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Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

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Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#21

Post by joezydeco »

vsbuffalo wrote: post #13

Everyone here is saying the word monopoly, but realistically ISPs are natural monopolies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly ). We don't see competition because startups (even incredibly well funded ones) just don't have the funds to start pulling fiber all across cities. This is also why most high-speed internet today is based on some new utilization of older technology: DSL utilizes phone lines and cabl…

The ISPs that remain are not natural monopolies. My town is exclusively Comcast, but that doesn't mean Comcast beat out the other cable-tv companies on price/service and ran the competition out of town.

Comcast was granted a franchise by the municipality. That's why Comcast spent the money to pull cable all through the town over poles and under trenches. You're granted the monopoly by virtue of spending on the physical plant and providing equal coverage to all sections of town, not just the wealthier neighborhoods that can afford coax-pulling crews.

Google can "shame" the other companies all they want with speed and service but, at least in my town, Comcast doesn't have to do jack shit.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#22

Post by seanc722 »

pragmatic wrote: post #14

What would you do with more bandwidth?[1] I've discussed this with several of my friends. In our area, we have multiple providers and can get up to 100MB down/ 30 up with residential service. (You can get all you want if you pay business prices, I work at a company that sells that). 30/5 is the standard. So what would we do with more bandwidth? Netflix streams in high def. Games from Steam download quickly. My Voip p…

With a fast connection could do away with many harddrives. Could pay to purchase cloud storage that could be mounted and used. Wouldnt have to worry about personal backups etc. Would probably still keep a bit of space local but not nearly as much as now.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#23

Post by jws »

I think maybe the ISPs don't care. My u-verse modem is running something like 5mbps up, but they won't sell me more than 1.5. They have the infrastructure in place, at an existing customer and they cant be bothered to take my money.

I just had to install a cable line to get 4mbps up for a project.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#24

Post by Lockyy »

georgemcbay wrote: post #11

Shaming won't work when so many places in the USA only have one viable cable provider. Here in my area of San Diego I'm stuck with Time Warner. Even ignoring the relatively slow speeds, I'd be happy just to not have my connection randomly disappear for about 5 minutes 2 or 3 times a day. I'd switch to a competitor in a second except there aren't any. The ISPs have no shame, unless you're willing to force real competi…

I'm assuming that the various ISPs have agreements between each other to not expand onto each others "turf"? Otherwise how does competition not naturally spread? If they do, how do they get away with that?

More puzzling to me is how ISPs squash towns plans to implement their own networks.

I'm very ignorant on how things got so bad over in the US, I've always had a multitude of ISPs over here in England.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#26

Post by wwwtyro »

Lockyy wrote: post #24
georgemcbay wrote: post #11

Shaming won't work when so many places in the USA only have one viable cable provider. Here in my area of San Diego I'm stuck with Time Warner. Even ignoring the relatively slow speeds, I'd be happy just to not have my connection randomly disappear for about 5 minutes 2 or 3 times a day. I'd switch to a competitor in a second except there aren't any. The ISPs have no shame, unless you're willing to force real competi…

I'm assuming that the various ISPs have agreements between each other to not expand onto each others "turf"? Otherwise how does competition not naturally spread? If they do, how do they get away with that? More puzzling to me is how ISPs squash towns plans to implement their own networks. I'm very ignorant on how things got so bad over in the US, I've always had a multitude of ISPs over here in England.

I was under the impression that local governments offer them franchise agreements and keep competitors out.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#27

Post by rayiner »

There are a whole host of reasons:

1) Verizon isn't peddling a lucrative side business to multiply their return on network capital expenditures. Google Fiber is not only making money on the connection fees, but also making money when you use your newly-found bandwidth to put your documents on Google Drive where they mine it and sell your information.

2) The major network providers in the U.S. are the legacy of the telecom utility monopolies. They have enormous networks that are the result of mandates to serve not just Kansas City, but suburban and exurban and rural Kansas. Google has the advantage of starting fresh.

3) ISP's don't have a lot of incentive to do capital investments because they are natural monopolies (in addition to being the legacy of utility monopolies). So you need government involvement to introduce competition in one way or another. However, there are no votes for such involvement. As a practical matter, super speed internet is something that only makes economic sense right now to build out in urban areas. But districts in the U.S. are heavily gerry-mandered to the point where rural votes count for much more than urban votes. At the governmental level, if you want to bring super speed internet to Kansas City, the whole debate will get bogged down in "but what about rural Kansas?"

We look enviously at South Korea's high speed internet, but nobody ever points out that more than half of the country lives in Seoul If everyone in the U.S. lived in NYC we'd probably have awesome internet here.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#28

Post by gduffy »

pragmatic wrote: post #14

What would you do with more bandwidth?[1] I've discussed this with several of my friends. In our area, we have multiple providers and can get up to 100MB down/ 30 up with residential service. (You can get all you want if you pay business prices, I work at a company that sells that). 30/5 is the standard. So what would we do with more bandwidth? Netflix streams in high def. Games from Steam download quickly. My Voip p…

If you're just asking for point examples, Dropcam (my company) could stream at higher quality (1080p+) and/or support many more cameras per household.

At 1Gbps, cloud storage/backup becomes fast like local storage, but has the benefit of being geographically redundant.

Re: Why Is Google Fiber the Country’s Only Super-Speed Internet?

#29

Post by rayiner »

Lockyy wrote: post #24
georgemcbay wrote: post #11

Shaming won't work when so many places in the USA only have one viable cable provider. Here in my area of San Diego I'm stuck with Time Warner. Even ignoring the relatively slow speeds, I'd be happy just to not have my connection randomly disappear for about 5 minutes 2 or 3 times a day. I'd switch to a competitor in a second except there aren't any. The ISPs have no shame, unless you're willing to force real competi…

I'm assuming that the various ISPs have agreements between each other to not expand onto each others "turf"? Otherwise how does competition not naturally spread? If they do, how do they get away with that? More puzzling to me is how ISPs squash towns plans to implement their own networks. I'm very ignorant on how things got so bad over in the US, I've always had a multitude of ISPs over here in England.

They don't have agreements (which would be illegal), but they don't need them. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly.

When Comcast owns all the fiber in, say Chicago, it's pretty much impossible to encroach on their turf in a cost-effective way. Say Verizon wanted to come in. They'd have to build their own network, and so could never compete with Comcast on price because of the huge capital expenditure required.

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