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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)
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.
$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
It'd be the death of porn as we know it :(
"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.
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.
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)
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.
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