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Portland Edges Closer To Google Fiber
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes Portland, Oregon has taken another step toward finalizing a franchise agreement with Google Fiber. In a unanimous vote, the city council has approved the prospective contract. While existing Internet Service Providers fume, Mary Beth Henry, manager of Portland's Office for Community Technology, pointed out that Google is prepared to make a major investment in the city's infrastructure, while the other firms are not. Ms. Henry also indicated that Google was not receiving any special treatment. Google spokesperson, Jenna Wandres, responded to events in an email, saying, "There's still a lot of work to do beyond this one agreement, but we hope to provide an update about whether we can bring Fiber here later this year."
You wouldn't compete, or can't compete, so you lose. Now STFU.
I predict many grassroot campaigns objecting - all of them totally legitimate!
Hope this helps them bring in business. That would make it harder for less equipped municipalities to compete. And force them to improve their connections.
If you want Google fiber in your town, you need to convince your city to lay its own dark fiber as much as possible. Google has thus far went to the cities with the most existing dark fiber already in place.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
1. The "Fiberhoods" are really key here. Google's getting official authorization to deploy only in neighborhoods where it makes economic sense, and not being required to build out through the whole city.
2. It's by no means certain that Google will deploy at all: "This franchise agreement is an important step along the path to Fiber, so it’s great that it’s been approved. There’s still a lot of work to do beyond this one agreement, but we hope to provide an update about whether we can bring Fiber here later this year,” said Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres in an email.
Keep Portland Wired
---------- ovidius naso
Portland is full of malcontents.
Come to the West side (Washington County). We're all techy and techy corps own the politicians.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"The current ISPs in the area of Portland are suing the city for damage in the upwards of 60 million dollar, each. This come hours after the news of the city agreeing unanimously to accept more competition in their city, this is due in part to old deals the telecommunication giants had with the city, which prevented them from accepting said competition."
I'm just waiting to see that kind of news.
Can a city decide to advance at its own pace or is it slowed down by the slowest and weakest points in it's network?
I wouldn't mind seeing competition in this city as long as the old stuff such as buffer bloat and privacy violations are taken care of at the same time. The Peering proposed by Bob Cringely is the right solution. http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/
Have there been any studies on the impact of Google Fiber on property values? There were articles conjecturing in 2012 that property values would go up, but I don't know if there was any follow-up to see if it happened.
It's important to note, Qwest and Verizon (later Frontier) have been offering fiber to the house for years in the Portland metropolitan area. My understanding is that the lack of rapid growth of the network(s) is not a matter of the telcos not wanting to expand, but a matter of the local municipalities making expansion too difficult. Perhaps Google has discovered, not new ways to provide fiber to the home, but new ways to grease the political wheels.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
COME TO SEATTLE PLEASE
Um, I live in downtown Portland, 14 blocks from the river on a main street
Portland is such a perfect test market, the city should charge Google just for the privalidge of using our fair city
that's just IMHO...
the idea that "fiber" is readily and cheaply available in Portland is incorrect...it's is *possible* but almost all residential users have ADSL through the phone line
none of us know how much fiber Google will lay and where...how much they will charge, how much data they will scrape...
overall, it's very good that Google is adding this infrastructure
Thank you Dave Raggett
You certainly can't complain about competition if you are unwilling to invest yourself. IF they were getting a special arrangement then the existing ISPs might have something to complain about, but they don't. Just because you are an existing player doesn't mean you get state sponsored protection...
From what I've read, Tigard, Beaverton, and Hillsboro are all in consideration. Not every neighborhood in every town. My house is not far from Ronler Acres (massive Intel plant) and across the street from an office park, so hopefully I'll be in luck.
I'd love to have another alternative to Comcast.
Now that > 50% of the population lives in cities, the other 49% are learning just how awesome democracy is.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Um, I live in the Portland metropolitan area, and I already have fiber to the house. Have had for years. From a telco. At least two telcos in this area have been offering fiber for some time. And let me tell you, as an alternate to Comcast, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The free market has generally been fiber vs Comcast. The Comcast salescreature stops by my house about once a month trying to get me to change to them. Something to do with how many channels I'd get for a low low introductory price. I point out we haven't had cable TV, haven't for years, all we have is internet and phone, and we're thinking of dumping the land line. And he gets rude. Once he yelled at my wife. I called the office and complained. Of course, nothing came of it.
Let's assume Google for some reason lays fiber right next to what I'm using and offers the same speed at the same price. I'd be inclined to stick with what I have. Google makes their money off data mining and advertising. I'd feel uncomfortable having them as my internet provider.
So, rail against the free market if you must, but as far as I'm concerned,,, yeah, I'm good.
I point out we haven't had cable TV, haven't for years, all we have is internet and phone, and we're thinking of dumping the land line. And he gets rude. Once he yelled at my wife. I called the office and complained. Of course, nothing came of it.
Never waste your time arguing with salespeople. For one, they are not people - commissions turn people into lizzards; you know, see eggs hatching and start chowing down even though it's their hatchlings.
Secondly, you will not change their mind. I had some window company that braged about being on some makeover show and said that "they're doing a house down the street" - complete lie. No one in my neighborhood used them - ever. It was just a cheap sales trick.
Afer saying no and having him ignore me, I decided to fuck with him.
I kept asking questions, and being all wishy washy. And when he mentioned about "tax rebates", I told him that I don't take tax advice from salespeople. he ignored it and kept on with the cheap sales talk.
He was getting more and more excited. He asked when could we schedule for a quote.
I said, just come by whenever and leave it on the door.
Nope, can't do that. Their game plan is to get another saleslizzard out to get a quote and really work on you. I thought about fucking with him too, but a LOT of these contractor assholes CHARGE for quotes; which is complete bullshit. If you have to charge for a quote then you have no business being in business.
Anyway, he cranked up the sales talke and finally I had enough and I just said - mocking his cheap sales lizzard tone and pointing like he did, "I'm not interested!"
i thought he was going to cry.
Comcast - I pretty much yell at them for being lying cheating scum fuckers and if I could, I'd shoot them - like the old guys on "Secondhand Lions" - great movie!
tl;dr: sales people are lying scum. Comcast is evil.
Gopher fiber? I would think they had very little fiber.
there is a link to get your data out of the house. and then there is an ISP at the other end of the link to get your data on and off the internet.
links don't care about physical media. you can use fiber, twisted pair, coax, wifi, top two wires of a fence, whatever. some are better than others in a specific physical area.
some ISPs are crap, and some are not, also. if they can handle the bandwidth, don't treat you like a captive, and have support inside and out 24x7, ISPs can be interchangeable. but usually if you take one company's link, you get their ISP. the days of sharing the back office side of the dslams are pretty much gone to any ISP who wants to drop a T1 or T3 to the connection point.
at this point, fiber is the goal. PON is the usual method. but it's still costly as sin to run it out to you, so it's limited area access where it's cheapest and has the best chance of adoption, like to new developments with McMansions.
Joe Blow in a 60-year-old neighborhood, forget it. sorry. but I can't get PON either, and I work for a provider. story of my life.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
virtually *none* in Portland city proper...most don't have a "TV"
Most have ADSL and no TV cable...they watch over the air or via internet
I'm not talking suburbs...I'm talking inner Portland
*everyone* would get DSL or fiber **if they could afford it**
Thank you Dave Raggett
Correction: "While the other firms had absolutely no intention to until Google came along."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Lake Oswego as well, and the town has already submitted their planned location for their 'fiber huts' to Google. I'd be surprised if Google didn't wire up most of the town, due to its relative wealth and proximity to downtown.
I am fortunate (or unfortunate) to live in one of those small towns in Utah that signed up for UTOPIA municipal fiber. It was a long journey with Comcrap and Centurylink + lobbyists pulling all the gimmicks to prevent its rollout. UTOPIA has had its share of political problems, but those aside. I get to choose my ISP, I chose XMission a SLC based company. And for $35/month I get 100mbps up & down. So right now I'm not complaining.
I currently pay $70 here in Portland Oregon for CenturyLink and get 12MBPS down / 5MBPS upload. I would love to switch to Google Fiber, paying the same and getting 1GBPS....
Meanwhile Canby has gigabit internet. https://www.canbytel.com/inter...