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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

#311

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.

Are you actually serious? I live in the Luberon, not far from Avignon and Apt and our internet speeds are 0.8 mbs up and 8 mbs down. So 800 KILObytes up. And that’s for a “business” connection! That’s thanks to Orange’s practical monopoly out where I live. I get to pay over €100 per month for such innovation. My total monthly bill with two cell phones and internet is €360. Which is insane — that is approaching $450 a…

> our internet speeds are 0.8 mbs up and 8 mbs down. So 800 KILObytes up.

Your conversions might be mistaken.

For example, at my place of work, on ADSL2:

Down Stream : 6696Kbps / Up Stream : 736Kbps

So slightly worse than you. Converting directly to kilobytes, we've got 837 KB/sec down and 92 KB/sec up. Shave off around 20% to get real-world speed, because those are sync rates, not actual throughput.

Unless you actually have 8/0.8 MBytes down/up, equivalent to 64/6.4 Mbps down/up, which is quite decent! (Still maybe not quite €100 good).

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

#312
post #41
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is an overreaction to being stuck with Australian internet for the past decade, but if anyone in my neighbourhood was to resist the installation of fibre it'd be fucking on for young and old.

I have my pitchfork ready, Jono. Actually we finally got NBN on my street and I am syncing at 75mbit (paying for 100) and frankly I am over the moon. The fastest I have had previous, after living all over AU, was 14mbit down, and I was the envy of my friends for that roaring waterfall of data. Everyone else I know is on around 8mbit even in 2018.

Hoping against hope that we get a similar result when NBN rolls around to my neighbourhood. It would be absolutely awful for them to "upgrade" our system, after waiting so long for this, to the exact same or worse speeds as the ADSL we've been stuck with all this time.

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

#313
post #41
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is an overreaction to being stuck with Australian internet for the past decade, but if anyone in my neighbourhood was to resist the installation of fibre it'd be fucking on for young and old.

I have my pitchfork ready, Jono. Actually we finally got NBN on my street and I am syncing at 75mbit (paying for 100) and frankly I am over the moon. The fastest I have had previous, after living all over AU, was 14mbit down, and I was the envy of my friends for that roaring waterfall of data. Everyone else I know is on around 8mbit even in 2018.

That sounds like a dream. I'm sharing a 6/1 connection with 3 housemates and 2 partners. I honestly feel like I'm back in the days of dial-up.

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

#314
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for Fiber for two years. It was both (wanting to succeed as a business and wanting to shift the industry), with a primary focus on succeeding as a business, or at least that was what the internal messaging was. I won't comment on any possible changes in the last couple years or why they may have happened, except to say that to the best of my knowledge, at no point was the sentiment, "We've shifted the indust…

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.

This would be an insightful comment if it provided evidence rather than conjecture. As it stands, it contributes nothing to my understanding of Google Fiber.

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

#315
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for Fiber for two years. It was both (wanting to succeed as a business and wanting to shift the industry), with a primary focus on succeeding as a business, or at least that was what the internal messaging was. I won't comment on any possible changes in the last couple years or why they may have happened, except to say that to the best of my knowledge, at no point was the sentiment, "We've shifted the indust…

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

You conveniently ignored Musk almost went bankrupt after 3 failures initially at space x.

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

#316

GF potential customer here in Atlanta, I will say 5 years in it has been nothing but a series of disappointments. I was in one of the first neighborhoods to get GF actually laid down. I have been promised "any day now" for 2 years. But what it looks like is if your house is not on a direct fiber line, it will never be coming. GF had promised it would get ATT to complete the 1 block connection between their fiber and…

Similar situation. Got on the waiting list as soon as they put it up. Got my "Google Fiber" T-shirt. And then nothing, for several years. When Comcast offered 1000Mbps* service for $70/mo with a three year contract, I gave up. Interestingly, this offer only seems to have been available in likely GF service areas and was a pretty transparent attempt to tie up potential GF customers with a nice early termination fee. *…

Interesting, implies that it is still a cable based backbone. I still remember the PITA back in the days where I needed to do 800 meg updates to my game, it took two hours to post it! I would have loved 40, and 100 was unimaginable.

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you brought up voting in the first place, I'd guess that you're still hooked on the narrative that claims "Voting is important!" Meaningless gestures don't gain meaning just because we wish it were so.

Since you brought up voting in the first place, I'd guess that you're still hooked on the narrative that claims "Voting is important!" That's not a good inference. Before I answer, let me ask you: Do you think the election of Trump is at all significant? Meaningless gestures don't gain meaning just because we wish it were so. The subject of discussion was my political affiliation, not whether my votes were significan…

Of course not. Trump is Obama II, or perhaps we should say Bush Jr. III. Even the dim hopes some naive souls harbored that somehow he would be less militarist than his predecessors have evaporated by now.

The significance of Trump's election, if any can be said to exist, is that from now on all of our chief executives will be reality TV stars. Is that progress?

You think you're being clever, asking all these questions before making any firm statement. The downvoters seem to have seen through the mask?

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument now is Republicans are "Leftists"?

No. I certainly don't disagree that Republicans also finagle with laws and regulations for their own interests, to the detriment of the public. Perhaps this is the source of your confusion. The Far-Left is the group which currently has enough power to attempt the silencing of others to the detriment of free speech, and get away with it on a widespread basis. It does so on a daily basis, with the help of corporate pow…

And what do you call refusing to run special elections illegally and passing anti-speech laws at the state level exactly?

The GOP does that as well and pretending its only one side is absurd on many levels.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly is nothing of the kind. You dragged that Sanders-shaped strawman in with you. Since you appear to harbor the common delusion that mainstream Democrats are, in fact, on the left side of the political spectrum here's some light reading. You'll note that the overwhelming majority of the entire range of opinions detailed here bear little to no resemblance to the standard Democratic party platform: https://en…

Since you appear to harbor the common delusion that mainstream Democrats are, in fact, on the left side of the political spectrum Here is another example of the re-labeling of everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders! Sorry, but I distinctly remember that the Democrats were the Left and the Republicans were the Right. You seem to be clearly interested in a dramatic shift to the Left. Thanks for being open about it. (F…

American politics occupies a postage stamp on a continent of political possibility. It is bizarre to argue about left and right when it takes a microscope to differentiate the two. If you don't like "leftward shifts", when did you decide to vote Democrat? When George Wallace was running?

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

#320
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" (Incidentally, a team of four guys with heavy equipment have spent the last three hours trenching fiber 50 feet through my tiny yard. That's the second visit, and there will be one more, and that's not counting running the fiber down the main road which required months of permitting and surveying...) " Do you live northwest of Austin, where 18 inches below the surface there is about two feet of solid limestone?

Not even 18 inches in some places - more like 5 inches. You can get through it with heavy equipment - something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7720jUW_aIk

Wouldn't really want to listen to that any more than the jackhammer.
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