This move might be good for Google, but I find it somewhat alarming as a consumer. Those who control or curate content (Google, NBC/Comcast, Facebook) should not control infrastructure. This was less of a concern when Google was acting as a <i>conduit</i> of information, but as Google moves to treat personal (if aggregate) data as property and profits from user-generated data like YouTube or Google+, the lines become significantly blurred.<p>There may be nothing wrong intrinsically with controlling content and infrastructure, but it seems to be bad for consumers generally, as exhibited by Comcast[0]. And while a high-speed competitor to local cable monopolies is exciting, I worry about trading one dictator for another just because there's some competition in the transition period from the old guard to the new.<p>Is there some safeguard in place Kansas City and other fiber recipients have arranged to prevent Google from having the power to exert cable-esque control? Not rhetorical, genuinely curious.<p>EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I'm not anti-Google, I don't think they're evil, or abuse consumer data, or are actively trying to become the next Comcast. I am, however, expressing concern over the position of power they will find themselves in if Fiber takes off. So far I've seen a lot of comments suggesting Google is not evil, to which I agree, but I haven't seen any indicating that there are adequate checks in place to (relatively easily) prevent the abuse of power.<p>[0]<a href="http://scrawford.net/blog/comcastnbcu-will-raise-costs-for-consumers/1414/" rel="nofollow">http://scrawford.net/blog/comcastnbcu-will-raise-costs-for-c...</a>
We have google fiber at home - Stanford faculty homes have had it the past year, like Kansas City.<p>It's pretty cool. My record so far is to consume 400Mbps, using 4 computers downloading from about 10 places, all wired through gigabit switches.<p>In practice, though, it doesn't make much difference compared to a 30Mbps cable modem for most consumers:<p>most streaming video is < 10 Mbps;<p>large file downloads are generally limited by a server (or somewhere else in the network?), so it's hard to exceed 30-40Mbps download speed;<p>web browsing feels about the same, because it's limited by round trips of DNS and http requests, not by bandwidth (spdy will help here?);<p>many consumer-grade NAT boxes (linksys and friends) are capable of only 100-200 Mbps<p>The one place it's made a big difference so far is uploads. For example, backup to a cloud backup service (backblaze) often goes 50Mbps or higher. But I did have to try several backup services because some were limited on the server side to a few Mbps.<p>Running services from home could be a use case too, but then you get into reliability of power/etc, and the fact that so far you can't get a static IP address through google fiber.<p>So for now google fiber is mostly a fast cable modem from a "don't be evil" provider. I think the real disruption will come with new services that don't really exist yet. What kind of new things can be built if there's enough audience?
There is not much difference in perception to a normal customer between 50Mbit and 1Gb - the former manages two 1080p YouTube streams perfectly well with quite some headroom for extra misc traffic. Torrenters will always crave more bandwidth, but even there its going to be tough to fill 1Gb downstream.<p>But all of that is missing the point. The internet is not just a better TV with cats - it has true full duplex communication!<p>It's hard to believe because the monopolies in control of the last mile will generally offer you tons of downstream with little to no upstream. In some cases, the upstream is merely enough to send TCP ACKs for when you use all of your downstream. Its a natural move for these big old companies because upstream traffic from customers is more expensive for them and they are still stuck in the mindset of the "media consumption machine".<p>Google, of course, realizes that 1Mb of upstream is bad news for Google Hangouts and terrible for uploading 1080p video to YouTube. And all kind of distributed systems benefit tremendously from matching upload and download bandwidth.
Going to the 404 page reveals a menu which hints (well, it says that there's going to be some plural number of cities, not too much else) at what is being announced tomorrow: <a href="http://fiber.google.com/savethedate/404" rel="nofollow">http://fiber.google.com/savethedate/404</a><p>The main menu has links to "About", "How to get it", "Plans & Pricing", "Cities", "Help" and a button "Pre-Register"<p>Also, since that page doesn't seem to indicate the time, the Google fiber blog (<a href="http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/</a>) says it's at 11AM CDT. Also an impressive stat is that they've apparently laid down over a hundred miles of fiber.
...until Google algos shut down your account; now you loose gmail, docs, drive, etc., etc., etc., and fiber.<p>OK, I am kidding to some extent. Maybe not. I'd sure like to see them move in a direction that assures users that all services will not be cutoff without recourse for unknown algo violations.
Background for those who aren't following this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber</a>
I am absolutely ecstatic that Google is attempting to build the next generation wired network.<p>Why does this matter? Well owning the pipe is always a good move especially in the face of net neutrality. But there are all sorts of other tie ins. For one, payments.<p>Our current payment infrastructure is based around private leased lines. If you really wanted to take on the payments industry you have to start with the infrastructure. Otherwise you are always at the mercy of a credit card processor just shutting you off. When you own the network where the transactions actually flow it is a different story.
Unlikely to be any news about service beyond their long-planned Kansas City project. The skyline in the teaser is a dead ringer for the Kansas City skyline (for example, <a href="http://4photos.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/Kansas_City_Skyline-855x300.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://4photos.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/Kansas_City_Skyli...</a>)
Honestly, the more network is out there, the better.<p>There is probably an upper limit on the number of networks any given city can support, so it's going to be natural for some combination of content sources to be partnered with fiber distribution networks to revenue share.<p>It's enormously costly to deliver "wireline" fiber to the home service. Most of this is labor cost, but you also can't discount the impact of property taxes and upkeep on infrastructure that is supposed to weather the elements and wildlife (including human) for upwards of 30 years.<p>Fiber is a great solution but wireless is still the most economical way to deliver access for the "last-mile". If we ever find a way to provide low-cost, high bandwidth wireless service within a one mile radius that doesn't make the NIMBY types have an aneurism, then fiber-to-the-home will seem as quaint as an individual copper pair to every residence.<p>disclaimer: In 1997-1998 I worked at a municipally owned city utility that was able to deliver 10mbps symmetric Internet access to a development of homes in FL. Bellsouth subsequently had laws passed to prohibit political subdivisions from engaging in the provisioning of telecommunication services.
Honest question: what sort of support can you expect when something goes wrong? Fiber attracts backhoes (buried routes) and bored hunters with shotguns (aerial ones). It's a fact of life. Who's going to do customer service, Google, or some other agency? What's their track record like?<p>(As the old gag goes, this is why you should carry a short piece with you, in case you are stranded on a desert island. Bury it and when the backhoe shows up, get a ride back to land with the driver).
So I'm all for getting better broadband in this country, and good on Google for trying to make it happen. But allow me to place devil's advocate for a minute. This is like AOL 2.0 right? Isn't it a really bad idea to have one of the largest sites on the internet also be your ISP?
As a Kansas City resident, this is going to be inexplicably interesting. We have a pretty decent tech scene here. I'm just wondering how this will impact it, if it will at all.
What does Google hopes to accomplish with making fiber available?<p>They want to enable entirely new applications.<p>For example, online video was an application enabled by the widespread availability of broadband Internet. Before broadband, <i>downloading</i> videos was possible, but <i>streaming</i> was not. Simply put, the (average) rate at which you download frames of video has to be greater than the rate at which frames are displayed for streaming to work.<p>The most interesting changes were not quantitative, but qualitative.<p>Google -- and most HN readers -- probably believe that higher broadband speeds are an inevitability, although the process has been going much slower in the US than most of us would like. And new ways of using the Internet will be enabled as speeds get faster. And, if it offers fiber, Google will be at the forefront of that wave, which will help Google by:<p>(1) Accelerating the change, pushing those new markets to be created sooner than they would have been created without Google Fiber
(2) Putting it in a good position to capture the new markets -- i.e. if Application X is eating a lot of bandwidth on Google Fiber, that might be an early signal that the Application X space is a growth market and Google should find a way to get involved.
In Turkey at the moment.<p>Just got a fibre plan 20mbps for $30 US per month, no contract, they also give the router and modem. Although had to pay $70 or so upfront for the no contract option.<p>They also have a 1000mbps plan. First world countries really dragging there feet on fibre networks.
1gbps is not as impressive 2 years later... 100mbps broadband is already becoming affordable here in Brazil, it's a given that 1gbps will be available in large scale in 2-3 years.
Man, was I pissed when Austin lost out to Kansas City for the Google Fiber for Communities pilot project. The lack of FIOS in a city like Austin is painful. Austin is "AT&T territory" and AT&T's UVerse service isn't even worth talking about.<p>I sure hope this announcement is, "Fiber is coming, and Austin's in the first wave!"
The announcement is now streaming live at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c&feature=player_embedded" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c&feature=play...</a>
! Gbps upload and download speed. Wonderful. Unless you can give me an static IP address and let me serve whatever I want from that IP than I'm not failling out of my chair over this.
I work for a GIS Services company and I know one of the major issues from
us not going full cloud is that we deal with really large data-sets. If we had access to a large fiber
pipe we could easily dump all our servers. I would imagine any engineering, graphics or video production office runs across the same problem. I see this as completing the cloud story and alleviating business of having to run there own data centers.
As google gets larger and larger the slower and less nimble it becomes.<p>But given the other competitors in this market, I'm glad google is making their move, US is falling behind other countries when it comes to broadband access and this will only open up so many new business opportunities in US.
However, as others said I'll be curious about neutrality of Google when it comes to content. Will they block vimeo in favor of youtube?
If Google doesn't do it who will? Who else has the vision? As long as they keep not doing evil everything is cool. If they do start doing evil we are screwed but we will have high bandwidth to get on the Internet and read about how messed up we are.
What happens when a large company that Google deems a competitor tries to buy bulk use of the fiber? I could see Facebook lobbying for government regulation of Google's fiber in an attempt to secure competitive pricing.
> hose who control or curate content (Google, NBC/Comcast, Facebook) should not control infrastructure.<p>And those who were granted a monopoly in order to build the infrastructure should not control the content.
This is pretty amazing. It's a transformative move if Google can pull it off. Google might be best served by being the wholesale pipe provider rather than customer facing ISP.
How does Google fiber compare to other countries around the world like S. Korea and Japan where their bandwidth is much higher. We're #1? USA?! USA?! err Kansas City?!