Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#351

Post by staticelf » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 6:43 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #136

nickik wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 populat…

> 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_…

I live in a smaller city, not in Stockholm (the capital) or anything close to it. I still have access to 1gbit/s if I want to. :)

There isn't that much fiber in the forests, but anywhere there is a city there is. Sweden has a goal to give 90% of the population fiber before 2020 even if that is probably not going to happen.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#352

Post by markbnj » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

nickik wrote: post #107

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…

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 populat…

I'm not going to get into a debate in the comment thread, but I will respond to you. You should try not to be so reactionary. I am neither cheerleading for the U.S.A. nor condemning Sweden. What I am saying is that the U.S. spans a continent. There are areas of awesome internet and areas of horrible internet and everything in between. If you think large areas of Sweden are sparsely inhabited have a drive through Utah or New Mexico or Arizona. If you look at Europe I assume you'll also find areas of awesome internet and areas of horrible internet, and that would at least be a somewhat reasonable comparison to make with the U.S.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#353

Post by zamalek » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 7:12 AM 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…

The model in South Africa is extremely similar: single country-wide governmental telco/last mile (Telkom) and competing private ISPs. It doesn't work at all. My 10Mb ADSL is currently sitting at 6Mb because of "line optimization." Resolving the last issue on my line took 8 months. I pay €65 for this because there is no other choice. We have a moniker for this pit of incompetence: "Hellkom."

As we speak, private ISPs are rolling out their own fibre-to-the-home in order to break loose of Hellkom. Hellkom is responding by launching their own FTTH packages that are 3x the cost and have caps that can be depleted in a day.

What works for the Swedish will not work for everyone.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#354

Post by jcoffland » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 7:27 AM UTC

> Because Google runs most of its business on the internet, analysts have suggested that its entry into the costly world of fiber optic internet was an attempt to motivate existing internet providers to accelerate the introduction of faster web connections.

Hasn't Google said before that one of their reasons for starting Google Fiber was to push other companies to expand high-speed Internet access in the US? Has this happened or has Google Fiber just run out of steam? I know Sonic is rolling out fiber in the Bay Area. I'm sure Google Fiber has put some pressure on them to up their game.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#355

Post by z3t4 » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 8:41 AM UTC

ajford wrote: post #301

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.

I would totally pay 1-2k upfront (assuming I owned the home or was planing to stay at least 5 years) if I "owned" the fiber and could choose my own ISP. At that level of competition, it could easily drive the prices down into the $10-20 range for high bandwidth, which would probably break even with current cable internet prices now. I pay nearly $100/mo for 300Mbps/20Mbps since I have about 9 active users in my home.…

The carrier owns the fiber, but you still have to pay $2500 upfront plus a $100-500 monthly fee. Most of the time you can choose the ISP though. If you live in a co-operative you can own the fiber yourself and buy transit. Then there's the municipal fiber carriers that will own the fiber, but you only pay the prime cost resulting in lower upfront and monthly fees, and if you live on the countryside you can get a government grant, install the fiber yourself, then sell it for 1$ to one of the carriers usually resulting in low monthly fee.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#356

Post by Pica_soO » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #305

Retric wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Las Vegas has 600,000 people and the same thing. While less extreme, Chicago has over 2.5 million people and farmland is very close by.

The farmland is over 7 million people away from the city.

Mocking the wounded-pride-per-pound calculation, are we? Have a upvote for that.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#357

Post by askopress » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 10:22 AM UTC

In Estonia I get 500mbps up and down with unlimited bandwidth for 35 euros, monthly. I think it has a lot to do with the ability to roll out newer, faster stuff much easier than with a big country - and we do have quite a few ISPs, each of them fighting to provide even faster speeds. Wonder why in U.S they don't really try to do anything to be better, and if they do increase speeds, the bandwidth is still stupid low.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#358

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 10:26 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #92

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…

Sweden is actually one of the best European examples since its population density and GDP are both lower than the US ones (yet still comparable).

Sweden is also the country that people always pick, when they want to illustrate that Europe has better broadband, but as you say, it's one of the best examples.

Take Denmark next to Sweden, while still better than the US, for the most part, the broadband roll out is much different. A single phone company (TDC/YouSee) owns the phone network, but they are force to lease their lines to competitors. TDC more or less dictate the price for renting, it just has to be "reasonable". The result is that a 20Mb DSL line cost the same from all providers. Cable companies have been force to open their networks this year, until then they had monopolies in individual areas. Fiber is being rolled out, but slowly and at great cost to the electric companies (that more or less own the fiber networks). This may sound great overall, but rural areas aren't getting nearly the level of connectivity that they would have gotten in Sweden. There are still plenty of place that are lucky to get 5Mbit, and Denmark is a very small country. I can't imagine the cost of rolling out just 10Mbit to 90% of the US customers.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#359

Post by rayiner » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 12:29 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #355

ajford wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would totally pay 1-2k upfront (assuming I owned the home or was planing to stay at least 5 years) if I "owned" the fiber and could choose my own ISP. At that level of competition, it could easily drive the prices down into the $10-20 range for high bandwidth, which would probably break even with current cable internet prices now. I pay nearly $100/mo for 300Mbps/20Mbps since I have about 9 active users in my home.…

The carrier owns the fiber, but you still have to pay $2500 upfront plus a $100-500 monthly fee. Most of the time you can choose the ISP though. If you live in a co-operative you can own the fiber yourself and buy transit. Then there's the municipal fiber carriers that will own the fiber, but you only pay the prime cost resulting in lower upfront and monthly fees, and if you live on the countryside you can get a gove…

Is this in Sweden? In the U.S., if a carrier wants to build fiber in a town or suburb, they have to build all the fiber first, then hope people sign up for $70-$100 per month with no money paid up front.

What you describe sounds like a great model. It'd be very difficult to do it in the U.S.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#360

Post by josh2600 » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 12:31 PM UTC

StillBored wrote: post #344

csours wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to literally dig up the street? If so, why?

No, and AFAIK, in Austin all the early roll outs were in older neighborhoods with physical poles. I'm not sure if google was lashing their cables to existing lines, but I saw TWC doing that a lot when they were splitting nodes here. It was amazingly fast they would show up with a truck and lash a half mile of cable in a couple hours. Of course one of the early slowdowns was AT&T throwing a fit about google sharing po…

1) pole rights matter. In San Francisco, att also owns the poles and does everything they can to prevent other people from using them. I would tell installs that it would be 30 days from the day we got permitted until the circuit was installed, but that despite there being a 30-day limit on replies for pole permits, many times att would wait 180 days before issuing access permits. It was honestly a joke around the office.

2) many cities do not have above-ground power and fewer still have above-ground telco without power. I have not researched this extensively so I am not sure if google picked places with poles specifically, but that would be a smart move. That being said, imagining att would let them use the poles was not really reasonable.