Portland Edges Closer To Google Fiber

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Portland Edges Closer To Google Fiber

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 12, 2014 @06:19AM from the bridge-and-router-city dept.

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."

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Here's yer free market, telco's by Jawnn · 2014-06-12 06:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

You wouldn't compete, or can't compete, so you lose. Now STFU.
1. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by NotDrWho · 2014-06-12 06:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Who needs to compete when you have lobbyists?
  Rest assured, the second they perceive Google as a real threat, there will be a bevy of laws passed to obstruct this sort of deal. Just like they've already passed laws in 30 states banning municipal broadband.
  
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  SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
2. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by roc97007 · 2014-06-12 06:49 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
3. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by Grishnakh · 2014-06-12 06:56 · Score: 2
  
  I live in NJ, and I have Comcast. I also have a fiber to my home, from Verizon, and I don't use it for two reasons: 1) it's more expensive than Comcrap (not by much), and 2) it's slower than Comcrap. Did you miss the recent rash of articles about Netflix and Verizon getting into a row about Verizon being too slow? I don't have that problem with Comcrap lately, after they did their peering agreement with Netflix.
  Fiber from Verizon is most certainly not "the greatest thing since sliced bread". That's utterly insane.
  And he gets rude. Once he yelled at my wife.
  It'd be funny if a Comcast (or Verizon) salesperson did this in Texas or Florida and was shot.
  I called the office and complained. Of course, nothing came of it.
  You should have called the police and filed a report, then gone to court and gotten a restraining order against the company.
4. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by rogoshen1 · 2014-06-12 07:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The line "incumbent Telco's are fuming" means this is probably a very good thing for consumers. That's the litmus test. if something bothers the existing market makers/leaders, it's almost definitely in the consumer's best interest :(
5. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by roc97007 · 2014-06-12 07:28 · Score: 2
  
  I live in NJ, and I have Comcast. I also have a fiber to my home, from Verizon, and I don't use it for two reasons: 1) it's more expensive than Comcrap (not by much), and 2) it's slower than Comcrap. Did you miss the recent rash of articles about Netflix and Verizon getting into a row about Verizon being too slow? I don't have that problem with Comcrap lately, after they did their peering agreement with Netflix.
  Fiber from Verizon is most certainly not "the greatest thing since sliced bread". That's utterly insane.
  And he gets rude. Once he yelled at my wife.
  It'd be funny if a Comcast (or Verizon) salesperson did this in Texas or Florida and was shot.
  I called the office and complained. Of course, nothing came of it.
  You should have called the police and filed a report, then gone to court and gotten a restraining order against the company.
  Well, it's new jersey. I don't have any other explanation. I have 25 Mbps to the house, and with wife using the roku box downstairs and daughter using the netflix appliance upstairs and me torrenting RHEL 7 beta, we're all good. I *can* swamp out the connection with enough torrent activity, but I really have to work at it. But mostly, the fiber has just been dead nuts reliable, unlike Comcast, and the few times I've had to call Frontier over the last several years, they've been pleasant and effective, again, totally unlike Comcast. [1]
  "Speed" from an internet provider is like "mips" used to be for CPU manufacturers. Once you get above 15 Mb or so, most people will see no difference with greater speed. Comcast has been selling "faster than fiber" for years, and has finally given up (apparently) because up in double digits, it doesn't matter anymore. Notice that the bulk of Comcast's advertising is vs DSL these days.
  And finally, regardless of whatever else I said up there, I would pay extra money just to not do business with Comcast. But as it happens, if you go by the *real*, non-introductory cost of a Comcast circuit, my fiber connection is competitive in price.
  [1] I was a charter member of ATT Cable Modem, and did business with Comcast for a couple years after AT&T sold the business to them, and it's not for nothing that they're voted the worst customer service in the business. Pre-fiber, I dropped Comcast and took the performance hit to go to DSL just so I no longer had to deal with them.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
6. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by maomoa · 2014-06-12 10:02 · Score: 2
  
  Rest assured, the second they perceive Google as a real threat, there will be a bevy of laws passed to obstruct this sort of deal. Just like they've already passed laws in 30 states banning municipal broadband.
  Yeah, that's not going to happen in this state, at least with Comcast. We can't even get fluoride in the water, but you could sure as shit bet those laws would be repealed through a voter initiative in the next election cycle.
7. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by Obfuscant · 2014-06-12 11:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Just like they've already passed laws in 30 states banning municipal broadband.
  This isn't municipal broadband. It is a company following the rules for obtaining a franchise.
  It's a demonstration that the "government monopoly" that is allegedly granted by means of a franchise agreement isn't as much of a dejure monopoly as is claimed.
8. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by rtb61 · 2014-06-12 13:49 · Score: 2
  
  Of course that particular government could be a bit smarter and alter the contract so that Google only provides wholesale fibre to retail ISPs and if they want to provide a separate retail ISP service. This helps to ensure competition at least for most areas of service and ensures the fibre becomes and remains essential infrastructure. Whilst it might seem a disadvantage for Google, there are many advantages, less billing services, many marketing services, less resistance from existing small and medium ISPs and, more investors (a lot of those small and medium ISPs will seek to invest in Google Fibre to increase their own market base).
  
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  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
9. Re:Here's yer free market, telco's by Obfuscant · 2014-06-12 14:52 · Score: 2
  
  Of course that particular government could be a bit smarter and alter the contract so that Google only provides wholesale fibre to retail ISPs and if they want to provide a separate retail ISP service.
  I don't understand your incomplete sentence. "if they want to provide" then what? But it doesn't matter. The government cannot unilaterally change the contract, so if they want something Google doesn't, Google can walk.
  
  less resistance from existing small and medium ISPs
  Existing ISPs have very little to say over who else joins the party. The cable/telco people do because they're infrastructure providers who have had to negotiate franchises and expect equal treatment.
  
  and ensures the fibre becomes and remains essential infrastructure.
  Except it isn't. Fiber is one of many different kinds of transport for data. It is not, in and of itself, essential.
Lay dark fiber by NotDrWho · 2014-06-12 06:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
1. Re:Lay dark fiber by rahvin112 · 2014-06-12 07:02 · Score: 2
  
  Salt Lake City (the city, not the metro area) has almost no dark fiber (the only reason I saw almost and not none is I can't be sure there's no link between the jail and the city building) installed and was chosen. Almost every mile of fiber that is government owned in the entire county is owned by UDOT and is used for traffic management and absolutely not leased, sold or used by anyone else with the small exception that they've allowed several of the cities to hook into the network to gain control over the traffic systems within that city.
2. Re:Lay dark fiber by NotDrWho · 2014-06-12 08:07 · Score: 2
  
  No, it has to be available for lease or purchase. FIOS cities and municipal fiber cities like Chattanooga don't count.
  
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  SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
3. Re:Lay dark fiber by Enigma2175 · 2014-06-12 12:41 · Score: 2
  
  Salt Lake CIty has some other things going for it, like being right next to Utopia cities and being close to Google Fiber's existing network in Provo. Google already interconnects with Utopia so it would probably not require as much infrastructure for Google to deploy in Salt Lake as it would in other cities.
  
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  Enigma
Two things to note... by jratcliffe · 2014-06-12 06:28 · Score: 2

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.
1. Re:Two things to note... by rahvin112 · 2014-06-12 10:18 · Score: 2
  
  1. The $300 installation fee, as you noted available to be paid in 1 year of monthly $25 payments doesn't even cover 10% of the cost of the ONT let alone the cost to install. And that $25 fee (and it's only for a year then free afterwards) is cheaper than every other incumbents cheapest plan and they only pay for 12months and Google commits to 5 years of free service, an amortized fee that's less than $5 a month!
  2. They are NOT making prioritization decisions on economic return, they are making them on subscriber numbers. It's a false dichotomy to claim those are the same thing and that's the stupid word games the incumbents are playing. Economics has nothing at all to do with a decision to install. The install decision is based on the uptake number, where included in the uptake calculation is a plan they will lose big money on. It's an outright lie to argue this is economic based either for them or the subscribers.
  Google has made no claims whatsoever that economics play into this at ALL. You are outright lying when you claim they have. The installation is decided solely on number of subscribers in a given area as I've noted already and has nothing at all to do with the actual economics of service because if it did include that requirement, they wouldn't include the $300 option when assessing deployment. The very existence of fiber-hoods where residents only committed to purchasing the free plan puts a lie to any claim otherwise. More than half the fiber-hoods in KC were qualified with more than 50% of the residents only committing to the free plan. AFAIK there wasn't a SINGLE neighborhood that was qualified for build where more than 75% of those that committed selected the pay plan.
  Stop lying.
Oblig by ovidus+naso · 2014-06-12 06:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Keep Portland Wired

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---------- ovidius naso
wait wait wait by roc97007 · 2014-06-12 06:53 · Score: 2

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.

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
portland should charge Google by globaljustin · 2014-06-12 07:29 · Score: 2

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

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Thank you Dave Raggett
1. Re:portland should charge Google by bennomatic · 2014-06-12 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  I'm over in SE Portland, near Reed, and Verizon's fiber offering may be available on the west side, but it's certainly not available here.
  
  Over here, CenturyLink's 20Mbps DSL offering isn't even available; speeds are 1-1.5 Mbps, tops, with their service. Doesn't stop them from sending me monthly invitations to switch to them and get up to 20Mbps. You'd think that they could integrate their mailer database and their service availability database and only send offers to people who (a) can take advantage of those offers and (b) haven't already told them to F off multiple times.
  "Thankfully", there's Comcast. Honestly, Comcast's service is really, really great. It's fast and reliable, and on those rare occasions that I've had to call into their support team, the people on the other side of the call have been awesome. My only complaint about them is that, since they're effectively a monopoly, they are clearly charging WAY more than they could afford to charge and still be very profitable, and certainly well above what the rates would be if there were any real competition. Again, DSL just isn't a competition here.
  I've heard that where Google Fiber exists, Comcast's broadband fees are something like half of what they charge here. I can't wait for Google Fiber to come in. I'd switch in a heartbeat, just out of principal.
  
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  The CB App. What's your 20?
There's the rub by nairnr · 2014-06-12 07:32 · Score: 3

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...
Re:Good for Business! by thaylin · 2014-06-12 07:33 · Score: 2

What obstacles were put in front of them? I see lots of people saying that, but no one ever states what those obstacles were. Some obstacles are good, some are bad, so just from that statement we cannot know anything about your statement.

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When you cant win, ad hominem.
urbanization by Gothmolly · 2014-06-12 07:52 · Score: 2

Now that > 50% of the population lives in cities, the other 49% are learning just how awesome democracy is.

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I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1. Re:urbanization by thaylin · 2014-06-12 11:21 · Score: 2
  
  Good thing we dont live in that type of democracy...
  
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  When you cant win, ad hominem.
Re:Arguing with salespeople. by roc97007 · 2014-06-12 08:11 · Score: 2

> tl;dr: sales people are lying scum. Comcast is evil.
Important distinction.

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Re:Good for Business! by Earthquake+Retrofit · 2014-06-12 08:15 · Score: 2

See: exactly zero Fortune-500 companies headquartered in the City
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Steve

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Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
Re:Property Values? by swb · 2014-06-12 08:27 · Score: 4, Funny

That reminds me of my house hunting back in 1998 when I'd have my wife distract the real estate agent while I made a surreptitious call to our apartment so I could capture the house's phone number on caller id and check online to see if they had DSL available there.
two parts to the access by swschrad · 2014-06-12 09:59 · Score: 2

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.

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
UTOPIA Fiber by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-12 10:59 · Score: 2, Informative

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.
Re:Good for Business! by thaylin · 2014-06-12 11:07 · Score: 2

The article only says they were outbid and then wanted to buy what was planed to be a site for a light rail. That does not seem like the city throwing up obstacles, it seems like a company wanting preferential treatment.

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When you cant win, ad hominem.
Re:Good for Business! by whistlingtony · 2014-06-12 13:23 · Score: 2

I'm in Portland, and my small business is growing. There has been no red tape that I've noticed. There has been a few small fees for registering, some basic common sense rules... What in specific are you complaining about? I realize that my small business is mostly under the radar, and perhaps you're talking about a mid sized or large business.... But this is the city where everyone's uncle starts a food cart. It's not hard to start a business here.
Please provide specifics.