Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America • Hacker News Board

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#21

Post by magicalist » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 7:51 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #4

rasz_pl wrote: post #3

Romania, and parts of Poland where new Fiber networks are laid out have ~$35-40 1Gbit unlimited internet. Meanwhile people in US wonder how much Google is losing on $100 per 1Gb clients? :)

According to Akamai's State of the Internet report for Q1, the US has an average broadband speed of 11.9mbps. Romania is 12.8mbps, Poland is 9.8mbps. By comparison France is 7.5mbps, and Germany is 10.2mbps. Based on the median household income in Romania being 16% that of the US, if 1gbps Internet access there costs $35-$40, you're paying the US equivalent of $210-$240.

Is that mean speed? That's probably not a great measure.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#22

Post by magicalist » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 7:56 AM UTC

tudorw wrote: post #7

"Liimatta tried to convince Google to install connections in community buildings, to power a cheap WiFi service in low-income areas. The company refused, saying it violated its terms of service. “It’s our biggest disappointment. We would have loved to have taken Google Fiber to the worst places, where it could have really made a difference.”

Ha, community organizer talks about the ups and downs of what happened. Article presents complex issue without simplifying it. HN poster posts a clickbait quote.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#23

Post by fulafel » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 8:20 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #11

tudorw wrote: post #7

"Liimatta tried to convince Google to install connections in community buildings, to power a cheap WiFi service in low-income areas. The company refused, saying it violated its terms of service. “It’s our biggest disappointment. We would have loved to have taken Google Fiber to the worst places, where it could have really made a difference.”

>where it could have really made a difference. Is there a study that shows that the low income population makes better use of high speed bandwidth? Right now it's mainly just a luxury product for HD video streams and the majority of the educational gains of an Internet connection can be had with 5-10mbps.

The quote was "cheap WiFi" - he meant getting net access for people who don't currently have it.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#24

Post by cookiecaper » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 9:04 AM UTC

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

I think it's very common to see that type of behavior whenever the demographics will support it. The races tend to self-segregate, despite society's best efforts to stop it. It's really the bigger cities that are exceptions in this regard, because their demographics and geography are generally such that you can't escape the diversity. Anywhere that doesn't have those hard geographic and demographic constraints self-segregates naturally.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#25

Post by dylanjermiah » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 9:11 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #24

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

I think it's very common to see that type of behavior whenever the demographics will support it. The races tend to self-segregate, despite society's best efforts to stop it. It's really the bigger cities that are exceptions in this regard, because their demographics and geography are generally such that you can't escape the diversity. Anywhere that doesn't have those hard geographic and demographic constraints self-s…

It's precisely "despite society's best efforts to stop it" that is the root cause of the current situation.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#26

Post by MCRed » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 9:45 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #5

lololololololol wrote: post #2

It's funny coz in mainland Europe and even in the UK we have had lightning fast internet way before 2011. Should we expect some 'american freedom' soon?

The US has faster average Internet access speeds than the UK and most of mainland Europe. https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q1-st... https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q1-st...

This is consistent with my experience in the UK in 2011. The cable internet was terrible, very slow, extremely expensive, and I was living in a "rich" town.

There were several occasions where I resorted to using cell data service in its place. But that was super, super expensive (compared to the USA.)

Basically, I can sum up my experience of the UK as this: "Wow, so this is what a second world country is like. It's a shame, everything costs 3 times as much and is lower quality." Other countries on the continent didn't have it so bad, Germany and the Netherlands, for instance the people were much better off. (Even in the "poor" east german side of Berlin where we lived.)

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#27

Post by pdkl95 » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:05 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #16

I am always amazed that people can't figure out why Google is doing this. Google is rolling out fiber to neuter Comcast. Period. Comcast basically blackmailed Google several years back and thought they won. Google, rightfully, now saw Comcast as an existential threat to their business. Google will keep rolling out until they have Comcast by the balls. Only then will they stop.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible.

All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture of the patter-of-life of the people that use their ISP service.

Being able to steal Comcast's market is just a nice side benefit.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#28

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:15 AM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #26

adventured wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has faster average Internet access speeds than the UK and most of mainland Europe. https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q1-st... https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q1-st...

This is consistent with my experience in the UK in 2011. The cable internet was terrible, very slow, extremely expensive, and I was living in a "rich" town. There were several occasions where I resorted to using cell data service in its place. But that was super, super expensive (compared to the USA.) Basically, I can sum up my experience of the UK as this: "Wow, so this is what a second world country is like. It's a…

My very limited experience with the UK was that everything was incredibly expensive, except for beer.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#29

Post by omurphyevans » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:15 AM UTC

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

There was a recent This American Life episodes about this. Apparently the best way to raise poor black children's scores is to remove segregation, but white communities don't want it:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/t...

I'm from the UK and was genuinely shocked. While there are disparities and issues over here, they're on a different scale compared to the US.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#30

Post by jpatokal » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:22 AM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #27

bsder wrote: post #16

I am always amazed that people can't figure out why Google is doing this. Google is rolling out fiber to neuter Comcast. Period. Comcast basically blackmailed Google several years back and thought they won. Google, rightfully, now saw Comcast as an existential threat to their business. Google will keep rolling out until they have Comcast by the balls. Only then will they stop.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible. All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture o…

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something?