How Google Fiber Could Do Some National Good, Or At Least Scare the Carriers

Nerval's Lobster writes "Within hours of Google announcing that Austin, Texas would be the next lucky recipient of its Google Fiber initiative, AT&T released a statement indicating that it was willing to build a high-speed broadband network in the city, too. 'AT&T announced that in conjunction with its previously announced Project VIP expansion of broadband access, it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second,' read the statement. But there's a not-so-slight catch: AT&T wants whatever conditions Google received from the city of Austin. Google itself has provided precious little guidance about its future plans. 'We are still in the very early stages of it,' Google CEO Larry Page told media and analysts during the company's Jan. 22 earnings call, according to a transcript. 'Obviously, we are going to a small number of people and so, but we are excited about the possibilities.' But if Google Fiber keeps expanding, it could compel AT&T and other infrastructure providers to boost their broadband service and offer it on more reasonable terms — nothing like some competition to make things a little better for the collective customer base. In that sense, even if Google Fiber doesn't expand into a national program (and imagine the costs of that), its existence will still do some larger good."

Comments

Re:Same is not good enough

[AlphaWolf_HK]

One thing to keep in mind though is that so far, Google is going wherever the regulatory hurdles are the smallest and cheapest. That means it is possible that if we lowered these burdens, we could see better broadband deployments.

Verizon apparently stopped expanding mainly because the local regulations were too burdensome to make it profitable, so they changed their focus to other ventures.

The carriers are trying to scare Google

[roystgnr]

Seriously, what else could *possibly* motivate AT&T to announce "Austin" rather than one of the hundred other similar markets they could be moving into? Are they looking forward to making half as much revenue as they would if they entered a city with no gigabit competition? Are they proud that they'll be increasing the maximum speed available to Austinites by 0% rather than increasing the maximum speed available in another city by 9900%?

Of course not. They're showing Google, "moving in on our turf won't be profitable, because we'll try to undercut you every time you make a move, so you might as well give up and leave us with our oligopoly."

It'll be fascinating to see what Google's response (both in terms of words and actions) will be. Does "don't be evil" include "don't concede to evil"?

Re:Same is not good enough

[Penguinisto]

Not like this is the first time that's ever happened...

Truth is, the carriers/cablecos go out of their flippin' way to sue if there's even the faintest glimmer of competition, from nearly every source.

Personally, I'd vote in (as officeholder-for-life) the first politician who put in a law requiring at least two competitors for each type of ISP access (2 cable, 2 DSL, 2 fiber, 2 wireless, 2 whatever-they-think-up-next), with no monopolies.

He's right

[rsilvergun]

And that's the problem. He's right and it goes against every dumb thing you were taught in grade school. You're taught American Exceptionalism and how scary the commies and their governments were. But fact is that small governments get picked apart by corporations. Divide and conquer. Remember that picture of the snake cut to bits? Seriously, there's a reason we have a Federal gov't, and the power your average multi-national wields today would make the British empire run for the hills.

Reality vs Fantasy

[EmperorOfCanada]

I suspect that the vast majority of the carriers are only vaguely nervous about this, in that they have deluded themselves with pat on the back surveys that somehow manage to show that their customers have few complaints and are generally either loyal or not motivated to switch. The reality is that you would be hard pressed to find an area in North America that wouldn't leap onto a service like Google fiber if their local rates remained as they are.

No doubt there are a few in the cable/telco industry who are quaking in their boots not just because they realize the clear and present danger to their profits but that they know their own companies are bloated and that where a new upstart will be lean and profitable at much lower prices the old companies will have to cut to the bone to remain profitable.

My guess is that the big old companies are thinking that google can't be everywhere that quickly and that places like Kansas are just quirky experiments that Google will abandon. They might even have done calculations that show that what Google is doing is impossible.

A great example of this would be when Germany was allowing the free market to compete for long distance. The incumbent telco basically swore that long distance would go from the present $1 per minute to at least $2 or more per minute. Within 18 months it was down to around $0.05 per minute. I am not sure that the incumbent was actually lying; really wrong but from his position sitting on his old school business model was just so distorted that he lived in a whole other universe.

If Google Fiber comes to my town I am all over that in a second.

Google is not a content provider

[Hamsterdan]

But the ISPs are. They have no incentive to offer speed or unlimited usage. More and more people are cutting the cord for TV and phone lines. Bring me a nice fast and unlimited (or higher than the ridiculous 60GB limit in Montreal), and I'll manage with OTA and online streaming. I just to live long enough to see *real* competition in Canada