New Google Fiber Cities Announced

New submitter plate_o_shrimp sends word that Google has announced the next group of cities set to receive gigabit fiber infrastructure. They're concentrating on cities around four metro areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, and Raleigh-Durham. "We’ve been working closely with city leaders over the past year on a joint planning process to get their communities ready for Google Fiber—and now the really hard work begins. Our next step is to work with cities to create a detailed map of where we can put our thousands of miles of fiber, using existing infrastructure such as utility poles and underground conduit, and making sure to avoid things like gas and water lines. Then a team of surveyors and engineers will hit the streets to fill in missing details. Once we’re done designing the network (which we expect to wrap up in a few months), we’ll start construction." Google also said they're currently looking into Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and San Jose.

Comments

Do you trust them?

[hackertourist]

Great: Gb internet. Not so great: provided by Google, who now have even more access to your internet activity. My ISP may be a stodgy old fart incumbent telecoms company, but at least it's not got an advertising agency as its main profit center.

Re:Do you trust them?

[Bengie]

Kind of like saying North Korean may be a bad place to live, but at least it's not driven by money, like the USA.

Re:Do you trust them?

[Solandri]

If you're that worried, you can always route your traffic through a VPS for about $5/mo extra. Google peeking in on your data packets is so easily circumvented it's barely worth mentioning.

OTOH, with Verizon announcing it's ending FiOS rollouts, they need a good swift competitive kick in the rear to get them to provide what the market wants, rather than milking their existing infrastructure for as much money as they can. The only reason they're able to do things like stop fiber rollout is because they have a government-granted monopoly in the areas they serve. A competitor - be it Google or anyone else - is exactly what's needed to break up that monopoly and give the people what the want.

Re:Do you trust them?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason they're able to do things like stop fiber rollout is because they have a government-granted monopoly in the areas they serve.

God, how long do we have to listen to uneducated Libertarians parrot this? Verizon's FiOS does not require exclusive franchise. In fact, where I live the franchisee is Time-Warner cable and guess what Internet service I have? FiOS, thank you very much.

What we're seeing is what we'd see a lot less of if ISPs were regulated like telecom companies. It used to be that many communities couldn't get telephone service because the telecoms didn't think the potential profit was worth the expense. The only reason almost every home and business in the United States ended up with telephone service was because they were FORCED to do it through regulation.

So quit with this regulation utopia shit-spewing. What we see today is the direct result of ISPs having almost no regulation whatsoever. Regulate those motherfuckers.

Re: President can use public transportation

[ganjadude]

or we stop treating our president as a king, and start treating him the way he treats us

Re:Politics reminds of the Pentagon

[cusco]

Publicly run stuff doesn't have to be 'shitty', and in fact there are many of us old enough to remember when the city/county power company and other utilities were far and away better and cheaper than the for-profit utilities. The problem is that in order to make people think that government doesn't work and justify privatizing all the public infrastructure the conservatives (mostly Republicans but some Democrats) have spent the last three decades breaking as much of the government as they have been able to.

In three decades of watching privatization efforts all over the world I have yet to see a single one that ended up with better service at a lower price than the previous public system. None. Anywhere. Ever. Can you point at an example of a successful privatization project?

Re:Politics reminds of the Pentagon

[Cyberax]

So they become even shittier _and_ more expensive? Seriously, I can't remember a single case where privatization of a shitty service caused it to become better (at least without prices going up 10x).