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Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

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Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#161

Post by krageon »

scarface74 wrote: post #160
rayiner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People focus on Louisville because Google created a legal issue there by asking the city to pass a “one touch make ready” law that would allow Google’s contractors to move AT&T’s lines and equipment. I’m sure AT&T didn’t file that law suit out of principle, but it’s hard to blame AT&T for not going along with that plan. But what about all the other cities where there was no such law suits? What about cities like Balt…

Why rollout the red carpet for Google? AT&T is more than willing and able to expand its fiber gigabit internet. I hate to admit it, but we haven’t had any issues with AT&T gigabit ethernet service. It’s $70 a month with no additional fees, rock solid and unlike Comcast, we actually get great (900Mbps) upload speeds.

You're paying a lot of money for a gigabit connection and you don't get full speed. You are apparently happy about that, I'm afraid I don't follow.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#162

Post by scarface74 »

toast0 wrote: post #81
yingw787 wrote: post #25

When I interned at AT&T a few years ago, I asked a manager I respected whether they were worried about Google Fiber coming in and eating their lunch. "No", he said. "We'll sue them for every mile of fiber they lay down". I can understand why they would make that play. It's kind of the only play they have. AT&T and Verizon innovate enough to remain...okay...but they're not exactly Google. The only way they would win i…

I suspect, now that they've started, AT&T is going to continue to build out their GPON fiber through most of their network. In a lot of areas, they do have real issues with the copper wire that's on the poles, and they've figured out how to make rewiring not too bad, at least where the residential wiring is above ground. They've got a significant advantage over Google here. Where they run DSL, they've got a customer…

My parents lives in a smallish city - 77K population and shrinking. They’ve had AT&T DSL for years. AT&T hasn’t sold DSL for years there but for some reason keep it active for their few existing customers.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#163

Post by scarface74 »

colechristensen wrote: post #131
ilovecaching wrote: post #98

Let’s not forget that the real issue here is that American ISPs are a complete monopoly by Comcast and AT&T, companies made of pure greed. Small end sub ISPs have to claw for every strand of dark fiber. Google really shouldn’t be the answer though. We need to demand that politicians address the issue in the upcoming election before they start looking at the Silicon Valley giants.

The best ISP in the country is in Minneapolis. $70/mo for symmetric 1 Gbps https://fiber.usinternet.com/ They lay their own fiber terminating at your home and have been steadily covering the metro area.

AT&T offers the same deal in Atlanta.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#164

Post by Criper1Tookus »

I really don’t think Google knows what they really want to achieve with Fiber - otherwise they’d have figured out the right way to roll it out years ago. They also bought a separate company, Webpass, that does “fixed wireless” (wireless to the building using a pretty big antenna, about the size of a stadium light, building is wired from there), and that has also been rolling out very slowly.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#165

Post by scarface74 »

krageon wrote: post #161
scarface74 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why rollout the red carpet for Google? AT&T is more than willing and able to expand its fiber gigabit internet. I hate to admit it, but we haven’t had any issues with AT&T gigabit ethernet service. It’s $70 a month with no additional fees, rock solid and unlike Comcast, we actually get great (900Mbps) upload speeds.

You're paying a lot of money for a gigabit connection and you don't get full speed. You are apparently happy about that, I'm afraid I don't follow.

You mean 940Mbps up and down isn’t “full speed”?

So did you sneak into almost any room in my gigabit wired house and do a speed test?

I have a wired computer in my office and two 4K AppleTVs and they all report 900Mbps+ up and down.

My son’s wired PS4 reports around 600Mbps.

I also bet that AT&T won’t abandon my neighborhood and become uninterested like Google does for basically everything in three years.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#166

Post by rayiner »

krageon wrote: post #161
scarface74 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why rollout the red carpet for Google? AT&T is more than willing and able to expand its fiber gigabit internet. I hate to admit it, but we haven’t had any issues with AT&T gigabit ethernet service. It’s $70 a month with no additional fees, rock solid and unlike Comcast, we actually get great (900Mbps) upload speeds.

You're paying a lot of money for a gigabit connection and you don't get full speed. You are apparently happy about that, I'm afraid I don't follow.

With headers, 940 mbps is about the maximum for gigabit Ethernet: https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-howto/33095-ho....

And of course, Google Fiber like AT&T is an oversubscribed consumer level connection. Each use shares a 2.4 gigabit up/1.2 gigabit down GPON with some number (typically 16) other users.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#167

Post by rkangel »

ilovecaching wrote: post #98

Let’s not forget that the real issue here is that American ISPs are a complete monopoly by Comcast and AT&T, companies made of pure greed. Small end sub ISPs have to claw for every strand of dark fiber. Google really shouldn’t be the answer though. We need to demand that politicians address the issue in the upcoming election before they start looking at the Silicon Valley giants.

The (next) brightest hope for something changing here is Starlink. I'm sure that Comcast and and AT&T will throw up every legal roadblock that they can, but universal 1 Gbps internet availability could really shake things up.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#168

Post by kalleboo »

pathseeker wrote: post #5
endofcapital wrote: post #2

"But Google Fiber got something out of its time here. It learned that nanotrenching—the cost-saving process of burying fiber optic cables just two inches underground—was a bust. “We currently do not have plans that call for 2 inch trenches, our primary specifications are focused on going deeper,” a Google Fiber spokesperson said in an email." It's so weird to just use cities as A/B tests and just disregard all the pe…

Google does this all of the time with all of their products. The purposely degraded the performance of some users on their products (search IIRC) to see how they would react.

YouTube too, can't find it now but they did a study where they degraded users to 480p to see how many would manually switch back to HD (spoiler: very few did)

I believe YouTube also experimentally surfaces new recommendations slowly to see how many clicks they get and if it should be surfaced more or not

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#169

Post by kalleboo »

spullara wrote: post #14

Fiber is probably a dead end and will ultimately be replaced by 5G point-to-point transmission for the last mile.

I agree that fiber rollout will probably slow to a halt in favor of wireless, but purely for cost reasons. Fiber will always be superior if you can get it, but most users don't care enough - like how people complain about bad service and small economy class seats but won't pay 10% more for another airline with better seat pitch.

I know lots of people now who use wireless plans at home - they whine at the end of the month when their cap runs out but won't switch because it's cheaper (monthly cost similar, but free signup vs $200 install fee + router purchase).

So 100% yes, as a business it makes little economic sense to build a consumer FTTH network. I'd still like to see governments and incumbent telecoms do it though as an investment in quality, stability and diversity. I feel a lot more comfortable replacing the POTS network with fiber than wireless.

Re: Visible signs left after Google Fiber abandons Louisville

#170

Post by linuxftw »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #155
linuxftw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about roads? What about electricity? Why should rural people have those when it adds extra tax burden to those in the city? What about the postal service?

In all seriousness, why should they? There are obvious diminishing returns and there's a point where the distances get large enough and the number of people gets small enough that it's unjustifiable. Opportunity costs exist, and it follows that advocating for money to be spent inefficiently is bad.

I never said they should. I actually don't believe there should be goverment owned roads or utilities (or subsidized utilities in general).

Nobody actually cares about the rural poor. No transportation options, limited services in general. It's just laughable how people consider themselves so giving, unless those people live outside the city, then screw those people.

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