41–50 of 221 posts
This announcement needs a little bit of translation from the marketing language it's written in: > And thanks to the hard work of everyone on the Access team, our business is solid: our subscriber base and revenue are growing quickly, and we expect that growth to continue. "We're not yet profitable." > We have refined our plan going forward to achieve these objectives. It entails us making changes to focus our busine…
I won't be surprised if this news is met with the usual sentiment that Google abandons everything that isn't immediately hugely successful, and while I often share that criticism of Google, I can't really fault them too much in this case. Getting a nationwide ISP up and running from scratch just seems like an almost impossible task. This is disappointing to me nonetheless. Can someone with knowledge of the industry e…
My totally non-professional opinion is this: the problems of there not being good ISPs in the USA isn't a technical or infrastructure problem, where Google excels. They are instead political and organizational problems. Existing ISPs give as little as they can legally get away with while extracting as much money as possible from customers, by hook or by crook. If Google enters a market to provide a better service, Co…
I would add legally and illegally. Also, 'get away with' means everything from strong arming, being sneaky, flat out lies, bribing, etc.
I won't be surprised if this news is met with the usual sentiment that Google abandons everything that isn't immediately hugely successful, and while I often share that criticism of Google, I can't really fault them too much in this case. Getting a nationwide ISP up and running from scratch just seems like an almost impossible task. This is disappointing to me nonetheless. Can someone with knowledge of the industry e…
* Buildout costs
Google was using the same contracts as everyone else for the fiber infrastructure install. The guys running the trenchers and directional drills where the same guys that do it for AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, whomever. Google built at such a pace they certainly were not getting any deals, and very likely significantly increased the costs due to the massive amount of work that was being generated vs. available contractors. Capex cost is everything and they were just blindly writing checks to other people to get it done.
Google was innovative in their "fiberhood" signup process where they heavily marketed to their targeted expansion areas to encourage a certain take rate before build out. I suspect this saved them some money (or rather allowed their CapEx to be spread over more subs), but after that initial signup, I'm not sure there were any efforts to promote further subs. (Actually I'm not even sure people could subscribe after the initial buildout).
There was no Google magic about the fiber installs. It is stringing fiber along poles or burying conduit and running fiber through it. If there was some breakthrough that was able to be made here or technology which gave them an advantage on the CapEx required, it would have been huge boon. There wasn't.
* Access or cost of access to AT&T/KCPL utility poles
Unsurprisingly those that owned some of the utility poles here (AT&T and KCPL) were more than happy to smile while screwing Google's fiber effort. The rates and access rules for these things are set at the Federal level and lobbying by telcos/utilities is fierce. Google's blank regulatory check from the cities was worthless on this front (except for parts of KCK where the local government owned some poles). The cost and regulatory burden for utility pole access is drafted to simply make use impossible or uneconomic.
* A gradual mindset transition to a "Wireless is easier than all this ditch-digging" mindset.
Google has been doing a lot of work with licensed spectrum. Maybe they ran the numbers and figure it is cheaper to buy some spectrum and see if they can work some wireless magic (either technology or special FCC regulation perks) and make it their special sauce. I don't think I'm betting on that particular horse.
It still boggles my mind why they didn't offer a mid-range service level, say 50Mbps for $15-20/mo. I know more than a handful of students here (including myself) who would pay for that. I have to admit, it's weird that they came here with such a big hoorah and now they're almost nowhere to be found.
But frankly, as this is a surprise, yet one more half-assed Google project that gets killed off within a few years of starting. Add it to the pile.
And to Google PR people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvp97SMZc6M
...just planting seeds...
That would still be very disruptive.
It would also be great if some high speed / high bandwidth wireless tech took off to eliminate laying fiber altogether. Like that Japanese terahertz 5G 100Gbps.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It turns out saying "we failed and are canceling a product, again" hurts the stock price more.
No, that's not how the stock market works. If a company's project/product were failing and/or losing money, then investors would have priced the loss into the stock price long ago. If a company announces that it is ending a money-losing effort, then investors will value the company more highly. In theory, therefore, this announcement should raise the stock price. In practice, who knows.
Not necessarily--often, money-losing operations are valued by investors because of their potential to be profitable in the future.
Also, the market is likely more efficient with large companies like Google, Apple et al., but short-term price movements still aren't always rational.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Fiber was never in my city, but can those with Google Fiber in their area weigh in on the above? When Fiber came to town, what happened with the existing ISPs in the area? If you called to cancel and explained moving to Fiber, did they give you an offer you couldn't refuse to stay with their services, and if so, did you take it?
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/22/comcast-hopes-you-d... That doesn't prove anything, but their prices certainly are eerily competitive with Google's in any market that Google entered, while they're... terrible everywhere else.