AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network • Hacker News Board

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#101

Post by talmand » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

cloverich wrote: post #93

> Municipalities have been giving AT&T and other incumbents incredibly favorable deals for years, and AT&T has tended to return the favor by providing the bare minimum in quality of service to its broadband customers, while focusing most of its efforts on trying to block any hint of competition from showing up. I"ve heard this a lot - I'd love to see some objective background information on this.

There are many news stories about such companies suing local municipalities to prevent them from building their own network because the companies refuse to service the area properly. Just pick whichever news source is the most objective to you.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#102

Post by jthol » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 2:32 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #59

jthol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simple. The city doesn't know what it's doing. They know Google does. They don't have to give any money to do it, just not charge Google to put their stuff in. Essentially they have to do nothing, get an ass-load of credit for doing it, and if it all goes wrong... well how can you blame them for trusting the company that some people literally think IS the internet?

Even AT&T knows how to run a service that requires customer contact/billing as telecoms does. Google has zero experience in both building/running/maintaining physical telco plant. And Google has terrible /nonexistant customer service Ernestine the operator would be a major improvement in customer service for google.

Well that wasn't really what great-grand parent was saying. They were asking why not build your own.

Sure AT&T knows what they are doing. However they have a very clear track record of over charging and under delivering.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#103

Post by josh2600 » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 2:43 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #80

josh2600 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bias, sort of. The US is actually two separate but interlinked networks. On the one hand, residential service is 3rd world in most areas. On the other hand, I would argue that the US has the only first world broadband economy, which is our commercial network. The real networks in the US are very fast, 100gigabit fast at the core, but they slow down when you get to residences. Between Datacenters, the Internet is real…

When I read elsewhere "We saw a lot of 100 GbE deployments primarily in core networks over the past couple of years, and now 100 GbE peering is taking off too. Several IXPs around the world, most of whom are Brocade customers, have announced the availability of 100 GbE peering ports or the intent offer them this year: AMS-IX (Amsterdam), DE-CIX (Frankfurt), JPIX (Tokyo), JPNAP (Tokyo), LINX (London), Netnod (Stockhol…

In the US, it is virtually impossible to find a circuit of 10 mbits up and 10 mbits down for a residence. This was the original goal stated by the Clinton initiatives but this was never reached.

Contrast that with Datacenters where 10gigabit links are common. Sure Europe has 100gigabit core networks, but the US, in terms of aggregate capacity, dwarfs Europe.

But the point is about the difference between our residential and our commercial networks, which are completely separate from a regulatory perspective. We treat residential bandwidth like its cannon fodder for telcos, which is decidedly not first-world.

You make great points but I still think mine are valid.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#104

Post by ausjke » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

Once again it approves competition is good. ATT has the chance to do it years ago, sigh.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#105

Post by runn1ng » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 2:55 PM UTC

noselasd wrote: post #86

jiggy2011 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, not to mention some rural areas which have no broadband at all and are still on 56k or satellite. In some cases locals have taken it into their own hands and established coops to build their own broadband systems. Even if you have no interest in the internet, stuff like that has to hurt your house price.

This is why Google Fiber is (probably) not going to have that big of an impact as people hope it will. Internet connectivity is geographically bounded, and to be disruptive, you need to cover most areas. This is quite unlike other disruptive technology that e.g. Apple have produced, which isn't constrained by geography. If Google Fiber never comes to your state/county/city, you'll have just as crappy and expensive se…

The upside of living in a large city is the plethora of available competition for almost everything. That has always be the case before the internet was even born.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#106

Post by driverdan » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 3:15 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #47

Here in the UK, we have a peculiar paradox regarding the rollout of fibre. We have what amounts to a telecoms duopoly, split between the old telephone monopoly (BT) and the sole national cable company (Virgin Media). BT cover every home, but Virgin Media serve only the most populous areas. BT are progressively upgrading their POTS network, while Virgin's network was FTTC from the start. BT only bother upgrading areas…

The best kind of government intervention in this case is to eliminiate the duopoly and open the market to more competition. The more competition the better the service and prices will be.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#107

Post by driverdan » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 3:21 PM UTC

robflynn wrote: post #8

mschuster91 wrote: post #5

Is it just European bias or is the US largely near a 3rd world country in terms of internet broadband access?

I don't think its bias. I cannot get DSL, CABLE, Fiber-anything... My choices are: Dialup, Satellite, or wireless internet. I can get 3G cell coverage -- sometimes. My street does have cable television, they just refuse to service the area with internet access. My country has an exclusivity agreement with this cable provider, so no other providers can come into the area. The sickening factor for me is the fact that I…

Have you considered moving?

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#108

Post by phillmv » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 3:25 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #106

jdietrich wrote: post #47

Here in the UK, we have a peculiar paradox regarding the rollout of fibre. We have what amounts to a telecoms duopoly, split between the old telephone monopoly (BT) and the sole national cable company (Virgin Media). BT cover every home, but Virgin Media serve only the most populous areas. BT are progressively upgrading their POTS network, while Virgin's network was FTTC from the start. BT only bother upgrading areas…

The best kind of government intervention in this case is to eliminiate the duopoly and open the market to more competition. The more competition the better the service and prices will be.

It's not a legal duopoly, innit. It's just a business with extremely high barriers to entry given all the infrastructure.

The only tools at your disposal is some kind of subsidy or legislate them into eating the costs of laying down infrastructure in less profitable areas.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#109

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 3:28 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #22

CaptainZapp wrote: post #14

This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…

> The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP. This is the model I see as ideal and it always baffles me why it's so rarely mentioned as an option. Make the fiber network a public grid like roads, water, sewer, power. Then sell access to private companies to deal with the connectivity, services (TV/VoIP…

>I don't understand why the cities would give so much free stuff to Google for them to set up their fiber network instead of just... setting up their own fiber network that's then actually owned by the public.

Isn't Google providing the actual capital to pay workers in trucks to dig holes and string fiber? It looks to me like the "free stuff" falls almost entirely into the category of the expedited cutting of red tape.

You have to remember that there is a level of politics with all of this too. A municipal network may benefit the public, but who is going to pay lobbyists and lawyers to beat back AT&T's efforts to stop it? Whereas in the case of Google Fiber the 'who' is clearly Google.

Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network

#110

Post by sophacles » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

jauer wrote: post #19

TFA talks about favorable deals for telcos. Telcos have received one-time incentives to do things that they may or may not have done, depending on who you read. The recurring incentive is usually to keep phone service working in rural areas. What Google got (at least in KC) that AT&T wants is no franchies fee (typically cable companies and fiber providers pay the town a percentage of their revenue for the right run l…

I don't know, I find it impressive that Google is doing this without begging for money, then canceling the project after doing no work on it because of hand wavy "expenses", like AT&T and their crowd have traditionally done with putting fiber everywhere.