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Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

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Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#151

Post by ailideex »

jbarham wrote: post #13

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7112084631 is my 4G home wireless "broadband" plan's speed in suburban Melbourne, Australia. Basically 10/1 Mb which is not great, but still much better than what I was getting with ADSL, and I'll have to wait another year or two until the NBN rollout reaches my house. But by 2020 the mobile networks will be rolling out 5G. Apart from mailing out the modem to me, my wireless ISP has ba…

Is there any cap on that? Here I can get uncapped 100mbit/100mbit up/down fiber for a fraction of the cost of 100GB data over mobile/wireless broadband.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#152

Post by EA »

Our city just built a fiber network and GF was the first to offer service.

Since they have come to town, ATT has installed their own fiber network in our neighborhood and Comcast has increased their speeds. I consider our local area disrupted. And I feel no matter what happens with GF, we’ll have faster internet from now on.

BTW: cut the cord. GF 1Gb plan with DirecTV Now and YouTube TV.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#153

Post by rayiner »

axaxs wrote: post #149
rayiner wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analysis is backwards. There aren't special laws that "make it difficult for new companies to hang wires." The issue was not Google hanging its own wires, but Google contractors moving AT&T's wires in order to make space on the poles. Louisville passed special laws to enable one company to relocate another company's property on utility poles. I think those laws are a good idea, but its hard to blame AT&T for not…

While I absolutely agree with you, that setup would have been untenable. I had an ATT line hanging about 6 feet off the ground(in Louisville, pole neighborhood). Took ATT multiple calls and visits, a total process of about a month, to adjust that one line on one pole. Now imagine a citywide rollout.

I think the FCC should impose a nationwide “one touch make ready” regulation. Federal law already requires non discriminatory access to utility pole, and the FCC already has limits on how long utility line owners can take to do pole adjustments. The FCC has been considering taking that further.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#154

Post by Mithaldu »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #114

I'm still on the cheapest plan I could find, which is 60 Mbps for $40/month. Even if fiber were $70/month, I'm not sure I would buy it, as 60 Mbps seems to be doing the job fine. What kind of things would 1 Gbps allow me to do that I currently cannot, that would justify an extra $30/month?

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. The difference between 60 and 1000mbit is not in allowing you previously impossible things. It is the same difference as between spinning rust and SSDs. It affects every single interaction you have with the networks to reduce friction as much as possible on your end, and also improves parallelization capabilities.

Downloading of small files will change from being a fraction of a second to nigh-imperceptible, and as long as the remote side supports it, this will apply to all images on a website at once. And no longer will downloading a game on steam mess with your youtube/netflix/whatever.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#155

Post by intopieces »

_nalply wrote: post #27
cdancette wrote: post #17

This is why I'm happy to live in a country like France where the government takes part in deploying those infrastructures (by investing money in the deployment). They planned to equip 50% of the territory by 2017 (which was achieved), and 100% by 2022. Same goes for public service, profit-focused corporations can't provide the same quality of service.

In Switzerland there are regions with FFTH. Click on this map to see where FFTH is available: https://map.geo.admin.ch/?layers=ch.bakom.anschlussart-glasf... Thanks to this map it was easy to select the right place to move to, and we are currently in the process of moving... to an home equipped with FFTH!

More than the FFTH penetration, I'm impressed you can open a map and see which places currently have fiber Internet. I live in the "Capital of Silicon Valley" and I can't do anything similar.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#156

Post by pault »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #114

I'm still on the cheapest plan I could find, which is 60 Mbps for $40/month. Even if fiber were $70/month, I'm not sure I would buy it, as 60 Mbps seems to be doing the job fine. What kind of things would 1 Gbps allow me to do that I currently cannot, that would justify an extra $30/month?

Everything you do now, but faster? I have GF and I don't know how I will ever be able to go back to <100Mb if I ever move. I haven't had to wait for _anything_ since I got the gigabit; even multi-gig 4k movies finish downloading before I can finish making my popcorn.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#157

Post by ipsin »

conanbatt wrote: post #134
demygale wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GF suffers the same fate of every other Google initiative: new exec decides it can't advance his career so it's starved to death in favor of something shinier. Google won't save us any more than Musk will. It's billionaires launching cars into space and fighting for personal wealth at the detriment of the rest of the society.

> It's billionaires launching cars into space and fighting for personal wealth at the detriment of the rest of the society. What?

"launching cars into space" is a reference to the recent launch of a Tesla into space.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16983744/spacex-tesla-falc...

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#158

Post by 300bps »

radiorental wrote: post #70
300bps wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, perhaps it was an attempt by Google to change the industry I’ve been a happy Verizon FIOS customer for 12 years. For $140 per month I have TV with every pay channel, landline phone and gigabit Internet. The gigabit is relatively recent but I get full gigabit speeds for up and down and it is amazing. I think you’re right that I don’t believe Verizon would’ve offered this at this price without the threat of Go…

Fwiw, $140 is quite a lot. We shared what everyone was paying for Fios here at work. I'm on the upper end of $65 for 50/50 (no TV). The lowest we found was 1G for $40. the trick seems to be to cancel and sign up again for the new user deals.

The $140 includes the $49 “Ultimate Entertainment Pack”. It’s literally every single pay channel. Without that I paid $91 per month for gigabit Internet, TV with Prime channels and Phone.

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#159

Post by adventured »

cdancette wrote: post #17

This is why I'm happy to live in a country like France where the government takes part in deploying those infrastructures (by investing money in the deployment). They planned to equip 50% of the territory by 2017 (which was achieved), and 100% by 2022. Same goes for public service, profit-focused corporations can't provide the same quality of service.

> This is why I'm happy to live in a country like France where the government takes part in deploying those infrastructures

Does that explain why France is so dramatically far behind the US on Internet speeds, and has been for the last 20 years? Ideally the US goes out of its way to not follow France's path on telecom.

As of Q1 2017:

US average speeds: 18.7 mbps

France average speeds: 10.8 mbps

To put France's figure into perspective, they rank toward the bottom in Europe, behind Russia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. They're #27 out of 31 nations ranked in Europe.

France also ranks near the bottom in Europe in % above 10 mbps, at just 31%. The US is at 67%.

And again France ranks near the bottom in Europe in % above 15 mbps, at just 18%. The US is at 48%.

The US is #10 globally when it comes to % over 25 mbps, with 21%. That category saw a one year increase of 65%..

The US ranks in the top 15 globally for highest percentage at 10 mbps, 15 mbps and 25 mbps.

France should be copying the US based on their persistently atrocious broadband figures. And that's with the US approach being subpar.

https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t...

Re: Eight Years On, Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption Promised

#160

Post by adventured »

icebraining wrote: post #76
rayiner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has higher fiber penetration as a percentage of broadband subscribers according to OECD: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroadb... (11.8% versus 9.5%). The US average connection speed on Akamai’s study are also about double that of France: https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t... (18.7 mbps versus 10.8 mbps; 48% of the U.S. has a connection above 15 mbps, versus 18%…

That number is only higher because the US has fewer broadband subscribers (per inhabitant); the denominator is smaller. The fiber penetration per 100 inhabitants is the same in both, 4%: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2.OECD-FixedMobileBB-201...

The US is far ahead of France on broadband in general, with average speeds 70% to 80% faster. That has been true for a very long time now.

France ranks near the very bottom in Europe in percentages above 10mbps, 15mbps, and 25mbps. In the developed world, France is behind - typically far behind - nearly every nation, including Russia (a far poorer country). France's broadband situation is an embarrassment, nothing has fundamentally changed in that picture for the past decade.

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