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Google Fiber Adds 14th City: Lee's Summit

Posted by samzenpus on from the welcome-to-the-club dept.

symbolset writes "On Thursday night the Lee's Summit city council passed three resolutions to welcome Google Fiber to their community. This is the 12th community in the Kansas City Metro Area to welcome Google Fiber and the 14th city overall. The KC map now covers almost all of the KC metro area with parts in both Kansas and Missouri. 8 months into the rollout two fiberhoods have been completed, 30 more are underway and 50 more are to start by the end of summer. This covers most of the territory of both Kansas Citys ahead of schedule and completes before the end of winter so the timeline has been accelerated. As Google runs their fiber across town it appears they're putting backbones down the major thoroughfares to be trunks out to the wider communities. With Provo wired with fiber already, Austin to start next, it looks like Google Fiber's ambitions are not to deliver their symmetric gigabit uncapped, unfiltered, inexpensive fiber Internet to just a few privileged enclaves. They still have over 1,000 cities left to go who have already petitioned to be Google Fiber cities, so it's not like they're going to run out of work."

81 comments

  1. No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    I don't want my ISP to be a company in the data mining business, particularly one that's in bed with the NSA.

    --
    Downey, Network Security Asshole

    1. Re:No thanks by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      HTTPS, and I strongly recommend looking into DNSSEC.

  2. Balloons are more important to me by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I don't really care if people who can already get broadband can get faster broadband. I only care if people who can't get broadband (FCC definition: 6mbps. Fastest connection I can buy: 2Mbps) can actually, you know, get broadband.

    It's shameful how we lag behind other technically developed nations in high-speed penetration (huh huh huh) but it's even more shameful that the nation that invented the internet has such poor broadband access.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Balloons are more important to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (FCC definition: 6mbps)

      Wow, that is freaking slow. I was doing better in the 80s with my 300bps modem.

    2. Re:Balloons are more important to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I had a 300Bps modem now that I think of it.

    3. Re:Balloons are more important to me by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      "I don't really care if people who can already get broadband can get faster broadband."

      But yes, I welcome a couple of million seeders with 1GB/1GB lines.

    4. Re:Balloons are more important to me by KingMotley · · Score: 1

      You can get faster than 2Mbps. Move.

    5. Re:Balloons are more important to me by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      That would have been a standard 2400 baud modem.

      2400 6000000, so I don't think you were getting better than the FCC's definition.

    6. Re:Balloons are more important to me by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      bah, stupid sign got removed.

      2400 is less than 6000000

    7. Re:Balloons are more important to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      m is the SI prefix for "milli". So I guess it's a "woosh!" :)

    8. Re:Balloons are more important to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As Google invades territory controlled only by cable and phone companies, it pushes those former monopolies to consider branching out to areas with less competition such as your backwoods town.

      Compared to other developed nations that have better speeds, we also have lower population densities. Japan and South Korea, who boast gigabit broadband, have 10 and 16 times our density meaning they have something like 10-16 times less fiber per person and it makes it much more cost effect to supply them. How shameful that you want your cheap broadband offset by other's fees when you rather stay away from those others.

    9. Re:Balloons are more important to me by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Japan and South Korea, who boast gigabit broadband, have 10 and 16 times our density

      Actually, the density of their cities are not 10x-16x of ours, but their cities are 10x-16x the densities of our farmlands.

  3. Ulterior motives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Is Google doing this out of the goodness of their corporate heart? What do they gain by fibering up (as opposed to "wiring up") all these cities? Quicker access to their browsing habits? Quicker access to all the personal information they put into Gmail, Google Drive, Google Documents, Google Places, Google+ contacts?

    1. Re:Ulterior motives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Deep packet inspection? Logging DNS queries?

    2. Re:Ulterior motives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Deep packet inspection? Logging DNS queries?"

      Nope. Probably spreading the risk of backbone failure. This way, if Verizon backbone fails at one point (for any reason) there will be a back up in form of local "Google" fibers.

    3. Re:Ulterior motives? by dj245 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its very possible the broadband itself is still profitable even if you have to string up all the lines yourself. I had absolutely 0 hassle negotiating my (not Google) 30/5 connection down to $35 a month. It made me wonder how much their costs really are if they don't bat an eye at cutting the price by 25%. Google's gigabit line (without TV) is ~$70 a month (construction fee waived). I find it completely reasonable that this is profitable- the bulk of costs are in the physical distribution infrastructure. It may even be wildly profitable. Google doesn't pay others for bandwidth. Google doesn't have national advertising campaigns with TV commercials and massive paper advertising*, which makes up a huge cost for Verizon, ATT, etc. Being an ISP will probably even help to balance their peering agreements a bit.

      As for their free plans, if you are running fiber to a paying customer, running fiber to the non-paying customer 50 feet away isn't really adding that much cost over the long term- especially if you make them pay a $300 construction fee. Maybe that person decides the free plan isn't enough speed and becomes a paying customer. You can't look at internet advertising (Google's main business) if you don't have internet. It is like letting a car dealership test drive a car- obviously there are costs involved which you may not recoup, but overall it is something that helps your business more than it hurts. They could ratchet up the spying and data mining to ridiculous levels, any maybe they will, but I don't think they necessarily need to in order to make a decent profit.

      When you ask "What's in it for them"?, the answer might just be "Being an ISP is profitable".

      *Google might be spending a lot on advertising, but I haven't seen anything. If they have 1000 cities begging for them to come and compete, they probably don't need to advertise.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    4. Re:Ulterior motives? by theRunicBard · · Score: 2

      Exactly. Google seems to have come to the conclusion that since everything on the internet makes them money somehow (Ads), a way to increase profit is to get people to load up the web faster. You connect to the web faster, you're more likely to click an ad faster. Or just buy from Google Shopping direct. I've seen some stuff on there that beats Amazon's deals. And don't get me wrong, probably some goodness of their heart too.

    5. Re:Ulterior motives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fact that they chose a town named after the Confederate general makes it look like a PR stunt, like the major weapons manufacturers opening plants and R&D sites all over the country to maintain Congressional support.

    6. Re:Ulterior motives? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Maybe that person decides the free plan isn't enough speed and becomes a paying customer.

      Possibly, but I think it's more likely a new person moving in becomes a paying customer. If the house isn't hooked up you start looking for potential providers and what they'll charge but if you're already getting Internet from Google and it's a simple and instant upgrade then surely that's what you'd go for. And every person they get hooked up is one less potential customer for other ISPs, making it much harder for them to reach critical mass so as a barrier to competition it seems like a cheap insurance. If you have a customer relationship with them it's easier to make special offers, they can for example give them a free unlimited speed weekend to get them hooked. It's a lot cheaper to dig up ditches to all the houses once than to do it one by one as they want to sign up, they probably don't need much of a "hit rate" to make it pay off.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Ulterior motives? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      DPI? the cost of carrier grade DPS is pretty high. More than the cost of running the fiber itself.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    8. Re:Ulterior motives? by swillden · · Score: 2

      Is Google doing this out of the goodness of their corporate heart? What do they gain by fibering up (as opposed to "wiring up") all these cities? Quicker access to their browsing habits? Quicker access to all the personal information they put into Gmail, Google Drive, Google Documents, Google Places, Google+ contacts?

      Money.

      Google expects it to be a profitable business: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-expects-google-fiber-to-be-profitable-2013-5

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    9. Re:Ulterior motives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When the CEO of Comcast holds up a 3 Gb/s modem at a press conference and tells Google to bring it, you know that Comcast does not believe in giving you best service possible when you're stuck with a sucky 20 Mb/s connection.

  4. Re:NSA Fiber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably true.

  5. Dammnit Prairie Village by octopuscabbage4414 · · Score: 1

    I live in one of the few KC suburbs that doesn't have fiber. It's really quite annoying.

    1. Re:Dammnit Prairie Village by hottoh · · Score: 2

      Move across town. Problem solved.

    2. Re:Dammnit Prairie Village by raptor_87 · · Score: 1

      Also, why are the skipping Overland Park?

    3. Re:Dammnit Prairie Village by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps because OP is covered by SureWest?

    4. Re:Dammnit Prairie Village by hottoh · · Score: 1

      Simple. They have not given enough away yet to attract GF. Read tax abatements. Read up on how KCK became the first choice, why goog was behind on the rollout of the GF service.

    5. Re:Dammnit Prairie Village by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aw poor Overland Park! Ha! Ha! Hooooo! I got Google Fiber! You don't! Ha! Ha! Hoooo!

  6. And it is still not a destination. by hottoh · · Score: 1

    Worry not people, the KC metro area is not that great a place to be. Yeah it seems better if they were in your neighborhood.

    Remember they are getting version 1.0 of the service, you will get the upgraded version.

    1. Re:And it is still not a destination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As somebody who has lived in a number of places around the country, actually Kansas City is pretty nice. I'm moving back there with my new wife in a few months, and it's my hometown.

      Reasons why KC is a nice place:
      A thriving arts district with a great local music scene in many genres (rock, electronic, hiphop, blues, country, funk)
      Nearly every music tour goes through the city
      The barbecue.
      Two major league teams, sure the Royals and Chiefs are horrible but going to the games is fun and the stadiums are nice
      Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement park, which is on par with Six Flags
      On the missouri side there's casinos, bars open until 3 am, one of the least alcohol-regulated states in the nation
      The only city that has more artistic fountains in it is Rome, and in general, the architecture in the city is both distinctive and beautiful
      Boulevard Brewery
      Unlike some of the cities I've lived in, from my experience there's less bad drivers on the road

    2. Re:And it is still not a destination. by hottoh · · Score: 1

      To each his own. Lived there for many years, we miss it not.

      Music -check
      Barbecue -Can get that crap anywhere
      Royals / Chiefs -Joke teams for sure. Don't live in Jackson County, AKA Taxation County. They get to pay for the stadium 'improvement' costs, keeping it "fun."
      WoF OoF -Are you for real?
      Casino's -You must work for the IRS or some other government agency. Huge drain on local businesses, great for the coffers though. :-/
      Fountains -Waste of taxpayers dollars. Right to say The only city that has more artistic fountains in it is Rome' wholly makes you sound like an idiot. 5% of them are cool and the rest are either round or square brick and mortar affairs.
      Boulevard -They distribute to 22 states. BFD. Doug McDonald is a bore.
      Drivers -Plenty of bad ones.

    3. Re:And it is still not a destination. by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Worry not people, the KC metro area is not that great a place to be. Yeah it seems better if they were in your neighborhood.

      Remember they are getting version 1.0 of the service, you will get the upgraded version.

      But everything's up to date in Kansas City - They've gone about as far as they can go!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:And it is still not a destination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Casinos - No, I actually like to gamble. Nobody's sending you to the casino at gunpoint.
      Barbecue - I live in Texas right now, the bbq sucks here despite their opinion it's the best. I'd kill for some Jack Stack right now.
      Royals / Chiefs - Your complaint is what, that the county with the stadium get taxed more? It keeps tickets cheap. Besides, there's other reasons why taxes are higher in Jackson County, like upkeep of the landmarks, the parks, the new security guards they have in downtown and midtown that make it safe at night, keeping the Nelson-Atkins free admission, etc.
      Fountains - I would be more concerned about the flame on top of Liberty Memorial. KC has a huge river running through the city, water is cheap.
      Boulevard - Yeah, they do now, because it's good beer. It's good to see a business go from nothing to what it is today. I don't understand your doug mcdonald comment.
      Drivers - You'd be surprised. Here in Texas it's like those Russian dashcam videos so popular on Reddit. Kansas City highways are a picnic.
      WoF OoF - Do you realize people in Omaha and Des Moines drive three and five hours to go to WoF? I feel sorry for the poor bastards. Yes, I've been to several Six Flags, it's about the same.

    5. Re:And it is still not a destination. by bman49er · · Score: 1

      As someone who moved to KC from North Carolina:

      There's plenty to do and see in KC. I haven't been to the arts district yet, but they have the WWI memorial, Nelson-Atkins Museum, and plenty of other venues going on each month. Maker Faire is my fav so far.
      I like the barbecue in KC, but it's more about the sauce and less how you cook it. Smoking Gun and Smokehouse BBQ are my places of choice. It's not worth standing in line for Oklahoma Joes.
      Royals and Chiefs are bad, but the Carolina Panthers are bad...easy transition. And North Carolina doesn't have an MLB team. The games are fun anyway.
      Boulevard Wheat. I'm hooked on it.
      The traffic is a breeze compared to Charlotte, NC where I lived last. Most drivers are ok, however I don't think everyone here understands what yield means
      And yet...Google Fiber hasn't reached me yet. In the North Kansas City area.

    6. Re:And it is still not a destination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet...Google Fiber hasn't reached me yet. In the North Kansas City area.

      If you're in the city of North Kansas City, that's the area that already has its own fiber ISP, LiNKCity. I wonder if Google Fiber will ever be there. I bet LiNKCity would like to be purchased by Google, they're a small operation.

    7. Re:And it is still not a destination. by hottoh · · Score: 1

      Casinos -gun point?
      BBQ -kill for JS BBQ? Stay the fuck in TX. Maybe the dude in front of you has some in his passenger seat.
      Royals/Chiefs -Jackson County PAYS FOR ALL THE STADIUM UPKEEP. You seem to think it is cool tickets are cheap when the poor in J. County help ticket prices low.
      Fountains -cost, electricity, maintenance, water is of little concern as you decided to point out. You'd be more concerned is a single flame on a WWI memorial? There are hundreds of fountains wasting resources on yearly upkeep, on many thousands of kilowatts of electricity pumping water though 208 registered fountains and perhaps a 100 more unregistered ones. Their purpose seems to be so the city of Kansas City can keep a tag line about the city of fountains or comparing it to Rome. Very few KC area fountains are worth a second look.
      Boulevard -in 22 states because they have the volume, you gambling dolt. Doug M. fucking runs Boulevard, goddamn.
      Drivers -sounds like you are in the right place.
      WoF OoF -They drive there because they can. Maybe they also come to the Metro to shop or get an artificially cheap Royal's ticket.

    8. Re:And it is still not a destination. by crashcy · · Score: 1

      You seem a very angry person. I've lived in KC, Seattle, Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Miami. They all had there pros and cons. None made me so angry.

    9. Re:And it is still not a destination. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The people of Kansas City are thankful to be rid of an asshole like yourself.

  7. Re:NSA Fiber by Delarth799 · · Score: 2

    No, fiber uses light so they can SEE you!

  8. unfiltered my ass by jdogalt · · Score: 2, Informative

    deliver their symmetric gigabit uncapped, unfiltered

    Please reconcile that deception with these terms of service:

    (Note, after 9 months of being lied to and ignored by the FCC, this complaint will supposedly be "served" to google on Monday, according to Rosemary McHenry at the FCC's Enforcement Beaureau)
    --- FCC NetNeutrality 2000F Complaint REF# 12-C00422224 ---
    Google's current Terms Of Service[1] for their fixed broadband internet
    service being deployed initially here in Kansas City, Kansas, contain
    this text-

    "You agree not to misuse the Services. This includes but is not limited
    to using the Services for purposes that are illegal, are improper,
    infringe the rights of others, or adversely impact others enjoyment of
    the Services. A list of examples of prohibited activities appears here. "

    where 'here' is a hyperlink[2] to a page including this text-
    "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"

    In my professional opinion as a graduate in Computer Engineering from
    the University of Kansas (and incidentally brother of a google VP) I
    believe these terms of service are in violation of FCC-10-201.

    [1] http://fiber.google.com/legal/terms.html [google.com]
    [2]
    http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2659981&topic=2440874&ctx=topic [google.com]

    --- (end of form 2000F complaint text)

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3106555&cid=41288357
    http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3156485&cid=41530745
    http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3156485&cid=41516877
    http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-2k121007.pdf

    1. Re:unfiltered my ass by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please reconcile that deception with these terms of service:

      Prohibitions against resale of their service to third parties, by providing many people internet connectivity: or by running a web server or other commercial service to consume their resources and derive profit from them.

      Are common restrictions: they are contractual rules, not filtering of applications, or non-neutrality.

      And the rules benefit the subscribers. It means that Netflix can't swoop in there, setup a residential datacenter: pay $30 a month for Google fiber, and saturate the network connections.

      Similarly... it means that ISPs or Tunnel/Proxy providers, or web hosting farms, cannot come in and abuse the service -- degrading service for other users, or imposing undue costs on Google, to pay for attempts to commercially exploit a service that is being provided for personal use.

    2. Re:unfiltered my ass by jdogalt · · Score: 0

      Prohibitions against resale of their service to third parties, by providing many people internet connectivity: or by running a web server or other commercial service to consume their resources and derive profit from them

      There is a difference between wiring up my next door neighbor, and operating a web server including a wiki that provides a service over the general purpose internet to both my neighbor, and perhaps my friend on the other side of the globe, and perhaps the global public at large.

      By your logic, operating a web or any server with many clients is tantamount to "resale of their service to third parties" because *technically* operating a wiki server is distributing the utility/value(of)internetservice to both my next door neighbor, and the rest of the world.

      Now... personally, I might be happier with simple per-bit charging and the ability to resell service to my neighbor if for some reason they think they'd rather do that than purchase service from the same provider (perhaps they live on the border of the service area, or perhaps they view my firewall as a value-add to the internet service). But I'm not holding my breath for that even though it seems the most logical to me.

      Are common restrictions: they are contractual rules, not filtering of applications, or non-neutrality.

      These are subtle issues, don't try to gloss over the reality. What you described, are in fact common restriction, but what Google implemented, was a simplified language that "prohibits hosting any kind of server (without prior written permission)". If you actually read FCC-10-201 and where it lauds Tim Berners-Lee for having been able to invent the world wide web on top of the internet protocol "without having had to get permission from any government or network authority", you might begin to see the obvious problem with google's language. Though you won't fully realize the motives involved, until you stare at the abominable market for home server software that can compete with gmail, but provide enhanced 4th ammendment protections by being able to consider your data to be your "papers" at home, rather than something you entrusted to a company that is not at all concerned with your privacy if they think they can make a penny by selling it out.

      It means that Netflix can't swoop in there, setup a residential datacenter: pay $30 a month for Google fiber, and saturate the network connections.

      The way networking works, no one user can destroy the network. It's a shared resource. I might not be able to run a business like old-school slashdot from my home server (when they had 100K users already), but I might well be able to start something like an old-old-school slashdot (say, 1000 users) from a home server, and build up momentum and revenue to enable me to then scale as needed with servers beyond the ones in my home. You are saying that such aspirations can be thwarted by ISPs that also have non-broadband-carrier divisions that have been making billions operating their own servers on the internet. I find it _too_ convenient that the "unfortunate expansion of our terms of service safetynets" manages to horribly throttle the home server software market that Vint Cerf, in an interview in my college networking textbook 10 years ago, envisioned flourishing in the new IPv6 world. Or as he writes on Google's IPv6 education page.

      I just want my fair share. ISPs can allow (by terms of service) residential customers to host servers without their networks falling apart. The internet is not that fragile.

      Similarly... it means that ISPs or Tunnel/Proxy providers, or web hosting farms, cannot come in and abuse the service -- degrading service for other users, or imposing undue costs on Google, to pay for attempts to commercially exploit a service that is being provided for personal use.

      When my neighbors all watch the latest thing released on netflix, and I see my pr0n ba

    3. Re:unfiltered my ass by LiENUS · · Score: 1

      I wish I had internet access that didn't have inbound port blocking, no caps and 1gigabit speed all for $70 a month. Instead I have internet access where I'm not even allowed to vpn in to work, tons of port blocking inbound and outbound, 300gb a month cap and only 50mbit speed down with 10mbit speed up, all for $70 a month. Mind you my isps restrictions on servers isn't just TOS but actual port blocking, port 25 outbound is blocked, port 53 inbound is filtered, port 80 inbound is filtered plus god knows what else.

    4. Re:unfiltered my ass by jdogalt · · Score: 1

      Prohibitions against resale of their service to third parties, by providing many people internet connectivity: or by running a web server or other commercial service to consume their resources and derive profit from them.

      There is a difference between wiring up my next door neighbor, and operating a web server including a wiki that provides a service over the general purpose internet to both my neighbor, and perhaps my friend on the other side of the globe, and perhaps the global public at large.

      By your logic, operating a web or any server with many clients is tantamount to "resale of their service to third parties" because *technically* operating a wiki server is distributing the utility/value(of)internetservice to both my next door neighbor, and the rest of the world.

      Now... personally, I might be happier with simple per-bit charging and the ability to resell service to my neighbor if for some reason they think they'd rather do that than purchase service from the same provider (perhaps they live on the border of the service area, or perhaps they view my firewall as a value-add to the internet service). But I'm not holding my breath for that even though it seems the most logical to me.

      Are common restrictions: they are contractual rules, not filtering of applications, or non-neutrality.

      These are subtle issues, don't try to gloss over the reality. What you described, are in fact common restriction, but what Google implemented, was a simplified language that "prohibits hosting any kind of server (without prior written permission)". If you actually read FCC-10-201 and where it lauds Tim Berners-Lee for having been able to invent the world wide web on top of the internet protocol "without having had to get permission from any government or network authority", you might begin to see the obvious problem with google's language. Though you won't fully realize the motives involved, until you stare at the abominable market for home server software that can compete with gmail, but provide enhanced 4th ammendment protections by being able to consider your data to be your "papers" at home, rather than something you entrusted to a company that is not at all concerned with your privacy if they think they can make a penny by selling it out.

      It means that Netflix can't swoop in there, setup a residential datacenter: pay $30 a month for Google fiber, and saturate the network connections.

      The way networking works, no one user can destroy the network. It's a shared resource. I might not be able to run a business like old-school slashdot from my home server (when they had 100K users already), but I might well be able to start something like an old-old-school slashdot (say, 1000 users) from a home server, and build up momentum and revenue to enable me to then scale as needed with servers beyond the ones in my home. You are saying that such aspirations can be thwarted by ISPs that also have non-broadband-carrier divisions that have been making billions operating their own servers on the internet. I find it _too_ convenient that the "unfortunate expansion of our terms of service safetynets" manages to horribly throttle the home server software market that Vint Cerf, in an interview in my college networking textbook 10 years ago, envisioned flourishing in the new IPv6 world. Or as he writes on Google's IPv6 education page.

      Similarly... it means that ISPs or Tunnel/Proxy providers, or web hosting farms, cannot come in and abuse the service -- degrading service for other users, or imposing undue costs on Google, to pay for attempts to commercially exploit a service that is being provided for personal use.

      When my neighbors all watch the latest thing released on netflix, and I see my pr0n bandwidth rates lessened because we share network trunks, can I claim that my neighbors are "abusing" the service? Or are they merely "using" the service? I just want my fair share, no more, no less. Sending a packet to or from a remote client connected to my local server, is no more or less expensive for the ISP than sending a packet to or from a remote server from my local client. QED.

    5. Re:unfiltered my ass by mysidia · · Score: 1

      where it lauds Tim Berners-Lee for having been able to invent the world wide web on top of the internet protocol "without having had to get permission from any government or network authority"

      Yeah well... Tim Berners-Lee did not do this for free. And CERN was not buying a cut-rate residential service; if anything, they were paying business and above rates for their telecommunication services, which did not restrict their use --- but they paid for every amount of resource that was available to use to them.

      The way networking works, no one user can destroy the network. It's a shared resource.

      Huh? Of course one user can 'destroy' the network; through generating or receiving disproportionally large volume of traffic; either causing Google to go over their committed information rate with their upstream providers, and owe overages, or causing saturation of peering links, requiring that a large amount of money be spent for additional faster interconnections.

      It's not just a shared resource. It's a shared resource you (the end user) don't fully pay for. The provider (Google), or for example, Netflix, has to pay for transit into other networks.

      Instead of paying your full cost of transit; you pay a fee that is reduced, reflecting that your use is residential non-commercial, therefore low usage, and you are not expected and committed to fully use that resource.

      Essentially; you have the full resource available to you, but you have only paid to compensate Google for limited use of it, and to an extent you may fully utilize the resource for short durations ---- providing you are within the acceptable usage you and Google agreed upon.

      but I might well be able to start something like an old-old-school slashdot (say, 1000 users) from a home server, and build up momentum and revenue to enable me to then scale as needed with servers beyond the ones in my home

      Google has a choice, as to whether they want to allow end-users to monetize the connectivity they are receiving or not. In almost all cases, additional fees would be required for this, if it is offered at all.

      Because business uses such as running public facing servers produce unpredictable, and potentially high network usage -- that would be a risk to Google.

      The $100 or so a month you pay to Google does not appropriately compensate for the risk; therefore, you shouldn't be allowed to do it.

      On the other hand... if you want to negotiate with Google and get a committed information rate, and allowed burst rate with 95th percentile billing; at a higher monthly price that compensates them for the risk, capacity requirements for maintaining user experience on their network, and added support cost.... more power to you.

    6. Re:unfiltered my ass by jdogalt · · Score: 1

      where it lauds Tim Berners-Lee for having been able to invent the world wide web on top of the internet protocol "without having had to get permission from any government or network authority"

      Yeah well... Tim Berners-Lee did not do this for free. And CERN was not buying a cut-rate residential service; if anything, they were paying business and above rates for their telecommunication services, which did not restrict their use --- but they paid for every amount of resource that was available to use to them.

      I'm not suggesting people deserve free bandwidth. Where did you get that idea from my words? As far as "cut-rate" internet service- yes I am fully aware that Google is both technically able, and could see a profitable path offering an internet service that charges different traffic rates for Google service usage that stays on it's combined ISP/content network, and then charge 10 times that amount for traffic that goes to destinations outside of the Google-sphere. But that is precisely the kind of intentional crippling of the "general purpose technology" of the internet, that Network Neutrality rules were written to prevent. I'm just waking the FCC up to the fact that my servers at home need the same legal protections as Skype's while I'm using GoogleFiber as my ISP.

      The rest of your arguments are just as specious, however I'll wait to completely address them until I get Google's compelled response to my complaint on July 29th. If there were in fact a legal concept of "cut-rate" internet service that nullified my arguments, I would have hoped that within the first 9 months of the complaint being live, that someone at Google or the FCC might have referred me to the legal codes where the special treatment for "cut-rate" internet services were defined. Honestly, I loathe the business models of - razors/blades, gaming-consoles/software, mobile-phones/contract-locking. I.e. using the long term benefits of "stack lock-in" to "tax" the consumer, and remove competition from the field. But, if the FCC doesn't mind letting google do the printers-ink captialistic game to the internet and have "cut-rate internet service" in a way marketed similarly to actual legitimate "internet service" that doesn't charge different rates for the same packet with the same source and destination address, based on which end (the residential or remote) was the 'client' and which was the 'server'. Well, if they want a printers-ink model of the internet, so be it. But I'm going to make them say it out loud in clear language that educates people as to the real, precise level of Network Neutrality that Google is interested in. Namely, just enough to protect their servers, but not enough to protect the home servers of the global populace.

    7. Re:unfiltered my ass by mysidia · · Score: 1

      If there were in fact a legal concept of "cut-rate" internet service that nullified my arguments,

      There doesn't have to be a legal concept. Google has a right to price products below the absolute highest possible cost to Google of users' usage, and use terms of use contract restrictions to prevent the usages that are physically possible, but likely to cause the usage to exceed Google's costs.

      And this is likely to be effective, if the lower-cost usage is all that their target customer wants.

      You don't need a special "legal recognition" for your product differentiation. It's called capitalism.

  9. Re:NSA Fiber by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, every time I hear Google Fiber I think it's some new Breakfast Cereal that helps you shit...

    --
    -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
  10. Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by erroneus · · Score: 1

    Like anyone else, I'm more interested in clearing up this NSA matter before I go about selling my consumerist soul any further.

    1. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by jdogalt · · Score: 2

      Like anyone else, I'm more interested in clearing up this NSA matter before I go about selling my consumerist soul any further.

      +1. I genuinely believe that the FCC has obstructed justice in regards to my complaint against GoogleFibers "Any kind of server prohibited without written permission" terms of service. It's kind of interesting to note how the predominance of such persecution against server operators achieves the ends of having the global populace gathered around a dozen large information watering holes provided by companies whose names fit on a single powerpoint slide. However, according to Rosemary McHenry at the FCC's Enforcement Review Board/Beaureau/Whatever, Google will be "served" with my 2000F NetNeutrality complaint this week (after 9 months of not getting word one from the FCC as to whether or not my legal claims had any merit).

    2. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by swillden · · Score: 1

      Out of curiosity, why did you pick Google Fiber to complain about? Every ISP includes the same terms.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    3. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by jdogalt · · Score: 1

      Out of curiosity, why did you pick Google Fiber to complain about? Every ISP includes the same terms.

      reasons, not necessarily in any order-

      1) I was a kansas city resident at the time
      2) I have a degree in computer engineering
      3) about 20 years ago in college (and in fact in college when I was still attending high school), I enjoyed smoking pot, and playing doom at my university's computer center. After my subsequent education and carreer beginnings, I became passionate about pursuing the dream of running my own business, with my own server, at home. With enough freedom of speech on the internet to effectively clone slashdot (it's open source) and try to compete with them, maybe not using Google as my advertising partner (maybe gasp, not having an advertising partner at all).
      4) GoogleFiber was the first residential ISP offering me IPv6, and coincidingly, gigabit rates
      5) My brother happens to be a Google VP. Not google fiber related, however before becoming a google employee, his early carreer included being a director of engineering at @home, perhaps the first big name cable modem broadband provider. He then reported to Milo Medin, who is in fact now the google VP in charge of google fiber. And in fact this nepotistic relation enabled me to be in a position to debate the issue with highly relevantly educated and knowledgeable people. In fact, Milo invited me to rewrite their terms of service in a way that would allow e.g. a home user to run a quake3 server, but would otherwise "protect the potential cloud profits of google". In other words, to maintain the conditions that exclude home server software from realistically entering the market and competing with gmail, to provide a solution that is more protected by the 4th ammendment, since you would never be handing your papers/data over to a 3rd party commercial service whose terms of service you've probably never bothered to read closely.
      6) Vint Cerf, one of two "fathers of the internet" for developing the "Internet Protocol" (v4 and v6) is also VP at google, and in fact has made statements on their IPv6 education web page that led me to believe google would not be the sort of company to engage in this
      7) you are actually wrong. I know of 2 large cable modem ISPs that have no general server ban. Now, they do have instead pages upon pages of things I might argue against. But I'm sure not going to try arguing with them, if my argumentative abilities cannot succeed in persuading a company like Google, that has actually advocated instead of opposed network neutrality, to change their ways. Note well that there was a slashdot AC leak of a google all hands meeting where the CEO "repeatedly needed" the CFO about the no server hosting clause because Page disagreed with it. The CFO defended it saying that it "had to be there to prevent large datacenter style abuse". Which is a lie.

    4. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking-A, go buy a $9.95/mo hosting plan already and STFU.

    5. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by swillden · · Score: 2

      I know of 2 large cable modem ISPs that have no general server ban

      Which?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    6. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Google Fiber FAQ: Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged.

      Just make sure your servers are non-commercial.

    7. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I would like to know also. A quick google of some large ISP's ToS.

      Comcast: No Servers
      COX: No Servers
      AT&T: No Servers
      Sonic.Net: No Servers
      TWC: No Servers
      Frontier: No Servers
      Charter Comm: No Servers
      Verizon: No Servers
      Google Fiber: Non commercial Servers
      SpeakEasy: Can run servers from residential lines

    8. Re:Yes, let's deal with this NSA thing first by tibman · · Score: 1

      Every ISP says that. If you want commercial options you have to buy a commercial connection : / That being said i've ALWAYS hosted a website at home. It has never been blocked or filtered. But it also only gets like 2 visitors a month. So who cares.

      --
      http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
  11. Advertising has started by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm in Austin, and they've already started the TV commercials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-CoLvPPu4Q

  12. Bothers me so much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...I hear about Google Fiber and I'm all ready to move wherever I have to move to get it, right? ....Kansas.. Missouri.. Utah.. Texas.. WTF? I'm in Omaha right now, but I don't want to stay here either. Get that stuff installed in Seattle or Portland or Denver or somewhere I actually want to live, please. Just one of them, any of them, I don't care. ...well actually I'd prefer Denver. ...but I could deal with any of them I think.

  13. Incomprehensible article by evilviper · · Score: 1

    I'm fairly intelligent... I'm a native English speaker with a strong technical background. And I've been reading /. quite regularly for an obscene numbers of years. But I've never seen a summary so completely incomprehensible as this one.

    I got that it's about Google Fiber running into another city, but that's absolutely all I got. It seems to jump around talking about several completely random factoids about a completely different subject... the fiber rollout in Kansas City, where it started, never really saying anything about the actual supposed subject. And I'm struggling to understand all the different factoids, as they're not in any kind of order or context.

    Am I the only one scratching my head here? Did everyone else understand every word, and something in my brain is just hitting processing faults on this specific writing style?

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  14. Remember by The+Second+Horseman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can't spell "Kansas" without "NSA".

    1. Re:Remember by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you at any point believe that not all other providers are at the NSAs disposal already, its not even very useful for them to tap google since they aren't tier 1, thus all their trafic will likely pass through their other friends like AT&T.

  15. Re:Filtered Traffic by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    And all your traffic is filtered and reported directly to the NSA at lightening speed!

    That's better than darkening speed, at least...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  16. Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2

    Not much of a city.

    1. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's grown in size(population wise) rapidly since the 70's. While I don't live in LS, I do live in KC and I always thought of LS as sprawl from white flight.

      http://www.city-data.com/city/Lee-s-Summit-Missouri.html

    2. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody gives a shit. TFS calling it a city is intended to make the reader think this is more than a minor extension of the existing KC deployment.

    3. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called a city because that's what we wanted to be called.

      I've lived in Lee's Summit since I was 3. I'm 25 now, bought my first house here six months ago.

      It's not a big city, but saying it's "Not much" of one is a bit of an understatement. This town has grown exponentially in my lifetime. It has plenty of undeveloped area to grow exponentially still. Apparently we're ranked one of the best places to live in the country.

      I think it's more an investment on Google's part. They lay down the infrastructure now and watch us continue to grow into it.

    4. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by DaveInAustin · · Score: 1

      It's the birthplace of Pat Metheny. Thank alone makes it deserve Google fiber.

      --
      --- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
    5. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 2

      I think 92,000 is in the range of small city or big town. Though in all likelyhood it is more of a suburb of Kansas City. I think it would be more accurate to state Google has deployed in 2 cities. And that it is still trying to reach all the entire metro area of Kansas.

    6. Re:Lee's summit: Population 92,000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly right, it is a suburb. The largest and arguably most prosperous suburb, which just so happens to have the main HQ for Sprint, is not on the list (Overland Park). The other prosperous suburb literally across the street from Sprint HQ, Leawood, also doesn't have it. One of Google's stated goals for the project when it began was to bring Fiber to people who couldn't otherwise get affordable internet access, and I had been wondering if the prosperity and relative wealth of options (in most places, your choice of TWC or a crappy local cable company or some kind of ATT Uverse/DSL) in OP/Leawood was a sticking point. Lee's Summit and North KCMO are also nicer suburbs, and they are now on the list. Other cities in Johnson County, which is overall considered the nicest in the metro by many, have it. So, as a resident of Overland Park, I'm waiting... It's incredibly frustrating that if I moved to a crap neighborhood 3 miles away I could have it, but since I paid extra to try to live in a nice place I miss out on a wonderful service and pay ATT $120/mo for much slower internet (6/1, not top tier) and similar TV.

      With all that said, just because a city is on the list doesn't mean that every single neighborhood get fiber. So far I have heard good things about Google Fiber, and the KC metro is adding a lot of tech jobs despite Sprint's woes. It wouldn't be expanding to these other cities if it was doing badly - now people are worried about missing out. After all, we are only about an hour from "Google" Kansas (AKA Topeka). Unfortunately, one of the cities in between, Lawrence, has a case of the crazy and voted specifically to not get Google Fiber before it was even offered to them. Never mind that KU is based in Lawrence, and the KU Med Center in the metro area is using Fiber to improve their communications infrastructure... Local politics are weird.

  17. No fiber in silicon valley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is sad - that folks in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc still don't have fiber access.
    Why bother the innovation in silicon valley, if such access is still not available ?

  18. Re:NSA Fiber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either way, it helps things move a lot faster and smoothly through a series of tubes.

    So you could say that Google is doing their part to help people with a badly constipated internet.

  19. City? by captaindynamo · · Score: 1

    That's almost a metropolis in Simcity.

  20. Way to fund it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since the current expectation for capital servicing is 2-5% one could do a large public offering, increase the build-out rate to more cities at a time, and have patient capital fund it. One could install perhaps 30-60 cities a year that way with existing construction worker infrastructure and keep them all busy for a decade.

    JJ

  21. Still waiting... by somooeshidez90 · · Score: 1

    Hoping for Fiber or the balloon wifi to come to my city.