I can't wait for this in LA. I'm currently paying $115 per month for 1Mbps/10Mbps for Time Warner "business class" internet-only service. My company does visual effects work, so I actually have to drive my video files home on a USB drive to upload them since my home connection is 20Mbps/200Mbps for $50 per month. The internet monopoly situation in the US is terrible for businesses here.
Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
21–30 of 223 posts
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#22As a Chicagoan I'm excited, but also worried it will lead to the incarceration of multiple public officials and a raw deal for the city, somehow.
As a resident of Chicago, I thought the exact same thing. They will either have to pay off the right alderman or they will never get this built in under 5 years. Sometimes this city embarrasses me, while at other times, I'm really proud of the work the DoIT has done in Chicago. The data they are making available is great, if only they could modernize the rest of our city services...
Yeah, in some regards I'm being awfully cynical. As you said, there are also good things the city has done. You can even view the location of every snowplow in the city in real time; pretty cool when you're waiting for your one-way side street to be plowed.
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#23LA has had notoriously bad ISP coverage. Most houses in the area only have a choice between one cable provider or going DSL. Nice to hear AT&T is planning to roll out gigabit fiber in LA as well. http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/att-bringing-gigabit... For some reason Verizon Fios has avoided LA proper but laid out Fiber along the outskirts and in Ventura County years ago.
TWC coverage is not bad - my addresses in LA each have had 300Mbps available for $65/mo. Speed tests clock in around 330Mbps down.
TWC coverage here in Rochester, NY is $84/month for 50Mbps.
I'd guess you only get 6x the speed for less money in LA in places where fiber is a viable competitor.
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#24I'd assumed that cities like Chicago with relatively old/dense/complex infrastructure would pose a tremendous challenge to a project like Google Fiber. Happy to have assumed incorrectly, but it does seem a significant jump from mid-sized metros like Provo/Austin/Kansas City.
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#25In the current fiber cities, does anyone know if the service made it out of the city limits into the burbs? (Asking as someone right outside the Chicago city limits...)
Don't want to give you a false sense of optimism on this, but an article I recall reading last year speculated that Fiber penetration in Chicago could begin outside the city and work its way downtown, rather than the other way around.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-google-fiber-lottery...
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#26Los Angeles will be an impressive feat. The ridiculous number of jurisdictions will generate an ungodly amount of red tape.
Well the announcements are kind of dishonest, they aren't doing whole cities. Select neighborhoods get the service and you actually be a street over and miss out. I remember the excitement when they announced Atlanta, until we saw the map. Yes it is impractical to cover a "city" but it would be more honest to say "Coming to select areas of X"
exactly. my fear is that when Google says "Los Angeles" they really mean "Venice where a lot of our employees live and work", or at best "west of the 405"...
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#27In the current fiber cities, does anyone know if the service made it out of the city limits into the burbs? (Asking as someone right outside the Chicago city limits...)
In Austin, no, the map follows closely to the city limits.
They provide maps of the rollout too: https://fiber.google.com/cities/austin/fiberhoods/
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#28LA has had notoriously bad ISP coverage. Most houses in the area only have a choice between one cable provider or going DSL. Nice to hear AT&T is planning to roll out gigabit fiber in LA as well. http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/att-bringing-gigabit... For some reason Verizon Fios has avoided LA proper but laid out Fiber along the outskirts and in Ventura County years ago.
> For some reason Verizon Fios has avoided LA proper but laid out Fiber along the outskirts and in Ventura County years ago.
Not sure what you mean. I have Fios and I live in Los Angeles proper. The whole city doesn't have Fios, but parts of it certainly do.
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#29LA has had notoriously bad ISP coverage. Most houses in the area only have a choice between one cable provider or going DSL. Nice to hear AT&T is planning to roll out gigabit fiber in LA as well. http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/att-bringing-gigabit... For some reason Verizon Fios has avoided LA proper but laid out Fiber along the outskirts and in Ventura County years ago.
TWC coverage is not bad - my addresses in LA each have had 300Mbps available for $65/mo. Speed tests clock in around 330Mbps down.
As a recent LA transplant from SF, I found it ironic that TWC offers such a fast, affordable internet service, yet SF - arguably the modern global hub of tech - struggles with slow, expensive internet, almost throughout.
As a tech worker, this is easily one of the better LA v. SF advantages.
Re: Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
#30I can't wait for this in LA. I'm currently paying $115 per month for 1Mbps/10Mbps for Time Warner "business class" internet-only service. My company does visual effects work, so I actually have to drive my video files home on a USB drive to upload them since my home connection is 20Mbps/200Mbps for $50 per month. The internet monopoly situation in the US is terrible for businesses here.
This is so ridiculous, it's literally unbelievable. My home city, Kiev(Ukraine), has multiple 1 Gbit residential broadband providers for $6 - $15. Not joking.