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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?

#51

Post by rayiner »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One fiber run to a high rise in Chicago hits as many customers as wiring up an entire town in rural Illinois. The idea that ISP's that serve less populated areas could somehow beat ISP's that serve mostly urban areas is completely ridiculous. What would happen is that the urban ISP's would win the race, and the ISP's with low density service areas would just go out of business perpetually paying the subsidy. It's lik…

You're just making the argument that the amount of the cross-subsidy would have to be calibrated so that the losers are not bankrupted by it. We care about fairness in baseball because it's a game. Why do we care so much about it if this succeeds in getting the highrises in Chicago gigabit fiber, when up to this point we haven't been able to? And let's go with it say you're right. Why can't we just create two or thre…

It's not a matter of fairness it's basic financial calculus. Internet speed is completely a function of capital expenditure. If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. At that point, the leading ISP's can just sit om their duff, because the other ISP's are basically paying to cement them in the lead.

This is true even if you separate rural and urban ISP's. Verizon has a great network in the DC area. If they win, then say a Houston ISP subsidizes them. At that point they have zero incentive to improve. Moreover, people in Houston are stuck with even worse service, because money that might be spent on capital expenditures in Houston are going to pad Verizon's profits in DC.

You're overly focused on the incentive part of the equation and ignoring the underlying market dynamics.

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

#52

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #51
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just making the argument that the amount of the cross-subsidy would have to be calibrated so that the losers are not bankrupted by it. We care about fairness in baseball because it's a game. Why do we care so much about it if this succeeds in getting the highrises in Chicago gigabit fiber, when up to this point we haven't been able to? And let's go with it say you're right. Why can't we just create two or thre…

It's not a matter of fairness it's basic financial calculus. Internet speed is completely a function of capital expenditure. If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. At that point, the leading ISP's can just sit om their duff, because the other ISP's are basically paying to cement them in the lead. This is true even if you separa…

>If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up.

You're assuming that the effect would be that strong that fast -- that it would be large enough that they could never catch up. There is no reason the amount has to be that large.

And the Houston ISP doesn't have to catch Verizon in DC while Verizon is receiving the subsidy, it only has to catch the next-best ISP in the middle third who doesn't get anything and then it can get out of the bottom third who has to pay. Moreover, Verizon still has the incentive to improve even if they're the leader of everyone because the ISP currently at the top of the middle third is angling to get into the top third, and the ISP at the bottom of the top third is trying to get ahead of Verizon to keep themselves from being pushed out when that happens.

I mean what's your alternative? If you want ISPs to pay for upgrades either you reward them for doing better than average or penalize them for doing worse than average or both, and doing both has the added benefit of being revenue neutral. Is there some better alternative, or do you think the entire goal of upgrading connection speeds is unattainable?

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

#53

Post by rayiner »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a matter of fairness it's basic financial calculus. Internet speed is completely a function of capital expenditure. If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. At that point, the leading ISP's can just sit om their duff, because the other ISP's are basically paying to cement them in the lead. This is true even if you separa…

>If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. You're assuming that the effect would be that strong that fast -- that it would be large enough that they could never catch up. There is no reason the amount has to be that large. And the Houston ISP doesn't have to catch Verizon in DC while Verizon is receiving the subsidy, it only has t…

I don't think faster Internet is really a pressing national issue, and I think your idea is bizarre and smacks of the same kind of "clever" ideas that always end up disastrous in practice.

If high speed Internet is such a national priority, and the market won't provide it because of natural monopolies, then simply break up the utilities and prevent consolidation.

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

#54

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #53
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. You're assuming that the effect would be that strong that fast -- that it would be large enough that they could never catch up. There is no reason the amount has to be that large. And the Houston ISP doesn't have to catch Verizon in DC while Verizon is receiving the subsidy, it only has t…

I don't think faster Internet is really a pressing national issue, and I think your idea is bizarre and smacks of the same kind of "clever" ideas that always end up disastrous in practice. If high speed Internet is such a national priority, and the market won't provide it because of natural monopolies, then simply break up the utilities and prevent consolidation.

How do you break up a natural monopoly? They tried it with AT&T along geographical lines and we got what we have now. The expectation was that the Baby Bells would expand into each others' territory and compete with each other instead of buying each other, but if you prohibited them from buying each other, it still doesn't give them any reason to compete with each other instead of just continuing to milk existing infrastructure indefinitely without upgrading and silently agreeing not to expand into anyone's territory who doesn't expand into yours.

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

#55

Post by green7ea »

velodrome wrote: post #31
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…

Canada and Australia have it worse (bandwidth limits, etc). Anyhow, the US government should make this a national priority. The faster the internet, the better the economic growth. How can the US continue to dominate (and/or influence) the internet if they do not have the proper infrastructure for it? A clear message needs to be sent: the telecom/cable duopoly is no longer assured. A "put up" or shut up" attitude nee…

What keeps the US competitive internet wise is the fact that the commercial internet is separate from residential internet. Google, Apple, Amazon all have among the best $/gbps in the world at their american offices. Having said that, I do agree that faster residential internet would create new markets because of unforeseen possibilities. Just think about it, dropbox would become as fast as a harddrive.

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

#56

Post by darrenkopp »

pragmatic wrote: post #16
darrenkopp wrote: post #2

I have 100Mb/100Mb for $45/month which is pretty decent I think. It's not 1Gb, but still beats the pants off everything else in the area.

That is really good. What location and what provider, if you don't mind me asking?

UTOPIA in Utah with the ISP being XMission

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

#57

Post by darrenkopp »

selectout wrote: post #6
darrenkopp wrote: post #2

I have 100Mb/100Mb for $45/month which is pretty decent I think. It's not 1Gb, but still beats the pants off everything else in the area.

what provider and area if you don't mind me asking? I'm stuck with around 15/10 for $60 sadly.

UTOPIA in Utah with the ISP being XMission

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

#58

Post by beatgammit »

darrenkopp wrote: post #56
pragmatic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really good. What location and what provider, if you don't mind me asking?

UTOPIA in Utah with the ISP being XMission

I have 40 mbit through CenturyLink (DSL) in Utah as well. Not as awesome as fiber (inconsistent latency), but the competition from UTOPIA/iProvo does seem to drive speeds higher. Wish this were more common in other parts of the country.

I only pay 30/mo (35 or so after modem rental) on a promotion, 45 or so afterwords without contract. I'm thinking of switching to veracity unless I move to a UTOPIA city.

Good times in Utah...

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

#59

Post by darrenkopp »

beatgammit wrote: post #58
darrenkopp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UTOPIA in Utah with the ISP being XMission

I have 40 mbit through CenturyLink (DSL) in Utah as well. Not as awesome as fiber (inconsistent latency), but the competition from UTOPIA/iProvo does seem to drive speeds higher. Wish this were more common in other parts of the country. I only pay 30/mo (35 or so after modem rental) on a promotion, 45 or so afterwords without contract. I'm thinking of switching to veracity unless I move to a UTOPIA city. Good times i…

Veracity is a UTOPIA provider as well. I had them for a bit and was happy with them, but switched back to XMission due to price, but now they have the same price as XMission. It's worth pointing out that I switched from XMission to Veracity because Veracity had a much better price to start with.

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

#60

Post by derobert »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50
rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that "super speed" Internet is pretty useless when wifi networks max out at 20-40 Mbps in practice. And while not everyone has access to 30 Mbps+ Internet, most people in urban areas do.

Wifi networks max out at those speeds because "super speed" internet is elusive and so there is insufficient demand for faster/better wireless devices. 802.11n supports significantly higher speeds than that already, but nobody uses it because 802.11g is faster than most internet connections. Moreover, we're talking about building networks that haven't been built yet. By the time we build them there will likely be 802…

802.11(n), with three streams and a wide channel just barely covers my 75/35 FiOS connection, in one direction at a time only.

Take a look at the speed tests on, for example, SmallNetBuilder. "450mbps" 802.11n gear does less than 100mbps—and that's half-duplex.

11(ac) gear will do better, at the cost of using up a ridiculous amount of the 5GHz spectrum.

The speed listed on the box is, well, what most of would call a lie.

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