Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#101

Post by technofiend » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

We've tried, man. Billions of dollars were given to Verizon, AT & T, etc to build out infrastructure. They took the money and did little or nothing. We have "regulatory capture" which is where an incumbent lobbies and gets state or federal regulations that blocks competition. A widely cited figure states that the average broadband customer costs Comcast less than $2/month for broadband internet. Yet they charge more than $50/mo to supply it and recently rolled out data transfer caps. Without any real competition Comcast, et. al. can do what they like.

Google's switching to wireless is in part an acknowledgment that competing in the wired space is costly and fraught with hurdles including lawsuits from incumbents. Could we wire the nation tomorrow with gigabit everywhere? Well not literally, but if there was a "moonshot" program that captured the public's imagination yeah I'd imagine we could get it done in a few years. We've done it before when we really wanted to - the Rural Electrification and Highway programs are two examples from the last century. But it would represent an incredible change from how business is done today and the resulting lawsuits would drag on for decades after the work was done.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#102

Post by moultano » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

ilyanep wrote: post #27

SEJeff wrote: post #13

Well google announced they were exploring a fiber rollout in Chicago. Now both AT&T along with Time Warner Cable have 1G service throughout parts of the city. Alternatively, one can look at this not as a failure, but as a success. The point of Google fiber was to force carriers to get faster internet to everyone. It appears that it has been working. This benefits google directly as their properties such as Youtube ca…

Really I'm mostly bitter because right now I'm paying $57/mo for 12 Mbps U-Verse in Mountain View. I could pay $70/mo to switch to either 50 Mbps Sonic (currently considering) or 100 Mbps Xfinity (really don't want to deal with Comcast customer service). Aside from Sonic, these all come with a data cap. I was really looking forward to giving Google $70/mo for 1 Gbps or whatever they were offering, and not having a da…

Switch to Sonic. They are amazing.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#103

Post by rayiner » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

xigency wrote: post #83

markbnj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically. Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at leas…

I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area. The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S., it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city.

Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the airport. That would be quite unusual in the U.S.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#104

Post by mountaineer22 » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #58

staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

He means citizens of municipality X within the US.

We are not talking about a federally owned fiber network.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#105

Post by wybiral » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

gist wrote: post #28

samfisher83 wrote: post #16

Building infrastructure is hard. Even 100 years later we still have original AT&T (Verizon and AT&T) as the dominant telecommunications company. Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products: Google+ Hangouts Project Ara Google Buzz Google video Orkut Talk Meebo etc. http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/visuel/2015/03/06/google-memori...

> Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products Yes remember when the mantra was "don't be evil"? They also just let products linger w/o any or many improvements. Google voice is an example. Text to speech is in many cases totally worthless, even with clear speaking speakers.

I only read the Google Voice transcripts for comedic value. And if you approach it that way they're usually pretty funny.

"Hi Davy, thank you so much" becomes "Hey baby, I think so much". Brightens my day.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#106

Post by botexpert » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #101

staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

We've tried, man. Billions of dollars were given to Verizon, AT & T, etc to build out infrastructure. They took the money and did little or nothing. We have "regulatory capture" which is where an incumbent lobbies and gets state or federal regulations that blocks competition. A widely cited figure states that the average broadband customer costs Comcast less than $2/month for broadband internet. Yet they charge more…

Still, fast wireless depends a lot on fiber. I think it's practically impossible to have a good wireless internet network without cables.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#107

Post by nickik » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #58

staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

Maybe you are a troll, or maybe you just don't understand how networks work. The relevant factor is not the overall size, but rather the population density. Lower population density means more cable per person (on avg.), so it makes it MORE expensive.

Sweden is not very dense, large parts are uninhabited forests.

Sweden 24 United States 35 New Jersey 467.2

You are basically saying, "I live in the most densely populated state in the US, and my Internet is almost as good as the internet of the Swedish country side, U.S.A! U.S.A!"

People from the German Telekom like to us this argument as well, "Germany has much more population, we can't do what they do". That argument has been debunk and shown for what it is many times, by multiple experts. It's simple lobbying by a monopoly provider of copper to defend its monopoly against the competition heavy fiber.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#108

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

xigency wrote: post #83

markbnj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically. Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at leas…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#109

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #103

xigency wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically. Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at leas…

I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area. The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S., it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city. Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the airport. That would be quite unusual…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#110

Post by oldmanjay » Wed, Oct 26, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

xigency wrote: post #83

markbnj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically. Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at leas…

These arguments are now decades old and unresolvable since everyone is trying to extract a meaningful comparison from a single dimension of a complicated metric. I'm pretty over them. Can we call a halt?