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Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

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Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#41

Post by jauer »

r1ch wrote: post #11
djcapelis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's point to point wireless to a building and Ethernet from there. No real latency issue there.

Curious what they're using for backhaul wireless links if they're offering 1 gbps service. Not many solutions can handle that kind of speed.

Right now you can get away with a lot of "oversubscription" in MDU situations when you have 1-2Gbps to the building (typical millimeter-wave radio speeds).

I wouldn't be surprised if they have buildings fed with 1x1Gbps going to 40x1Gbps clients.

(hand waving about Erlangs and queuing theory here) E.g. if you assume everyone is downloading a DVD image from a fast mirror (CentOS install DVD or something), they probably won't all start the download at the same time so there's a really good chance one user will finish their download before someone else starts theirs.

My MDU users rarely crack 1Mbps on a 30-day 95th percentile basis.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#42

Post by walrus01 »

xeno42 wrote: post #24

Interesting.. I've been very happy with Webpass for the past 8 or 9 years (though my building's crappy wiring can "only" support 100Mbit). A Webpass engineer I spoke to last week mentioned they're rolling out fiber to the building to provide redundancy for the wireless mesh. Surprised me as I could count on my fingers the number of outages webpass has had since I started using them. Perhaps it'll replace the wireless…

It might look like a mesh on a topology diagram but believe me, it has nothing in common with wireless "mesh" networking... I don't have insight into the exact configuration of webpass' routers but they're undoubtedly using fairly ordinary BGP and OSPF between nodes. The wireless links are exclusively high capacity point-to-point trunks.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#44

Post by gkop »

slg wrote: post #38

I was a happy Webpass customer for about 3 years before moving to an area not served by them. I would be curious to see if they are folded into Fiber or if they are kept as a separate brand. As it currently stands Webpass has much stricter limits on who they are willing to serve. Last time I checked they required that all customers lived in multi unit buildings that were built within the last 20 years. I imagine this…

Has Google Fiber sold fixed wireless under the Fiber brand before? I think they would have to keep a separate brand at least until they can get all of the many Webpass fixed wireless subscribers switched over to fiber.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#45

Post by gkop »

jauer wrote: post #41
r1ch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what they're using for backhaul wireless links if they're offering 1 gbps service. Not many solutions can handle that kind of speed.

Right now you can get away with a lot of "oversubscription" in MDU situations when you have 1-2Gbps to the building (typical millimeter-wave radio speeds). I wouldn't be surprised if they have buildings fed with 1x1Gbps going to 40x1Gbps clients. (hand waving about Erlangs and queuing theory here) E.g. if you assume everyone is downloading a DVD image from a fast mirror (CentOS install DVD or something), they probabl…

Are you preparing for popular streaming video products pushing 4K content?

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#46

Post by henryw »

sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #43
shadykiller wrote: post #39

I use Webpass. Get 600mbps on my wifi AC router. It's amazing and I'm super happy with it. Hoping with google fiber speed gets even faster.

How much are you paying ?

I paid $550 for a year up front. It's ~$55 per month on a monthly plan.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#47

Post by gkop »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #30
gkop wrote: post #7

Webpass has only been doing fiber for 10 months [0], as far as I know the bulk of their customers in SF are on fixed wireless. I'm discouraged by this announcement - now it seems there's zero chance of widespread Google Fiber in SF. [0] https://webpass.net/blog/fiber-is-here

That's not entirely correct. Webpass has been using glass provided by other companies for years, that's how they get the redundancy in the mesh. In 10 months they've been laying down their own glass trunk lines along a VERY small corridor. Last year was ~15 blocks of Howard St. This year was supposed to be Bryant St. So if you were in SOMA you had a decent chance. Google has already stated they were going to use some…

(I'm not an industry expert) Prior to 10 months ago, were there any Webpass end users without the fixed wireless hop to fiber? What exactly does Webpass mean when they distinguish between their fixed wireless product and their fiber product?

I'm not concerned with who owns the fiber, I would just prefer not to have wireless involved because of weather and oversubscription.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#48

Post by gkop »

rayiner wrote: post #23
jerryr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised by your downvotes. While "zero chance" might be a bit dramatic, it seems like this warrants discussion. Does this mean that Google thinks P2P wireless is the way to cover urban areas? Will it disincentivize them from persevering through a city-wide fiber installation because P2P wireless is "good enough"? Or is it a good opening play for fiber in SF because Webpass was already navigating the zoning/regu…

I don't really get this phobia of fixed wireless. The technology is improving by leaps and bounds--while the technology for digging up city streets isn't.

The resources needed to widescale deploy fixed wireless are an order of magnitude less than residential fiber. I was counting on Google flexing its muscle to accomplish the fiber that less powerful organizations could not push through.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#49

Post by ClassyJacket »

rosege wrote: post #26
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to live in Sydney and now in SF with Webpass... I can tell you that Webpass would be what a proper NBN rollout would look like. It's kind of amazing. It only costs $60/month and you just get an ethernet drop. No login, no metering, no shaping. Example latency: admin@RT-AC5300-E6A0:/tmp/home/root# ping -c 5 8.8.8.8 PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: seq=0 ttl=55 time=3.526…

Someone will probably roll something like this out in the metro areas and it will eat the NBN

I doubt it. I'm no expert, but isn't it illegal to provide non-NBN internet to any house that has NBN?

I recall someone complaining that they had no internet at all for months, because the NBN wire got hooked up to their house, but not plugged into anything at the other end - then their internet company was legally obliged to disconnect their DSL because technically they had an NBN cable - it just wasn't plugged in to anything.

Of course this would be a good law IF we were getting proper fibre NBN (and the above technicality got seen to). Just like we don't want multiple companies running power lines to one house.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#50

Post by nfriedly »

henryw wrote: post #46
sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much are you paying ?

I paid $550 for a year up front. It's ~$55 per month on a monthly plan.

Damn. I pay windstream about $65/month for 10mbit down/768kbps up. (They're the only wired provider where I live, and they know it.)
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