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Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

googlefiberblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#11

Post by ericabiz »

enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

The great thing about working for an Internet company (I'm assuming you do since you've been on Hacker News for a while) is that you can really live anywhere. I moved my most recent startup to Austin after living in the Valley for 10 years and SoCal for 2. I'm already ridiculously happy with the move. And it seems like much of California is following me here--we are even getting an In-N-Out Burger this year!

Austin is a great place to run a company. Lower cost of living, lower taxes, and now Google Fiber. Plus the people here are amazingly friendly. I'm happy to compare/contrast vs. the Valley or SoCal--shoot me an email (email in my profile) if you have questions.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#12

Post by msoad »

enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

I think we won't see Fiber in California. They will use wireless technology to transfer data from final optical fiber node to homes. That way it won't need a lot of digging.

Wireless data is getting faster and faster, so it should be possible to transfer gigabit per second data over wireless transmitters.

Right now my iPhone's LTE is faster than my home Comcast cable connection. I hope wireless gets cheaper and faster to replace Comcast in future

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#13

Post by bratsche »

ericabiz wrote: post #11
enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

The great thing about working for an Internet company (I'm assuming you do since you've been on Hacker News for a while) is that you can really live anywhere. I moved my most recent startup to Austin after living in the Valley for 10 years and SoCal for 2. I'm already ridiculously happy with the move. And it seems like much of California is following me here--we are even getting an In-N-Out Burger this year! Austin i…

I live in Dallas and I like the lower cost of living and everything. But now I wish I lived in Austin. :)

The thing I hate about both Dallas and Austin is driving. I used to live northeast and could walk everywhere much easier. Austin seems to be pretty bike-friendly though, and Dallas is becoming more so.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#14

Post by mikeash »

meritt wrote: post #4
dkhenry wrote: post #3

I really want to see the ROI google is planning on having for theses projects. If my calculations[1] are correct they only need something like 200,000 customers to sign up to get a ROI of one year on both roll outs. ~ 100M for both rollouts @ $70 per customer per month

I'd argue Google's ROI on the service itself a very small piece of the pie and almost irrelevant. Google gains most of their revenue from advertising on their properties. More people online + faster access = more advertising revenue. Especially in a market like Kansas City which is dominated by TWC who is notorious for misrepresenting bandwidth, throttling against high bandwidth sites (youtube & netflix) and has noti…

I imagine they're aiming for a high multiplier effect, too. Even if Google Fiber never reaches a large percentage of the American public, its mere existence may spur action on the part of other ISPs. For every Fiber customer Google signs up directly, they might indirectly obtain much better internet (and thus more advertising revenue) for maybe 10 other people using other ISPs.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#15

Post by DannyBee »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #8
enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

What environmental regulations?

Remove environmental, and you've got it.

California in general has a ridiculous set of regulations for doing anything related to building.

Individual counties are even worse (often requiring fighting with county-paid or city-paid arborists to remove trees on your own property, etc)

For giggles, read the story of PEX tubing and California. PEX has been used in Europe with no issues since the 60's. For many years, California was the only state to ban PEX, for no reason.

After it's adoption into the 2006 UPC, california started to take steps to add it to the california codes.

This resulted in 3 environmental studies, two environmental impact reports, 2 lawsuits against California for trying to adopt it, and 5 years of work.

http://www.bsc.ca.gov/Home/New/PEX.aspx

This covers only the post-2009 part of the saga.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#16

Post by Legion »

pash wrote: post #2

> Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014. The timeline Google's followed in Kansas City suggests it will be another year until service is available to a significant chunk of Austin, and likely well into 2016 or beyond before the whole city is hooked up. Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that. But hopefully the build-out gets ramped up, both in Austin and…

> Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that.

I'm interested to see where in the priority list some of the closer suburbs are. Round Rock, after all, is Dell headquarters. I'd have to imagine there is going to be some strong demand up there.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#17

Post by dkhenry »

mikeash wrote: post #14
meritt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue Google's ROI on the service itself a very small piece of the pie and almost irrelevant. Google gains most of their revenue from advertising on their properties. More people online + faster access = more advertising revenue. Especially in a market like Kansas City which is dominated by TWC who is notorious for misrepresenting bandwidth, throttling against high bandwidth sites (youtube & netflix) and has noti…

I imagine they're aiming for a high multiplier effect, too. Even if Google Fiber never reaches a large percentage of the American public, its mere existence may spur action on the part of other ISPs. For every Fiber customer Google signs up directly, they might indirectly obtain much better internet (and thus more advertising revenue) for maybe 10 other people using other ISPs.

but what do you do if that multiplier doesn't appear ? From what I have seen even when Verizon started a massive rollout of FiOS it didn't spur other ISP's to offer a competing service, they just relied on the fact that rolling out to _every_ market would be cost prohibitive. It looks like with Google Fiber the existing ISP's are taking the same track.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#18

Post by dr_doom »

xradionut wrote: post #7
wesray wrote: post #5

Love it, Austin is such a great tech bubble right now, this will just continue the trend for a long while, they picked a great spot to do this (mainly because I live in Austin, lol)

Austin is in a state, (Texas), with a lot of pending issues coming to roost... education, traffic, migration, water/drought, social safety net. As much as I love my native state, I don't see any leadership addressing these.

It's important to note that California is just as bad or worse in a lot of those areas.

All the things you mentioned are pretty bad in California. Public education is terrible, traffic is outrageous, there is a huge immigration 'problem', and the forest fires are pretty bad. To each his own but Californian leadership isn't really that great.

I just can't decide who is worse Perry or Brown.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#19

Post by georgemcbay »

msoad wrote: post #12
enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

I think we won't see Fiber in California. They will use wireless technology to transfer data from final optical fiber node to homes. That way it won't need a lot of digging. Wireless data is getting faster and faster, so it should be possible to transfer gigabit per second data over wireless transmitters. Right now my iPhone's LTE is faster than my home Comcast cable connection. I hope wireless gets cheaper and faste…

Wireless data is getting faster and faster in terms of providing what would previously be considered massive bandwidth but generally the latency still sucks for things like fast-paced online gaming. I still want fiber.

Re: Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas

#20

Post by BryanB55 »

I'm in Austin and can't wait. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to continue to pay TimeWarner for another 1-2 years at least.

I'm interested to see where the first 'fiberhood' is going to be in Austin. South Austin, 78704 would be awesome. Any Austin people on here have any guesses?

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