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Nationwide Google Fiber Deployment Would Cost $140 Billion
An anonymous reader writes "For a lot of U.S. internet users, Google Fiber sounds too good to be true — 1Gbps speeds for prices similar to much slower plans from current providers. Google is testing the service now in Kansas City, but what would it take for them to roll it out to the rest of the country? Well, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs, the price tag would be over $140 billion. Not even Google has that kind of cash laying around. From the report: '... if Google devoted 25% of its $4.5bn annual capex to this project, it could equip 830K homes per year, or 0.7% of US households. As such, even a 50mn household build out, which would represent less than half of all U.S. homes, could cost as much as $70bn. We note that Jason Armstrong estimates Verizon has spent roughly $15bn to date building out its FiOS fiber network covering an area of approximately 17mn homes.' Meanwhile, ISPs like Time Warner aren't sure the demand exists for 1Gbps internet, so it's unlikely they'll leap to invest in their own build-out."
I guess it's time for all of us to tell our power utility that fiber is essential infrastructure. They need to standardize on the Google Method and wire our streets so that they're ready when Google comes here. Otherwise this is going to take too long.
First communities to make it a downhill run for Google win the digital economy.
Almost the whole world wants Google fiber.
And if they won't do it - maybe they'll show us how we can do it for ourselves.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In a country of 300M people, $140B is only $50 per person. Comparing the price to Google's market cap is silly. For a big infrastructure project like this they would, of course, seek new capital to cover the cost. This is affordable.
..."Meanwhile, ISPs like Time Warner aren't sure the demand exists for 1Gbps internet,"
At current costs? Of course not. People would *love* to have more speed. But not if it's going to cost $100+ a month to get it like TWC/Cox/Comcast/etc. would charge for it. They create their own stagnation with greed.
Going by $720M / day, that's less than 200 days of the war in Iraq.
Yes, but the Iraq war benefits the bankers, globalists, and components of the military-industrial-media complex. Nationwide gigabit fiber would chiefly benefit the citizenry and small businesses. So, the Legislators simply can't vote for such a thing!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In a country of 300M people, $140B is only $50 per person. Comparing the price to Google's market cap is silly. For a big infrastructure project like this they would, of course, seek new capital to cover the cost. This is affordable.
I think this can't be stressed enough.
If the numbers in this report are anywhere near accurate, it ought to be easily possible to get a national fiber network. (Financially possible; saying nothing about politically here.)
Furthermore, it highlights just how dishonest and greedy Verizon is being in their decision to stop rolling out fiber. The primary reason they are doing it is to push more people onto 4G wireless—which they can charge much more for, and which is much less regulated than any wireline service. (I can't speak to what AT&T is doing, since to my knowledge, they don't have any wireline deployment in my general area.)
This sounds like the perfect target for some kind of grassroots push. If we can get some of the tech giants, like Google and Apple, on board, it ought to be possible to counterbalance the ISP lobby.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
But Goldman Sachs sure as hell does. Let's make them cough up some of that bailout money for something useful for a change.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The only way to understand the true value of that kind of speed is to use my preferred bandwidth measure: Nipples Per Second.
So we can bailout Wall St. and the banks to the tune of hundreds of billions, but we can't afford to invest in infrastructure. Good to know.
Apple Fiber would be a fucking nightmare. Imagine: all of the Internet that Apple allowed you to see!
I don't respond to AC's.
If Apple did the equivalent of Google Fiber you would only be allowed to use it with Apple devices.
$140 billion is 66 weeks in Afghanistan, according to costofwar.com.
rate = 3.51199622774 #per ms
fiber = 140000000000
day = rate * 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24
fiber / day
=> 461.3815805300829
week = 7 * day
fiber / week
=> 65.91165436144041
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
"ISPs like Time Warner aren't sure the demand exists for 1Gbps internet, so it's unlikely they'll leap to invest in their own build-out."
The (the big players) will however leap to the effort to squelch it. If Google wants to make this happen which would change the landscape they are going to just have to do it and drag everyone kicking and screaming. As well as give their lawyers something to do.
The Telcos need to get building what they promised.
Be seeing you...
For myself, I'd be happy with a solid 20 megabit connection. What I really want is:
Which means gigabit or better to the local distribution point, and neighborhood infrastructure that can handle the aggregate bandwidth. Most of the problems I have aren't my individual connection's bandwidth, it's the shared local infrastructure between my home's connection point and the ISP that's insufficient for the bandwidth of all the connected subscribers. Fix that and give me symmetric bandwidth and I'll be a happy camper.
So you're saying Afghanistan is the ONLY viable source of Rare Earths?
At $1000 per installation, they would get about $120B for 120M households; close enough to start. I would gladly pay a $1000 start-up fee for symmetrical 1Gbps/service. From other reports, Google is charging $70/month, with an operating cost of $5/month. As the early adopters start to accumulate, the revenue stream will offset the cost for the periodically lowered installation charge to increase penetration.
Establish a nation-wide signup. Require a credit card (Google Wallet) for signup; they won't be charged, but they'll separate the wheat from the chaff. Crunch the data to find the highest population density signups and start build-out in those areas. Provide near-realtime online updates on build-out area priority. This lets those interested in an area act as promoters / ambassadors to increase signups, and raise their area's priority. Like the first cities selected, let people compete - providing free word of mouth advertising in the process.
And don't forget the other side of the equation; offer servers reasonably priced 100Gb local Google data center / site interconnects to keep the on-net customers interested and happy.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The telcos are slowly strangling the internet... from bandwidth caps, to non-compete agreements with the cable companies, from AUPs that prohibit servers, blocked ports/protocols, to a complete refusal to roll out fiber even in dense urban areas.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, etc should each pony up some cash and begin a nationwide deployment right now. Not with an eye toward making a huge profit, but to ensure they continue to have access to their customers without toll-booths being setup inbetween because you can rest-assured that is exactly where the Telco/CableCo dualopoly is moving us.
This is a matter of long-term survival and they need to act now.
Same reason they should be buying their own media companies, before Big Content buys enough of Congress to make YouTube illegal and slaps a 100% tax on all flash memory.
The RIAA, MPAA, Telcos, and CableCos aren't necessary. It's time to eliminate them but the window on that is closing - soon they'll have too much influence to be assailable and we'll be in the Gilded Age 2.0, stuck for years until a massive depression finally loosens their grip on power.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I'm probably the only person on /. who thinks that the internet is kind of boring lately, and it would be better to focus on getting everyone access to affordable broadband instead of really-really-ridiculously-fast internet for a handful of geeks.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Gigabit fiber to the home is quietly being deployed by Sonic.net in Sebastpol, CA. It costs them about $1500 per drop, but they gain back the $20 per month they were previously paying to AT&T for access to copper. Customers pay $70/month for 1Gb/s Internet connections. 20Mb/s for $40. Sonic makes money on this, and is slowly expanding the service.
The big players in cable hate Sonic, one of the last of the independent ISPs. Network neutral, EFF-endorsed privacy policies, no caching or "deep packet inspection". Just bits.
Sonic isn't in the TV business. (They do resell DirecTV if you want that, but that comes in via a dish, not the Internet connection.) So they don't have any bias towards sending their own content.
Countries like Sweden have been doing it for years at a much lower rate and they are way less populated than the US.
How did we get phones and cable practically nationwide? How did we get electricity and water and sewage nationwide? Those are much more expensive investments than just blowing a fiber through a pipe. And fiber is already nationwide, there are fibers crossing the country in multiple directions, heck most phone companies have fiber in each street already.
It doesn't mean you have to have fiber to every house. The existing copper will do just fine for the last couple of miles, you can get gigabit speeds on it already, the companies simply don't want to invest in the uplink and rather hoard the profits as they have been doing over the last couple of decades.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I think Google are treating this as an experiment, but not just in terms of laying Fibre and running a service, but in seeing how the other ISPs react. I think all Google really wants is for Verizon/comcast/AT&T/etc. to pull the finger out and start upgrading their own infrastructure. A bit of competition never hurt.
Failing that, I'm pretty sure Google will continue rolling out until they either become the de-facto ISP of the USA, or competition means everyone else tries to take them on.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Didn't we (U.S. Tax payers) give $200B to ATT and Verizon (GTE maybe) back in the late 90s to put fiber everywhere within 10-Years (for 45/45 down/up speeds) and got nothing except -$200B Wasted in the end with a "it can't be done response"?
Maybe we should collect it back and give the contract to someone who can actually get the job done.
How you want the world to work.
Google really wants is for Verizon/comcast/AT&T/etc. to pull the finger out and start upgrading their own infrastructure. A bit of competition never hurt.
How the world works
Verizon/comcast/AT&T/etc. start upgrading their lawyers and politicians to fight Google at every step of the way, costing billions of dollars
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/broadband-telecom-lafayette/52920278/1
Cox has spent millions fighting the city, and finally has lost.
Sadly this is more true than I'd like to admit. Still, I stand by that this is an experiment for Google in every sense of the word. Now that Cox has lost, they're pretty much down to two choices: Compete with better products by investing, or lose customers left, right and centre. Even the biggest of Apple Fanboys would happily have Google as their ISP if it means getting 50x faster speeds and no throttling. Lesser of two evils and whatnot.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Right, some time in the past we didn't need telephones, just send a letter dammit.
There's no bad way to spend $140 B (or more).
Blowing up children in Yemen would stand out as a bad way to spend that kind of money. vs. being put to productive use in the US economy.
As economic stimulus goes, I think I'd rather have bridges that don't fall down and railways that work than 1 Gbps to my home.
If the USG weren't trying to take defacto control of the majority of the Middle East, you could have both.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)