Slashdot Mirror
Google To Provide Free Internet For Public Housing Residents To All Fiber Markets
VentureBeat, an anonymous reader notes, reports that Google has announced it will expand on an earlier move to provide free internet service to poor Austin residents. Now, rather than for 4300 residents of housing provided by the Housing Authority of Austin, the company "has promised to expand that offering to every other current and future Google Fiber market. The move is part of U.S. President Obama's ConnectHome program, launched by the White House and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with the goal of bringing Internet connectivity to more school-aged children and families living in HUD-assisted housing in 27 communities across the country. ... Google promises the program will extend to all its Google Fiber cities."
No problem with some private charity, but won't these poor folk need some computers too?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds
wasnt this kind of connectivity the sort of rate-limited and overpriced stuff the FCC railed against a few months ago? according to TFA there is a $300USD construction fee and 25 dollar monthly fee for this service...meaning Google is offering a nearly comcastic $50 per month for the first year experience of 5 mbps (waiving the construction fee and monthly fee in this case.)
it sets a precedent for things like tiered service, not based on ones ability to pay, but based on your socio-economic status as well. being branded with poverty-net, what would that mean? would it mean the same thing as still maintaining an @aol email address? or worse? And then there are states that google isnt factoring into the equation. the governing legislature of Kansas is working as diligently as they can to convert low income housing assistance programs into a sort of punishment for being poor. I doubt they would go along with providing free fiber, let alone internet, to housing assistance families.
Good people go to bed earlier.
None of you are paying for it.. so I think this is a good thing for the ones that can benefit from this.....
I guess they will use it as a way to reduce their tax payment. But it will truly help people that don't have the budget to pay for internet access.
haven'tng internet access at home is great if you are a college student, having access to ebsco or any other database from home is really helpful. "I live in PR, some of us still don't have access to internet at our homes.
Why limit it to those in public housing? Why not offer it to all low income families?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
it sets a precedent for things like tiered service, not based on ones ability to pay, but based on your socio-economic status as well.
Welcome to the world. I'm paying $62/mo for that level of service, by the way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Good for Google. We need to put as much pressure as possible on the thieving cable companies. I swear to god I want to see Time Warner burned to the ground. ...Cuddles!
No, RTFA. Google Fiber Basic Service, which provides up to 5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds, is normally free. It does, however, require a one-time $300 construction fee (or $25 per month for a year). That’s the part Google is waiving here, though the company notes families will be able to upgrade to gigabit speeds at any time by subscribing ($70 per month).
What sort of TOS does Google bundle the Fiber service with? I know the for-profit telecoms all exclude resale or commercial use... would Google Fiber work as a connection point for a WISP that connects, say, a rural valley with no other options? Spreading out 1GB of service over a bunch of households wirelessly would be a fine way to get them hooked up... and if Goog is willing to serve as their connection point... interesting things could happen.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Google can help some people and that's a good thing.
If being poor genuinely seems great to you (didjaknow you don't pay income taxes either? Lucky Duckies right?), why not simply quit your job and become poor yourself?
Perhaps you don't because you realize, deep down, that being poor sucks?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Poor people who live in the sticks are also screwed. And if you moved to an area where Google is running this program, you can get faster Internet from Google than the "charity cases" you're complaining about - AND you get the ability to not worry about whether you'll have food and shelter next week, or worrying about risks like having to spend a week in prison for not paying a traffic ticket.
What's your point?
Your life is good. Enjoy it. Don't envy those with less than you.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
So is giving away free internet service to the poor a profit maker for Google or is it selfless charity?
It might well be a profit maker for these reasons: Google gets x amount of advertisement revenue for each new internet user in the U.S., because each new broadband user which Google connects brings Google additional advertising revenues. And Moore's law has dropped the cost of providing service to very low. And Google might be able to claim a charitable tax deduction for this giving. And the best pricing strategy for Google is to charge each customer exactly the most which he will pay. Price discrimination is illegal but charitable giving is a loophole; If the poor will not pay for internet service, then giving them internet service for free while charging those with more money, who are willing to pay for their broadband, is a good pricing strategy.
From a cynical perspective, Google is exploiting the poor by using them as ad-click monkeys.
From an optimistic perspective, free enterprise makes voluntary acts of charity measurably profitable to the giver, in addition to the intangible profit of good-will earned by giving.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Being poor does suck, no doubt. That's why I'm not poor. I saw that there were things I wanted for myself and my family that come with having more money, so I set out to be able to perform sufficiently useful services for other people that would compensate me well enough to have them. Now, I'm not rich by a long shot, but I have the things I need, and a nice life for my family.
I really have no objection with raising the standard of living for everyone, but I'm not sure perpetuating the notion that getting free stuff for being poor is the right way about it. I'd rather see a structured path to prosperity than hand outs for doing nothing at all.
Looks like some of the Public Housing residents already have their Free Broadband, frequent Slashdot, and Mod down people they disagree with.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I get the intent, but I'm going to submit that what people living in HUD housing need is NOT a better porn/tv/streaming bandwidth to their home. *NOBODY* needs gigabit fiber access to do their homework online.
Or you could read TFA and see that it's a 5Mbps down/1Mbps up connection.
The problem ? People who pay taxes can't stand for companies to give away free stuff when someone else has to pay for the same thing that they can't get for free....
So what we are going to see in the next year or so is a dramatic increase in call center jobs in Austin and other Google fiber markets. Companies who specialize in collections, over the phone "tech support", sales etc. are going to be creaming their pants over the fact that they no longer have to pay for office space, heating, cooling or electricity and all they have to do is up-sell the idea of working from home to their happy little drones. No more worries about people coming into the office late, dressing inappropriately, fraternization between employees, liability for injury on the job site, anyone with the flu will no longer get the entire office sick. Gee, I wish I owned a business where Google paid for a chunk of my operating costs while alleviating most personal problems. Why they wouldn't even have to pay much more than say $12 an hour; after all it's not like the employees have to pay for the high-speed internet connection that the company is directly capitalizing on or gas to get to work. Good god, I respect Google;s intentions here, but this is going to hurt just as many people by sticking them with dead-end jobs as it will help.
Possibly. Care to elaborate? I went to a public university, so that was tax subsidized, but I had to do stuff for the privilege (perform well enough to get in, and stay in once I was there), and after I became part of the pool of higher earners who pay taxes to support it.