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Why Google Fiber Is High-Speed Internet's Most Successful Failure
Blair Levin and Larry Downes report via Harvard Business Review: In 2010, Google rocked the $60 billion broadband industry by announcing plans to deploy fiber-based home internet service, offering connections up to a gigabit per second -- 100 times faster than average speeds at the time. Google Fiber, as the effort was named, entered the access market intending to prove the business case for ultra-high-speed internet. After deploying to six metro areas in six years, however, company management announced in late 2016 that it was "pausing" future deployments. In the Big Bang Disruption model, where innovations take off suddenly when markets are ready for them, Google Fiber could be seen as a failed early market experiment in gigabit internet access. But what if the company's goal was never to unleash the disrupter itself so much as to encourage incumbent broadband providers to do so, helping Google's expansion in adjacent markets such as video and emerging markets including smart homes?
Seen through that lens, Google Fiber succeeded wildly. It stimulated the incumbents to accelerate their own infrastructure investments by several years. New applications and new industries emerged, including virtual reality and the Internet of Things, proving the viability of an "if you build it, they will come" strategy for gigabit services. And in the process, local governments were mobilized to rethink restrictive and inefficient approaches to overseeing network installations. The story of Google Fiber provides valuable lessons for future network transformations, notably the on-going global race to deploy next-generation 5G mobile networks. It seems, then, a good time to review the story of how the effort came into being, what it achieved, and what it teaches investors, consumers, and community leaders eager to ensure continued private spending on internet infrastructure.
Seen through that lens, Google Fiber succeeded wildly. It stimulated the incumbents to accelerate their own infrastructure investments by several years. New applications and new industries emerged, including virtual reality and the Internet of Things, proving the viability of an "if you build it, they will come" strategy for gigabit services. And in the process, local governments were mobilized to rethink restrictive and inefficient approaches to overseeing network installations. The story of Google Fiber provides valuable lessons for future network transformations, notably the on-going global race to deploy next-generation 5G mobile networks. It seems, then, a good time to review the story of how the effort came into being, what it achieved, and what it teaches investors, consumers, and community leaders eager to ensure continued private spending on internet infrastructure.
Without Google Fiber virtual reality and the Internet of things would clearly never have happened!
We would all still be stuck with no or little choice in ISP if Google hadn't mobilized local governments into rethinking restrictive and inefficient approaches to overseeing network installations!
I don't understand how any one could call it a failure.
Google Fiber is only present in the US yet Europe has far better broadband coverage.
Also IoT does not need broadband.
Fewer stories about google = more stories about things that matter, innovate.
With only internet. No phone. No TV. No thanks.
Seen through that lens, Google Fiber succeeded wildly. It stimulated the incumbents to accelerate their own infrastructure investments by several years.
No, it didn't. If infrastructure investments had accelerated, I would be able to get AT&T U-verse. But I'm still stuck with AT&T DSL with max down speed of 6Mbps.
People forgot that the main reason Google Fiber failed was because immediate legislation passed basically everywhere, as local fiber networks not owned by communications companies became illegal. The reason it is a $60 billion dollar industry is because they will do anything not to chew into their profit margins. There's a reason that 3 of the top 5 companies that top lobbying expenditures are in that business.
Just goes to show what a bunch of dedicated monopolies can do to halt progress and innovation in its tracks, also helps being a fat immovable b'stard.
I'm literally across the street from the boundary for Google fiber availability, which would be extremely annoying but for the fact that Centurylink has stepped up with fiber to the home for the area.
Google never had deployment plans in my area (~35mi outside of Seattle). But ya'know what? As much as I hate em, I'm currently sitting on symetrical gigabit fiber, 100% unmetered, all ports unfiltered, with an entire block of IP addresses from CenturyLink. Prior to this rollout, they only offered 3mbps DLS in my area. We had city provided cable internet before that, but the city cannot get their heads out of their asses. They're STILL debating on upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1 many years later, and their AS only has 1 upstream connection (that has gone offline countless times).
Also, it isn't JUST about total bandwidth, but also about latency. I'm currently sitting at ~2-3ms round trip times to major providers in Seattle such as Google and the new 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. Previously with cable, if I were lucky I'd get ~16-20ms latency when the routing tables were not fucked up, and over 80ms latency when they decided that Seattle was far away and should route through San Jose instead (sometime it would fuck up worse and route through New York, and on one occasion it even routed through London)
Google Fiber, Project Fi - I've always looked at things like these as basically Google telling the telcos that, if they really had to, they could compete directly against them.
A problem for Google (exacerbated with the end of net neutrality) is that the telcos etc. who have the "last mile" to the actual people that Google depends on to survive, could choke off Google's air (this is the same reason why Google decided they needed their own mobile OS and bought Android and causing a break with their previously-happy relationship with Apple).
It's a matter of survival for Google that, if they had to, if all the telcos suddenly imposed fees on Google/advertisers since, hey, "you're making money off OUR customers", they could pour some of the money they have into making Google Fiber, Fi a full-blown competitor, as opposed to a "project".
It's a signal to the telcos "I could kill you if you make me need to, so let's just carry on with the status quo shall we?". Their very existence and the visible ability to scale up if they have to, is all Google really wants - all other benefits (improving internet access overall etc.) are bonuses.
Other ideas might be because my little son ate his soup/watched too much Netflix since 2010 fast internet succeeded.
It is astonishing to see such dross published by Harvard.
that Google Fiber WAS just simply introduced to goose the market. And I also don't think that they expected the response to be so g-dammed slow.
Remember this Slashdot story from a week ago? Poking ISPs with a stick (e.g. with the One Touch Make Ready push) caused them to fight back, now they're trying to get laws passed that would regulate Google's data in transit (along with other edge providers'.) Maybe don't call it a victory for Google just yet.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
and I've posted this on Slashdot before, but I'll post it again.
This article is spot on.
Before Google Fiber came to town, getting and using broadband in this area was painful. It was the "telephone company utility" model. Everything had to be done by phone, with tons of time on hold. Installation was workmen with a clipboard, scheduled weeks out. You'd get 5mbps for $$ or 10mbps for $$$ or 50mbps for $$$$, no higher tier than 50mbps without paying for "business service" at the level of $500-$1k monthly. And those were your choices from every carrier. You never reached more than 25-40% of advertised speed up or down. Service was terrible and unreliable and if there was an outage you could be offline for weeks waiting for a service appointment. Account changes or cancellations were a by-telephone nightmare that were virtually destined to go wrong each time. And technical questions about configuration, blocked ports, etc.? Good luck. It was all a black box to the customer service lines. Far easier to figure such things out empirically yourself.
Then, Google Fiber came to down. Installations scheduled online. Accounts administered online, everything from payment to plan selection and changes. Transparency in equipment and documentation. And either 5mbps for FREE, 100mbps for $ or 1gb for $$, what had previously been the 5 or 10mbps cost with other carriers. Installations done in just days, rather than weeks out, by friendly people in branded vans. You get 100% of advertised speed, 24 hours a day, sustained. Outages are virtually unheard of, but if a tree does come down and knock out a line, it's fixed in a couple hours, not weeks. A walk-in Google Fiber store where you can actually talk tech details and they understand everything you're saying. It was like we jumped from 1995 to the present in a single month.
And within weeks, every other carrier had boosted their minimum residential offering to 50mbps and were suddenly offering and deploying gigabit residential fast as they possibly could, at (interestingly enough) exactly the same price as Google. Service improved drastically and they suddenly started to talk tech in their ads.
It does basically feel like Google was tired of seeing their growth limited by a bunch of small timers trying to pick the pockets of the public, so they came in and said "OYA? We're Google. FU." and got everyone gigabit. And for the other carriers it became a case of "either play fair or get fucked." So they played fair and then Google was happy to back off. If they hadn't, I wonder if Google would have continued and just put them all out of business. My impression is that Google doesn't necessarily want to be in the broadband business, but that they want to make damn sure the public has access to legitimate contemporary "broadband" pipes.
I understand that Google has an interest in this, but I don't mind at all. I'm happy to let Google profit if I get rock-solid up/down gigabit fiber with online administration for what was previously the cost of flaky 10 megabit down/768k up copper administered by an idiot bureaucracy behind a 2 hour telephone wait.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I just wish people would stop seeing Google as their white knight. The enemy of your enemy is not automatically your friend. Google wants you to move your data online, where Google can analyze and monetize it.
As much as I want to champion Google's efforts here, I feel like TFA is just trying to find a way to spin a failure as a success. Which is understandable, as that's a very human thing to do.
None the less, Google Fiber was absolutely a failure. Google threw down a ton of money on infrastructure they either never completed (Portland), or they completed systems and will probably never make back their initial investment (Kansas City). With Google's massive bank account it wasn't quite a boondoggle, but it none the less cost the company a lot of money.
And the reason it failed is because the company in turn failed to take into account where the wireless market would be 5 years down the line after they started. Starting in 2012 the big 4 wireless carriers hit the ground running on LTE, and hard. The end result is that while LTE offers a fraction of the performance of a good coaxial cable or fiber system, it covers something like 98% of the US population. It's everywhere, and in most places it's even kind of, sort of okay. And with everyone owning a cell phone anyhow, we're now seeing some cord cutters cut the hardline entirely and work entirely off of wireless. All of which has obliterated the critical mass of consumers required to fund a major new infrastructure build-out.
I admire Google's intentions, and I really wish I had some fiber myself. But they started building a fiber network right when consumers started switching to wireless. So it was just a good old fashioned failure: they built something that not enough people wanted.
and started eating it! I guess that explains this...
The same can be said about Europe where we had fiber much faster and cheaper and all the other things as well. It has nothing to do with Google.
New applications and new industries emerged, including virtual reality and the Internet of Things, proving the viability of an "if you build it, they will come" strategy for gigabit services.
What in the world did gigabit internet have to do with IoT or VR? The only thing gigabit did for IoT was allow massive DDoS of never before seen sizes when someone connected their unpatched refrigerator or lightbulb.
Important quotes from the parent comment:
"Before Google Fiber came to town, getting and using broadband in this area was painful."
"Everything had to be done by phone, with tons of time on hold."
"Installation was workmen with a clipboard, scheduled weeks out."
"You never reached more than 25-40% of advertised speed up or down."
"Service was terrible and unreliable and if there was an outage you could be offline for weeks waiting for a service appointment."
"Account changes or cancellations were a by-telephone nightmare that were virtually destined to go wrong each time."
That was the "Don't be evil" Google. Now Google is poorly managed, in my opinion. Now I see lots of complaints about Google on Slashdot.
Also, as others have mentioned, in Europe there is much better service than in the United States. That's because, in the United States, the government does whatever it is paid by rich people to do, many people say. Local government prevented improvements by making destructive laws. One reason is that often incompetent people are elected.
...to live in one of the areas Verizon chose to string fiber, hoping to compete with Comcast (and replace their POTS wiring in the process).
At first, we didn't want to connect to their fiber. We were getting 120 Mbps down and 15 Mbps upstream from Comcast, and we had ended our home phone service with Verizon when we took Comcast's bundle.
Then, we started having reliability problems with Comcast, just as my increasing workload from home was hampered by their slow upload speeds.
So, I went with 150 Mbps Fios, and I had the installer run the fiber right through the wall into our home so I could power everything with a large UPS. It solved our reliability and bandwidth issues handily. A few years later, we went with "gigabit" -- actually, about 850-900 Mbps in both directions. It's been very reliable, and we have more bandwidth for our home than many of the 200- to 300-bed nursing homes I support from my home office.
If Google had anything to do with the 900 Mbps pipeline running right into my office, then I thank them.
I think the failure was that Google thought everyone needed and wanted the most speed possible and would pay a high monthly fee to get it. Google probably should have focused more on business solutions then consumer ones. I don't even buy into the fasted broadband from my cable company. They may tell me I need it, but in fact I really don't. Businesses with many systems accessing the internet at the same time and using cloud systems could benefit from this sort of bandwidth.
I'm typing on my Google Fiber in Huntsville, Alabama. Rather than let Google Fiber be just another company digging up people's yards and running another privately-owned infrastructure, the local city-owned utility company is building out the fiber plant to the curb (useful to them to allow smart metering and such). Google Fiber then just runs from the curb to the house. The infrastructure is open access; any company that wants to build into the fiber huts is able (and there are other companies getting into the game).
This is the perfect model IMHO; I don't really want my government running the Internet access, but I also don't want 27 different companies digging up my yard to run their fiber/wire down the street. The city-owned utility will deliver fiber past every address in town, so Google Fiber will be available to everyone, not just pockets here and there. And if they don't succeed/stick around, the hardest part of building a competitor (the last mile) will be done, so others can come in and compete with much lower start-up costs.
Unpopular opinion:
Fiber/1gig service is unnecessary for 95% of cases. I work for an ISP and core reason we offer higher-tiered plans is to entice you to buy our middle-tier ones. It's the same logic as having 3 sizes for your fast-food combo meals. Most people do not need the additional bandwidth and do not subscribe to the higher ones. Google Fiber failed not only because it's legit a pain in the ass to get a foot in the residential internet market, but because most people simply do not need it.
My ISP keeps trying to sell me on the next higher speed, but i dont see any reason to upgrade. 15mb is -plenty- fast for netflix & everything else.
Despite what the salesbots tell you you dont need 500 megs to stream video, never did & never will.
Prior to building out any fiber, Google announced what the goal was for the project. Their announced goal was to give the industry a kick in the pants so that more people would have better internet service in order to make use of Google services like YouTube and Google Docs. They never said they planned to make a bunch of money from the project directly. The success of the project should be measured against its goals.
Since Google's stated intent was spur other companies to get off their butts and make improvements, the fact that Google spent money trying to accomplish this doesn't make it a failure. The relevant questions are:
Did internet service improve in the areas that Google either deployed fiber or "threatened" to? (Yes)
Did service improve in other geographic areas as part of an overall change spurred by Google fiber? (Data needed)
Google, aka YouTube aka Google Docs aka Android doesn't care too much whether the fast, reliable service you use for watching YouTube is wired or wireless. They only care about how much time you spend watching YouTube, as opposed to television or something else. If new wireless deployments mean people watch more YouTube, that's a win for Google. In fact, because Android is Google, they'd prefer wireless to wired.
Not that Google cares that much, but physics presents some very major hurdles for wireless to ever get any better than it already is in areas with up-to-date deployments. At usable frequencies, there is only so much bandwidth for everyone in the neighborhood to share. Higher bandwidth requires higher frequencies, higher frequencies don't go through walls.
It's looking very much like "wireless" is becoming more and more basically commercial wifi - the company rolls fiber past your house and the wireless portion is just the last few hundred feet. It's a fiber deployment wearing a mask of wireless.
Re read the article.
I would, but my current subscription package does not include Harvard Business Review.
As for phone:
Once you have Internet, you can sign up for magicJack or another VoIP provider. Or consider $25/mo wireless home phone service from AT&T or Verizon.
As for TV:
In the United States, you don't need a monthly fee to receive free-to-air TV broadcasts from local affiliates of PBS and the four major commercial broadcast networks unless you live in a remote area over 75 miles from the tower. Unlike some other countries, which fund public broadcasting through a separately assessed capitation, the USA has no "TV license": CPB's share of PBS and NPR funding comes from income tax. (The rest comes from contributions to local affiliates from viewers like you. Thank you!)
Google, aka YouTube aka Google Docs aka Android doesn't care too much whether the fast, reliable service you use for watching YouTube is wired or wireless. They only care about how much time you spend watching YouTube
But the 10 GB/mo cap typical of wireless home Internet (source: Verizon LTE Internet (Installed)) won't allow for much YouTube time.
While Google Fiber was not exactly a success in its rollout, it did force the legacy large-scale Internet providers to substantially speed up their download speeds. For example, it forced Comcast to accelerate its rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit Internet service over cable lines, which is already available in many areas Comcast services. At gigabit speeds, true streaming of ATSC 3.0 video (ATSC 3.0 includes a streaming video standard) now becomes practical.
You got a lot of whydonyousettleforthis, as if skpe today will be around next year - may be, but in yet again some other form/support -, and as if infowars is a news outlet, as if I want multiple antenna, let alone switch among them while I try to find a local channel that unlikely has anything I watch, neverumind the weather.
I know im in the NYC metro area (NYC, Connecticut, New Jersey) and would say its about 40% covered, and still depending where you live, you wont get service, as your huge condo apartment complex , all tenants are required to use "a specific cable" Its now cheaper to have a 1000/880 line then it is to have a 50/50 line when i went to upgrade my plan.