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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

#41

Post by hadees »

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.

Which is why http://www.battlegroundtexas.com/ is so important. Texas needs some competition for it's top offices. Having a whole state run by one party is a terrible idea.

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

#43

Post by taylorwc »

pash wrote: post #30
Legion wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's not much data to go on, but in the KC area the schedule for suburban build-outs looks like it's being driven by politics as much as by demographic or infrastructural factors. (Of course, the initial choices of the KC and Austin metros themselves suggest that sort of decision-making.) In KC, Google's first announced suburban hook-ups were a couple of tiny, affluent suburbs adjacent to KCK and KCMO, likely due…

Skipping over OP in favor of Olathe was indeed politically, as well as practically, motivated. The fiber is being hung on existing poles, but Overland Park relies heavily on buried lines to quite a few areas. Additionally, Olathe's city council was very willing to accommodate Google--Overland Park moves more slowly and is likely less accommodating.

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

#44

Post by kyrra »

For those wondering where Google will roll out, we don't have exact details, but we have some information.

1) They said they will stick to Austin City Limits, which means within these boundaries [1].

2) For those that followed up with how KC operated, Google runs their lines on electrical poles and all places the city power company has lines. This is one of the big things KC and Austin have in common: city owned electric utility. With that google can run all their lines much easier. So, if you get electricity from Austin Energy, you will likely be eligible to get Google Fiber at some point.

3) Beyond that, it will be up to people like us to advocate in our neighborhood to get people to sign up for the service. Whatever areas have a large # of people pledge to sign up will be more likely to get it. To me this means south and east Austin. But at the same time, north austin has a lot of tech employees from Dell, Freescale, PayPal, and other large companies (though many of those people may live in Round Rock).

[1] http://www.zipmap.net/Texas/Travis_County/Austin.htm

[1.1] (easier on the eyes map) http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary-map/city/Austin/...

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

#45

Post by mildweed »

BryanB55 wrote: post #20

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?

If not longer. I live in KC and am probably going to have to wait another 1-2 years.

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

#46

Post by dr_doom »

tufyjggbfhry wrote: post #31
dr_doom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nyc also had a pretty bad immigration problem. Those pesky italians and their mafia. The Irish were no better. And on top of that Mexicans are no arriving in droves. When will it ever end? When?

That is why I put problem in quotes, I was responding to the parents reply about migration.

I actually favor more open immigration, my grandparents were some of those mexicans who came illegally and had a great life.

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

#47

Post by mayneack »

clauretano wrote: post #9
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…

This is how it goes with most service roll outs. If the people in the suburbs are really miffed that they aren't one of the first areas picked for Google Fiber, perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl. Congrats to any Austin HNers on your freedom from [insert Austin cable monopoly here]

I wonder if this timeline is slow enough for a given city's cable monopoly to respond with price/terms/bandwidth competition in time to head off google fiber.

Doesn't mean they will, but I would think that this is slow enough that they could theoretically ramp it up.

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

#48

Post by stephenhuey »

Google, come launch in a small subset of Houston! I'll bet the city would love to make a deal for you to deploy in EaDo. START Houston is there and it'd attract significant investment to an underutilized area literally a few blocks from downtown that Houston is eager to develop.

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

#49

Post by dkhenry »

mikeash wrote: post #22
dkhenry wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know, my Comcast offerings got substantially better over the last few years before I moved, going from 6/1Mbps to about 20/5, and I could have had well beyond 100Mbps down by the end if I felt like paying for it.

FiOS clocks in at 150+ Mbps and starts at 25/25 Comcast is the prime offender in the you have no other options game.

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

#50

Post by k3n »

6thSigma wrote: post #42

Now AT&T is announcing that they are building a 1Gbps fiber service in Austin as well. http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet-...

I've heard a lot of things from AT&T customers, and "satisfied" is never one of them. This is too little too late, and I'm pretty sure that most of their current customers can't wait to jump ship -- regardless of whatever carrots that they bring out at the last minute.
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