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Why Google Wants To Sell You a Wi-Fi Router
lpress writes: Last quarter, Google made $16 billion on advertising and $1.7 billion on "other sales." I don't know how "other sales" breaks down, but a chunk of that is hardware devices like the Pixel Chromebook, Chromecast, Next thermostat, Nexus phone and, now, WiFi routers. Does the world need another $200 home router? Why would Google bother? I can think of a couple of strategic reasons — they hope it will become a home-automation hub (competing with the Amazon Echo) and it will enable them to dynamically configure and upgrade your home or small office network for improved performance (hence more ads).
When I bought a Libre router I was doing it more for privacy and because I care about free software. What I didn't realize was I was going to get the benefits of being able to get latest bells and whistles not found in other routers because of the proprietary bits. The router I bought was from ThinkPenguin.com and runs a distribution called Librecmc. That distribution only runs on a small # of routers because there aren't any proprietary bits supported. The result of that though is I get the latest kernel and software stack possible. Every few months there is a new release and one of the recent releases had the very latest kernel. Compared to other routers I own that would *never* happen. Even with other third party firmware I've noticed similar issues. But because of this I've got unbelievably low latency now. I might consider a upgrade if/when they start selling a higher end router, but I wouldn't switch back to a $200 router if I can't run LibreCMC. It's just not worth it.
I don't buy a router unless I can put openwrt on it. Too many router companies have been caught putting deliberate backdoors on their routers. Free software is the only way to prevent this.
That's more likely what they're doing. Seeing how far they can expand the Fi network.
I know a couple of people who were involved in the development of OnHub and, FWIW, they say that the motivation was that there's a need for a Wifi router that performs better and is more secure. Not a strategic bet, just a perceived market opportunity which they thought Google was well-equipped to fill.
With regard to performance, the antenna design of the OnHub is supposed to be dramatically better than anything else on the market, and the device incorporates ideas from the Software Defined Networking stacks Google developed internally for its data centers, to optimize data flow. I wouldn't have thought there was much you could do to make Wifi work better, since the ISP connection is generally the bottleneck, but apparently there is. With respect to security, it adopts a number of ideas from ChromeOS, plus fully-automated updates. Probably the biggest security benefit compared to the competition is that security is actually a primary design goal, which isn't the impression I get from makers of home routers.
We'll see if OnHub actually is enough better than the competition to justify its premium price. Based on what I know of the people working on it I expect that it will. I ordered one.
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I don't think this is what Google had in mind, but I hope this will become part of their plan:
The real problem with Comcast isn't the connections to the home or to Comcast's servers, it's the routers which move traffic to other networks. Not just their peering relationships, but the hardware they overload along the way.
These devices have a network test function. They provide Google with a whole bunch of edge devices in the consumer Internet space which openly say they're going to communicate with Google. I'm hoping that Google will use these to map out ISP network and use the information to A. spoof DNS results to avoid overloaded equipment, B. Tattle on problems to partners to adjust BGP (or whatever ISPs are using now for routing tables), C. Use the information to bludgeon the ISPs (OK, really that just means Comcast) in the press and in Congress to force change to facilitate faster, cheaper connections.
So they can push more ads.
Cache size and buffer size are not the same thing.
For a company that has demonstrated zero respect for your privacy, then using their device, which every single piece of data flows through, wouldn't be such a prudent decision.