Google Fiber Drops Free Basic Service In Its Original City (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader writes: When Google Fiber first rolled out in Kansas City, it offered a free 5Mbps service if you were willing to pay a construction fee. As of recent, Google has quietly dropped that free tier in its first Fiber area, and has replaced it with a 100Mbps option that costs $50 per month. Anyone using the free tier has until May 19th to say they want to keep it. Note: Google will still offer the free service in low-income areas. Google Fiber customers in Austin and Provo still have the choice of the free internet option; Atlanta never had it to start with. Recode suggests this may reflect a broader change in strategy: Google has fiercer competition from incumbent carriers, so it may have to offer a fast-but-affordable selection to get those customers for whom the gigabit option is either too costly or sheer overkill.

Comments

Something something.....

[Anonymous Coward]

'...pray I don't alter it further.'

Can't have everything for free forever.

[Tyr07]

As long as they give you a good service at a reasonable price, it's reasonable.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Noble713]

That's just depressing. I live in Japan and have Gigabit fiber (500 up/500down on Speedtest) for $30/month with no data cap. For $80 I get cellphone service (from a different company): unlimited 4G LTE and unlimited voice minutes for ~$80/month. Great for tethering my tablet or laptop when out of the house (or phones of friends visiting from out of Japan). America is raped by the service providers.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Anonymous Coward]

As surprising as it might seem to some the Norks, Chinese and lost US battalions kill less Japs combined per decade than crazy gun people in the US kill every week.
I would say the fear is slightly unwarranted.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[hvm2hvm]

Obligatory "I live in Romania and I have a 1Gbit (up/down) connection for less than $15 a month.". And it really does work at those speeds. When I installed WoW it downloaded the client at 100MB/s, 19GB went so fast I thought I already had it installed previously.

The thing is 3g/4g connections while cheap still have data caps which sucks.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[mwvdlee]

It isn't free; the people had to pay a construction fee.
If I pay for a beer before I drink it, that doesn't make it free beer.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[blind biker]

I live in Finland and our Internet access speeds and fees are decent.
How's that for a forceful retort? ;) Done in perfect Finnish style.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a large stable of miniskirt-wearing schoolgirls, constipated angry guys, giant mecha, and ninja to handle just those situations.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is more analogous to paying for installation of a beer tap, but then having it dispense unlimited free beer (but at a slower rate than you might like). Google's saying that now you need to fork over $50/mo, but you'll get unlimited beer dispensed at 20x the rate. It's still a way better deal than anything the competitors are offering, especially considering how vital the beer is for getting any work done.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[unitron]

Japan is also much more densely populated than the United States.

I dunno, this election season has me thinking maybe we're the ones who're more dense.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[GrumpySteen]

Oh bullshit. That excuse died when Google started providing Gigabit connections for $70/month which is quite comparable to the rates in Japan.

The defacto broadband monopolies have not only been refusing to upgrade their equipment (despite being given huge amounts of subsidies and tax breaks meant to let them do so), they've been degrading their service by throttling and adding caps in order to coerce their customers into paying for more expensive plans even in the most densely populated areas.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Petron]

Do you have more than 1 or 2 options when it comes to your internet service?

Here in the US, we have normally 1 or 2 options for high-speed internet. One cable company offering cable internet, and one phone company offering DSL. Most in the cities will have both options, but some will only have one (outside of service area). Often these companies work together in agreeing to a data cap and price.

These Cable\Tel-Coms worked out a deal with the local government to be the sole supplier of their services... making them a legal monopoly. The lack of competition is my theory on why the prices and speeds are not up to par with the rest of the world. Back when I worked at a Dial-up ISP, we offered DSL as well but we had to rent the hardware (lines) from the Tel-Com, and our rental price as $5/mo cheaper than the Tel-Com's DSL price (We made $5/mo gross profit on DSL). Dial-up made use more money. The Tel-Com's lines sucked to boot. When it rained, the service would drop... and why fix it? If they leave use, they go straight to the Tel-Com and they make more money.

So I'd be real interested to know what options non US folks have for internet? Do you have 5 companies competing for your service?

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[jma05]

Yes, its the standard argument. But densely populated areas in US like New York still don't seem to have the same Internet value as Japan.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[mrchaotica]

In Atlanta, I get Comcast internet at $20/month for 3Mbps. Downloads are slow, but it's fast enough for Youtube, Netflix and gaming. Although gigabit is tempting, I would have liked to keep paying $20/month (or less!).

I'll still switch to Google the nanosecond it becomes available, obviously, but I wish the "free after installation" tier were still going to be available.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[Wycliffe]

This is more analogous to paying for installation of a beer tap, but then having it dispense unlimited free beer (but at a slower rate than you might like). Google's saying that now you need to fork over $50/mo, but you'll get unlimited beer dispensed at 20x the rate. It's still a way better deal than anything the competitors are offering, especially considering how vital the beer is for getting any work done.

Yes, but if I paid for the installation of a beer tap that promised to give me 3 beers a day indefinitely then I would be pissed if all of a sudden they said I had to pay $50/month for 60 beers for day. I have no desire to drink 60 beers a day. The extra beer is wasted on me. Even if they can no longer offer a free service, they need to respect their original agreement by refunding the construction fee or at the very least offer a similar low bandwidth option for $10/month. At $50/month anyone who was happy with 5M/s is likely going to move to something else. There are plenty of cheaper options under $50/month whether it is DSL or tethering that will net you 5M/s. The people on the 5M plans don't want 100M, if they did then they likely would have signed up for the 1G plan at only $20/month more.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[EvilSS]

This is more analogous to paying for installation of a beer tap, but then having it dispense unlimited free beer (but at a slower rate than you might like). Google's saying that now you need to fork over $50/mo, but you'll get unlimited beer dispensed at 20x the rate. It's still a way better deal than anything the competitors are offering, especially considering how vital the beer is for getting any work done.

Yes, but if I paid for the installation of a beer tap that promised to give me 3 beers a day indefinitely then I would be pissed if all of a sudden they said I had to pay $50/month for 60 beers for day. I have no desire to drink 60 beers a day. The extra beer is wasted on me. Even if they can no longer offer a free service, they need to respect their original agreement by refunding the construction fee or at the very least offer a similar low bandwidth option for $10/month. At $50/month anyone who was happy with 5M/s is likely going to move to something else. There are plenty of cheaper options under $50/month whether it is DSL or tethering that will net you 5M/s. The people on the 5M plans don't want 100M, if they did then they likely would have signed up for the 1G plan at only $20/month more.

Except that it wasn't indefinitely. The contract was for 7 years, which Google has said that they are going to honor. They are just not going to sign up any new customers for that plan.

Re:Can't have everything for free forever.

[EvilSS]

Then that's fair enough but don't expect many of the ultracheap customers to remain customers if you only offer them the choice between a high price plan and an ultra high price plan. The fact that they are relatively cheap compared to other ultra fast connections is most likely irrelevant to people happy with 5M and will likely be able to find other plans under $50 from a different provider to switch to. Myself, I'm perfectly happy with my 1M connection although I wish I could get faster upload.

True, but there may not be any value in keeping them by offering a lower tier plan. I mean, they are paying $0 right now, so it's not like Google will lose any revenue from them departing for a cheaper ISP. It's possible based on the number of subscribers that are on that tier now that it wouldn't be worth it to offer a lower tier. I'm sure Google has done the math on this already before they decided how to proceed.

Re:Alwys said there was a gaping hole in their pla

[Tyr07]

It's more akin to increasing the cost, say an expensive toll for the highway, and saying you have to pay more because they made it wider and removed the speed limit. Even though you were fine getting to your destination at 100 KM/H and your car only goes 130 KM/H, and they want you to pay the same price as the people who take their ferrari and go 300 KM/H on the highway.

Government defined. Including Greenwich, CT

[raymorris]

Google Fiber offers free service to "affordable housing" developments, which is a government defined term, and "public housing", which means housing which subsidized by the taxpayers. Greenwich Connecticut has both.

Re:Government defined. Including Greenwich, CT

[mrchaotica]

What about single-family homes? My neighborhood has a significant number of old people with paid-off houses who get much less than $30K/year and can barely afford property tax, let alone Internet (or their grandchildren's bail and lawyers, but I digress). But it also has a significant number of $70K/year+ yuppies/hipsters, so the average household income might be more like $50K.