[deleted]
Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
11–20 of 155 posts
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#12To save people from looking, it has been changed to; --- To operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. ---
They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?
I doubt they are trying to cut off competition to GMail. Email is blocked typically as a matter of convention by the majority of ISPs. It requires features 99.9% of customers don't care about in the slightest, and invites spam problems.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#13Out of curiosity, why is there a prohibition on a particular type of activity and not just on bandwidth or similar? I understand that this is a fairly common provision, and not specific to Google Fiber at all.
Being able to handle everyone using their connections to the full at all times would require being able to deal with massively more usage then you ever practically see. I'm a pretty heavy user, I work with data sets, watch a lot of streaming TV, have several video chats every day and I also download games through things like Steam.
My usage was less than 15% of what I could use (and that's with a slow connection, I'd not use significantly more data if my connection improved).
This means they can plan around particular users and everyone gets a decent deal. Remember that if they had to have the capacity of (max speed) * (number of people) then I'd just get a slower connection for the same price.
Now, someone running a server could massively outstrip my usage because they're not one person reading reddit but a machine serving millions of people. That breaks the expectations, and means all the actual people do worse off.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#14To save people from looking, it has been changed to; --- To operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. ---
They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?
I do not think that is an exhaustive list. The only thing it excludes are commercial operations, so I would assume that yes, you can run personal services (even services you share freely with friends or strangers), but that you cannot try to monetize those services. IANAL though.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#15If only it was that simple to make Google stop spying for NSA
As if NSA is the only problem there
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#16Out of curiosity, why is there a prohibition on a particular type of activity and not just on bandwidth or similar? I understand that this is a fairly common provision, and not specific to Google Fiber at all.
Because not all internet is equal. Most ISP's give home users a significant discount on their service, in exchange for agreeing to certain assumptions about their use. This is done because most home users could never afford internet, if they had to pay for full price. For example, in this area, a dedicated 20x20mb connection to the internet costs about $500USD per month (Metro Ethernet). You can do almost anything yo…
Sounds like false advertising to me...
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?
I doubt they are trying to cut off competition to GMail. Email is blocked typically as a matter of convention by the majority of ISPs. It requires features 99.9% of customers don't care about in the slightest, and invites spam problems.
It may be blocked by the ISPs that service a majority of people (i.e. cable companies), but I don't have any reason to think that it's blocked by a majority of ISPs.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#18Out of curiosity, why is there a prohibition on a particular type of activity and not just on bandwidth or similar? I understand that this is a fairly common provision, and not specific to Google Fiber at all.
I would expect this to be to allow market segmentation and price discrimination. A business might be willing and able to pay more for internet service than an individual, but less likely so if they could get the same thing for the individual's price.
I'm sure this is coming with Fiber. But for early stage products (technically Fiber only has three "customers" right now-KC, Austin and Provo), one of the best things you can do to encourage uptake is keep your pricing drop-dead simple.
I think they are just trying to balance that simplicity with keeping it fair by not allowing commercial servers. A couple businesses taking advantage of a system that wasn't built for them could wreck the speeds for everyone, and Fiber's reputation going forward.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?
You will most likely be not able to host a personal email server from a residential ISP without an IPv4 address tunnel, anyway. Without a proper reverse DNS record and an IP address not from a residential pool, most properly configured servers will reject emails immediately (in order to combat spam).
I've had no trouble paying a little extra for static IPs, not to mention delegated reverse DNS, over the past 15 years.
Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use
#20Out of curiosity, why is there a prohibition on a particular type of activity and not just on bandwidth or similar? I understand that this is a fairly common provision, and not specific to Google Fiber at all.
Being able to handle everyone using their connections to the full at all times would require being able to deal with massively more usage then you ever practically see. I'm a pretty heavy user, I work with data sets, watch a lot of streaming TV, have several video chats every day and I also download games through things like Steam. My usage was less than 15% of what I could use (and that's with a slow connection, I'd…
"Being able to handle everyone using their connections to the full at all times would require being able to deal with massively more usage then you ever practically see"
So what? All that means is that you can oversell throughput. How does it imply that people cannot or should not be running any particular service over their connection?
The real barrier to hosting commercial services on residential connections should be technical. Your service has little to no uptime guarantee, little to no throughput guarantee, and no guarantee of a static IP address (though with dynamic DNS this might not really matter). That is enough to discourage commercial services, at least at any scale that anyone could care about.