Google Fiber Plans & Pricing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#131

Post by icefox » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

quellhorst wrote: post #68

Meanwhile Verizon FIOS (fiber) is available in hundreds of cities. http://www.consumerfiber.com/fios-availability

Of course on all of their plans they limit your speed. The top speed at over $200 is only 300/65Mbps

Edit: and that is only for the connect, not the TV service. And the router they give you isn't very good and same goes for the 'cable/tv box' which sucks up more power than my PC and likes to die once a week forcing me or my wife to physically unplug and re-plug it if we want to watch Tv. It would be a far stretch to say Fios is good, it is only better than the alternatives in my area.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#132

Post by warfangle » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

bicknergseng wrote: post #90

cryptoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every person would have more bandwidth than they knew what to do with. I think that is exactly the point. That's why they are doing this; Google doesn't know what exactly will happen when everyone in the USA/world has fiber connections, but they do know that incredible innovation will come. What kind of applications will be built? What kind of applications can be built? Couple this with the increasing computing pow…

If you build it, they will come.

Interesting double entendre considering what kind of video a lot of people stream....

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#133

Post by Lockyy » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

paulitex wrote: post #121

api wrote: post #29

Thank GOD they're disrupting this industry. All the telcos are worthless "Soviet bureaus" that deserve death. It's really sort of amazing to think about. In all my years on this planet I have never been pleased with a telecom company. Never. I have always felt like I was paying far too much for inferior service, contemptible customer support, and endless efforts to further "monetize" me through harassing phone calls…

> There is not a single other industry I can say that about, certainly not one that comes to mind so quickly. Airlines? > contemptible customer support IMHO better than Google's dogmatic avoidance of any kind of customer support.

Why has this guy been down-voted? This has happened to me in the past, complain about lack of customer support from google, get down-voted with no responses.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#134

Post by VikingCoder » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

NathanKP wrote: post #15

pizza wrote: post #2

Usually when people in Silicon Valley use the word "amazing", I roll my eyes. But $0 internet is very amazing. On top of that, $120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to other service providers.

I wonder how much money Google can make from a single household that is using Google products on the internet? As long as Google makes more money over time than the internet connection costs them, then it could be a very profitable for Google to increase the number of people using Google products and gain great product PR and brand loyalty from these people who get free internet.

"Amazon has found that every 100 ms of latency costs them 1% in sales."

"Google has found that an extra 500 ms in search page generation time made traffic drop by 20%."

http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/09/23/latency-costs-sales-and-...

I don't think Google plans to bring this level of high-speed internet to everyone in the US, but they're certainly trying to spur the competition on.

If people use the internet more, Google makes more money.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#135

Post by corford » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

sounds wrote: post #85

corford wrote: post #63

I might just be overcome with the sheer impressiveness of this but it feels like the real reason behind everything that Google has done over the last 5 or so years (Youtube, Android, Chromebook, buying dark fibre, Chrome, G+, tablets etc.) has suddenly come in to crystal clear focus. They're going for the jugular with a grand unified strategy the likes of which the tech industry has never seen before.

There has been a good discussion on the previous article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4293530 w1ntermute has a comment that has been highly up-voted: "I don't know about you, but I'll take Google over Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. any day of the week, regardless of their conflicts of interest." Google may have an impressive business strategy, but they haven't done anything to lock out a competitor. Google has…

Thanks, hadn't seen the other thread.

They have tough competition but who else is able (or even capable) of offering such a compellingly unified and cutting edge platform? If they can crack the content to go with the platform, they've won imho. Worst case: the incumbents are forced to up their game dramatically.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#136

Post by andypants » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #84

While I am super happy that the cable industry is getting disrupted as it deserves to be(the wireless industry sucks too, maybe a tech company can buy TMobile or Sprint), I feel uneasy about the following two points: 1) Profitability: I wonder how profitable and sustainable this is for Google? They can subsidize it for only so long before deciding to discontinue it as has been happening to many of their services rece…

re 1: The more people on the Internet, the more potential google customers, and eyeballs on their ads.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#137

Post by whichdan » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #38

patrickod wrote: post #14

I'm hoping that this becomes available in the bay area in the coming years. $70/month for gigabit connection is an absolute no brainer.

Given that I pay $69.16/month for service from Comcast that in theory should be 30 mbits, but in practice ranges all the way down to 3 megabits for hours at a time, depending on time of day, yes, it would be a no brainer. $70/month for an actual 30 megabit connection would be a no brainer as far as I'm concerned.

I'm paying around $100/mo for 50mbits, and it seems to fluctuate between 30 and 60 realistically. That's for just bare internet service and nothing else. I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, provided they have atleast basic support.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#138

Post by ktizo » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #25

When I was at Georgia Tech, I got 650 Mbps. You realize the bottleneck isn't your connection at that point -- it's everyone else's. Which means a lot of sites still download just as slow. Although the big sites have optimized data centers, so it was pretty cool downloading an entire OS in a few seconds (although I think my hard drive write speed limited that a bit too). My father works in the fiber optics industry an…

You can go all the way into the terabit range with single fibre, which is also around the same ballpark as what you need for full holographic video.

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#139

Post by angryasian » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

mehulkar wrote: post #119

normalfaults wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on Point 2: How is this any different then today with Comcast/Verizon etc..?

It's different because Comcast/Verizon don't have your email and your calendar and your web surfing habits and your voicemail and your text messages and your contacts and did I mention your email?

people have been using this argument for years, just wondering has there ever been any example(citation) where this has been an issue yet ?

Re: Google Fiber Plans & Pricing

#140

Post by vdm » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

engtech wrote: post #122

recoiledsnake wrote: post #84

While I am super happy that the cable industry is getting disrupted as it deserves to be(the wireless industry sucks too, maybe a tech company can buy TMobile or Sprint), I feel uneasy about the following two points: 1) Profitability: I wonder how profitable and sustainable this is for Google? They can subsidize it for only so long before deciding to discontinue it as has been happening to many of their services rece…

re: #2 have you been following this story at all? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+binney (lmgtfy used not because I'm trying to be a dick, but rather because the direct google search gives a url that contains all kinds of extra parameters)

https://www.google.com/search?q=william+binney