This is a good thing even for those outside of San Antonio proper. I was able to upgrade to 1 Gbps on a small-time ISP this weekend, and it's because Google is coming to the large city near me. Competition is a wonderful thing.
Can someone explain what it takes for Google Fiber to come to a city ?<p>Do they buy an existing fiber company in the city ?
Do they buy dark fiber ?
Do they lay new fiber ?<p>I'm trying to understand how the process works.<p>Side note : Is anyone laying new fiber anymore ? I was reading this ( <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/verizon-nears-the-end-of-fios-builds/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/verizon-nears-the-en...</a> )
Still waiting for it to "come" to Austin.<p>But on the plus side, TWC, ATT, and Grande (my favorite) all upgraded their networks in Austin in the year+ after Google's announcement. Even though coverage still isn't complete, we have all of them fighting it out.
I'm curious if you look at the list of Google Fiber cities and their population density (<a href="http://i.imgur.com/8mpVm73.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/8mpVm73.jpg</a>) you'll see a trend, and maybe predict the next set of potential cities. I mean it makes sense that they wouldn't roll out in NYC/LA/Chicago immediately, however, there is most likely some ratio of density to total population that they may be aiming for. I dunno, just a thought.
Google Fiber is mostly vaporware. Google has been announcing "coming to" for various cities for five years now. Actual installation is about half of Provo, Utah, one side of Kansas City, and part of Austin, TX. That's all.<p>It seems to be more of a PR stunt than an actual business.
It's worth noting that San Antonio has had a fiber network in the ground for years that it's municipally owned utility company put in.<p>The only reason it isn't open is because the state government passed a law forbidding municipal ISPs.
Just curious, what are people doing with the connections (if they are really using the gigabit connection)?<p>Its not to discount the value of gigabit internet, but I curretly have 100/100 megabit and cant imagine what I would use faster speed to do. Most stuff dont max out my current connection event with multiple users.
Lemme just say as someone who lives in the Bay Area, often referred to as one of the Tech Capitals of the US. We have crappy internet providers here.<p>and by crappy i mean Comcast / AT&T.<p>Oh the irony of living here and getting screwed over on ISPs.
Here's also their blog post about the announcement. <a href="http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/san-antonio-fiber.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/san-antonio-fibe...</a>
Funny even though it seems a steady growing project, it's now a lot more frustrating since it appear potentially mainstream rather than a one shot experiment.
Great news! Now San Antonians can have <i>everything</i> they do online data-mined by Google!<p>I'm being snarky, but does anyone doubt Google will snoop the shit out of you once you're on a connection of theirs? That's the main reason they got into the ISP business.<p>It's not like they started snooping only recently either. Remember when their Street View cars just <i>"accidentally"</i> happened to capture nearby WiFi traffic?