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Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#71

Post by notyourwork »

markbnj wrote: post #58
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

I agree, generalizing country to country comparisons without considering population and size are usually not valuable unless you have context to these things.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#72

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #53
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

The question is whether the Nordic model is scalable. Here is the OECD data on broadband deployment: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2-OECD-WiredWirelessBB-2... . It breaks down DLS, cable, and fiber subscribers per 100 residents. Sweden: 11.4 DSL, 6.6 cable, 17.5 fiber. U.S. 8.2 DSL, 18.5 cable, 3.4 fiber. U.K. 30.6 DSL, 7.2 cable, 0.0 fiber. Germany: 28.9 DSL, 8.1 cable, 0.6 fiber. France: 33.3 DSL, 4.5 cable,…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#73

Post by qaq »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #35
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

>That sucks for citizens of the US. This seems a little hyperbolic. Where I live I can get gigabit either via Comcast or AT&T here in Chicago. The rollout to gigabit is slow, but its coming. Sweden has 9.5m people. We have 320m and a huge landmass. Infrastructure upgrades simply take longer considering our size and population and a variety of other issues. Its not exactly Google or bust. Its clear Google doesn't have…

It's throttled and capped so comparing it to European plans is not even funny especially considering pricing.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#74

Post by Ambroos »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the Nordic model is scalable. Here is the OECD data on broadband deployment: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2-OECD-WiredWirelessBB-2... . It breaks down DLS, cable, and fiber subscribers per 100 residents. Sweden: 11.4 DSL, 6.6 cable, 17.5 fiber. U.S. 8.2 DSL, 18.5 cable, 3.4 fiber. U.K. 30.6 DSL, 7.2 cable, 0.0 fiber. Germany: 28.9 DSL, 8.1 cable, 0.6 fiber. France: 33.3 DSL, 4.5 cable,…

Zero fiber in the UK? That looks wrong. Although, a lot of "fiber" sold in the UK is not actually fiber all the way to the home.

Only FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) should count as fiber. In Belgium one of the larger cable providers used to advertise their plans as 'FiberNet' while it was only FTTN (fiber-to-the-neighbourhood) and the last step was cable (with significantly lower uplink speeds than what would be attainable with fiber).

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#75

Post by j1vms »

markbnj wrote: post #58
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

> When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe."

I don't know if the comparison should be valid. Over the past 100 years the US has done incredible things. From developing the first transistor to applied atomic power to the first man on the moon, and more relevantly to your point, it expanded the German Autobahn model and took it to a continental scale.

If America wanted to do it, it eventually could be done - and many people around the world still believe this idea to be true.

Edit: What I think is interesting to add is that defense and national pride or prestige were indeed significant factors in these developments through the decades.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#76

Post by melling »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #31
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

All hope is not lost (yet): > Craig Barratt, chief executive of Access, the Alphabet division containing Google Fiber, also said he planned to step down because the company was shifting to new technologies and methods of deploying high-speed internet. Fiber is expensive in every way (labor, regulatory hurdles, resistance from existing broadband companies, etc.). If they've found a viable alternative, it could mean th…

First invent better robots that can do the job, or similar tasks. Next sell the technology to refine it to further fund R&D. Finally, purse other ventures that used to have expensive labor costs.

They could do Google Fiber today if they could sell it for more. The only other realistic plan is to reduce to cost of the project.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#77

Post by oarsinsync »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the Nordic model is scalable. Here is the OECD data on broadband deployment: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2-OECD-WiredWirelessBB-2... . It breaks down DLS, cable, and fiber subscribers per 100 residents. Sweden: 11.4 DSL, 6.6 cable, 17.5 fiber. U.S. 8.2 DSL, 18.5 cable, 3.4 fiber. U.K. 30.6 DSL, 7.2 cable, 0.0 fiber. Germany: 28.9 DSL, 8.1 cable, 0.6 fiber. France: 33.3 DSL, 4.5 cable,…

Zero fiber in the UK? That looks wrong. Although, a lot of "fiber" sold in the UK is not actually fiber all the way to the home.

Indeed, there's very little fibre in the UK. VDSL (DSL in that list) is being sold as fibre, and cable (cable in that list) is being sold as fibre, but cruicially, are not fibre.

Very few even vaguely close to fibre-like services (e.g. Hyperoptic) in the UK

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#78

Post by weatherlight »

micahbright wrote: post #70
markbnj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population…

Sometimes people struggle to find something good to say about Sweden, the rape capital of the world. Glad we can find a good comparison - New Jersey...less rape...more, faster internet

Totally inappropriate!

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#79

Post by delecti »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #37
FT_intern wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

building new infrastructure is much harder now than decades ago. It's been much easier for the companies to retain infrastructure

But everyone moving to fiber IS building new infrastructure. Sure, they're continuing to cash in on telephone wire and coax, but fiber is new infrastructure. And Google discovered that you CAN'T just make money deploying Gigabit fiber for $60 a month. Getting even a 50 Mbps fiber circuit around here is hundreds of dollars a month.

Much (most?) "new" fiber is just companies lighting up existing dark fiber infrastructure.

Re: Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout

#80

Post by oarsinsync »

rayiner wrote: post #53
staticelf wrote: post #12

That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior. The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded. For example, I have 250/1…

The question is whether the Nordic model is scalable. Here is the OECD data on broadband deployment: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2-OECD-WiredWirelessBB-2... . It breaks down DLS, cable, and fiber subscribers per 100 residents. Sweden: 11.4 DSL, 6.6 cable, 17.5 fiber. U.S. 8.2 DSL, 18.5 cable, 3.4 fiber. U.K. 30.6 DSL, 7.2 cable, 0.0 fiber. Germany: 28.9 DSL, 8.1 cable, 0.6 fiber. France: 33.3 DSL, 4.5 cable,…

> Spain: 16.5 DSL, 5.5 cable, 6.8 fiber.

Note that outlier amongst the rest of the European countries excluding Sweden. Spain is a year or two into rolling out FTTP everywhere, replacing the copper twisted pair everywhere it can. 0 cost upgrade for the end user, with a speed upgrade from "Up to 10Mbps" to 30Mbps/10Mbps of actual throughput.

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