Google’s fiber effect: Fuel for a broadband explosion

&gt; AT&amp;T and local cable operator Grande Communications have beaten Google to market<p>Oh, gee, look at all this bandwidth I just found...<p>&gt; AT&amp;T maintains it has been planning this fiber upgrade for a long time, and that Google&#x27;s announcement didn&#x27;t affect the timing of its network.<p>No, no, we planned this all along...<p>&gt; What Google recognized that others didn&#x27;t is that Americans want to have the best communications infrastructure<p>Yes, as it turns out study after study showing Americans were fiercely proud of being in 15th place, may have suffered some sort of statistical vagaries. We&#x27;re looking into it.

The case-study with which the article starts isn&#x27;t a particularly good example of a reason for upgrading to fibre-based connectivity: latency doesn&#x27;t care whether your connection is 1Gbps or 1 Mbps.<p>There might be a slight improvement given that routers and switches aling the way have to operate faster to handle gigabit switching but in the UK the there have been complaints that VDSL interleaving ( which can&#x27;t be turned-off ) actually raised latency above their ADSL levels.

&gt; customers don&#x27;t need that kind of speed.<p>Sure they don&#x27;t, they also don&#x27;t need bluray or terabyte hdds either... Should be rephrased to &#x27;We hope customers don&#x27;t realize they can use that type of speed.&#x27;

Verizon never gets enough credit for their fiber roll out. Sure they don&#x27;t offer 1Gbps, but they laid fiber so they can hit those speeds when the time is right. And until then 50 or 100Mbps over fiber is a lot better than 20Mbps over DSL. Not just in the speed department but in terms of latency and consistency. DSL does amazing things but is just at greater risk of interference. My DSL seems to trane at different speeds each day. Fiber is just a much better medium, things don&#x27;t get too weird until you want greater than 100 Gbps per wavelength.<p>Disclosure: I wrote some of the software for the early hardware behind FiOS back 10 years ago or so. Wow FiOS has been out there for a long time. Also I am old.

As awesome as it is to see Google kick the regional monopolies into upgrading, it&#x27;s really a lack of competition that&#x27;s stifling both modern connection speeds and reasonable prices. Prices for the ridiculously named &quot;Gigapower&quot; are undoubtedly going to go increase repeatedly over time if Fiber backs out since it has achieved what it wants. Competition would have the opposite effect.<p>Or better yet, why not treat ISPs as utilities. Could anyone offer insight as to why internet in this day and age is not regulated like electricity or other utilities?

&gt; The mere promise of Google Fiber seems to be enough to send rivals scrambling to deliver ultrafast Internet service at a reasonable price.<p>We have a TWC connection 2000m outside of Google Fiber availability that&#x27;s been disconnecting up to 10-20 times a day for months that says some rivals just don&#x27;t give a shit. The disconnections are only mildly more annoying than the constant spiking and pl that had been going on for a year or so..

Google is extremely good at commoditizing their complement. A whole lot of their strategy makes sense in this light: Android, &quot;Project Ara&quot;&#x2F;Phoneblocks, Chromebooks, Google Fiber.<p>Good read on the subject: <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;StrategyLetterV.html</a>

He was spending $208&#x2F;month for 20Mbps? What the hell is going on in Austin?

Just out of curiosity, I checked Virgin&#x27;s prices in the UK. In my area (Kentucky, US) my ISP options are AT&amp;T DSL and Comcast cable internet. I&#x27;m paying for the cheapest internet plan offered by comcast $45 for 25Mb down. The MOST EXPENSIVE plan offered by Virgin for £37.50 gets 152Mb down.

Living in Austin, I&#x27;ve been closely following news related to Google Fiber&#x27;s rollout throughout the city. The two big providers here, TWC and AT&amp;T, are still doing business as usual. TWC has promised increased speeds by summer 2014, but as a TWC customer myself I cannot help but view their announcement with a fair bit of skepticism [1].<p>Interestingly enough, Grande Communications has actually beat Google with regards to being the first company to actually start offering&#x2F;installing fiber services within the city limits [2]. Granted, their fiber offerings are limited to a small subset of people living in downtown&#x2F;west Austin, but it&#x27;s progress nonetheless.<p>Google has been incredibly tight-lipped about their fiber rollout. To this day, there have not been any official announcements since their initial unveiling 1 year ago. But from small news pieces I can find online, it seems their service launch has been delayed to &#x27;later this year&#x27; (compared to the summer 2014 date they originally gave) [3]. Last, performing a search of permits files by Google for fiber construction reveals that their initial rollout&#x2F;offering will be exclusively to south Austin residents (south of Lake Austin) [4].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2099908/aha-time-warner-cable-ups-austin-broadband-speeds-as-google-fiber-looms.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pcworld.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2099908&#x2F;aha-time-warner-cable...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://mygrande.com/austin/1-gig-fiber-internet/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mygrande.com&#x2F;austin&#x2F;1-gig-fiber-internet&#x2F;</a><p>[3] <a href="https://gigaom.com/2014/04/08/google-delays-austin-fiber-launch-plans-and-offers-a-look-at-future-service-areas/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gigaom.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;08&#x2F;google-delays-austin-fiber-lau...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/edit?mid=zKGIh6VixM7Q.kpvawAIdVCMA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mapsengine.google.com&#x2F;map&#x2F;u&#x2F;0&#x2F;edit?mid=zKGIh6VixM7Q....</a>

Great, can Google Fiber take a serious look at our market in Australia: the current chumps running the country seem to be taking backward steps with the previous government&#x27;s (admittedly ambitious) plans for a National Broadband Network every day.

I live in Austin.<p>I have Grande <i>and</i> AT&amp;T fiber to my house. I have service from Grande. AT&amp;T won&#x27;t sell me their 300Mbps service.<p>When Google comes, Grande is dropped like a hot rock.

I can&#x27;t seem to find the article right now, but Google said their intent with Google Fiber was to prove it is possible. Further, to then force other companies to improve their service.<p>They seem to be on that second point and it seems to be working well.

What I want to know is when does everyone start to realize that if one can get service of 1Gbps for around $70 and not just from Google, why does existing much slower service cost almost as much or more than that?

I suppose this just goes to show that internet infrastructure is a natural monopoly and it takes a company with $400 billion market cap to disrupt the market and create actual competition.

I&#x27;ll believe it when there is any better available service. I even live in a location where google fiber was announced, but so far it is just nothing.

I used to have a 3Mbit DSL connection from AT&amp;T, I have now switched to a 6Mbit DSL connection from a local provider (who is using same wires). Sure, I&#x27;d love more speed, although I&#x27;ve grown to cope with the lack of it. I am just appalled at the prices. And now all of a sudden they are offering 1Gbps connections; if they like tiers so much, why not offer something &quot;slower&quot; for a cheaper price, I&#x27;d be more than happy to have a 50Mbit connection, do consumers REALLY need 1Gbps?<p>And what&#x27;s up with San Francisco disliking fiber so much?

This is definitely a thing. Here&#x27;s a link from my friend in Kansas, and how Comcast is preparing for it already:<p><a href="http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3479092379" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.speedtest.net&#x2F;my-result&#x2F;3479092379</a><p>Incredible what happens when you get a little competition!