for winter then it will have to wait until 2013.

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

Thank you, that was the point I was trying to get across, which I admit I was pretty vague on since I was in a hurry...

The mining bill was shot down here in Madison, the state capitol, and for months in the local news there was a lot of negativity about representatives from other areas having a say in whether or not Gogebic Taconite was allowed to mine the North Woods area. It's not limited to Federal Government anymore here in Wisconsin (and I'm sure elsewhere in other local issues that we don't hear much about on a national stage); the anti-Madison sentiment is long documented (The common derogatory nickname is The People's Republic of Madison), but never before have I really seen it to the point I have in the last year or so since Walker took office.

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

Up to and after the final vote on the mining bill (which I admit I was against for environmental reasons, and also because the bill was so bad that nobody would admit to having written it, which probably means it was written by Gogebic Taconite's legal department) there was a lot of bitterness and anger over the fact that the state representatives had a say in whether or not a mine went in at all. It was all Democrats against the bill (with one Republican, and boy were they pissed off at him) but most people cited the fact that representatives from areas that wouldn't be effected by the mine had a say as the reason why they were so angry about opposition to it.

There were a lot of people in comment threads on those articles screaming for the rights of municipalities and counties to overrule the state in cases like this. It's not limited to the States vs. the Fed anymore, now it's the towns versus the State and lord knows soon it will be the individual versus the town. I suppose it will never end until it's every many for himself, which seems to be what many of these people want, they just don't want to admit it either to themselves or others...

Re:Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

No the "System" isn't run "entirely" by the Municipality. Only the Infrastructure is. And hell, even that could be privatized. The point is, the cable plant is not the providers, but any provider has access to the cable plant.

Municipal and Private run Monopolies are the problem because there is no way to foster competition.

Re:Fast Networks

[Archangel Michael]

There is no competition for infrastructure. Nor should there be. Infrastructure is just that. LET anyone run across the Infrastructure. You build a Street once, and then maintain it. Same with Infrastructure.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Depends on the implementation. The successful ones have done as you described. The "single-provider" models are rightly condemned.

And yes, I agree with you. If you read my other comments here, you'll see I'm an advocate of exactly such a system.

In the case of the person I was responding to, systemic problems in both examples do, in fact, lay directly at the feet of municipal representatives. At the end of the day, they have the lion's share of the power in whatever relationship is currently in effect whether they wield (or even recognize) it or not.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Fair enough. I really didn't want to assume which direction you were coming from, since there were a great many potential pitfalls there.

And I tend to agree, though I'm definitely more inclined to the smaller political scale than the larger. I'm not particularly fond of federated republics. Way too many issues and very few benefits. The "golden age" period isn't really worth the abuses necessary to build them or those which occur when they inevitably collapse under their own weight.

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Only if it's enshrined in the California Constitution. I'm guessing no such county rights exist though. The origin of the "States' Rights" argument has a lot more legitimacy, given that the concept of retained rights was important enough to get an amendment to the Federal Constitution all to itself.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

Ok, but I wasn't really interested in California's constitution or suggesting they shouldn't follow it. I was asking for your opinion on how big a population should govern itself.

Re:Fast Networks

[garbut]

...or else the customer could own the last mile.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/87311_customer_owned_fiber_in_ottawa/ http://arstechnica.com/features/2008/07/customer-owned-fiber/ http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.ca/2008/07/what-if-you-could-own-your-internet.html

Re:Fast Networks

[MarkRose]

Thanks for the information! I'll follow your blog!

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Ah, okay. I thought you were trying to underscore the assertion of the arbitrariness of the concept of States' Rights rhetorically. Apologies.

Honestly, I don't claim to know. I don't think anyone can, though I'm sure with enough data a pretty close range could be modeled mathematically (though it would probably differ to some degree or other by group, depending on certain predominant cultural influences). I believe it should be within the power of those who feel sufficient disconnect with their membership in a current political body to disjoin themselves from that body and constitute their own, with all the advantages and disadvantages attendant to that decision.

While many would consider that extreme and come to the conclusion it would end society as we know it (As Venkman says, "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"), I would argue that the disadvantages are drastic and the smaller the group the larger those grow in proportion to that group's means.

Re:Fast Networks

[Tancred]

Ok. As in many things, the answer is "it depends". Was hoping for something more concrete, but I don't have a good answer either. Though I don't have a study to back this up, I do think most U.S. citizens identify primarily with their country rather than their state.

I think you are describing the end of society as we know it, but maybe there's some limited way you're thinking of that could work. To start with, if some people decide to disjoin themselves, how do they give us notice and where do we deport them to? Or are you talking about secession of some piece of land with all the people living there, which creates a lot of other problems?

Re:Fast Networks

[Fjandr]

Wish I had a more concrete answer, but I imagine I'd be much better known if I actually could truthfully make the claim to have that answer. :)

As for groups leaving a political body, you don't deport them. If you did, they wouldn't actually be disjoined as they'd always be reliant on a current dominant group for shelter. They keep their assets in their entirety, except those held as part of a public trust. Therein lies the disadvantage: The primary group loses real power and influence, and most political groups are willing to go to war to prevent any loss of status. The incipient group loses the benefits of membership in the larger group, including rights of common identification, external diplomacy, shared infrastructure maintenance, production and generation resources, etc. They must either have or bargain for those resources as with any independent political constituency. You are entirely right, it would create a lot of problems. However, those problems weigh inordinately heavily on the group leaving, which is what would mitigate the use of the process a great deal after an initial societal re-alignment.

Even were we to get past the idea that it is acceptable to force a non-violent group to submit to a given society for no reason aside from tradition (and it is truly nothing more than that), which would solve the civil war aspect, ponder on the nature of the disadvantages to the incipient group as stated above. I do not believe there would be many, at least in proportion to the world's population. Certainly there would be a number of large countries which would break apart, most notably China and India, and likely several hundred minority ethnic groups which already operate defacto independent countries in all but name. However, after the reorganization, life would go on. Borders would shift every so often as populations changed, but the likelihood of a group smaller than several hundred thousand breaking away and possessing the resources (in both materials and knowledge) to remain independent is vanishingly small.

Of course, all of this presupposes that a large number of people give up the idea of nationalist attachments as a legitimate aim which supersedes all others. The idea that people have some higher claim to control a population they have little or no direct role in is archaic, but is heavily ingrained in human social psychology. Simply put, I argue for the right to political self-determination, with all the benefits and pitfalls that entails. It should not require conditions to get as bad as, say, the Balkans, before others recognize that self-determination is to the benefit of any significantly disaffected peoples.

What?

[BitHive]

The solution to network neutrality is to buy up tons of dark fiber in the wake of a bubble and use it to build your own national network? Does anyone else see a problem with this?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. Now Google gets to track you more.

Re:What?

[game kid]

Yup, even if they mean right at first, their revenues will start to hiccup. Once fiber maintenance becomes a problem and the share price sours, the Page wing will make Google pull a Slashdot and want to use it to push their video (YouTube) and their "social" network (+) Mad-Crazy Fast(tm) at others' expense, while they generally continue to marketer-ize and RIAA-tize the services.

So no I don't think this will help netneut at all. Maybe it will help netneut die; it's easy to miss that last word, I guess.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, even if they mean right at first, their revenues will start to hiccup. Once fiber maintenance becomes a problem and the share price sours, the Page wing will make Google pull a Slashdot and want to use it to push their video (YouTube) and their "social" network (+) Mad-Crazy Fast(tm) at others' expense, while they generally continue to marketer-ize and RIAA-tize the services.

So no I don't think this will help netneut at all. Maybe it will help netneut die; it's easy to miss that last word, I guess.

What's your solution then, smartass? You act like Comcast and AT&T aren't already pulling that shit (Hint: they totally are). I don't know what's wrong with you that you believe more competitors in the marketplace will somehow make things worse than they already are getting anyway.

Re:What?

[blakelarson]

Well, we shouldn't overreact, but you need to keep an eye on Google. They are a publicly-traded company, and if revenues start to hiccup, there will be a change in management. Then, as far as Google's assets are concerned, *anything goes*.

Re:What?

[SpaceLifeForm]

If you don't like it, stay of Gnet and stop wasting my bandwidth!

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we shouldn't overreact, but you need to keep an eye on Google. They are a publicly-traded company, and if revenues start to hiccup, there will be a change in management. Then, as far as Google's assets are concerned, *anything goes*.

The current management (Larry, Sergey and Eric) has a large majority of the votes in a shareholder election. They have a different class of stock, with 10 votes per share, then most investors. There is no way they could be forced to do anything, because the board that has the power to fire them is chosen by shareholder election.

You would know that if you had read notes from any shareholder meeting, or read a news article about one. Or looked up GOOG on yahoo finance. You have no idea what you are talking about, and clearly made no effort to learn before posting.

Since when...

[bhlowe]

Google does something inexpensively? Hah.. They treat a missing million dollars in cafeteria budge as an inconsequential rounding error.

Re:Since when...

[Tancred]

Google is incredibly cost-conscious. Every little bit of server hardware, network, power and cooling cost they can wring out of their datacenters, they do. Spending money on food keeps people on campus (and working more) and keeps employees happy (and competition for the best employees is fierce). No, I don't work there, but I've worked with them a few times.

Re:Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every company tries to buy the cheapest labor and work them 80hr/week then fire them after 2 years. Yes, some companies try to get good labor and treat them right. A happy work is a busy worker.

The real test

[Trongy]

If Google becomes successful with this, the real test will be whether they offer their competitors equal access to their network.

Re:The real test

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google becomes successful with this, the real test will be whether they offer their competitors equal access to their network.

Yeah like the way they strictly locked down Android right?

If Apple starts buying up dark fiber, BE AFRAID. Open access is not their business model no matter what else you happen to like about them.

Re:The real test

[Qzukk]

Bing will be replaced by Google and Microsoft websites will load half as quickly.

If you call and complain they'll disavow any knowledge of problems on the network and it must be Microsoft's fault.

No, thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

So I'm supposed to use Google's network, and in doing so, give them access to snoop and mine 100% of my Internet traffic.

No, thanks.

Re:No, thanks.

[Skapare]

Just remember, Google is an advertising company, first and foremost.

Last mile

[PPH]

There is no dark fiber in front of my house. Google might be able to get within a mile or so, but AT&T/Comcast/Verizon aren't going to let them get any closer.

The amount that the last mile providers will charge is unrelated to their cost of providing service. If all Google had to do was to cross the street, their fees would be the same. In fact, the Google Fiber project stands to provide windfall profits to the last mile operators. It will relieve them of the need to maintain their backbone infrastructure. Your monthly bill will be the same, but now it all goes in these operators' pockets.

Re:Last mile

[Areyoukiddingme]

I gather you don't know anything about the Google Fiber project. They pulled last mile fiber. That was the whole point of the project: that the existing last mile was ancient, unupgraded, substandard crap, raped and abused and ignored by cable companies and telcos for the last half century, in the certain knowledge that when people decided it needed to be better, they could go crying to the government, get a HUGE handout, and pay every last dime of it out to shareholders as dividends, leaving their cable plant in exactly the same miserable state. Wash, rinse, repeat.

How do we know this? Because they've already done it successfully.

So Google did get to the front doors of all the people in Kansas City, and Charter and AT&T couldn't stop them, because the city agreed to it. Charter and AT&T's wires are still there, but they're going to lose 90% of their customers in a day. And they deserve to. Read that link. It will make you truly angry.

Re:Last mile

[Kargan]

// So Google did get to the front doors of all the people in Kansas City, and Charter and AT&T couldn't stop them, because the city agreed to it. //

As a Kansas City-area resident, I'm afraid this is not the case. I don't know anyone that lives in Kansas City, KS that currently has access to Google Fiber services, or that has seen any trucks or workers in their neighborhood.

Google has been very short on public details with this entire project, and this launch that the article is referring to has to refer to a very limited and localized deployment.

Keep in mind that physical installation did not even begin until this past February: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytjn-5_li-I

'A Google spokeswoman would not say whether the announcement actually means somebody in Kansas City will finally get a light-speed connection next week.

"We're excited to announce more information Google Fiber next week," said Jenna Wandres. "We haven't elaborated on what arriving means."'
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/18/3711326/google-fiber-to-make-july-26-announcement.html#storylink=misearch

I'll be curious to eventually find out who has access to it, exactly, and how long it'll be before any significant portions of the city are lit up.

Re:Last mile

[Raenex]

Why is this informative post modded down? Oh no, reality intrudes!

Re:Last mile

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's something even worse - I have naked DSL from Verizon, I do not have an actual phone number that rings in my house, nor do I want one. I received a letter about a month ago stating that if I make ANY changes to my DSL, I will be required to tack on a voice line to my bill. They will no longer offer naked DSL, but will honor my previously purchased plan. That really sucks because I only have 3mb DSL where I am at and if they ever upgrade the lines it will cost me an arm and a leg to go up to that tier due to purchasing a voice line.

Re:Last mile

[Gr8Apes]

How do we know this? Because they've already done it successfully.

What's really needed, and would truly scare the pants off the current crop of robber barons, is a non-profit infrastructure company to come along and build municipal networks, and only manage and maintain the network piece with services being bought however the users want. I believe this could be done rather easily with today's tech, and be profitable for both the non-profit (meaning they could expand) and the service providers.

Re:Last mile

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe wait a week?? You don't know anyone that "currently has access to Google Fiber"? How is that informative?

Re:Last mile

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you live in KC but I live a few blocks across the State Line Rd on the Missouri side near KU Med Center and we had the Atlantic Engineering trucks pulling fiber all through our neighborhood and across on the KS side a few months ago. I also saw them quite a bit every time I ventured over to KCK. I heard Atlantic was contracted by Google. As far as I know my whole neighborhood now has fiber on the street just not to anyone's home/business yet. I imagine that they will be announcing the first KCK hookups next week with KCMO to follow shortly.

Fiber?

[jblb]

It hurts my eyes to read fibre spelt that way.

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm the same, except with the word tire.
When I see written "Tyre" I cry, but I get over it.

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

bah - Kerb your emotions whiney one

Re:Fiber?

[Trogre]

Lightsaber or lightsabre?

Go!

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

even better... tomato or tomato?

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've switched to fiber, every day. Makes me poop like a bear. Its awesome!

Re:Fiber?

[UnknownSoldier]

/sarcasm That's the nice thing about English -- you have options on how to spell !

Aluminium vs Aluminum
color vs colour
dialog vs dialogue
moustache vs mustache

And don't forgot the different pronunciations !

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

--
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to pick from!" -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Re:Fiber?

[phantomfive]

tomatre. I mean....

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

You said spelt, and I don't think you were talking about the grain. Arguably, as language evolution goes, spelt is a really nasty hack based on peasant=class proununciation whereas fiber is an appropriate correction with regard to the pronunciation of 're' in english vs other romance languages. Just because it hurts your eyes doesn't make you or your preference any less stupid.

Re:Fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, this kind of trash is the most trivial bullshit possible that one could possibly be bothered by when it comes to english. Punctuation, contractions, homosynonyms, halfwitted assholes who nitpick good vs. well... The list goes on. Bitching about pronunciation and spelling is fucking infantile.

Re:Fiber?

[Raenex]

Get over it. It's the American spelling, and Google is an American company.

Re:Fiber?

[RivenAleem]

I dunno, spelt is a modest source of fiber.

Re:Fiber?

[DaFallus]

Fiber?

It hurts my eyes to read fibre spelt that way.

Can someone honestly explain to me why the fuck this is insightful?

I want a pony

[PPH]

I've long proposed that Municipalities build their own networks,

And the Big Operators have fought that. A few early adopters have slipped by them. Tacoma, WA built the Click Network through their power PUD. But the commercial operators have put legislation in place in many jurisdictions to prevent the further spread of public networks. Where this hasn't been possible, they have recruited astroturfers to scream about the horrors of public infrastructure to frighten the public away from supporting such projects.

Re:I want a pony

[shentino]

Not to mention just flat out sue over it.

Re:I want a pony

[alex67500]

I've long proposed that Municipalities build their own networks,

But the commercial operators have put legislation in place in many jurisdictions to prevent the further spread of public networks.

This isn't technically true. Democratically elected officials have been lobbied into passing legislation. If you didn't vote for incompetent crooks, this wouldn't happen.

Um why do I have your service?

[theexaptation]

Sites like google and netflix are good reasons why I have a data access in the first place and thereby the ISP my business.
The shameless money grab based on our increasing dependence on network technology by ISPs is despicable.
If we followed their logic we would all be on dial-up forever because it "cost too much" to provide what we were sold.

Reasonable price != market-building price

[cdrguru]

We are still in a mode in many areas where ISPs are trying to build market share, especially with DSL. DSL took a big hit when the equal-access provisions were found to be unworkable - technology passed them by and nobody noticed - but you still see offers for $14.99 DSL service.

Look at "business rates" for DSL or cable and you will see what the real costs are. Nobody is interested in competing on price for business customers, so they do not. The result is the prices are 3-4 times the residential rates and in many areas they will not give you a "residential" (i.e., cheap) plan at a business address.

On the residential front, most of the ISPs are trying to compete on price because the service is pretty well known. What is the difference with business service? Certainly nothing that changes the real cost structure, in fact things are added which cost more for the ISP.

Where most of the "network neutrality" flap has come from is the ISPs are offering below-cost service to residential customers in an effort to still build market share. Of course, any residential user that is doing more than web surfing and reading email is costing them more in peering than they are getting from the customer on an Internet-only plan. Should be obvious why they want you on a bundled plan with cable TV and phone service. The business customer is in a market-building mode so they are charged full cost plus.

So why are the ISPs screaming? Because they boxed themselves in with below-cost pricing for residential customers. The same residential customers that are doing much more than just web surfing and reading email. They can't raise prices to their customers - they are building market share. So where are they going to recoup their real costs? You guessed it - the other end of the connection, the one with no options and the one with the deep pockets.

Could Google come in an offer service to residential customers? Maybe, but they are far more likely to offer service on their own terms to ISPs - perhaps with no peering charges at all. Google is paying nothing or almost nothing for the existing fiber - they bought it already. So their costs are already sunk into it. Would an ISP sign on with Google? If the other option is to continue to pay someone else for traffic to Google... maybe it makes sense.

Could Google compete on a residential service level? Sure, I suppose. But they would have the same costs as the ISP does for customer service (script readers in India) and physical plant maintenance (outsourced to independent contractors) and they would have to make a huge investment into local terminations - nodes where the connections to homes would be. It makes much more sense for them to offer independent Google connections bypassing the current peering arrangements to save the ISPs rather than paying the ISPs for the privilege of having eyeballs.

The advantage for Google is with a completely independent pipe to each and every ISP they can do a much better job of geographic data mining. And traffic analysis so they know the Detroit suburbs aren't going to Amazon as much as the folks in Scottsdale. There are probably hundreds of other things they can collect this way with a tap into every ISP. Probably with a router running custom Google code to facilitate this tap. It makes paying for the fiber a rounding error on the balance sheet compared with the value of the information they can collect.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know your sources for cost of residential services, and the service fees for users in your area. What I do know is that my costs for a commercial hosting account was ~$80 per month for 1000Gb of monthly bandwidth and an overage charge of $0.15 per Gb. So without further numbers from your experience I don't really see how ISPs are providing services at a loss in order to build market share.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[dgreer]

Good analysis!

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at "business rates" for DSL or cable and you will see what the real costs are. Nobody is interested in competing on price for business customers, so they do not. The result is the prices are 3-4 times the residential rates and in many areas they will not give you a "residential" (i.e., cheap) plan at a business address.

Most companies that offer business plans only charge about 2xs the cost, but you get:
1) No data cap
2) Static IP
3) BGP support
4) On-site 24/7 support. I've heard stories of Comcast/Charter rolling a trucks after mid-night because someone's cable internet went down.
5) Personal representative with no-wait tech support
6) Your local traffic is QoS'd above residential traffic and you use a separate long-haul with dedicated bandwidth.

That extra $30-$50 gets you a lot of "features"

So why are the ISPs screaming? Because they boxed themselves in with below-cost pricing for residential customers.

Right... below cost. They're making money hand-over-fist. Internet brings in more net-profit than TV, but less revenue.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[Anonymous Coward]

Business lines are usually for guaranteed bandwidth while for residential lines you won't get the bandwidth you paid for if the neighbor is doing a big download so it's not the same product being sold. Even if it were the same product, segmenting the market is a good tactic no matter the actual costs. Even if there WERE no costs ISPs would benefit from charging higher prices to businesses if businesses were more willing and able to pay more. It's the same reason that Amazon once tried charging different prices for the same product depending on your account's buying history with them. Many countries are far ahead of the US in terms of having access to cheap broadband that is faster than what you can get in the US. How is that possible if the US ISPs are already charging less than what the whole thing costs to run? What are your sources for this information, or are just you making it up?

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[jonwil]

The bigger problem with DSL is that many ISPs either limit the speed so much that its useless or they have given up altogether and ceded the market to the cable companies.

If ISPs who offered ADSL actually offered the latest technology (ADSL2+) and at "maximum speed" (i.e. the best speed you can get based on how far from the ADSL kit you are) AND had DSL in more phone exchanges, it might be a better option.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[DaMattster]

Respectfully, I don't know how much of that I am willing to buy. I recall a news story on the excess dark fiber laid in anticipation of continued meteoric growth during the dot com era. Why not light up this dark fiber and use it to make money instead of lay dormant?

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[swillden]

Could Google come in an offer service to residential customers? Maybe, but they are far more likely to offer service on their own terms to ISPs

The Google Fiber under discussion is residential service, launching next week in Kansas City. It's supposed to ultra high-speed connections to residential consumers at an affordable price.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[soundguy]

You forgot the most important aspect - no port blocking. On a business line you can run your own mail server, DNS, web server, VPNs, etc. I don't think there's a consumer connection left in this country that allows outgoing port 25 connections by default. Most block 80, 443, 21, 22, etc too. On a business connection, you are expected to be running a business, with all the various services that entails.

On a few types of business connections (T-1 and some fiber, for example) you can negotiate a service level guarantee like four nines or better (99.99% uptime). On consumer connections, you're not guaranteed ANY service. If it's working at all, at any speed, count your blessings.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing you say makes sense. Phone lines and cable were almost universally in place before the internets took off. Cable installation occurred almost universally using private funds, and was economical at $9.99/month for basic TV, a fraction of what people pay now. And the cost of phone line and cable installation in new developments is born by the developers, who include it in the price of each new property.

ISPs do not lose a single red cent on residential customers. They charge businesses more because they can.

Installing fiber today is more expensive than the cable roll out because labor is more expensive, and there are more regulations. However, the biggest issue is that people have poor memories: it took over two decades for cable to rollout to most households. Fiber installation hasn't even begun in earnest in most places, and that's because of the existing infrastructure. Investors are chasing profits in the installed base. There's nobody hungry enough to take the risk. The CEOs of Verizon and Sprint were both ousted shortly after committing themselves to fiber and 4G, respectively, before the rest of the capital markets had any appetite for it.

But my guess is that when it finally gets rolling it'll prove faster and cheaper than national cable TV installation.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[misexistentialist]

They can't raise prices to their customers - they are building market share

Really? Some years I see two rate increases for my internet. And the ISPs have "boxed themselves in with below-cost pricing"? None of them are struggling to be profitable, and it seems like customers are the ones really boxed in to paying whatever the company chooses because there is no alternative. Even DSL no longer competes with cable.

Re:Reasonable price != market-building price

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get SLAs on cable also. That's why I mentioned mid-night rolls, that was for cable. They will QoS your cable modem to be higher priority than the rest of the neighborhood and route your traffic over the same dedicated pipes they use for their dedicated-line customers. The only difference is you don't pay through the nose for a dedicated line, but you still get dedicated bandwidth and higher priority at the node.

Did they say Gigabit speeds?

[theshowmecanuck]

I guess it's true that a lot of fibre will open up your "pipes".

ISPs have become oligopolies

[Taco Cowboy]

At the beginning of the "Information Superhighway" - at least that was what they called "Internet" back then - there were a lot of people pulling cables and starting local ISPs

At that time, competition was fierce, and everyone tried to one-up each others, on price, on service, on usage, et cetera, to attract new customers

While the competition was fierce, there was a feeling of comradery and responsibility amongst the ISPs, and they did respect the "Freedom & Equality" spirit of the Net

But that golden era was not to last, for big and established players from the telephone and cable industries (AT&T / Comcast), with deep pockets, out-maneuvered the smaller players - and that's what we have today, an oligopolistic structure of the ISPs

As oligarchs go, the big players got so much power that they get to do almost everything they want to do - and as we have all witnessed - not even the government has power to reign them in
 

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

not even the government has power to reign them in

Argh! The correct word in that phrase is rein, not reign. Reigning is what a monarch does, and has nothing to do with curbing or slowing something down. Reins are what you use to guide a horse, and are also used for slowing the horse down and/or bringing it to a halt - which is where the phrase "rein them in" originated.

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

this is all about monopolies and their control over competition

long ago there was the pots and because the government had helped develop it, the local operators had to provide access to their competitors, this lead to the proliferation of DSL carriers and competition was introduced into a stagnant market where only isdn was offered

the incumbent local operators worked to destroy the competitive DSL carriers and rolled out their own offerings, which resulted in relatively high speed access to millions of customers. Cable providers rolled out their own services and for a while we saw speeds climbing and easier deliveries of services

the FCC made allowance to the carriers installing new networks to support these services that they would not have to provide equal access to other carriers if there was any segment of fiber on the new network, effectively locking out new competition. This has resulted in slow growth in data speed offerings and attempts to Monetize their assets by jacking up fees and charges on people using large amounts of data

The only thing that will re-introduce competition and the resulting increase in service levels and lower of costs will be a challenger that is willing to bear the cost to build out their own fiber to the curb network. Fortunately Google has that type of money to invest and relationships with the big data carriers to support this buildout

all hail the new king, but be wary of their monopoly should it come

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[dgatwood]

Think positively. At least the GP didn't say "rain them in". When it comes to online forum grammar, I'd call that a small victory.

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[luther349]

they did not outsmart the little guy in fact they where losing to them. what they did was get are wonderful government to allow them to charge huge rates to anyone using there lines. this in turn drove everyone out of the market.

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry you have a crappy ISP. Try Sonic.net they fucking rock!

The way to beat the oligarchs is connect the dots to the piece of shit globalist fascist candidates and to deny them to be on the ballot altogether.
If enough people obeyed their oath, then I would go long for handcuffs. But right now it feels like the calm before the civil war

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Khyber]

"Reigning is what a monarch does,"

It's also what a government does, in case you forgot.

In this case, Reign is being used to mean 'subjugate.'

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Fjandr]

It's unlikely the phrasing used was unintentionally the same as the colloquial term "rein them in," so unless it was an exceptional coincidence the criticism is correct. While there is potential overlap between the uses of both terms, they share vastly different roots.

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Taco Cowboy]

I do know the existence of both words

For some reasons - perhaps subconsciously - my fingers typed out "reign" - and as GP has stated, the subject was "Government" and the word "reign" in a way was still kosher, so I decided not to change anything
 

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[philip.paradis]

Ewwwww.

Re:ISPs have become oligopolies

[Fjandr]

That works. Perhaps an unusual choice given the nature of pedantry on Slashdot, but it was always possible. :)

Re:FUCK NO

[Areyoukiddingme]

This has nothing to do with the dark fiber they bought. They bought dark fiber in order to become a national backbone provider so they qualified for free peering agreements with all of the existing providers. Otherwise paying for transit for Youtube would have bankrupted them.

This is about brand new fiber they've installed in Kansas City, fiber to the premises. Yes the whiny telcos have sued to prevent some municipalities from pulling fiber. They failed to prevent Kansas City from allowing Google to pull fiber. I'm not sure they even tried. Kansas City's municipal authorities actively solicited Google for the privilege of getting Google fiber. AT&T probably saw the writing on the wall and knew better than to whine in court about it, knowing that the sentiment of the entire region was radically in favor of the proposal.

If AT&T/Verizon/Charter/Comcast and all the rest had done their fucking JOBS, Google wouldn't be doing this and you wouldn't be sitting there with a plug up your ass to prevent Google from examining your colon.

As for the rest of us, we know that every giant corporation already collects just as much information on us as they can possibly acquire, so Google is no different from any of the rest in that respect. Where they appear to be different is in their willingness to actually cater to us. My ISP collects everything they can get their hands on, and is then moronic enough to send me email about their bullshit Battle of the Bands that I could give a fuck less about. So not only do they massively invade my privacy with their DNS interception, they fail to actually do anything useful with the data they stole from me.

Thanks, but I'd take Google any day, over that shit.

Some packets are more equal than others

[dgreer]

May I point out that all packets are NOT treated alike, and haven't been for over a decade. Controlling priority and limiting heavy services are common procedures in all major networks, and users should be darned thankful for it.

The original argument that started all this nonsense was complaints that TWC and Comcast were ratcheting down services like eMule and Torrent. Then somebody speculated that they may start doing it to people like google (followed about a month later by Comcast and Verizon floating just such a plan ... probably suggested to them by somebody reading the original discussion here on /. BTW) and the /.ers went crazy and started demanding that somebody in government regulate those evil ISPs.

My advice now is the same as then: let the market work. If you drag the pols into this, you will get results that you REALLY don't want because they will do what their donors (who are NOT you) want them to do. Unintended consequences will surely follow.

Google buying dark fiber to take TWC, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon on head-to-head is what my suggestion looks like. If they are successful, other investors will smell the blood in the water and we may find ourselves sitting in 1999-type network growth again (only this time, nobody will be dumb enough to say that profit doesn't matter).

Regulation will be the death of the break-neck innovation that has gotten us where we are. Is it fast enough yet? Of course not, but it isn't going to get faster if every decision has to go through some bureaucrats in DC.

Re:Some packets are more equal than others

[Altrag]

let the market work

That's only a viable option whenin markets with meaningful competition. Which in most jurisdictions, is just not there in the isp market.
Without competition, the only remaining control options are regulation or crossing your fingers for corporate benevolence (pretty likely, right?)... Or well, just giving up your net+phone+tv... And if you're willing to do that then power to you, but there's not enough people willing/able to make that sacrifice for the isps to care.
Government definitely fishes things up a lot.. but I'd rather a well-meaning half measure than an intentional fuckover..

Re:Some packets are more equal than others

[Anonymous Coward]

Controlling priority and limiting heavy services are common procedures in all major networks, and users should be darned thankful for it.

I for one am not thankful. There is no reason to limit heavy services. What should be happening is to limit users in a reasonable way. If there are N users sharing a bandwidth of W then each user should get W/N bandwidth guaranteed plus whatever extra is left over from other users not currently using their allotment (in reality probably W/N should be weighed by what people are paying, but let's keep it simple). Trying to achieve a similar aim by limiting certain activities is just an incredibly harmful way of doing it. Paying X$ to use bittorrent is no less or more important than paying X$ to use Skype - bandwidth should be just bandwidth. Also, the number W/N should be included in all advertisements.

If you drag the pols into this, you will get results that you REALLY don't want because they will do what their donors (who are NOT you) want them to do. Unintended consequences will surely follow.

The politicians are already dragged into it by, as you call them, the evil ISPs. It's a question of advocating good regulation or ending up with bad laws because the voices of reason were quiet. The unfettered markets wouldn't do a good job running the roads and it isn't doing a good job with internet access for the same reason.

Regulation will be the death of the break-neck innovation that has gotten us where we are. Is it fast enough yet? Of course not, but it isn't going to get faster if every decision has to go through some bureaucrats in DC.

Internet access speed innovation is the purview of other countries than the snail's-speed US so I don't know what you are talking about. No one is suggesting letting all decisions go through bureaucrats in DC so that's a strawman.

Re:Some packets are more equal than others

[pantaril]

Controlling priority and limiting heavy services are common procedures in all major networks, and users should be darned thankful for it.

I agree with you that controling priority is good think. Big file upload via FTP should not impact the quality of low latency and jitter depended protocols like VoIP.

But why is limiting heavy services desirable? What are heavy services anyway? Torrent? Ftp? You know that people are streaming huge amounts of data via http too? It is imo no bussiness of ISP to decide which protocol i use for transers of large data chunks.

Adjusting priority of latency-critical services like voip, digital TV or games is OK. Limiting bandwidth of arbitrary protocols is not OK.

Re:Some packets are more equal than others

[Anonymous Coward]

Controlling priority and limiting heavy services are common procedures in all major networks, and users should be darned thankful for it.

Not major networks, just small to medium networks. Once you get past a certain size, it's cheaper to purchase higher bandwidth equipment than to purchase equipment that can do QoS on top of your current bandwidth.

Toilet

[Anonymous Coward]

I dropped my fiber optic cable into my toilet still waiting for google to hook me up.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same Google who, along with Verizon, last year proposed that wired connectivity should adhere to net neutrality, but that wireless was fair game... smells like a crock.

I don't know about Network Neutrality...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but Google fiber may definitely help reduce Google constipation and lower your Google colesterol.

What would you do for a Google Connection?

[Charcharodon]

I'm pretty sure I'm ready for that brain implant Google is working on as long as it means I get a dedicated trunk connection to my house(brain).

John Scalzi had a pretty interesting concept in "Old Man's War" and the "The Ghost Brigades" with the "Brain Pal" implant. In the second book special forces clones were literally born (adult sized) and able to talk within minutes with the implant and the net connection handling the heavy lifting, feeding information and concepts to the brain until it could do it on it's own.

Of course most of us would immediately be stabing ourselves in the head with the nearest pointy object once the tsunami of Facebook games requests hit ten minutes after gaining conciousness.

Re:FUCK NO

[l0ungeb0y]

"Thanks, but I'd take Google any day, over that shit."

WTF -- I've been ranked a lowly Troll for speaking my mind against Google You do know they want to know what's in your fridge, they wat to know what's in your closet and they want to know what you read and what you do.

And if you can sit there and tell me that's preferable -- THEN FUCK YOU.
Frankly -- maybe we need a civil war, where we can discuss this shit OFFLINE.

To me Freedom from unlawful searches and freedom to seek my own knowledge and conduct my business is freedom from an OPPRESSIVE REGIME CONTROLLING IT ALL.

So fuck you -- I am for being anonymous, for being free and NOT for some asswipe "Not Evil Larry's" Corp trying to control me and use me to their ends.

And FUCK YOU for saying that we should just trust some CITIZEN that has NOT MASTER, NO OVERSIGHT, NO ONE TO JAIL for their actions and that we should call them Master.

Google has made it clear for several years that KNOWLEDGE ABOUT US is their product and commodity.
But in USA 2012 I AM A TROLL. Maybe in USA 2020, I can shoot to kill fucktards like you off my lawn.

Oh yes, I am passionate about this.
I love freedom from Hall Monitors and Snoops.

Fuck you slave, I will lovingly kill thralls who try to enslave me to their master.

Re:FUCK NO

[l0ungeb0y]

And I'm not saying Comcast or AT&T is any better.
But it least they don't publicly productize it.

To them, the beholder is the Gov't, who are nasty enough.
Google has no Masters and the Gov't protecting them as a Private Citizen.
So they have no one to answer to as an authority to mortally fear.

It's about time

[DaMattster]

I'm glad to see a company stepping up to begin breaking the telecom oligarchy. If this is a success and Google doesn't add any kind of bandwidth caps, this could force Big Telecom to go back to the unlimited, all you can eat bandwidth for wireline communication. My only concern is that how much is this service going to cost, not only in terms of actual dollars and cents but in terms of privacy. Google has been known for playing a little fast and loose with privacy.

Re:FUCK NO

[Areyoukiddingme]

Wasn't me that moderated you, so I dunno what you're yelling at me for. I replied, so I can't moderate (even though I currently have mod points).

Answer me this. Do you have a cell phone? 'cause I don't. Do you have a television? 'cause I don't. Do you read a newspaper? 'cause I don't. Do you listen to the radio? 'cause I don't. Do you have credit card debt? 'cause I don't. Do you have student loans? 'cause I don't. Do you have a car loan? 'cause I don't.

I have very very few corporate masters, both in absolute terms and compared to the average American. And you want to get up my ass about an internet service provider that I can't even choose? I don't live in Kansas City. I don't live anywhere near Kansas City. Google is unlikely to ever offer their service to most people in Kansas City, let alone me, because Google is famous for starting something, then giving up on it when it doesn't sell more advertising.

You're busting a blood vessel for a purely theoretical service you can't even buy, probably will never be able to buy, and you're doing it using a connection you're paying some CURRENT monopolistic corporate overlord for the privilege of using.

You need to chill, dude.

The first step...

[y86]

Really the first step it to just buy a cellphone company and build out the 4g and use that. Google could buy a lame wireless company like Sprint and totally use the spectrum for good. A quick cash infusion for a low end wireless provider could result in a major tower build out that would beat verizon.

Fiber is SOOOO expensive, I don't see how build a terrestrial fiber network could ever have the impact of wireless anchored by fiber (as far as reaching customers.)

Re:The first step...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that expensive. Sonic.net has gotten the capital expenditure down to $500/household in many neighborhoods for fiber to your premises. A setup fee of ~$200 can cover the equipment expense.

Sonic.net's average cost is higher, but with economics of scale the costs should begin to drop dramatically. Even at their current costs little 'ol Sonic.net is managing.

The problem isn't cost or profitability, per se. There's profit to be made. The problem is opportunity cost. There's too much money left to milk from the existing installed base, and cable companies can make more profits investing in other opportunities unrelated to their core operations. Blame the magic of liquid equity markets. That's why, e.g., content providers keep ratcheting up their fees to cable companies; they know cable companies are flush with cash and are trying to get in on the action.

So stop assuming that fiber is too expensive to make it profitable. It's profitable. It's just not profitable enough. It's just more profitable to play the stock and bond markets, or to engage in M&A. Little companies like Sonic.net don't have the expertise or capital to do those things, so their opportunity costs are different.

Re:The first step...

[Lando]

And what is clear exactly? And who owns it?

Just like to point out that....

[exabrial]

The price hasn't been announced.

checkmate dear summary writer?

most dark fiber is...

[Anonymous Coward]

on the long segments between cities and neighborhoods, the last mile still needs to be built out unless you are running that over cable or telco controlled lines, which are the segments that companies like comcast want to charge fees on

Costing more in peering? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Transit in a data center (colo hosts do make money after all) costs around $500 a gigabit per month these days, even in retail quantity (i.e. you can colo a single box and pay that, say at he.net). So that's 50 cents a megabit, or $3 a month for 6 megabits worth of peering. I'm paying over 10x that much for residential DSL and am only getting 3 megabits because my apartment is rather far from the central office, even though I'm in a major tech-heavy city.

Trust Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

.. sorry.. I will never trust a marketing/advertising company like google and let all my internet data flow through their networks. This is just another way to mine user data.

Re:FUCK NO

[Anonymous Coward]

To me Freedom from unlawful searches and freedom to seek my own knowledge and conduct my business is freedom from an OPPRESSIVE REGIME CONTROLLING IT ALL

Your freedom is that you get to choose who carries your bits back and forth. Your freedom is getting to say "I agree" to a EULA or not. No one is forcing you to use Google for anything. Freedom from unlawful searches only covers you when you DON'T AGREE to a search, which you are doing when you agree to the EULA.

Only if

[Anonymous Coward]

google is no more for net neutrality than N korea is.
all they care about truly is their bottom line and how to increase it.
Their do no evil is a joke

Want control? Need to own!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the solution for google. The solution for the rest of us is http://freenetworkfoundation.org/

Screw ISPs and screw google. Independence is what is needed.

Re:Want control? Need to own!

[Ash-Fox]

Sorry, I'm not rich like you are. I can't afford to build my own independent infrastructure just for myself.

I trust Google even less than TWC/Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google was my ISP, I think I'd be using either TOR or some other virtual networking technology for all of my internet traffic because I don't want a company using my network traffic for data analysis and deciding on its own whether or not to notify the police about something they see on my Internet connection.

Which also goes to say, I don't use Google's free WiFi service when I'm downtown. Even if it is the only open access point.

I'd rather be disconnected from the Internet than use Google provided connectivity.

Re:I trust Google even less than TWC/Comcast

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Um, if you think that isn't happening now you are completely out of touch with reality.

The biggest problem with conspiracy theorists is the misguided assumption that they think their lives are worth monitoring.

Re:Reign

[TaoPhoenix]

Let's bring the Weather Girls into this. They wanted to talk about the Reigning Men.

I guess somebody read my comment

[roman_mir]

I wonder if this story was born out of this comment I left here on the "Google Compute Engine" story. However my point was that network neutrality becomes a non-issue with companies laying their own network infrastructure on one hand, and on the other, passing laws like Network Neutrality would HURT those companies that lay their own infrastructure, because it would force them to create uneven pricing between internal and external content from point of view of what it costs the company to move data internally, so prices would RISE.

Again, /. crowd cheers gov't action to ensure this 'network neutrality' and thus in the long run to ensure much higher prices.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

not even the government has power to reign them in

Government created them. Without the coercive power of government, they would be forced to compete, and the winner would be the company that offers the best service at the best price, rather than the company that has the best connections to government.

We need more Google Fibre

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Because Internet regulations are currently full of shit.

Google Fiber?

[slider2800]

How is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0VRK6ouwI supposed to save network neutrality?

I guess you read mine

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the link, but I made a comment how funny it is that slashdot is full of people who think they're the few/only sane man in a sea of crazy slashdot groupthinking sheeple

They lament how their ideals of freedom and liberty are besieged from all sides by the socialist collective hive... even when plenty of anti-government comments get +5 insightful mods (just the same as the opposite)

The funniest thing is that people who think like that might actually accomplishment something if they banded together and combined their powers, but it'll be a cold day in hell for that to happen, since they don't want to break the illusion that they are somehow unique in a sea of a socialist /. mob

Yes, but not for the reasons in TFS

[DragonWriter]

Google may be out to prove that fast networks can be built and maintained at reasonable prices.

More importantly, Google may be out to prove that they are willing and able to go toe-to-toe with the incumbents as a network provider. The big attraction of the anti-neutrality position for incumbent network providers is that it lets them use their regional market power in network access to extract rents from content providers, privileging the network providers own content and capturing the profits other of content providers. And they can do that without fear of losing customers because of the lack of effective choice. But, if Google is able to provide meaningful competition for the incumbent network providers without playing the same game, then suddenly consumers have a meaningful choice, which reduces the viability of the rent-seeking strategy by other network providers.

As a Kansas City resident

[DocSavage64109]

+1 on the parent post. I am desperately wanting to be rid of Time Warner (though lately, at least my cable modem doesn't lose connection hourly), and I keep hearing about Google's fiber roll-out, but I have yet to find a site where I can sign up for actual service.

some issues

[slashmydots]

Hmmm, AT&T and Time Warner say it's too expensive to upgrade their networks so Google builds fiber and leases it to them for lots of $$$, obviously more than it cost to put it in. Sounds like a solution to me lol I assume that's what they're doing because of federal laws about line sharing and the fact that Google probably doesn't want to bother with being an ISP.

There's a slight problem here though. Everyone thinks it's some magical, virtually unlimited speed connection but their wireless could cut it to 54Mbps or 150 or 300 depending on their router model. Then their ipad probably can't process data at a rate exceeding the internal storage device's pathetic write rates. Then there's the fact that downloading a file off a server can only be done by 1 server with FTP so you're limited by the drive/RAID array's I/O speeds. You're not going to be the only person downloading from that individual server either then there's all the overhead so you're never going to see the speeds they advertise.

YES WE DO!!!

[Skapare]

We paid for it ... not individually, but as a nation ... we OWN IT ... not individually, but as a nation. It is ownership delegation. Of course no ONE taxpayer gets to control what is done with it. We all as a nation vote on the matters, through our representatives. That is the process by which the decision on how to handle what "we all as a nation" own.

As for the telco lines and coaxial cables that were subsidized by the various governments, and hence owned, perhaps in part, perhaps in whole, depending on each case ... it is "we all as a nation" or "... as a state" or "... as a city" (depending on which it is) that then get to say what is done with "our" stuff.

It should all be a level playing field. It is not a true free or fair market unless that is so.

Set to launch next week?

[wkhtl]

This has been live for over a year...

What needs to happen

[RobertLTux]

1 i would like to go to a single site plug in my address and then see a set of offers for what is available AT MY HOUSE
2 i want to see the following info
A monthly billed cost
B speed being paid for
C number of folks on "my switch"
D most likely traceroute path to a Tier 1 Provider (with average lag time)
E Which Protocols they either Block or "Shape"
3 at any time if the connection goes down (not my equipments fault) for more than 10 days in a month then i should not have to pay for that month.

Save something that's already been saved

[Anonymous Coward]

FCC already took care of that, no need for Google to save it already: http://lifehacker.com/5720407/an-introduction-to-net-neutrality-what-it-is-what-it-means-for-you-and-what-you-can-do-about-it

I will help for free!

[masterjames]

If google wants my help i will donate my labor to this noble cause. Its as noble as any. Its time a big company fights back against its rivals and wins. You have my sword, and you have my bow, and my Axe!

The FCC gave the monopolies to them.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we had freedom of speech at 56.4 GHz We would not be locked into the hard line wires that only Phone and Cable are permited to lay.

To think this happened on Al Gore's watch. And the gall to think he invented the Internet. More like gave it away to the Telco's