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Google Fiber To Come To Provo, Utah

Posted by Soulskill on from the stop-making-me-jealous-of-cities-i've-never-heard-of dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google announced today that they intend on purchasing the existing iProvo fiber network to make Provo the third U.S. city to have Google Fiber. If approved by the city council, implementation would begin later in 2013. 'As a part of the acquisition, we would commit to upgrade the network to gigabit technology and finish network construction so that every home along the existing iProvo network would have the opportunity to connect to Google Fiber.'" Also at SlashCloud

23 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Not fair to call it Google fiber by TWiTfan · · Score: 2, Informative

    AFAICT, Google hasn't laid a single foot of fiber themselves. They've just been buying up existing fiber that has already been laid by earlier projects and calling it Google fiber.

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    1. Re:Not fair to call it Google fiber by Yanzzee · · Score: 2

      AFAICT, Google hasn't laid a single foot of fiber themselves. They've just been buying up existing fiber that has already been laid by earlier projects and calling it Google fiber.

      The difference here being Gigabit speeds, or free 5Mbit for those that don't need the speed. Both of which will probably be a big hit in a college town, and weren't previously offered by iProvo.

    2. Re:Not fair to call it Google fiber by tlhIngan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google, Microsoft and Apple do the same thing. If it's something bought from someone else, they re-brand it. Examples include Google Fiber, MS-DOS and Siri.

      Siri wasn't re-branded. It was always called Siri, named after the original company, Siri Inc, which was spun off from SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) - a company created by Stanford to commercialize Stanford's research.

      Of course, there were dozens of other things that were re-branded. Like Thunderbolt (though Apple licensed the trademark for free usage, after seeing what happened with FireWire)

    3. Re:Not fair to call it Google fiber by compro01 · · Score: 2

      All the Thunderbolt rights, including trademark, belong to Intel. Apple registered the trademark initially, but then gave it to Intel sometime in 2011

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  2. Stop taunting us! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    When will Google Fiber come to my city! Yes, I'll give up all my privacy to Google! You know the truth? If Google demanded I send them nude pictures so I could have gigabit Internet, I'd do it! Anything for gigabit Internet! PLEASE!!! NOW!!! PLEASE!!!

    1. Re:Stop taunting us! by antdude · · Score: 2

      Ditto. I will show off my sexy abdomen, stinger, thorax, etc. ;)

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    2. Re:Stop taunting us! by egcagrac0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The trouble with crowdsourcing naked pictures is that there are a lot of people out there I don't want to see naked.

      Perhaps that's their business model - pay us, or we send you more pictures of 14/f/cali guy.

    3. Re:Stop taunting us! by Guppy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Google FIber: The cure for a constipated telecom monopoly. No, seriously -- just one dose, and entrenched ISPs start running :)

  3. Can't wait by ekimd · · Score: 3, Informative

    As a current iProvo fiber user, I can't wait to welcome my new Google overlords.

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    1. Re:Can't wait by fishybell · · Score: 2

      I used iProvo back when Provo city was still running the ship and it was perfectly fine (except the install process). Each time it moved hands it seemed to get worse. This final move will hopefully be the last. I texted John Curtis (Provo mayor) as soon as I heard the announcement. His response? "It's a great oppurtinity for Provo." I find that somewhat telling as Provo city gets 25 buildings wired to gigabit for free, while the taxpayers (myself included) continue paying for the $39 million bond.
      iProvo was sold for one dollar ($1 USD) to Google. Google upgrades services at their cost, provides free internet to Provo citizens at 5 mbit ($30 install fee) and to Provo goverment (and library, etc.) at 1 gbit, and Provo gets to put a big smily face on it's city while continuing to pay $3.3 million a year towards the bond. I guess the idea is that this will get more high-tech businesses to setup in Provo, but as far as I can tell, it's mostly just a "we hate Veracity" measure to get them to not be the provider anymore.

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    2. Re:Can't wait by jensend · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's true that this is basically a "take this away from Veracity" move.

      iProvo was a great idea. It was killed by politics.

      The extreme right-wing folks who think there should be no public services managed to force Provo to not provide services directly ("retail model") but rather to cut corporate middlemen in on the deal ("wholesale model"). That privatized all the profits while socializing all the costs. Unsurprisingly, it failed.

      Given the political realities in Utah right now, I suppose the Google Fiber deal is the best we could hope for. But we would have had something at least as good way back in 2006 if it weren't for idiotic politicians.

  4. Indeed by Dega704 · · Score: 2

    Here's hoping they do the same with the stalling UTOPIA network in Salt Lake City.

  5. Porn by Oyjord · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just imagine how much faster the porn will download in Utah! Wait....

  6. Re:At this rate by fatalwall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe because Kansas City is being installed as fast as they want and they figure they can have teams in different locations going at max safe speed for install without conflicts. It could also be due to what the cable/media companies are doing with Caps and Cable subscription requirements to access content on hulu which goes inverse to the point of hulu. How best to shake things up then to have multiple sites being implemented forcing companies to upgrade networks or risk a google takeover of all customers.

  7. Re:Big cities?? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now imagine how long people in Shawinigan, Québec, Canada will have to wait.

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  8. Re:acceleration by MrYingster · · Score: 2

    Is extrapolating your hobby? XKCD

  9. Why not work in parallel in different cities? by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure why they are expanding when the original Kansas City install is not even 10% completed.

    Because fiber deployment (both actual fiber laying and establishing service) in different cities is something that parallelizes quite well providing that you have sufficient capital, so there is no reason to hold off starting work in other cities just because you haven't finished in the first one you started in.

  10. How is it not fair to call it Google Fiber? by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AFAICT, Google hasn't laid a single foot of fiber themselves. They've just been buying up existing fiber that has already been laid by earlier projects and calling it Google fiber.

    You know what, most airlines have never built an airplane themselves, either, they just buy up (actually, I think "lease" is the more common model now) existing airplanes and slap their names on them. So what?

    Since when is it "not fair" to use your company's name on a service you sell, just because some key pieces of equipment used in providing that service were either purchased or leased from someone else? Is it unfair for the (very many) companies selling services built on top of, e.g., Amazon's cloud infrastructure (who haven't even bought the infrastructure from Amazon, but are renting it dynamically based on usage) to use their own name rather than Amazon's for their services?

  11. Re:Get googles attention: by fishybell · · Score: 2
    ...and then fail to deliver very well, then lose millions of tax payer dollars, then give it away, then buy it back, then give it to Google, then continue to lose millions of dollars. Brilliant!

    ...then again, I'm getting Google Fiber...yeah, I'll take it.

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  12. History repeats by dbIII · · Score: 2

    A place in Utah was also the third site in the forerunner of the internet.

  13. Re:Big cities?? by rsborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm getting the impression that LA, Chicago and NY are going to have a long wait for this.

    Of course they will. Do those cities also have a municipal fiber setup that Google could snatch up for $1?
    When Google is looking at the FIBER_ROLLOUT_CITIES table, they aren't doing an ORDER BY population DESC. More like ORDER BY cost, legal_difficulties ASC.

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  14. Re:Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger! by Zeromous · · Score: 2

    Which for that matter has nothing to do with collecting your personal information and injecting ads.

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  15. Why choose Provo? (hint: lookup Bluffdale, Utah) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just wanted to float the slightly unobvious fact that Provo is only one county away from Bluffdale, Utah where the NSA's new data facility (capable of storing the entirety of the Internet for the next 1000 years) is located..

    *wink wink...say no more, say no more*