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When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

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Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#61

Post by Scoundreller »

philjohn wrote: post #53
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess from your description and alias that you're Australian. Man it took some work to get the model up and running though didn't it? Great idea from one party, totally politically destroyed soon afterwards when the other party got into power, and then slowly, over the course of a decade and a half, has almost reached the original vision. Inspired this book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Frustrated-State-terrible-det…

It's the same in the UK for the most part. OpenReach (which was "split off" from BT) puts the infrastructure in place, and OFCOM (our telecoms regulator) defines the price they can charge to ISP's for a connection - so you have a raft of ISP's who compete on price or service. There are other infra providers though, Virgin Media (DOCSIS Cable) cover some of the country, CityFibre are doing a massive expansion (I now h…

Canada has a similar thing where incumbents have to open up their networks under some cost+markup algorithm.

It worked well for independent ISPs for a while.

But nowadays nobody questions it when that cost accounting went all Hollywood. Now incumbent’s subsidiaries run at a “loss” and sell never ending promo packages for less than they lease the lines out at. That’s just good competition, right? Nothing bad can happen.

Now most of the independent providers have been gobbled up by incumbents (sometimes selling service in other incumbents’ territory so we have the options of Satan-North, satan-west, satan-east and Satan-south). Yay?

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#62

Post by lstamour »

1letterunixname wrote: post #58
hipadev23 wrote: post #32

I'm utterly shocked that once again Google half-assed a product and then completely abandoned it.

Another one: Mountain View's Google Public WiFi was never usable by anyone for anything.

In their defense, I don’t actually know of any municipal-scale outdoor wifi project that was a success, though I’d love to hear about it.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#63

Post by Scoundreller »

amf12 wrote: post #46
CamperBob2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro tip: sign up for business service, not residential. You will get infinitely better support, from first-line on up.

I had looked into it. In my area, I can get 1 Gbps residential service or a 50Mbps business service for the same cost. That speed is ridiculously low.

Sign up for business, get your install issues sorted out, then “downgrade” to 1 gbps.

(Assuming internet is a set and forget thing once it’s up and running)

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#64

Post by mathieuh »

philjohn wrote: post #53
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess from your description and alias that you're Australian. Man it took some work to get the model up and running though didn't it? Great idea from one party, totally politically destroyed soon afterwards when the other party got into power, and then slowly, over the course of a decade and a half, has almost reached the original vision. Inspired this book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Frustrated-State-terrible-det…

It's the same in the UK for the most part. OpenReach (which was "split off" from BT) puts the infrastructure in place, and OFCOM (our telecoms regulator) defines the price they can charge to ISP's for a connection - so you have a raft of ISP's who compete on price or service. There are other infra providers though, Virgin Media (DOCSIS Cable) cover some of the country, CityFibre are doing a massive expansion (I now h…

If anything there needs to be more regulation in the UK, I don't understand why every year I have to go through the song and dance of calling up my ISP at the time, saying "it's too expensive I'm going to leave", and getting them to put the price down.

It seems like a lot of these companies' revenue relies on people being too lazy or ill-informed to do this so you end up paying way more than you need to be.

It literally takes two minutes on the phone sometimes.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#65

Post by bradknowles »

yeukhon wrote: post #29
bradknowles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also got the t-shirt from Google, when they announced they were coming to Austin. I don't remember which year that was. Google did come to a couple of neighborhoods, but that's it. And while that spurred the AT&T fiber sales critters to come out of the woodwork, that didn't inspire much in the way of actual fiber investment from AT&T. The sales critters came to our neighborhood several times, but ultimately stopped…

Fwiw, TW was acquired by Spectrum several years ago. The acquisition did not help customers. I am in a lucky boat. Verizon took many years to break ground in many neighborhoods in NYC and neaby counties, after fought monopolies (which they are themselves ironically). But generally only Verizon is the reliable one here

Huh. I didn't realize Spectrum bought TW. I thought TW had exited the market and Spectrum was awarded a new monopoly contract.

Sigh....

They bought out TW and then proceeded to make the service even worse.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#66

Post by throwaway2037 »

bruce511 wrote: post #8
js2 wrote: post #3

Summary: Google tried to "nano"-trench Louisville, KY using 2" deep trenches (by comparison micro-trenching is typically 6" deep) then use epoxy to cover the trench. The epoxy didn't stand up to tires. Google tried to replace the epoxy with asphalt but that damaged the fiber. Google determined at that point that nano-trenching wouldn't work and didn't want to spend additional money to remedy the situation, so they ab…

I'm not in the US, but in my country the fibre-provider and the ISP are unrelated companies. There are multiple fibre companies (typically an area is served by one or another of them although my area has two) and of course a couple dozen ISPs that do the ISP part. This model works -really- well. ISPs compete on price, and service. Fibre folks do the physical stuff. Fibre companies are incentivised to get rolled out i…

What country? It would helpful to know so we can dig into the details. I can assure you they don't separate themselves (soft+hard) out of the goodness of their hearts. Telco loves a monopoly where they can get it. I am sure it was wise regulations -- which the US lacks on this matter. Also, national broadband projects in NZ + AU + SE have been fairly successful. Basically, the gov't pays to build the network, then leases parts of it to ISP who compete.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#67

Post by throwaway2037 »

mathieuh wrote: post #64
philjohn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in the UK for the most part. OpenReach (which was "split off" from BT) puts the infrastructure in place, and OFCOM (our telecoms regulator) defines the price they can charge to ISP's for a connection - so you have a raft of ISP's who compete on price or service. There are other infra providers though, Virgin Media (DOCSIS Cable) cover some of the country, CityFibre are doing a massive expansion (I now h…

If anything there needs to be more regulation in the UK, I don't understand why every year I have to go through the song and dance of calling up my ISP at the time, saying "it's too expensive I'm going to leave", and getting them to put the price down. It seems like a lot of these companies' revenue relies on people being too lazy or ill-informed to do this so you end up paying way more than you need to be. It litera…

This is probably a function of the marketplace. Honestly, it is difficult to differentiate yourself as a modern ISP, except price. Most normies are using Gmail or the equivalent instead of POP3/IMAP from their ISP. As a result, ISP has cut-throat pricing that is probably heavily loss-leading. Then they jack up prices and how people are sticky -- don't leave. This outcome still seems better than shitty combined telco.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#68

Post by throwaway2037 »

MichaelRo wrote: post #38
js2 wrote: post #3

Summary: Google tried to "nano"-trench Louisville, KY using 2" deep trenches (by comparison micro-trenching is typically 6" deep) then use epoxy to cover the trench. The epoxy didn't stand up to tires. Google tried to replace the epoxy with asphalt but that damaged the fiber. Google determined at that point that nano-trenching wouldn't work and didn't want to spend additional money to remedy the situation, so they ab…

>> $70/month for 1 Gbps. I'm paying $7 / month for 0.5 Gbps. I'd say it's worth the tradeoff.

That is stunning it is so cheap. Same city? If not, where and how? I don't know how any ISP could make money.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#69

Post by shiroiuma »

asylteltine wrote: post #25
stephenr wrote: post #4

Given their penchant for abandoning things on a whim, I never really understood why people would ever choose to use a service like this, from Google.

Google fiber is just another thing in the Google graveyard. I’ve switched away from almost every Google product with maps and gmail being the last holdouts. I mostly use Apple Maps but there’s nothing as convenient as gmail and workspaces. If Apple offered email again I would switch to it for sure.

Google Calendar and Photos work well IME. Also, GoogleTV (Android TV) is great, since you can side-load apps like SmartTubeNext. Same goes for Android phones, where Firefox Nightly plus uBO (plus another extension to allow turning off the screen) let me listen to YouTube at work without any ad interruptions.

Apple stuff is useless because it only works on Apple devices, and doesn't let me share with friends who don't have Apple devices, and generally isn't friendly to ad-blocking.

Re: When Google Fiber abandons your city as a failed experiment (2019)

#70

Post by throwaway2037 »

WorldMaker wrote: post #42
stephenr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you must surely have meant `2'` vs `6'` (i.e. feet) and simply used the wrong symbol. I don't really understand how a 2" deep nano trench is meant to last any serious amount of time (compared to a regular conduit fully buried under the road), given how asphalt roads (particularly in a city where there is a fixed-height curb, and resurfacing works will regularly be ripping up a layer of the asphalt to be rep…

It fails basic civil engineering on so many levels. Imagine doing that in a city with an active frost line well below 2". How many pothole-related outages would you expect to obviously experience if you were to try such an experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line

Is cold weather bad for fiber? I'm confused by this post.

    It fails basic civil engineering on so many levels.
This is classic HN armchair engineering. I'm sure Google didn't put any thought into their physical rollout.
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