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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.
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)
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.
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.