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Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

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Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#271

Post by mjevans »

amazon2 wrote: post #262
gopalv wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The suburban house people complain that it costs them 1-2k Euro to pay for the fibre, but they pay for it. I think that's the difference - the costs are upfront, not paid by capital/loan with the subscriber having to pay for it eventually. Rationally, most people wouldn't want to pay that much into a US cable/net provider, considering their historical experience with them.

They might pay, if they got to chose their provider freely like they can in Sweden, where they build open access networks where any ISP can provide service.

I bet you could build it in to the sale price of reselling a home. IE this improvement must be made to make it distinct in the market.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#272

Post by matwood »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #88
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…

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a bit smaller and more densely populated than New Jersey. Yet I have an unreliable and expensive 20mbps connection. If this issue were about size, Silicon Valley would have world-class high speed internet.

The question would be why is it unreliable. SF is known for NIMBY issues, so is it something like that holding up new cabling?

I live on the east coast, and was irked to watch neighbors complain about bad cell service and about a new cell tower going up in the same breath.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#273

Post by rogerbinns »

j1vms wrote: post #75
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…

> 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." I don't know if the comparison should be valid. Over the past 100 years the US has done incredible things. From developing the first transistor to applied atomic power to the first man on the moon, and more relevantly to yo…

“The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing — having first exhausted all possible alternatives.” -- misattributed to Winston Churchill

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#274

Post by madengr »

dbg31415 wrote: post #119

The Google Fiber rollout in my neighborhood has been a debacle from the start. They walked around and put up door tags -- really really big ones saying, "Google Fiber is coming!" and immediately after that the 0 crime neighborhood I live in had a slew of break ins. Anyone who didn't remove this massive door tag was an easy target, the crooks knew who was home and who wasn't. Then like a week later... they put the exa…

Are you in KC? I am in OP.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#275

Post by amazon2 »

neuromancer2701 wrote: post #222
amazon_not wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to use a single metric, why not use people per mile of road? This correlates well with the only network metric that matters, linear route miles of cable per subscriber needed to provide service. Every (on-grid) dwelling and business is on a street or a road, so if you put a fiber cable on every road or street, then you will pass every inhabitant in the country. Sweden has 10 people per mile of road. The U…

Isn't people/mile still incorrect because you basically have islands of large dense cities with roads between them that nobody lives on.

People still live in the countryside. Rural areas aren't some uninhabited wilderness.

If your aim is to provide broadband to all, you'll have to build there too. Sweden aims to do 100 Mbps to 90% of the population by 2020. Can't do that by just covering urban areas.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#276

Post by mdip »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #23

Anybody know what is going on here? This seems like a page out of Verizon's FIOS rollout. Is Google working on their own cellular network (non-MVNO)? Is this due to the FCC reclassification of internet as a common carrier?

Is this due to the FCC reclassification of internet as a common carrier?

I wondered a little bit about this, myself, when Fiber was launched. They have a lot more motivation without network neutrality as a matter of regulation because it'd open up the ability of ISPs to penalize their products[0].

I'm generally of the opinion that government over-regulates, but I was in support of the whole "Network Neutrality" situation because broadband services availability for many/most in the US is limited to one provider and that one company is also usually either AT&T or Comcast, known more for how much they suck than for the services they provide. It's not too hard to believe that if common carrier status were removed, AT&T or Comcast would lower their caps and start offering services that are exempt from those caps (especially Comcast - suddenly Hulu or anything NBCUniversal is all-you-can-consume, but Netflix/Amazon Video/YouTube are not).

In a world like that, Google does have more motivation to roll out an ISP that does the opposite with their own services (or more likely just doesn't discriminate with anyone's traffic). Fiber resulted in a sudden expansion by many other ISPs to service with higher performance (and in many areas that are not even on the future Fiber cities list), so they've kind of accomplished the goal that has the greatest benefit to them -- more eyes on their products at a speed that makes them more useful.

At the end of the day, though, I'm not so sure that the FCC reclassification is much more than a tiny bullet point in favor of not spending the money required to do a fiber roll out. They are certainly aware that Republicans are itching to dismantle this reclassification and their nominee has promised to do so IIRC. And though the Democrat's nominee has indicated that she'll keep that reclassification, I'm not willing to take her at her word on that. If that were their main reason for allowing fiber to "transition" to whatever new option they're looking at that (hopefully) costs a lot less to roll out but still doesn't exist in the places they want to roll out to, I'd be pretty surprised.

[0] I'm not advocating that network neutrality be dismantled to give Google more motivation.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#277

Post by toomuchtodo »

chimeracoder wrote: post #269
toomuchtodo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a monopoly isn't inherently bad, if regulated properly. My monopoly water, gas, and electric providers do just fine; all highly reliably (and either a small or no profit right is granted). Why not my internet? Why can't it be a regulated utility? Because of fear mongers and corruption. Full steam ahead on municipal bandwidth it appears, and coming for politicians with pitchforks who oppose it.

> Because a monopoly isn't inherently bad, if regulated properly. My monopoly water, gas, and electric providers do just fine; all highly reliably (and either a small or no profit right is granted). A monopoly provider is always bad for the consumer. (Occasionally, it is less bad for the consumer than any feasible alternative, but it is always a sign that the consumer is receiving the "short end" of the stick)[0]. Fo…

> A monopoly is pretty much inherently bad; it just so happens that sometimes it's unavoidable. But, as OP said, there's no reason to sanction a monopoly provider for an industry (or part of an industry) in which it is avoidable.

But it is clearly not avoidable. If one of the largest tech companies in the world (with enormous profits and cash reserves) cannot afford to deploy fiber in major cities, it is clear that the private sector cannot reliably and affordably provide this service on the scale required.

No further proof is necessary that the marketplace will resolve this issue.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#278

Post by amazon2 »

maxerickson wrote: post #179
amazon_not wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to use a single metric, why not use people per mile of road? This correlates well with the only network metric that matters, linear route miles of cable per subscriber needed to provide service. Every (on-grid) dwelling and business is on a street or a road, so if you put a fiber cable on every road or street, then you will pass every inhabitant in the country. Sweden has 10 people per mile of road. The U…

That metric works great if you have 100% penetration. But what if a place doesn't have service on a large portion of roads? I doubt that is particularly true for this comparison, but the metric probably shouldn't reward a place with more unserved areas.

Sweden had 98,5% xDSL coverage in 2011 and aims for 90% coverage of 100 Mbps service by 2020.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#279

Post by Retric »

snowwrestler wrote: post #251
Retric wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is not 13,318 sq mi which is what your talking about aka an area ~200 miles wide and bigger than the state of Maryland. By comparison DC is 61 square miles total your figure is like lumping DC, Baltimore, and Richmond VA into one metro area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area

DC and Baltimore are typically lumped in as one metro area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore%E2%80%93Washington_m...

Not really: "It is composed primarily of two major metropolitan statistical areas, the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV MSA and the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD MSA. In addition, six other smaller urban areas not contiguous to the main urban area but having strong commuting ties with the main area are also included in the metropolitan area."

I mean some people talk about the Northeast megalopolis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and some times Richmond. But, that does not mean Boston and DC are somehow the same city.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#280

Post by RankingMember »

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…

A nitpick, but crossing the US takes much closer to 4 10-hour days than 5 (New York to Los Angeles): https://goo.gl/maps/dmL1f421DMP2
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