Well this is some pretty depressing news.
Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
321–330 of 382 posts
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#322That 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…
The United States was a country last time I checked, unless Mexico and Canada have mysteriously disappeared. A country roughly the same size as Australia, which has a significantly smaller population.
The Australian government came up with a credible plan to provide high speed internet along the lines of the Swedish model being described. It has subsequently been modified to be less fast, but the concept of providing government-owned infrastructure to be leased by multiple providers on a competitive basis stays.
If it's possible in Australia, it's definitely technically feasible in the US too.
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#323They backed out of Portland after spending a ton of money and time with city officials. Sad to hear this is not happening and hope Google finds a way to get back into this because the options today are a joke. This will just embolden companies like Comcast to charge more for horrible service.
Portland spent a lot of time and resources (during a serious housing crisis), bent over backwards to give them everything they wanted... and they decide to just punk out, lay off their operations team and walk away from years of planning because they can "do fast wireless for some apartment buildings". Thanks, guys. There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of the city with fiber with…
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There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of the city with fiber with some loans as capital, they're not a public company and they don't have billions in CoH and they still figured it out. They've already started offering 10Gbps to home users. Yes, ten gigabits, that's not a typo. And they're profitable.
That's not entirely correct they have about a quarter of the city wired with plans to finish in 6 or 7 years[1]. The linked image is pretty small but it's all I can find. Note the linked map only shows 40% or so of Minneapolis. Also they have been providing Business services like dark fiber for the last 20 years, so it's not like they are completely dependent on home fiber income or new to the business.
I just recently got US Internet fiber, we have the 100 Mbps plan for $39.95 a month and it's great! I noticed that when I ping 8.8.8.8 latency went down from 33ms to 22ms. Also we have more bandwidth and cheaper internet than when we had Comcast. Of course the best part of US Internet is not having to deal with Comcast anymore!
Finally US Internet forced Century Link and Comcast to launch their own fiber services[2].
[1] https://fiber.usinternet.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Scre...
[2] http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/comcast-fires-back-at-c...
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. well that would be socialism. Sorry comrade, here in the US we have this thing called FREEDOM. It Trumps your smart/efficient/reasonable solutions any day.
Uhh, you do realize the areas most receptive to fiber have been conservative red states and cities, correct? https://fiber.google.com/about/ By contrast, California municipalities have made building fiber difficult[1]. [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/blog/morning-roundup/2...
Those cities would own all the fiber, maintain it as part of the city budget, and lease it out to Google and other telecoms. That's the context here.
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#325Fiber the way the US does it is rather lame. Consider that where Google has put in fiber the houses now have:
- Copper telco lines
- Coax cable lines
- Google fiber
There's zero reason for anything other than fiber in an area being updated to it. States/municipalities should solicit bids for a company that wants to maintain the fiber infrastructure, and other companies wishing to provide phone/tv/internet over the fiber can all compete on their service over the one fiber line.
We only have one telco and one cable line because states blessed monopolies for this, they should do the same for fiber, and open access to it for competition from service/content providers. It'll never happen, but I can dream...
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#326People in the technology community should start organizing the construction of local government owned municipal fiber networks in their communities. I am abroad right now, but I have decided to start speaking up in mine when I return to the United States because I finally believe that I know how such a thing can succeed.
Local communities could use municipal bonds to pay for a 10G-EPON build outs where multiple providers can provide transit, VoIP and IPTV over the same cables using PPPoE and VLANs. Then a per subscriber fee could be assessed to make pay back the bonds. This would be an ILEC/CLEC model, except with local government ownership much like they own the roads.
The situation where incumbents drop prices could be handled by having a default CLEC that offers free ITU broadband service at 256Kbps. People would switch for that and then switching to a better CLEC could just be a phone call. The incumbents could not compete with free service over a 30 year period and the municipal government owned ILEC + private CLEC model would win.
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#327People in the technology community should start organizing the construction of local government owned municipal fiber networks in their communities. I am abroad right now, but I have decided to start speaking up in mine when I return to the United States because I finally believe that I know how such a thing can succeed. Local communities could use municipal bonds to pay for a 10G-EPON build outs where multiple provi…
Provo Utah did something like this which failed and was bought by Google which now has also apparently failed. Fun times.
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#328That 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…
it's good for privacy, maybe
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sweden is not very dense, large parts are uninhabited forests. If they're actually uninhabited, then there is no need to build fiber out there, and you shouldn't count them in the density measure. What you're really interested in is the population-weighted density ( i.e. the density of the places where people live). Compare the list of U.S. urban areas to that of Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_…
Jesus Christ, Stockholm is more densely populated than NYC? No wonder getting an apartment around here is so absurdly difficult.
Looks like you've awoken to the syndrome.
Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout
#330I understand the legal and other difficulties of dealing with local governments and incumbent providers.
However, it may also be that Google is going to be more careful where it spends its money. Hoarding cash may be protection against interesting changes in the economy.