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Google Announces Plans, Pricing For Kansas City Fiber Network
Kiyyik writes "Google just announced the details behind their inaugural fiber optic service in Kansas City. They're doing a set of packages including $120/month for tv plus internet, $75/month for internet alone, and regular 'conventional' internet for a one time $300 fee. Rollouts are starting in the central areas and will work their way out on a demand basis: at least ten percent of a neighborhood must sign up for the service before Google will come in and start hanging fiber." Update: 07/26 22:04 GMT by T : Nick Kolakowski points out at GeekNet's Slash Cloud that this Google will probably hinge future developments on how well the Kansas City push works.
Those prices could be competitive, depending on what's being offered. $120 for TV+internet - if it's comparable to Direct TV I'd hop all over it.
What I really want is a good competitor to bring some pain to the existing providers who overcharge, underserve, and have no incentive to lower prices. And that includes content makers like Viacom. I hope Google succeeds.
Where exactly have you seen prices for 1Gbps Internet access that make $70/month seem high?
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
What it's doing for the world is introducing a competitor to the ISP oligopoly that actually has the muscle to not be stomped on. When people start seeing how cheap it actually is to provide broadband (after all, the $300 is to cover the infrastructure installation - after that it's FREE), it might light a fire under AT&T, Comcast, etc. to actually start playing by the rules of capitalism again.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
The hole point of Google's experiment is to show people that 20MB, 30MB or even 50MB is not enough, we all grew complacent with our current slow internet speeds and, given the option, would chose slow internet, Google is trying to break that. What we have now is a race to the bottom where entrepreneurs don't create services which require fast internet because no-one has a fast internet, and no-one buys fast internet because there are no sites/services to use it. Google's idea is to foster a new generation of web services where bandwidth is simply not an issue.
What they are doing is the internet equivalent of the Apolo program, and you are saying "I don't want a rocket, why don't they build cars?". I don't even live in the USA and I don't have ANY hope that Google will open an ISP here, but I'm happy and hope they succeed because their work will show the whole world that we can/should have more.