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Google Fiber Reminds People It's a 'Real Business' (dslreports.com)
An anonymous reader writes: While Google Fiber gets a massive amount of media hype (justly based on its disruptive speed and price point), the reality is that despite numerous city "launches" -- not that many people can actually get the service. But while many ISPs and analysts have dismissed Google Fiber as an adorable experiment that will never impact them, many of these folks have been forced to changing their tune as Google Fiber's list of planned launch cities grows larger. In a profile piece over at USAToday, the company once again notes that while Google Fiber may have begun as a PR exercise, it's now dead serious about being a large, nationwide disruptive kick in the ass for incumbent broadband providers. "It is indeed a real business, and it's serving to increase competition as well, and that's something that we don't mind," Google Fiber boss and former Qualcomm exec Dennis Kish tells the paper. "We think it's healthy for the market and for consumers."
It's a subsidiary of a real business, a business with billions of dollars in liquid capital that is currently sitting around doing nothing. They're only going slow because it's a strategy intended to force municipalities to carve out subsidies and dig the trenches for them.
until I can get it...
just sayin'
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
actually now that I think about it, why did this need to be pointed out? Did people think it was going to be temporary or something?
I live in a town of ~10,000. My great grandchildrens generation might see Google Fiber here.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Is having Google be your ISP just asking for absolutely everything to be spied on?
If I get it, I'm thinking of renting a cheap VPS and running all my traffic through that over an encrypted tunnel. How bad would latency be? Other thoughts?
One of my small clients was able to get Small Business Google Fiber installed this last year. After the struggles of getting the physical installation going, things have been very nice. They like it very much, the way they expected it. However...
Recently Google has contacted us to say our "introductory rates" will be ending the middle of 2017. They're moving to a 3-tier model for their fiber speeds. For $250 you can keep your 1 gigabit speed, for $150 (I think), you an go down to 250 megabits, and for $75 (or $100 maybe), you can go down to 100 megabits. If we don't update our choice by the end of July, 2017, they'll kick us down to 250 Mbps automatically.
So, with the price change, that means we'll have to pay, basically, double to maintain our 1 Gbps, otherwise we lose 75% of our speed to pay the same price.
Welcome to the "business."
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Until it is in my town, it doesn't exist.
Doesn't Philly already have a sort-of competition between FIOS and Comcast? Along with the difficulty of doing anything in the city of nepotism love, they may not see that as a priority.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I switch seasonally from a town in the SF bay area that has multiple options in ISP's and a very fast home service of 100mbps to Yuma AZ where I can barely get 15mbps from the only show in town for more money. While it pales in comparison to Gbps service just the addition of another competitor drove down the cost and increased bandwidth in the existing Comcast offerings. BTW I've mentioned before I love Astound/Wave communications, and TWC/Charter to be known as Spectrum communications SUCKS donkey genitalia.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Out here in rural America (I'm near Lake Tahoe), we hear nothing but Big Business Buzz. I've got the best there is in the County Seat: 12 Mb/s, barely enough for my small business...but nothing near what it would take to attract significant business growth, because we're not "visible" enough, and the Republican congress has made sure there's been no money (even though most rural areas are as Red as Hell) for broadband through the Rural Utilities Service, or other federal medium.
Google could create a massive economic boom in rural America...but "shareholder return" is more important to them than trying to help solve economic problems outside big cities. But, even Jack Welch, the original progenitor of "shareholder value" has now called it "the dumbest idea in the world."
(See http://www.forbes.com/sites/st...)
Even the Tennessee Valley Authority spawned the USDA's Rural Electrification Service to bring electricity to rural areas...back when politicians still gave a damn about their constituents' needs.
So, Google, why won't you return my phone calls about serving rural markets? Are citizens in rural areas less VALUABLE to our Country, in your eyes? Where does YOUR food come from?
In my neighborhood, the options were city owned cable internet at 30mbps, Comcast at "50mbps" (we all know how accurate THAT really is), or Centurylink at only 3mbps!
Thanks to the push of Google Fiber elsewhere in the country, the local ISP and Comcast have increased their speeds to about 150mbps, and Centurylink has pushed Gigabit Fiber, which I've been greatly enjoying since the beginning of the year. The only downside is that my monthly bill is roughly double that of Google Fiber in other cities. But considering it is only about $30 more than I was paying for the 30mbps down (and 6mbps up), the symmetrical gigabit connection has been more than worth the extra fee!
As a techie who actually has Google Fiber, it's been amazing. The first couple weeks were really rocky--random internet outages which were unexplainable.
They sent a tech out, who'd never seen anything like it, and he's like "well, I guess I'll replace the network box, because I have no idea what it is." Worked great ever since.
The only major disadvantage is they don't want you running your own router, and have actually hassled me for doing so. They offer just a fiber jack to businesses, but don't offer it for residential customers. Residential customers HAVE to use their "network box" (router). There are actually howtos on the internet of plugging into the fiber jack, if you have a managed switch and set the VLAN tags right.
My speeds:
I get 400 Mbit up/down over wireless (my own router)
I get 900 Mbit up/down wired
Speeds are constant, regardless of time of day, and no weird latency issues at all. I get a reliable 1ms ping to a friend who also has Google Fiber 15mi away, and I get very low pings to the rest of the world. It's hands down the best internet I've ever had. Customer service is friendly, too.
-=Lothsahn=-
All of the Alphabet child companies have to be self supporting. I don't recall if the deadline has past yet or not. Which is why - if you've been paying attention - some things have already been divested, such as Boston Dynamics robotics.
to offer better service and prices. Google mainly want a big, affordable pipe to everyone. If they can get the existing service providers to do that, great, if not, they'll do it themselves. I've noticed that areas where Google announces that they are thinking about entering seems to suddenly get better prices and faster speeds from the people already in the area.