Google Announces Plans, Pricing For Kansas City Fiber Network

For some reason by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 06:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

I thought the whole point of the competition (that had cities hysterically renaming themselves "Google") was that residents were going to get broadband service for free, or at least at a sharp discount compared to what the robber barron Baby Bells and CATV operators were offering.

Re:For some reason by Urza9814 · 2012-07-26 06:48 · Score: 4, Informative

From the article:

...And people who want much slower but conventional broadband can get it for free if they pay a $300 connection fee.
You only pay if you want gigabit speeds. And it's the same price as a 50/25 FiOS connection, so that seems pretty fair to me. Of course, even my 50/25 FiOS is far faster than what most servers seem able to deliver, so it's unlikely to make much difference unless you're planning to host a reasonably heavy server...
Re:For some reason by ThatsMyNick · 2012-07-26 06:49 · Score: 1

Nope, the point was to get gigabit internet out there, for a sharp discount compared to non-existent gigabit connection from other companies (and also cheaper than their 50 mbps plans)
Re:For some reason by subreality · 2012-07-26 07:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

it's unlikely to make much difference unless you're planning to host a reasonably heavy server
For bandwidth, yes, but there's a big advantage in having such a surplus: you don't have to do aggressive QOS to prevent latency spikes and loss. Wanna game while someone else watches Netflix? No problem.
Re:For some reason by Mitsoid · 2012-07-26 07:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Would your grandmother/parents/other non-techie friends pay $9/month for internet if it was a 3 year agreement paid up front from a fairly reputable (as in not likely going under) company?
My grandfather paid $15/month for dial up, I'll wager Google is giving these $300 customers more then 56Kbps even if they throttle them..
I pay over $50 a month for FiOS and I don't even get over 30 Mbps.. If i wanted gigabit speeds I could not even request it from FiOS... and their plans hit $300/month without hitting *half* this service... I'd say the pricing is great
I think right now servers & computers will be the bottleneck... Unless you're writing your download to a SSD or RAID array... you barely can handle a 1 Gbps write (quick math, 1Gbps = ~125MB/s)
Re:For some reason by icebike · 2012-07-26 07:14 · Score: 2

Exactly, but not just limited to gaming.
With more and more content being aimed at internet delivery, 75 bucks a month is not unreasonable for a small business that needs a lot of feeds, (bars) or families that do a lot on line. Small web service companies can develop and host for their customers. I can see a lot of people going in for this even at home, but especially for small business that does anything on line.

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Re:For some reason by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 07:17 · Score: 5, Informative

You like so many others are confusing QoS with traffic shaping. QoS is good - done right. If done improperly, its bad. Traffic shaping, on the other hand, is generally what causes complaints - frequently baselessly.
QoS, for example, ensures my SSH packets are delivered on a timely basis and that it doesn't wund up waiting behind the packets of my neighbor's torrents. In theory, my neighbor still gets his bandwidth, but his packet latency will be slightly higher; which is still perfectly acceptable for that type of traffic. That's a good thing. QoS is all about QUALITY of transport. Traffic shaping, on the other hand, is all about restricting some for the benefit of others. That's different.
Re:For some reason by SJHillman · 2012-07-26 07:28 · Score: 2

You could argue that a RAID 10 is a "RAID array" - it's an array of two arrays. It's also typically faster than a loan disk so it makes a tiny bit of sense for his example.
Re:For some reason by Urza9814 · 2012-07-26 07:33 · Score: 1

I've done WoW and netflix on a 6mbps connection and still had room for a slow torrent...my 50/25 seems pretty much impossible to saturate at this point.
Re:For some reason by realityimpaired · 2012-07-26 07:34 · Score: 2

I think right now servers & computers will be the bottleneck... Unless you're writing your download to a SSD or RAID array... you barely can handle a 1 Gbps write (quick math, 1Gbps = ~125MB/s)
Haven't benchmarked a system recently, have you? SATA 1 is capable of up to 1.5GBit/s, SATA 2 3GBit/s, and SATA 3 6GBit/s. There *are* drives out there which can sustain this.. some consumer class SATA3 SSD's can sustain 550 MB/s write speed.
Quite aside from that, modern computers are being built with signficantly more RAM than earlier systems, too. My desktop was under $1000 and it's got 16GB of memory. Who cares what speed the hard drive is when you can download a large file to memory and commit it to the disk later? While I'm sure that files downloaded off the Internet will continue to get larger, there's very little on the 'net right now which would tax a system with a decent amount of memory. (though I happen to have an ADATA S510, which is a fairly cheap SSD but still has no problem keeping up with a 125MB/s write speed).
Re:For some reason by DocSavage64109 · 2012-07-26 07:38 · Score: 5, Funny

You'd think someone who's so adamant about RAID terminology wouldn't be complaining about redundancy.
Re:For some reason by swillden · 2012-07-26 07:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

QoS, for example, ensures my SSH packets are delivered on a timely basis and that it doesn't wund up waiting behind the packets of my neighbor's torrents. In theory, my neighbor still gets his bandwidth, but his packet latency will be slightly higher; which is still perfectly acceptable for that type of traffic.
This is a valid correction, but the GP's point holds regardless. Given sufficient bandwidth, QoS is as unnecessary as traffic shaping. Your SSH packet -- or, more importantly, my VOIP packet -- may end up waiting behind the neighbor's torrent packet, but since his 1500-byte torrent packet only blocks ours for 15 microseconds, who cares?

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Re:For some reason by Fwipp · 2012-07-26 07:50 · Score: 1

The person you quoted made it clear they were not talking about SSDs.
Re:For some reason by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2012-07-26 07:52 · Score: 1

'Sup dog, heard you like arrays. I put an array in your array, so you could have some arrays while you array!

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Re:For some reason by KuNgFo0 · 2012-07-26 07:54 · Score: 1

SATA bus speeds don't really mean anything about actual disk performance, but I can tell you a current generation 3 TB 7200 RPM SATA drive can exceed well over 150 MB/s sequential writes, and I see one for $150 on Newegg right now. I've even see a 2.5 inch 1TB drive hit 125 MB/s. Really the only trouble I see is how fast I could fill up 3 TB on a gigabit link :)
Re:For some reason by subreality · 2012-07-26 07:59 · Score: 2

No, I mean QoS, as in prioritizing which packets get to go first to fulfill certain delivery guarantees. Traffic shaping is a QoS technique - without help from your ISP you have to manage the receive buffer with RED or similar.
Re:For some reason by bhcompy · 2012-07-26 08:02 · Score: 1

My 25/25 FIOS has problems when my son uses Steam and gobbles up all 25mbits to download a patch while I'm playing a game. Saturation is possible if the source has the bandwidth to match your own. QoS is definitely not a bad thing.
Re:For some reason by KingMotley · 2012-07-26 08:05 · Score: 1

Why would I download stuff with unlimited gigabit internet? I'll just run everything including my OS and BIOS straight off the internets!
If I can't get 3 fibers to my house, 1 for my OS traffic, 1 for my swap, and 1 for my apps & data then it is totally worthless to anyone!
Re:For some reason by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 08:05 · Score: 1

Switch to Usenet.
My 75Mb connection, with speedboost up to some ungodly rate (highest I've seen it burst to was 120Mb/sec for about a minute), is constantly saturated when I want it to be.

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Re:For some reason by Tough+Love · 2012-07-26 08:08 · Score: 1

Given sufficient bandwidth, QoS is as unnecessary as traffic shaping...
Dream on. In a perfect world everybody has an exclusive 10Gige up and down. In the real world, any link you can afford will saturate some time.

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Re:For some reason by jmerlin · 2012-07-26 08:08 · Score: 2

And here I was planning on using my fiber connection to start my own HFT system. I care about those 15 microseconds!
Re:For some reason by cfulton · 2012-07-26 08:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yeah and...
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
No matter how much space or bandwidth we have we will find a way to need more.

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Re:For some reason by PopeRatzo · 2012-07-26 08:37 · Score: 1

With more and more content being aimed at internet delivery, 75 bucks a month is not unreasonable for a small business that needs a lot of feeds, (bars) or families that do a lot on line.
Hell, I pay almost that much here at my house.

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Re:For some reason by DragonWriter · 2012-07-26 09:01 · Score: 1

Of course, even my 50/25 FiOS is far faster than what most servers seem able to deliver, so it's unlikely to make much difference unless you're planning to host a reasonably heavy server...
Or host (or have devices connecting too) more than one server at a time.
Re:For some reason by DragonWriter · 2012-07-26 09:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

I thought the whole point of the competition (that had cities hysterically renaming themselves "Google") was that residents were going to get broadband service for free, or at least at a sharp discount compared to what the robber barron Baby Bells and CATV operators were offering.
5Mbs/1Mbs asymmetric access at a one-time $300 connection fee (lump-sum or paid as $25/mo over 12 months) and $0/month service is a sharp discount compared to similar low-end broadband offerings, but the actual pitch wasn't to get broadband "free" or "cheaper" than existing broadband, it was gigabit/s broadband at prices that were competitive with the prices at which existing (much slower) broadband services were being offered. Which Google's pricing for its symmetric gigabit/s tiers (being fairly comparable in price to what other providers are offering for plans offering "up to" speeds in the tens of megabits/s) certainly would seem to be.
Re:For some reason by ThatsMyNick · 2012-07-26 09:25 · Score: 1

I know you are joking, but HFT system run anywhere other than the same network as the exchange servers is useless. You would very predictable, and the other HFT systems would eat you up. So no the 15 microseconds does not matter, in the larger scheme of things.
Re:For some reason by realityimpaired · 2012-07-26 12:08 · Score: 1

why would you rule out a piece of hardware that's included in virtually every high end system today? heck, it's included in a lot of midrange, and even some low end systems, too.
Besides, as others point out, mechanical drives are capable of write speeds that can keep up with a gigabit connection too, and with enough physical memory in your computer, it's moot because you can download into memory and commit to disk later.
Re:For some reason by mysidia · 2012-07-26 13:09 · Score: 1

It's still short-sighted for them... If they don't charge something; the customer support costs will kill them. Unless they're going to charge you per incident to call in to have your $300 "free for life", when you need support, or repair of the line, that was damaged by ditch diggers or someone digging around.
Re:For some reason by rtb61 · 2012-07-27 00:21 · Score: 1

Actually we are not all human, should you logically define humanity as a social communal species, that evolves as a group not as individuals. As such, psychopaths and narcissists are no longer definable human and behave as such, parasites upon the body of humanity, bloated destructive parasites that have gained for to great a degree of control and are destroying humanity.

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Re:For some reason by Bengie · 2012-07-27 05:29 · Score: 1

In large enough aggregation, bandwidth spikes don't really happen. QoS is really only an issue near the edge or if the core can't handle the traffic.

Given a large enough edge, the load at the core will be almost 100% predictable and constant from day-to-day. As long as your throw enough bandwidth at it, QoS won't matter.

For GPON, the edge QoS is effectively TDMA. It makes sure that at full load, a given port will evenly distribute the bandwidth in a low-latency and relatively low-jitter way while making almost 100% use of theoretical peak bandwidth.

Once you get away from a given port, you're talking about a a card with several other ports on it. At this point, there is 200Gb/s-320Gb/s of bandwidth. Average start to show themselves and you get constant predictable load. Again, QoS is about pointless.

Once you get away from the card and on to the back-plane of the chassis, you're talking about 2+Tb/s of bandwidth with teamable 100Gb/s uplink ports.

These are the stats for most GPON chassis and there are faster ones coming out. Assuming the suggested and most common 32 customers/port, most chassis can handle about 32,000 customers. 32,000 people sharing a 2Tb/s back-plane and 100Gb-400Gb/s of uplink, sounds perfectly fine to me.

An ISP with only 32k customers probably isn't going to have a 400Gb internet pipe, so the chassis would not be the weak point.

Current GPON is 2.5Gb/s shared, but 10Gb is coming out next year and 40Gb in 3-5 years after 10Gb.

Assuming 32 customers, which is the recommend
2.5Gb/32 = about 78Mb/s/customer
10Gb/32 = about 312Mb/s/customer
40Gb/32 = about 1250Mb/s/customer

upload speeds

2.5Gb/1.25Gb
10Gb/2.5Gb
40Gb/10Gb

I am excited. Local ISP is rolling out GPON.
Re:For some reason by DragonWriter · 2012-07-27 06:48 · Score: 1

I think right now servers & computers will be the bottleneck... Unless you're writing your download to a SSD or RAID array... you barely can handle a 1 Gbps write (quick math, 1Gbps = ~125MB/s)
You seem to be assuming that:
* Customers using broadband connections are only using one client machine per connection, and
* Customers using broadband connections are using all of their bandwidth to download content which will be permanently stored.
I would suggest that both of those assumptions are false when it comes to the use of residential broadband in general is a big part of the motivation beyond Google offering much faster connections, and that Google offering much faster connections is intended to increase the degree to which those assumptions are not true.

Unusual Pricing by in10se · 2012-07-26 06:45 · Score: 1

Those prices seem unusually high, although depending on what "conventional" internet is, a one time fee of $300 for broadband internet access sounds tempting.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by Trashcan+Romeo · 2012-07-26 06:48 · Score: 5, Funny

You can't put a price on faster porn.
Re:Unusual Pricing by twohands · 2012-07-26 06:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

well, Verizon charges, what, $200 per month for 300 Mb/s FiOS? I'd say what Google's offering is a pretty good deal.
Re:Unusual Pricing by P-niiice · 2012-07-26 06:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:Unusual Pricing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 06:49 · Score: 1

High?! For gigabit? I pay $112/mo for Comcast to give me 20mbps down and 1mbps up. I'd take $37 less/mo for ten times more speed.
Re:Unusual Pricing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 06:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

$75 --> 7.5 cents/Megabit
Comcast: $50 for 30Mb I believe? --> $1.77/Megabit
Re:Unusual Pricing by JesseMcDonald · 2012-07-26 06:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Where exactly have you seen prices for 1Gbps Internet access that make $70/month seem high?

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Re:Unusual Pricing by prestonmichaelh · 2012-07-26 06:54 · Score: 1

Those prices seem unusually high, although depending on what "conventional" internet is, a one time fee of $300 for broadband internet access sounds tempting.
Where do you live? My choices where I live are Verizon Fios or local Cable co. I have Verizon's cheapest Internet only plan, it is 15/5 and is $55 a month. Their next plan up is 25/10 and is $75 a month. The local cable co is basically the same pricing, but aren't quite as fast. Gigabit for $70 sounds like a good deal to me. I would even take the 5/1 for free
Re:Unusual Pricing by intrico · 2012-07-26 06:55 · Score: 2

*You* seem high, if you really think that those prices seem high for the speeds that they are offering, compared to existing service offerings here in the USA.
Re:Unusual Pricing by YesIAmAScript · 2012-07-26 07:14 · Score: 3, Informative

No, it's not comparable to DirecTV. Most of your DirecTV bill goes to the content providers, not DirecTV.
So with this being only $50 for the TV part you'll get fewer channels. It won't be DirecTV's selection, but it might still be worth $50. Heck I know a lot of people who would rather have fewer channels and only pay $50.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by Whatanut · 2012-07-26 07:15 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, sure. $70/month isn't bad at all. But $75!? Come on! That's an outrage!

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Re:Unusual Pricing by ogar572 · 2012-07-26 07:20 · Score: 1

You cant argue against that.
Re:Unusual Pricing by gparent · 2012-07-26 07:20 · Score: 1

Where the fuck do you live, Japan?
Re:Unusual Pricing by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 07:28 · Score: 1

>>>with this being only $50 for the TV part you'll get fewer channels. It won't be DirecTV's selection
Maybe... maybe not. Dish TV gives hundreds of channels for only $35/month so can't really assume there will be less selection for GoogleTV at $50.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by SJHillman · 2012-07-26 07:30 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm paying $45/mo for 10/2mbit from Time Warner - that comes to about $4.50/mbit for download speeds. Factor in that the upload speed is even crappier...
Re:Unusual Pricing by BurfCurse · 2012-07-26 07:34 · Score: 1

Agreed, I'm paying $70 + tax for 20 MB, internet only.
Re:Unusual Pricing by lobosrul · 2012-07-26 07:36 · Score: 1

No, it's not comparable to DirecTV. Most of your DirecTV bill goes to the content providers, not DirecTV.
Does it really? http://allthingsd.com/20100308/hate-paying-for-cable-heres-the-reason-why/ I totaled every channel in the left column at about $19, the other 3 can't be more than $10 altogether. Once you get HD service for a couple of TV's and your promo pricing expires your looking at around $90 with D*. Of course that price list is an average of what cable/DBS services pay. But if anything Directv pays less. If google is just looking to break even on TV cost as a bonus to their fiber service they could very easily offer a large number of channels for $50/month.
Re:Unusual Pricing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 07:50 · Score: 3, Informative

The one time fee internet looks like it's 5Mbits down/1Mbit up.
https://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/
Re:Unusual Pricing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 08:15 · Score: 1

The speed of Internet porn depends more on you than your internet connection.
Re:Unusual Pricing by garyoa1 · 2012-07-26 08:37 · Score: 2

Well, you could move to canada and get 8mb down 640k up for only $89 a month.
On the other hand, you really don't get close to that for the price.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by multicoregeneral · 2012-07-26 08:56 · Score: 2

Who cares? Most of the DirectTV channels are complete crap anyway. When I had directTv, I only watched twelve channels to begin with. DirectTV literally has thousands of channels. Thousands. Complete with duplicates of exactly the same channel in different time zones, tens of religious channels that my hellbound self will never have any interest in, and foreign language channels that I can't watch because they don't have subtitles. I'm not concerned so much about the number of channels as much as I am about the quality of what's there. And if I get a free Nexus tablet out of it? Holy crap, man, it's a no brainer.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by multicoregeneral · 2012-07-26 08:59 · Score: 2

Yeah, but then factor in the bandwidth caps you have with your current provider, and the fact that Google wants "bandwidth to be like water." With no caps. I don't know about you, but I go over my cap with AT&T every month. Just the reality of life with a media hungry spouse, and a two year old.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by MightyYar · 2012-07-26 09:20 · Score: 2

My theory is that internet porn is what has us stuck at our current miserable broadband speeds.
Sure, porn drove us all to get even our phones up to the task of streaming real-time titties - but really what more do you need?
Additionally, I'd argue that high-def porn is so repulsive that people are actively seeking to keep their connections slow enough not to enable high-def streaming.

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Re:Unusual Pricing by pop+ebp · 2012-07-26 16:35 · Score: 1

Well, I live in Hong Kong and we have 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home at HK$260 or about US$33...
http://www.three.com.hk/website/appmanager/three/home?_nfpb=true&pageid=c11001&_pageLabel=P600193131219996753703&lang=eng
https://apply.hkbn.net/orp/eng/orp_nc.jsp?step=chkcoverage&t=2&role=B&orp_type=
Re:Unusual Pricing by FireFury03 · 2012-07-27 08:08 · Score: 1

Who cares? Most of the DirectTV channels are complete crap anyway. When I had directTv, I only watched twelve channels to begin with. DirectTV literally has thousands of channels.

I dropped Sky here in the UK when I realised that I was only watching 4 channels - BBC 1, BBC 2, S4C and Sky One. The only stuff I was watching on Sky One was House and Eureka, which I can buy on DVD for less than I was paying for my subscription. BBC channels and S4C are free anyway...

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I'm going to... by alphatel · 2012-07-26 06:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
They got some crazy strands of fiber there and I'm a gonna get me some!

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Re:I'm going to... by EvilBudMan · 2012-07-26 07:18 · Score: 1

We almost got that here. But our leaders turned down a 20 million RUSS grant that would have given this given this to a sizable rural area.
Re:I'm going to... by multicoregeneral · 2012-07-26 09:00 · Score: 1

Don't come here. You won't like it. Shoo!

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Would be nice for family guys by mcgrew · 2012-07-26 06:47 · Score: 3

If there were a half dozen people in my house, all plugged in, it might be worth it. But I'm paying 1/3 as much and even with all three computers streaming radio and TV and torrents, it's still plenty fast for me.

Not enough to get me to move to KC.

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Re:Would be nice for family guys by compro01 · 2012-07-26 07:07 · Score: 1

The $75/month will get you a 50/10Mb connection over here with no caps or such soonish depending on where in what city you're in. 200/30 will run you $140.

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Re:Would be nice for family guys by Urza9814 · 2012-07-26 07:34 · Score: 1

$75/mo gets me 50/25 in RI (FiOS)...and it actually tests higher, at 56/28

Hope it lights a fire... by MetricT · 2012-07-26 06:49 · Score: 4, Interesting

under either incumbant ISP's or our politicians. Lack of widespread broadband isn't a technical problem. It's purely political.

I posted this on Slashdot months ago:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2497294&cid=37860766

Since it's election season, I posed a question about broadband availability to the 10 candidates for our local state representative. Only 3 responded, and... Outside of Google lighting a fire, my parents are literally going to die of old age before they get broadband.

http://www.mathewbinkley.org/?p=392

Re:Hope it lights a fire... by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 07:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

>>>No cable. Their house doesn't have cable coax.
>>>No cell. The valley effectively blocks all signals.
>>>No satellite. They don't have line-of-sight
Instead of expecting others solve your problem,
you should solve the problem yourself.
Your parents CHOSE to live in a rural area...... presumably because they like it there. Well with choices come consequences and tradeoffs. They get a beautiful area to live, but no highspeed. Oh well. When *I* wanted internet I moved away from the Amish country & closer to Baltimore and got it. Therefore if I were them I would move out of the valley to a hill that can receive free TV, satellite, cellular service. Or better yet: Into the city where there's plenty of services for elders (like almost-free bus & train transport).
In the meantime there's always dialup. It costs me $7/month through isp.netscape.com and works with websites, streaming radio, and even youtube (download first, then watch). They can use that if they voluntarily choose to remain where they are.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 07:11 · Score: 1

Oh and in your other post you said we are 35th in speeds. False. According to speedtest.net the U.S. and E.U. as equal in speeds (~12 Mbit/s average). They are tied for 3rd place behind Korea and Japan, but ahead of Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Australia, India, and China.
In other words both the Americans and Europeans are first-world civilizations with first-world rankings (near the top).

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by Admiral_Grinder · 2012-07-26 07:22 · Score: 1

I don't think that speedtest.net is a reliable source for that information. First, only the people paying for the fast speeds are the ones using it to verify, and second, how does the same person rerunning tests affect the statistics?
Re:Hope it lights a fire... by SJHillman · 2012-07-26 07:33 · Score: 1

I come from a rural area... people that wanted cable actual moved to the hills on either side of the valley where it was even more rural (and almost impossible to leave for half the winter), but they got satellite signal damnit. They also went through quite a few dishes thanks to lightning.
Re:Hope it lights a fire... by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 07:34 · Score: 1

>>>First, only the people paying for the fast speeds are the ones using it to verify,
I used it on both my slow-speed 56k dialup and 750k DSL so your presumption is false. And rerunning the test simply stores additional data for each person. Anyway I have yet to find a more-reliable source than speedtest, since it measures actual connections from billions of tests. No other organization has done that.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by LordNimon · 2012-07-26 07:49 · Score: 2

I used it on both my slow-speed 56k dialup and 750k DSL so your presumption is false.
The plural of anecdote is not data. It makes sense that disproportionally fewer people with slow Internet connections use speedtest.net. Just because you, a single person, do not conform to that profile, that does not mean that the common-sense argument is invalid.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by Archangel+Michael · 2012-07-26 08:11 · Score: 1

But But But ... The Government is supposed to solve all of our problems like this. You know, through Regulation and Taxes. /sarcasm

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 09:31 · Score: 1

>>>makes sense that disproportionally fewer people with slow Internet connections
"makes sense" is not data.
Back up your claim by PROVING "only the people paying for the fast speeds are the ones using" speedtest, and never low-speed persons. (You can't.) You are arbitrarily rejecting speedtest.net simply because you refuse to accept that the U.S. is equal to the E.U. in average speed, and ahead of Canada, Australia, China, etc. You want to hate the U.S. and damn any facts that show otherwise. Illogical.
Speedtest.net is still the most reliable source I've found for measuring ACTUAL speeds, and nobody has shown me any better.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by icebraining · 2012-07-26 10:03 · Score: 1

If you want to claim something based on Speedtest results, you need to prove it's a reliable source. Personally, I usually use it when my internet connection "feels" slow, to confirm it actually is. You can see how that would skew the data. Do I know if this is common? No. But neither do you.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by iroll · 2012-07-26 11:48 · Score: 2

How very bootstrappy and independent of you. Is there really no grey area between "expecting others to solve your problem" and wanting some reasonable investment in the community?
I come from a rural area in AZ. The telephone cooperative, which is responsive to the wants/needs of its customers/shareholders, takes a very long view of their needs in its planning, and recognizes the future economic value that can come from having infrastructure in place. As a result, they pulled fiber past my parent's ranch house a long time ago.
They've had DSL for probably seven years now, and they live 35 miles from the nearest town (Pop: 3000) and more than 80 from the nearest city of any size (Sierra Vista or Tucson).
The argument that you make is the very argument that would have left rural communities without electricity or telephones (the very phones that you suggest they use dialup over) because these "lifestyle luxuries" didn't provide large enough profit margins to make them worthwhile to provide for small, low-density rural populations.
The investment required to wire the rural west was affordable, has been fully repaid, and continues to pay economic dividends. It just requires a longer view than the today's MBA standard, and an understanding that investing in infrastructure has economic benefits beyond letting rural people caption cats.

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Re:Hope it lights a fire... by sociocapitalist · 2012-07-26 22:03 · Score: 1

>>>No satellite. They don't have line-of-sight
They must live in a cave...

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blindly antisocialist = antisocial

Hanging Fiber? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 06:49 · Score: 1

They're not burying the cables? Is wind not a problem out there? I thought they had tornadoes...

Re:Hanging Fiber? by Baloroth · 2012-07-26 07:07 · Score: 2

They do. But a tornado bad enough to knock out the fiber will knock out the power long before (and the phone lines, since they are being run on the same poles). The power is, for residential customers, the bigger issue (not much point in gigabit Internet if your computer, modem, and WiFi are all down as well).
More importantly, hanging is a lot cheaper than burying.

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"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Re:Hanging Fiber? by CanHasDIY · 2012-07-26 07:12 · Score: 1

They're not burying the cables? Is wind not a problem out there? I thought they had tornadoes...
Not so much in the city, especially downtown KC. You do get a fair amount of straightline winds coming out of Kansas, but again, the large footprint of KC suburbs help defray the winds significantly before they hit the city proper.

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Re:Hanging Fiber? by Admiral_Grinder · 2012-07-26 07:25 · Score: 1

Sure, but tornadoes have this nasty habit of taking out your subscribers houses along with your poles.
No only if they would string up temp lines in the after math while they dig a new trench, but then the housing contractors will just dig it back up
Re:Hanging Fiber? by SJHillman · 2012-07-26 07:35 · Score: 1

Cities tend to deter tornadoes - all the buildings shape the wind. Also, burying is many times more expensive than stringing it - you can replace it a number of times before you approach the cost of burying it once.
Re:Hanging Fiber? by Rob+the+Bold · 2012-07-26 07:36 · Score: 1

No only if they would string up temp lines in the after math while they dig a new trench, but then the housing contractors will just dig it back up
Don't worry, The trench guys will get 'em back when they nick someone's buried gas line and blow up a house or apartment building. They'll be using the same bad utility maps as the builders, after all.

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I am not a crackpot.
Re:Hanging Fiber? by Spectre · 2012-07-26 07:56 · Score: 5, Informative

They're not burying the cables? Is wind not a problem out there? I thought they had tornadoes...
Kansas City resident here ... and a fairly old one to boot.
Tornadoes happen, but each tornado affects a relatively small area. I was a tornado spotter in my youth (yes, we actually train volunteers to do this in "Tornado Alley"), and I've only seen three tornadoes in my life, despite actively looking for them when conditions are favorable to their formation. This is why there are plenty of 100+ year old homes in the area ... the likelihood of a tornado hitting a specific location in any given year is very low.
Kansas City itself is somewhat protected by the "urban heat bubble" effect - the Kansas City metropolitan area is a bit more prone to heat lightning, but less prone to tornadoes than the more rural surrounding areas.
As for just plain old wind ... lines on poles and the poles themselves easily handle the fairly routine wind gusts of up to 35mph. Storms might have 45mph winds, which usually is also fine. On rare occasions wind speeds are higher than that, like last week's storms to the north of Kansas City that had 90mph winds ... those storms will knock out wire-on-pole services to neighborhoods, but having your internet service disrupted for a few days isn't much of a problem since more than likely your power would be out as well for the same period of time.

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"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Re:Hanging Fiber? by Stephenmg · 2012-07-26 07:56 · Score: 2

Not true, the odds are a lot lower because cities tend to take up a lot less space then farm land and small towns.
Re:Hanging Fiber? by Stephenmg · 2012-07-26 08:00 · Score: 1

Its a lot cheaper and quicker to repair a break in areal fiber then buried cables. Easier to find the break and no holes to dig. City of Kansas City has cut our fiber twice in one summer.

I'd still stick with DSL by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 06:51 · Score: 1

$15/month is a lot smaller than $75/month. Maybe that's why we haven't seen more fiber installations... people not willing to pay the cost. Sooooo how did Google get permission to install fiber w/o getting sued by KC's local monopolies (Verizon and Comcast)??

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Re:I'd still stick with DSL by medv4380 · 2012-07-26 07:07 · Score: 2

Depends on what that $300 "Conventional" Broadband Internet gets you. If it's like the lowest tier of DSL your $15/month you're looking at what? 180 per year vs 300 for Life. I just wish I knew what "Conventional" Broadband Internet would get me.
Re:I'd still stick with DSL by icannotthinkofaname · 2012-07-26 07:16 · Score: 1

Sooooo how did Google get permission to install fiber w/o getting sued by KC's local monopolies (Verizon and Comcast)??
I'm not sure. Is the tactic of "sue your competitors out of the market" limited strictly to mobile devices and software patents?

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Re:I'd still stick with DSL by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 07:21 · Score: 1

Yeah $300 flat rate would be better. I've had high-speed for 4 years now so google's plan would have cost me ~$6/month. I suspect this plan is a loss-leader for google, similar to how Xbox worked for Microsoft. It's a way to establish themselves in a new market.

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Re:I'd still stick with DSL by Adaeniel · 2012-07-26 07:27 · Score: 1

The lowest tier with the google fiber connection is 5D/1U. It's in tiny print when you click on the plan.
Re:I'd still stick with DSL by PRMan · 2012-07-26 07:33 · Score: 1

People seem to be saying 5000 down 1000 up.

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Re:I'd still stick with DSL by PRMan · 2012-07-26 07:34 · Score: 2

Sorry. Forgot the scale Google is introducing here. 5Mbps down, 1Mbps up. Plenty respectable for $300 for 7 years.

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Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Re:I'd still stick with DSL by ReverendLoki · 2012-07-26 08:01 · Score: 2

It's mostly Time Warner they are competing with here.. hey, and guess who's channels are missing from the initial line up of offerings?
Consider the cheapest option, though... $300 upfront (or $25/month for 1 year - hey, free financing!) for 7 years of 5down/1up. That comes out to $3/month for better than DSL speeds (at least last I checked, which has been a while...)

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Re:I'd still stick with DSL by TooMuchToDo · 2012-07-26 10:17 · Score: 1

$~4/month. Holy shit.

Needs more service/pricing tiers by Ichijo · 2012-07-26 07:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

So 5/1 is free for at least 7 years (with a $300 connection fee), or pay $70/month for 1000/1000.

What if I need more than 5 Mbps down but less than 1000 and I don't want to pay $70/month? Even 50/10 would be awesome!

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Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.

Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by silas_moeckel · 2012-07-26 08:05 · Score: 1

Your free to pick another provider you have two alternatives at least. Google looks to trying to avoid such fragmentation for the most part servicing a customer is a fixed cost.

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No sir I dont like it.
Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by misexistentialist · 2012-07-26 08:23 · Score: 2

Get a roommate: 500/500 for $35.
Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by BadgerRush · 2012-07-26 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by bill_mcgonigle · 2012-07-26 08:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

What if I need more than 5 Mbps down but less than 1000 and I don't want to pay $70/month? Even 50/10 would be awesome!
Pay Comcast $199/mo for their 50/10 package.

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Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by multicoregeneral · 2012-07-26 09:04 · Score: 1

How is it even possible, that people are sitting here talking about internet connections being too fast? Are you guys actually serious? When was the last time you heard anyone complain about how fast their internet connections are? Maybe... never? Look, if you really want a slower connection, order the 1000/1000 and run it exclusively over wifi. That'll bring you down to a nice and safe 50/50 connection that'll span your whole house. Problem solved.

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Re:Needs more service/pricing tiers by TooMuchToDo · 2012-07-26 10:18 · Score: 1

Or start a co-op and go in on it with your neighbors. Distribute via Wifi.

How is this really helping the world? by sunking2 · 2012-07-26 07:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

$75/mo just for internet seems steep for most people. And very few who really need 1G can't afford it. It's not like the relatively piddle amount of money it's saving them is going to induce a massive wave of job creation.

Now if it were 100Mb for $25 that would be more news worthy in my opinion.

Re:How is this really helping the world? by Thundaaa+Struk · 2012-07-26 07:17 · Score: 1

On the bright side, my zombie computer will be able to communicate with it's C&C server in China much quicker!!
Re:How is this really helping the world? by Antipater · 2012-07-26 07:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Everything is better with chainsaws.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by Charliemopps · 2012-07-26 07:44 · Score: 2

Having worked in a NOC before, I can tell you that it's not free at any point. Things break... a lot. Fiber makes things a lot more reliable. But they still break. What happens when a fire truck knocks down your fiber trunk? You're going to charge the City $500k for the repair? So then they have to lay off a few firemen... and now you have a public relations nightmare? No way... so you just suck it up and pay for it yourself.

You know how many Fiber trunks we lost because some un-insured drunk drove their car into a pole, the car caught fire and torched the pole, the fiber and the power line? You think they had insurance? Or even if they did, that they had enough to cover that kind of bill?

I applaud Googles attempt here, but they can't charge nothing, it's just not going to work.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by swillden · 2012-07-26 07:50 · Score: 2

I applaud Googles attempt here, but they can't charge nothing, it's just not going to work.
As long as they can get enough customers buying the Gb or the Gb+TV, those will fund keeping the bits flowing. With the infrastructure in place, the cost to provide 5 Mb connections to the rest is basically nil.

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Re:How is this really helping the world? by cHiphead · 2012-07-26 08:35 · Score: 1

$40-60/mo is your average broadband bill. $75/mo for goddamn Gigabit ethernet? I'll be renting an apartment and storing servers there as my own personal data center and it will still be cheaper than dedicated or even shared gigabit ethernet + a rack at a local datacenter... !!!!!

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Re:How is this really helping the world? by multicoregeneral · 2012-07-26 09:07 · Score: 1

I think Google's got a fix for that.

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Re:How is this really helping the world? by ThatsMyNick · 2012-07-26 09:15 · Score: 1

The larger customers will support the infrastructure. Google is basically saying that it does not nickle and dime customers. It also helps that it puts competitors in negative light.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by ceoyoyo · 2012-07-26 09:27 · Score: 1

Google's free connection seems to be plenty fast for people who can't afford $75/month. $75/month isn't that much, when you consider that it includes TV, which hopefully would let the midrange cancel their cable subscriptions.
Fast Internet isn't helping the world. But if Google can do this on a bigger scale than Kansas City they might trigger a little telecoms reform.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by pubwvj · 2012-07-26 10:02 · Score: 1

"$75/mo just for internet seems steep for most people."
We pay more than that per month for internet for much slower speeds than that. Local telco has a monopoly and they use it.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by QuantumRiff · 2012-07-26 10:03 · Score: 1

My buddy and I had this exact Same conversation.. I think even the prices were the same.. except, we were talking about 10M cable. and it was 2004. Funny how things change.
I would love more than the 10MB my area has.. the much smaller upload is the part that sucks royally.

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What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Re:How is this really helping the world? by arose · 2012-07-26 10:22 · Score: 1

To put it another way, they are giving away peanuts in bandwidth (particularly considering that hardly any of those connections will be saturated) in exchange for people giving permission and paying for a fiber connection to their house. 5/1 for 7 years in exchange for an explosion in infrastructure that could be switched to a paying connection by the user without additional connection fees? Sounds like they found a good deal both ways.

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Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by Skapare · 2012-07-26 10:25 · Score: 2

You are confusing capitalism with competition. These are orthogonal. You can have one without the other. Capitalism is about investment. That can exist even for monopolies. What we gain by having Google enter the marketplace for FTTH is competition. Capitalism is already here.

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now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Re:How is this really helping the world? by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-07-26 11:26 · Score: 1

Umm, if you NEED 1G you damn well can afford it.
Your statement makes so little sense that the mind boggles. I mean, WTF does that even mean? Cheaper bandwidth opens new avenues for data services that would not have been profitable before. Very few can afford 1GB at $100,000.00 a month, many people can think of a use for a 1GB service for $70.
Re:How is this really helping the world? by Bengie · 2012-07-27 14:37 · Score: 1

Most people that I know making under $30k/year are paying $150 for internet+TV. I'm sure they'll gladly pay $125 for TV+1Gb internet.

holy crap is that expensive by EUROstandards ... by acidfast7 · 2012-07-26 07:33 · Score: 1

what happened to the US?

Hundreds; Yeah, right. by PetiePooo · 2012-07-26 07:37 · Score: 1

Dish TV gives hundreds of channels for only $35/month...

Half of the channels Dish gives you for that price are ones that they should be paying you for. There's a whole swath of channels along the likes of QVC, HSN, etc. I'd pay a little more not to have to sift through them while I'm looking for actual content...

Not allowed to host any type of server- EPIC FAIL by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 07:40 · Score: 2

-1 google, your shiny is now worthless to me
"
Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection
"
http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2659981&topic=2440874&ctx=topic

EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of server! by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 07:44 · Score: 5, Informative

"so it's unlikely to make much difference unless you're planning to host a reasonably heavy server..."

Good Luck With That-

-1 google, your shiny is now worthless to me
"
Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection
"
http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2659981&topic=2440874&ctx=topic [google.com]

Pretty please, OKC next!! by dywolf · 2012-07-26 07:47 · Score: 1

Oklahoma city next pretty please!

And actually I think it's a good strategy to start out here in places like OKC and KC. Just a mile or two outside both cities and you can't get anything but dialup, and the cable comapnies (cox in okc) have been loathe to invest in the infrastructure cause it would take too long to get a return.

they ignore the fact that once they dig the wires once, its cheaper the time around cause they can just fish new wire through existing conduit and not dig all new lines.. .. of course that too is thinking too far ahead for them. they'd probably use just barely big enugh conduit the first time cause its cheaper in the short term, thus needing all new bigger ones down the road.

so please google, even if you don't come here next, at least do it right the first time and dont play this same "only short term matters" game.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

More on the TV side? by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-26 07:52 · Score: 1

Like what are the pricing and packaging?

Box costs / fees?

They seem to have a 8 tuner main box and that should be fine for most home use but for some Business use they may need to have more let's say down the road they get NFL ticket that by it self + rezone can take up all 8. Even with just NBA LP and NHL CI can take up 8 or more. Hotels 8 is way to small.

Will they use the pre compressed comcast HITS® (Headend In The Sky) system or feed in channel on there own like dish and direct do?

Will they offer the indemad PPV evnets and sports or do it on there own? Att-U-verse has more HD slots for NBA LP. Directv has more HD feeds for MLB EI, NHL CI and NBA LP. Dish, Att-U-verse and directv have 2 or more HD events slots indemad only has 1. If Google does it on there own will they have CBC HD, and all Rogers feeds + leaf's tv + TSN , TSN 2, TSN JETS and TSN HABS? for NHL CI?

Will they have all BIG TEN HD alt / game feeds? Directv does.

Will you all the same in market sports that you get on directv as they get the St. Louis Blues and Royals with all plus feeds?

IPv6 by silas_moeckel · 2012-07-26 07:54 · Score: 1

I did not see any mention of it will it be supported from day one?

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No sir I dont like it.

Re:IPv6 by Stephenmg · 2012-07-26 08:03 · Score: 1

https://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/ The router/firewall supports it.

lots of channels are missing by alen · 2012-07-26 08:03 · Score: 2

HBO, disney, ESPN from a quick glance among the basic OTA ones as well. this explains the cheapness. screams niche product since and totally not worth it if you have kids

Re:lots of channels are missing by luther349 · 2012-07-26 08:32 · Score: 1

the 300$ 5mbs with no fees for at least 7 years seems worth it.
Re:lots of channels are missing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-26 09:47 · Score: 1

I haven't had television service in 5 years. The teens (now early 20s) didn't even notice. The 4-year old browses YouTube when he gets online and usually ends up on either Lego, Thomas Train or Transformers bits produced by every day people. He loves watching what people build with Legos.
What little "television" he gets is from a few series I've purchased on DVD (Magic School Bus, Chip & Dales cartoons, etc.) or via Amazon Prime Video where he watches Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and some Sesame Street. Maybe some Dora the Explorer.
My wife watches via Hulu Plus the few shows she wants.
A large television lineup is vastly overrated. Don't blame your addiction on the kids. They'll adapt fine.
Re:lots of channels are missing by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2012-07-26 11:15 · Score: 1

HBO and Disney are "premium" channels with every lineup I've ever seen. I just heard that I finally have to stop paying for ESPN 1-8. Huzzah.

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Re:lots of channels are missing by Vyse+of+Arcadia · 2012-07-26 12:17 · Score: 1

One of the things I've learned about kids is that up until a certain age, let's say 5ish, they're perfectly content to watch the same thing over and over and over and over. Netflix, or better yet just a couple of well-chosen DVDs, is perfectly sufficient until they hit that age. And even afterwards, what's wrong with Netflix again? Do your kids really need a constant stream of content interspersed with advertisements? Just imagine just how much money you'd save if your kids didn't have the most expensive new toys beamed into their eyeballs every five minutes.

Another Half-Hearted Effort by rabtech · 2012-07-26 08:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

Seemingly like everything Google does these days, this is another half-hearted effort which sucks because I would really love to see someone stick it to the telco/cable dualopoly, especially now that Verizon has a back-room handshake deal not to compete with the cable companies for wireline and the cable companies won't start their own wireless network (look it up - VZW is buying spectrum from the cable co's and has terminated all further FIOS expansio, right about the time their old telco/infrastructure CEO retired and their new MBA CEO took over). We also have a bunch of republican state governments (sorry - so far it's 100% republican) that have made it illegal for city governments to deploy fiber, even if they sell access to third-party ISPs and don't run one themselves)

Anyway, Google is only going to roll out fiber to neighborhoods where at least 10% of the potential customers sign up in advance, not to the entire city. I could totally understand running your fiber backbone rings then waiting to extend it into individual neighborhoods until people sign up - limit your capex for deployment - but this seems a bit insane.

I also wish Apple/MS/et al would go after the market... it is obvious that the owners of legacy pipes intend to install toll roads on all internet access and have all made back-room handshake deals not to compete with each other. With billions in cash in the bank there is no reason the tech giants couldn't start an open-access internet utility to string fiber (just to the dense cities) to homes and businesses... Imagine Microsoft, Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, et al throwing their weight behind OpenInternetCo and designating the top 50 metro markets in the US (which would cover a huge percentage of the population) to receive cheap gigabit internet. Once the network starts building up you can run your CDNs on it and avoid interconnect/peering fees. Over time more and more of the traffic can stay inside OpenInternetCo's network.

If they don't jump on some sort of bandwagon soon (deploying fiber, $$millions$$ on lobbying, etc) they will find their internet-based services useless as the gatekeepers ratchet down bandwidth caps and try their hardest to soak up all the profits. We are also destined to see more and more "our video service doesn't count against your cap, but Netflix/iTunes/Google Play sure does! Oh and your cap is being 'enhanced' to a lower and $5 cheaper tier this month but the upper tier will cost $40 more"

The hilarious thing is that people often use the density/rural argument to explain why that's impossible in the US** but Verizon's own FIOS numbers prove that is BS. Once you stop investing in copper upkeep, deploying fiber is a relatively cheap operation. Verizon says they spent 20 billion to deploy fiber across half their footprint, but if you look at capex+upkeep on copper you realize a huge chunk of that fiber cost was offset! Even if we assume 20 billion, then extrapolate from there OpenInternetCo could cover the top 50 metro areas for less than 100 billion, the amount of money that just Apple has as cash in the bank. Presumably they'd kick in cash and bring on investors so I would guestimate 25-50 billion from all the tech giants combined would be enough. If I were them, I'd buy Sprint to get access to a cellular provider to ensure fair competition in that space but also to get access to their Tier-1 backbone and cross-country fiber network. Also add in someone like Frontier or Embarq/Century and you have an existing (and profitable) base to build from. You could eventually roll fiber to less dense markets and cover 80-90% of the US, and turn a profit.

**This argument also doesn't account for places like Dallas, TX that is plenty dense enough (and certainly in the city core) to support fiber deployments - the suburbs have it at far less density but that's because the suburbs were part of the initial FIOS deployment but the city proper is ATT territory and ATT isn't going to divert *any* CxO bonuses to infrastructure under any circumstances.

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Re:Another Half-Hearted Effort by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-07-26 11:53 · Score: 2

Everything you said was correct, though you missed a couple of things.
One, Google is already a backbone provider, so they don't need to buy Sprint. They bought dark fiber runs years ago and set up their own backbone so they would qualify for free peering agreements so they don't have to pay transit for Youtube. Paying the existing backbones for transit would have bankrupted them years ago, so they took steps.
Two, you've forgotten one thing. In late stage capitalism, capitalism stops acting like capitalism. The winners shift to a mindset of permanent hording. The theorists argue that capitalism is a wonderful thing for marshaling and investing capital. The theorists completely miss the now self-evident fact that once the very few richest people win the game, they stop investing. Period. They do not spend any money on anything new whatsoever. They have won, and they are now determined to freeze the system as it presently exists in order to make sure that they stay the winners.
So while your description of what Apple could do with its billions is compelling to us losers, the winners will not ever do anything remotely like it. It would change too much. They will use their billions, when they use them at all, to make sure absolutely nothing changes.
Re:Another Half-Hearted Effort by Raenex · 2012-07-26 21:08 · Score: 1

Anyway, Google is only going to roll out fiber to neighborhoods where at least 10% of the potential customers sign up in advance, not to the entire city. I could totally understand running your fiber backbone rings then waiting to extend it into individual neighborhoods until people sign up - limit your capex for deployment - but this seems a bit insane.
It doesn't sound insane to me. It sounds responsible. If the demand is there, then they will roll it out. If it isn't, they won't.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 08:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Isn't this pretty much a universal condition for residential internet?

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recent FIOS developments... by yodleboy · 2012-07-26 08:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

You might want to check with FIOS. I was pulling my bill online yesterday and was hit with an ad for FIOS Quantum. Speeds up to 300/65 in some places. The best I can do is 75/35, but it's a hell of an upgrade from 35/35. My bill goes up $20 a month, so I'm paying $59/mo for 75/35 (part of a bundle of course). ANyway, if you haven't logged into your VZ account lately you might want to check. I didn't get any emails or hear a peep about it until I logged in.

Re:recent FIOS developments... by Urza9814 · 2012-07-26 09:00 · Score: 1

They were giving you 35/35 for $40/month? I'm unbundled, but when I was looking (just over a week ago, in RI) they had two packages to offer -- 15/5 for $60/month (yeah, I can get cable cheaper, faster, and without a contract) or 50/25 for $75/month (the one I went with.) From what I've seen though it seems their service and pricing varies wildly by location...probably based on the competition.
Re:recent FIOS developments... by yodleboy · 2012-07-26 10:47 · Score: 1

current statement shows $39.99 for 35/35, $30 for landline, 100 for TV and $20 in taxes and fees. Now when i first moved here, i had Dish, no landline and FIOS internet. FIOS internet ONLY was $69/mo for 35/35. Bundle saved me about $25 a month, plus I got landline, more channels and 3 movie channel packages. So, wasn't a bad deal.

Re:Not allowed to host any type of server- EPIC FA by jxander · 2012-07-26 08:18 · Score: 1, Informative

should not != can not

Until a rule is written into the Google-Fiber contracts expressly forbidding servers (and defining what exactly constitutes a "server") I see this as more of a polite request or suggestion.

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 08:20 · Score: 2

"Isn't this pretty much a universal condition for residential internet?"

sadly yes, the only way I can envision that landscape changing quickly would be if google would step up and aspire to be something better than the current 'universal residential internet' service. If those other 'universal' providers were asked about that clause, I'd guess they might plausibly lie through their teeth explaining that shared bandwidth concerns are their reason for not TOS allowing things like a quake3 or alienarena or old-school unix talk server. Tell me google, what excuse do you have? (forgive me for being invested in this issue, but I live in Kansas City, and my older brother is a VP of Engineering at google (not in charge of fiber-to-kc though).

Amazing bandwidth, now what? by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-07-26 08:24 · Score: 1

I upgraded to a new fiber service in town 6 months ago with 24 Mbps up/down. I can't say more than that would be at all useful without the ability to run servers. You'd have to have a house full of teenagers torrenting like a ship full of pirates to stress that kind of a pipe.

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Re:Amazing bandwidth, now what? by Nehmo · 2012-07-26 10:15 · Score: 1

I upgraded to a new fiber service in town 6 months ago with 24 Mbps up/down...
What town are you in?

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Re:Amazing bandwidth, now what? by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-07-27 14:06 · Score: 1

Olathe, in the suburban SW corner of the metro. Actually, I'm *really* close to Garmin headquarters.

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Suck it. by jmerlin · 2012-07-26 08:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, you, Comcast, Rogers, AT&T, Verizon, and every other shitty ISP on the planet. For years now, you've slowly increased the cost of internet access while the speeds have remained largely unchanged for consumers (over 5 years ago, I had a 20Mbps connection for $40/month, now the same connection is almost $70/month). You haven't taken that money and improved the infrastructure, you've just been cashing in big time. I have a gig router with N wireless and cat 5e cables with gigabit nics, and have for nearing a decade. My hardware has been screaming for you to saturate it with bits, yet all you've done is force us to pay more money because you own monopolies (municipality cable, the "last mile" if you will, the telco lines, etc).

This is refreshing. Even though it's hard to identify "privacy, anonymity, and trust" with Google, they're still over 9000x better than any of these other guys. It's nice seeing what a company that isn't a big ISP with hundreds of millions in PURE NET REVENUE pouring in for ZERO WORK AT ALL can do. This really demonstrates what the outcome of spending money on infrastructure is. We have a point of reference now. Look at Google, now look at your ISP. Two orders of magnitude improvement. Two. WTF. This is putting KS on the map with the likes of EU countries and Japan in terms of internet capabilities. And what's more, the cable service is over IP, on top of a Gbps connection. The last time I checked cable prices here, Comcast wanted $89.99 for basic + a few decent channels for digital. For all the good stuff, it's like $139.99, and that's NOT including the internet connection. They'll let you bundle that with a basic 5Mbps for only $39.99 more per month! You're looking at > $200 for a connection > 20Mbps and a decent cable setup.

I really hope Google puts these jokers out of business. All of them. It's time for a revolution from the status quo.

Re:Suck it. by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-07-26 12:02 · Score: 1

It's long past time for a revolution, but that revolution won't happen. Another post has already observed that Google is going into this about as half-hearted as you can imagine. We've already seen that anything Google does half-hearted gets nixed.
This will be the one and only Google Fiber deployment, ever. They will provide the service for the time they have committed to, and then they will close up shop. Why? Because it won't make enough money, at high enough margins, so their giant institutional investors will demand it be shut down. The fact that their giant institutional investors are hand-in-glove with Comcast, Rogers, et. al. should not go unmentioned, but it won't matter a damn. Google isn't going to make the same pure net revenue you were referring to with this venture, and so it will be stopped.
Re:Suck it. by symbolset · 2012-07-26 14:37 · Score: 1

It would not surprise me if there isn't an entrepeneurial opportunity in selling "Google fiber" canvassing materials: door hangers, yard signs, and so on. I know if they made us this offer in my town I'd be laying out these materials to take to the printers right now, and coordinating with grassroots canvassing volunteers to make sure my fiberhood was first or at least as close to the top as it could get. I wonder if they will publish fiberhood maps to help out with this.
And yeah, I think your prediction is the exact opposite of what's going to happen.

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Kansas City Star by swb · 2012-07-26 08:29 · Score: 1

Got a letter just this morninâ(TM) it was emailed from Mountain View
It was PDF'd and neatly written offerinâ(TM) me this better job
Better job at higher wages, expenses paid and an iPhone
But Iâ(TM)m on fiber here locally and I canâ(TM)t quit, Iâ(TM)m a star

Hah-ha I come on webcam grinnin,â(TM) wearinâ(TM) goggles and a hat
Itâ(TM)s a web show and Iâ(TM)m a hero of the Internet set
Iâ(TM)m the number one attraction in every Facebook profile
Iâ(TM)m the king of Kansas City, no thanks, Mountain View, thanks a lot

CHORUS:
Kansas City star, thatâ(TM)s what I are
Yodel-deedle ay-hee, you oughta see my network
I run a big old Juniper with fiber optics, got Ciscos in the rack
I got credit down at the computer store
And my PFY tells me jokes
Iâ(TM)m the number one attraction in every Facebook profile
Iâ(TM)m the king of Kansas City, no thanks, Mountain View, thanks a lot

Re:Not allowed to host any type of server- EPIC FA by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 08:30 · Score: 2

Sorry, but the quoted clause was from the terms of service, which left itself so vague as to use the wording "improper use" (by whose metric of 'proper'?). The TOS next to that clause, gives a link to the aforementioned section which lays out what defines 'bad use'. So that _is a rule written into the Google-Fiber contracts_ _already_ (as if there were any customers already bound by the TOS).

In related news... by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-07-26 08:34 · Score: 1

Vaseline and Kleenex stocks soared 45% on bullish speculations for the 3rd quarter.

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Re:holy crap is that expensive by EUROstandards .. by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-07-26 08:35 · Score: 1

We spend our internet subsidies on guns here.

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no seriously by YesIAmAScript · 2012-07-26 08:36 · Score: 2

Did you look at Dish TVs hundeds of channels? It's about 1/3rd audio-only "channels", and about 1/4 free-to-air channels (religious and home shopping).

For $50/month, expect to get about $50/month worth of channels, nothing more. Most of the money is going to the content providers so Google's ability to deliver more value for money for TV channels is limited.

Google isn't magic.

And Dish doesn't even have a $35/month pack. Their DishFamily is $25/mo, their Top 120 is $45/mo and it only gets higher from there.

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Re:no seriously by cpu6502 · 2012-07-26 09:36 · Score: 1

>>>Did you look at Dish TVs hundeds of channels?
Yes for $35/month it's a good service. It has all the basic channels Comcast provides for $60/month, plus extra channels that Comcast charges ~$100 more to get. Also Dish provides both east & west coast feeds, so if you miss a show at 3pm because you're working, you can catch the pacific feed at 6pm instead.
I don't understand where this Dish hatred is coming from. Maybe it's similar to fanboyism..... people don't want to admit, "I made a mistake by spending $500 on a PS3." Or, "I made a mistake by spending $70 for DirecTV, and now I'm stuck for two years."

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Re:holy crap is that expensive by EUROstandards .. by acidfast7 · 2012-07-26 08:36 · Score: 1

mistake 1 ... living in a house with 9 people. quit whining and get a 4G surf stick like everyone else

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 08:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

It makes no sense for a company to offer this to residential clients. They can charge a premium for a business plan which offers official support for servers, and generally grants an unfiltered connection with a static IP. Why cut yourself out of that mark up?

Sucks, but makes sense.

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by AmaDaden · 2012-07-26 08:46 · Score: 1

"should not" is not "can not". They may only be pointing out that since they make little guarantees about up time of your connection hosting anything on it is a bad idea. Has anyone seen any clarification from them on this?

10 houses in my neighborhood by Krojack · 2012-07-26 08:47 · Score: 1

No really, Not another house for about a mile away. So does that mean if I signed-up they would be obligated to light my neighborhood up? I'm guessing not. They will most likely say, "Sorry we need at least 30% for your neighborhood."

Re:10 houses in my neighborhood by DocSavage64109 · 2012-07-26 09:35 · Score: 1

Are you actually in the city limits?
Re:10 houses in my neighborhood by Nehmo · 2012-07-26 10:32 · Score: 1

... Not another house for about a mile away...
Are you saying you are in Kansas City, Kansas, and your house is a mile distant from the next?

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 08:55 · Score: 1

"
"should not" is not "can not"
"

I might be able to go with your creative reading of the sentence were it not for the use of the very clear word "permitting" in the prior sentence-

"
Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection
"
http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2659981&topic=2440874&ctx=topic [google.com] [google.com]

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by AmaDaden · 2012-07-26 09:16 · Score: 1

IANAL but I don't think that the usage of the word 'permitting' would undo the ambiguity of the word 'should' in any court of law. Historically Google does not care much one way or the other what people do with their services as long as they do not cause trouble. Since they clearly have the power to throttle connection speeds I don't think the high usage of having a sever would be causing them any trouble. I'm leaning to they are just recommending you don't do it, not that it is forbidden. However neither of us will have the information to prove who is right until we see the actual contracts.

FCC Open Internet ("Net Neutrality") rules by DragonWriter · 2012-07-26 09:34 · Score: 2

Isn't this pretty much a universal condition for residential internet?

Its also about as clear a violation of the FCC Open Internet rules as one could imagine, since it is very much not an application- or use-agnostic rule, and that it prohibits the use of lawful applications, content, and services over a fixed broadband connection.

Its not surprising that the incumbents -- whose rules predate the FCC Report and Order and who are challenging the FCC's authority to issue it -- retain such rules. It is a bit more surprising that Google -- who has generally been a backer of Net Neutrality -- would have such terms.

Re:FCC Open Internet ("Net Neutrality") rules by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 09:41 · Score: 1

Good point.

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Not magic, but... by DragonWriter · 2012-07-26 09:49 · Score: 1

For $50/month, expect to get about $50/month worth of channels, nothing more. Most of the money is going to the content providers so Google's ability to deliver more value for money for TV channels is limited.
Google isn't magic.

Google doesn't sell a TV-only plan, and the whole current Fiber effort is a promotional effort to build the new markets for Google's internet advertising, online services, and Google-and-partner hardware businesses. So there's no reason that some of the money that looks like its part of the "internet" portion of the bill can't be subsidizing the TV content being provided in the TV+internet plans (and no reason that Google couldn't -- agains, since the whole effort promotes other Google businesses besides the new TV and ISP business -- be further subsidizing the TV content from outside of the whole Google Fiber endeavor.)

Google may not be magic, but having more ways than just the charge for the hookup and content that you expect to make money off of people that hook up to your data network is a real -- even if not "magic" -- source of incentive to use outside resources to subsidize the features that will attract people to your offering, and TV content is potentially one of those attractive features.

Disappointing by Nehmo · 2012-07-26 09:50 · Score: 1

A year or so ago, I actually canceled plans to leave this town, Kansas City, KS, in anticipation of the Gb/s internet roll-out. Actually, I had trouble believing Google would really choose a blighted city for a roll-out, but, living here myself, I wasn't going to object (understatement). Now, after reviewing the latest announcements, I see the poor neighborhoods will be last on the list. Which neighborhood gets it depends on demand, the density of pre-sign-ups. Considering economic status of where I live, I'll have to wait another ten years.
I should have left town, and I should have believed my own analysis rather than the Google public announcements. I had previously been less suspicious of statements by Google, relative to those from typical other companies, because Google was kind of someone in my tech crowd. I now have to face the reality that Google can't be trusted either. If Google says it's going to do something, it doesn't mean anything. I won't even bother with the vain $10. USD pre-signup. I'll just re-invigorate my plans to leave.

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(||) Nehmo (||)

Re:Disappointing by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-07-26 12:00 · Score: 1

If you live in a poor neighborhood in KC, you should have left a long time ago, if not for internet, but for your own safety.
Come on now, Google is a business, they do want to at least break even, if not profit from this venture. The quickest way to do this is supply neighborhoods with high demand, people with money can demand more. Did Google ever say how they were going to roll it out? Did you make strange assumptions bordering on religion that they'd show up in your neighborhood first? Do you even have any idea how long it takes to string wire around a city, to every neighborhood and house? I'll tell you this, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a fiber network.
Re:Disappointing by Nehmo · 2012-07-27 05:41 · Score: 1

If you live in a poor neighborhood in KC, you should have left a long time ago, if not for internet, but for your own safety.
Come on now, Google is a business, they do want to at least break even, if not profit from this venture. The quickest way to do this is supply neighborhoods with high demand, people with money can demand more. Did Google ever say how they were going to roll it out? Did you make strange assumptions bordering on religion that they'd show up in your neighborhood first? Do you even have any idea how long it takes to string wire around a city, to every neighborhood and house? I'll tell you this, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a fiber network.
I've been watching the Google "roll-out" of fiber in Kansas City very carefully. I read every announcement, I'm on the notification list. I almost read every article on the subject. I live here in KCK, you know. Google made several misleading statements regarding what (and when) it was going to do. Look at the early vids. The implication was that Google was going to make Gb/s speeds available to the poor masses of poor KCK. I wasn't so gullible as to believe all that hype, but at least I though _I_ was going to be able to get the service. I won't. And yes, I agree. I should have moved for a number of reasons. I live in north 66101. (So far, I'm still alive.)

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Re:Disappointing by CompMD · 2012-07-27 06:05 · Score: 1

Come on down to south JoCo, Nehmo. There's still a lot of cheap places to live way down here, and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the scarier people on the streets late at night south of 151st in Olathe. Lenexa also has some nice, cheap places to live. A couple friends of mine just moved out of KCK to Lenexa and have been very happy there.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 09:58 · Score: 1

"Sucks, but makes sense."

Now do me a favor and excercise your sense of irony by rereading your own comment, but while task switching your brain to the concept of "network neutrality" at the same time.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by jdogalt · 2012-07-26 10:00 · Score: 2

Any type? A gaming server for multiplayer games even? That would be ridiculous.

And that is why I fully expect at least some level of backpedalling on that language, as long as people like me are able to publicly shame google into doing so by shining a light on EVIL-TOS

Screw KC by jimmyfrank · 2012-07-26 10:10 · Score: 1

They should have picked Omaha, NE. booooooooo

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by kasperd · 2012-07-26 10:26 · Score: 2

They can charge a premium for a business plan which offers official support for servers, and generally grants an unfiltered connection with a static IP. Why cut yourself out of that mark up?

This is Google. When did Google ever enter a market with the intention to do something similar to the rest of the industry? Is Google even offering a business plan at a higher price? If they are not, then the argument does not apply to Google. And they already stated this is an experiment just to see what can develop as a result of sufficient bandwidth being available at home, they did not start the project because they wanted to be an ISP. With that in mind why would Google want to put such restrictions on the customers? If they truly want this experiment to lead to new ways of using the net, then putting restrictions in the contract just because the rest of the industry is doing it is defeating the purpose.

Though the project is an experiment it doesn't mean the prices are necessarily set so low that it is going to be a net loss for Google. I'd hope they are at least aiming for a break even. If they are building a network that no ISP could replicate and make money of, then whatever comes out of the experiment is not worth all that much to anybody (except from the few people that got cheap Internet connectivity).

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-07-26 11:09 · Score: 2

Sadly, Google is unlikely to ever think out of the box again. They are now hostage to giant institutional investors who absolutely insist that Google not do anything they can't understand. That means they can't do anything that hasn't already been done before. Unless they are willing to take a major hit to their stock price (and there's no sign they have that willingness), Google will never innovate again. It's not allowed.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by Hovsep · 2012-07-26 11:30 · Score: 1

Which puts anyone with a surveillance DVR at home, like me, in violation. Every ISP has this provision, but seem to turn a blind-eye towards low volume usage like me checking the home cameras occasionally. As long as Google doesn't block ports.

With home automation and monitoring devices coming into more homes, this condition will have to be revised by ISPs.

Re:piracy by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-07-26 11:37 · Score: 1

So what practical advantage will there be to 1Gbps? Crazy fast bittorrent? 15mbps fast enough for even the highest quality streaming data. It seems like if people can download a movie in less than a minute, piracy will go up significantly. MPAA can't like this.

Why pirate when you'll click on Google Movies (TM) an pay $1 to watch a HD version instantly? Fast internet + A reasonably priced, easy to use service and most people don't care about piracy. Also, HD is a lot more then 15mbps, Blue Ray is 40Mbps for 1080p. Even that is neglecting newer high res formats coming in the future.

You are also ignoring backups. Why backup online at a slower speed when you can backup faster?

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by symbolset · 2012-07-26 13:40 · Score: 1

"Should not" is not "May not". Google wouldn't want to indemnify for-profit uses and open themselves up to being sued for loss of profits over downtime. Let's wait to read the fine print in the contract.

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also no FSN / FS / Fox sports. by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-26 13:56 · Score: 1

also no FSN / FS / Fox sports.

No NHL center ice
No NBA league pass
NO MLB Network Strike Zone
NO MLB Extra Innings

NO PPV movies or evnets

Showtime / movie channel and startz / encore likely are added cost

Re:piracy by MightyYar · 2012-07-26 13:58 · Score: 1

15 Mbps? Not quite... to get Blue Ray quality you'd need 36 Mbps. But yeah, not Gigabit.

It appeals to me for backup. I formerly used Mozy and now use CrashPlan. There's something very appealing about restoring from a 250GB remote backup in about the same amount of time it would take over the LAN.

The other nice use would be the really fast VNC/RDC performance I would get when telecommuting.

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Directv in Kansas City, KS gets FSN and Altitude by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-26 14:05 · Score: 1

with Directv you get

FS Midwest / FS Midwest Plus + Fox Sports Kansas City (sub feed)

Altitude Sports & Entertainment

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by debest · 2012-07-26 15:58 · Score: 2

Google will never innovate again. It's not allowed.

Strange, I'd have thought that offering an fiber-based alternative infrastructure to a pretty good sized city would have qualified as pretty damn innovative. Who else is trying that?

Google has been publicly traded for many years now, and as such "hostage" to outside investors. In that time they've started this project, the self-driving cars, Google Glass, and a bunch of other stuff that "hasn't been done before", certainly not to the scale that Google is attempting.

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Re:MOD PARENT -1 TROLL by kaws · 2012-07-26 16:44 · Score: 1

Bill Gates was talking about RAM not bandwidth (if it was him) either way the saying does kindof apply.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 17:27 · Score: 1

Good points.

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by RobbieCrash · 2012-07-26 17:31 · Score: 1

Not to mention, Android.

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Two fiberhoods qualified on the first day by symbolset · 2012-07-26 18:02 · Score: 1

You can track their progress here.

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Re:Two fiberhoods qualified on the first day by symbolset · 2012-07-26 18:28 · Score: 1

Plus six for KCMO.

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by tsa · 2012-07-26 20:25 · Score: 1

No. Here in Holland providers do not really care what you do with your connection as long as you don't gobble up too much data. What 'too much' is is of course determined by the providers.

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Good Luck by Hrshgn · 2012-07-26 22:13 · Score: 1

This offer sounds very exciting. I really hope that this will help bring prices down.
It's a similar to what one ISP here in France has done some years ago and all competitors had to align their prices dramatically. The same has happened with mobile internet more recently, incidentally again triggered by the same ISP.
Each time the established companies will complain about price dumping and rising unemployment due to low margins, but then they always magically survive.

Google seems to be the perfect company to pull something like this off.

Kansas City by Trax3001BBS · 2012-07-26 22:16 · Score: 1

Sitting it the middle of the U.S.A. mostly patriotic old people
who are set in their ways; they do it as their parents did. and hard to get them to change.

Kansas (City) has always been where products are introduced to see how they fare.
If they are well accepted in Kansas (City) the rest of the U.S. will like it just fine.
If not, you rarely hear of them again.
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That was 20+ years ago, I wonder if it still holds true and the reason Google has selected that area.

Re:Kansas City by CompMD · 2012-07-27 06:10 · Score: 1

Your information is out of date. KC is a huge engineering/tech hub, with Sprint HQ, Garmin HQ, Burns & McDonnell HQ, Black & Veatch HQ, and Honeywell/NNSA (where most of a modern nuclear weapon is made). There are tens of thousands of highly educated technical people in the KC metro area.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by fantastron · 2012-07-26 22:35 · Score: 1

Hey, what about my X server?

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by Atryn · 2012-07-27 00:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

The self-driving car is laughable. Google is not going to become an auto manufacturer. Google is not going to become a technology provider to an existing auto manufacturer. The existing manufacturers suffer from Not Invented Here Syndrome worse than almost any other industry. They're the very definition of hidebound, and it's no surprise, as they've been exposed to the kind attentions of the aforementioned institutional investors for generations now. I give Google's project another year before they pull the plug, and that's optimistic.

Google's objective isn't to become an auto-manufacturer or to become a supplier to them. Their objective isn't to directly make money on this at all.

Their objective is to free up the billions of eyeball-hours spent on driving so they can be used for something else....

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2012-07-27 04:01 · Score: 1

This is Google. When did Google ever enter a market with the intention to do something similar to the rest of the industry?

Every time? I mean, their UI may be slicker for web delivered apps, but other than that, they primarilly just go one step further. Better search, then a better targetted ad network, then an iPhone competitor (staying out of that fight), then GMail instead of hotmail, then Google+. Along the way they purchased what they could not outdo, like YouTube.

The only time they look remotely different is when they are offering complimentary goods to their primary business model at a loss/steep discount. And that frankly makes them just like every other company.

And they already stated this is an experiment just to see what can develop as a result of sufficient bandwidth being available at home, they did not start the project because they wanted to be an ISP. With that in mind why would Google want to put such restrictions on the customers?

If I had to guess, it would be to avoid having to deal with takedown letters. I believe that they would have to instantly disconnect people, and let them fight to get back online. (IANAL, nor do I play one on TV.)

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Misleading by jweller13 · 2012-07-27 04:17 · Score: 1

In the excerpt of the article at the top they changed it FROM ("And people who want much slower but conventional broadband can get it for free if they pay a $300 connection fee.") TO: ("and regular 'conventional' internet for a one time $300 fee."). They beat me to the punch. I was about to comment that "much slower" is a bit, unintentionally I'm sure, misleading. "Up to 5Mbps download, 1Mbps upload speed" [ https://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/ ]

Re:piracy by butchersong · 2012-07-27 04:36 · Score: 1

Yup. Speeds like this mean that "cloud" based storage everyone keeps going on about and true offsite backups of your entire HD reasonable for the average person. No more buying bunches of HDs and worrying about raid on my desktop either. Just a super fast SSD and mount my 10TB drive hosted on google or amazon or wherever.

Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by Bengie · 2012-07-27 04:36 · Score: 1

I agree.

A local ISP also has wording stating that hosting a server is against the ToS. They also mention that they will not discriminate or monitor your traffic for any reason other than ordered by law. They also have no data caps.

If they don't monitor your connection outside of maintenance reasons, then how can you find you're running a server?

So I agree with that the "no server" wording is just to cover their butts for legal reasons.

Some yet unanswered questions by lpress · 2012-07-27 07:06 · Score: 1

Questions like: Is the Internet service symmetric? How many fiberhoods will Kansas City be divided into? Local channels are included in the television coverage, but which other channels will be included? Will there be bandwidth caps? Will the subscriptions be month-to-month? How good a job will they do integrating the Nexus 7 controller with the TV set? What will be the uptake and response to the fiberhood rollout plan?

And the Big One -- what will be the impact on the ISP industry if Google can make money and succeed at these prices?

(http://cis471.blogspot.com/2012/07/google-unveils-gigabit-innovation-in.html)

Not without net neutrality.... by thrill12 · 2012-07-27 13:17 · Score: 1

...because upstream providers or Google itself may start cutting down on the bandwidth used for certain types of services (ie non-Google ones, for example). Of course their intention is good, but I am glad that in The Netherlands I know what my FTTH (30Mb) is worth because we have a law on net neutrality. Without that a huge bandwidth is simply "a huge bandwidth for all services... that I allow".

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Re:Not without net neutrality.... by Bengie · 2012-07-27 14:34 · Score: 1

The equipment to filter or traffic shape would cost more than the bandwidth they'd be saving. Bandwidth is f'n cheap on the backbone.

Latency by TheLink · 2012-07-27 20:27 · Score: 1

Latency.

Until someone invents faster-than-light communications.

If it takes 100 milliseconds before you get a response from "out there", it could take a full second to do 10 actions/items (unless you can pipelined them).

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Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve by AmaDaden · 2012-07-30 00:01 · Score: 1

Why does google express the desire that I "should not" be hosting "any kind of server"? I mean, what reason, that lines up credibly in any way with there prior sentiments about net neutrality, internet entrepeneurship, or anything, could possibly justify that they feel that every user "should not host a server of any kind?" What kind of vision is that for the current and future internet they hope to deliver?

You know what would suck? If people started hosting web sites from their home that were down half of the time. That would be worse for the internet then if an ISP just said "Please go else where to host a server".

This is a new service. Google has no idea what problems they are going to run in to and are taking it slow. How stupid would they have sounded if they came out and said "Hey guys we are starting a new ISP division. Who wants to sign up their mission critical servers to be hosted by us?". It's fine for the internet if a home goes down but not if a business's servers go down. That is why that phrase is perfectly reasonable. You CAN host servers out of your home but you SHOULD not since Google can't guarantee any reasonable QOS yet.

Can you really call yourself an ISP if you disallow such basic functionality as a generic tcp/ip service provided on a port on your computer?

Here is something in my Optimum Online terms of service

Users may not run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums

So yes they can. At lest Google did not say I can't they only said I should not. If you want server support you need to get a business class internet connection, Google is not selling that yet.

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