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Google Fiber Is Changing Its Strategy as Costs Grow (fortune.com)
Google is taking a strategy timeout on its high-speed-internet business. According to WSJ, the Google Fiber unit is -- including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas -- after its initial rollouts proved time-consuming and expensive than anticipated -- is rethinking how to deliver internet connections in about a dozen metro areas (could be paywalled; alternate source). From a Fortune report: Turns out it is very expensive to run wires -- or in Google's case, fiber optic cables -- to each and every house that wants service. Known as the "last mile" problem, the high costs, in turn, make it difficult for companies to earn a solid rate of return on the installation investment. Google's effort, through its unit called Fiber that launched in 2010, is now seeking alternative means to connect to consumers homes or finding other people to pay the cost. Google has sought deals with municipalities and power companies to pay for the connections and is also exploring less expensive wireless technology. Meanwhile, Google has suspended efforts to add new cities such as San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore., using its prior strategy of stringing up cables to each customerâ(TM)s home.
No planning of any kind of coordinated/mandated ditch/tunnel to each home.
Sorry but that kind of micromanagement would be a cure worse than the disease and places incredible restrictions on property design.
It's not that expensive to dig in your own house. It's expensive to outsource the problem to over paid contractors. When we broke our telephone line in the house the local telecom company wanted $12000 to run a new line (we live in an easement so our house to the street was 80m). We made a concession, if I dig a trench to the mandated 600mm depth and lay a piece of conduit for them then the repaired phone line only cost $200.
It took 2min to do a services lookup to ensure I wouldn't hit anything. The cost of hiring a trench digger was $140 for half a day. It took 2 hours to learn how to use it and dig the trench. Another 1.5hours or so for cleaning of the machine and pickup / return to the local hire shop. The conduit cost $60 for the extra heavy duty stuff.
How the heck a $200 expense + 4 hours labour turns into $11800 to this day I will never figure out, but man I need to get into the contracting business.
In June, Google announced that it would acquire Webpass, an urban ISP that delivers ethernet drops rather than requiring cable or DSL modems. WebPass has fiber connections throughout its various cities ("San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston") and connects the last mile with a wireless connection to the customer's rooftop using point-to-point radios.
This is mentioned in TFA as well:
Webpass already offers 100+mbps (up and down!) for $46/mo ($550/y or $60/mo) at the residential level, and I'm under the impression the speed is actually bottlenecked by the ethernet switching and cabling within each participating building rather than the wireless signal; they support up to 1Gbps using this model.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Here in Nashville, the rollout has been hampered by Comcast and AT&T dragging their feet to keep Google Fiber off of utility poles. Dig a few feet anywhere in Nashville, and you'll soon hit limestone, so Google has to use NES (Nashville Electric Service) poles to run their cabling through residential neighborhoods.
The problem is that AT&T and Comcast are already on those poles, so Google has to tell NES which poles they need to use, NES sends a request to Comcast and AT&T to move their cables a few inches to accommodate the Google cable, and Comcast / AT&T send out workers to move their equipment. You can probably guess how slowly Comcast and AT&T act on those work requests. So far Google Fiber has only reached a few buildings downtown, and a couple of public housing projects.
So now Google Fiber is pushing for a "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance, which will allow them to move Comcast and AT&T's cables out of the way themselves, using a contractor approved by NES (the same contractor used by Comcast in many cases), in order to expedite the installation process.
There's going to be a public hearing on the ordinance in the Metro Council tonight. The rumor is that if the ordinance passes, Comcast and AT&T may sue the city next. On the other hand, the ordinance has a huge amount of public support. It should be interesting to see how it plays out with the members of the city council.