Very excited to see Portland,OR on the list! I'm tired of Comcast and the other options are quite lacking in one way or another.
The future of Fiber
91–100 of 288 posts
Re: The future of Fiber
#92I know it would be painful, and the local politics certifiably insane, but if Google wanted draw attention to the dysfunctional monopoly of the cable industry, there would be no better place to wire than Philly. Take the competition right into Comcast's back yard. Start with a rollout of the Philly 'burbs where the Comcast execs live and work inward toward the city from there.
No. They should roll out to insane hamlets like Climax, NC [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax%2C_North_Carolina
no, I'm not from Climax...but it's an awesome name for a...settlement?
Re: The future of Fiber
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, every major ISP has bandwidth caps, some of which are prohibitively small (20GB). Even the smaller upstart ISPs, like TekSavvy are forced to have a cap (though at 300GB) due to wholesale laws. At least they offer unlimited for a reasonable amount of money. Canada is definitely behind the US for internet access, it's even behind many (if not most) third world countries.
I've seen a lot of complaints about the caps (wasn't sure if they were widespread or not). What keeps the caps in place if they're universally disliked? I've always thought of Canada as a fairly responsive democracy.
Canada is a land where a lot of the big businesses maintain their position by wheeling and dealing with the government under the guise of economic protectionism. i.e. they'll protest that without these limits Canadian jobs will be lost. The most productive stuff here is the resource extraction going on in the west, and a shocking proportion of the rest of the country is subsidised by this, so the gov are incredibly sensitive to any noise about jobs. The excessive regulatory environment of the telecoms sector is a side effect of this larger picture.
Re: The future of Fiber
#94Awesome. They added Leawood to the list of cities. Now they need to complete some of the neighboring areas they have already started on and make some progress. Although I wouldn't complain if they just abandoned those and started on Leawood.
Re: The future of Fiber
#95I know it would be painful, and the local politics certifiably insane, but if Google wanted draw attention to the dysfunctional monopoly of the cable industry, there would be no better place to wire than Philly. Take the competition right into Comcast's back yard. Start with a rollout of the Philly 'burbs where the Comcast execs live and work inward toward the city from there.
No. They should roll out to insane hamlets like Climax, NC [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax%2C_North_Carolina no, I'm not from Climax...but it's an awesome name for a...settlement?
Kinda like Athol, Massachusetts?
Re: The future of Fiber
#96I'm really, really glad they chose Kansas City as the pilot city despite not living there. If they had just gone and chosen San Francisco, Chicago or New York, it would have been no more of an experiment than offering more cable channels to the big cities in the 1990s—It just is completely uninteresting. On a side note, If you haven't been to KC's Startup Village, the climate is electric! It feels like something real…
I see it the opposite way: Deploying fiber is easy if the city gives you carte blanche as KC did. Doing something easy proves nothing. If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment.
You usually make things less politically hostile once you've deployed successfully in a few politically friendly zones. People's opinions aren't immutable.
Re: The future of Fiber
#97How is the residential Internet in the San Jose area cities listed? I'm in SF, and I can't believe how bad the Internet service is. It's worse and more expensive than what I had 4 years ago in my Midwest town of 100k people.
I live in Sunnyvale where the options are Comcast (who will happily sell a 105Mbit connection for $$$), or DSL from ATT or Sonic. I personally use Sonic since they are a great ISP.
Re: The future of Fiber
#98The Triangle region of NC would be a great place for Google to start with this.
Seriously, with all of the technology workers working in RTP, and all the university students in the area, as well as the emerging startup hub(s) in Durham and Raleigh, the area could really put Google Fiber to great use.
Re: The future of Fiber
#99I'm really, really glad they chose Kansas City as the pilot city despite not living there. If they had just gone and chosen San Francisco, Chicago or New York, it would have been no more of an experiment than offering more cable channels to the big cities in the 1990s—It just is completely uninteresting. On a side note, If you haven't been to KC's Startup Village, the climate is electric! It feels like something real…
I see it the opposite way: Deploying fiber is easy if the city gives you carte blanche as KC did. Doing something easy proves nothing. If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment.
> Doing something easy proves nothing.
Depends on the audience. Joe Random Voter, seeing his cousin's internet being super fast, will carry that knowledge back to his hometown. He doesn't care how easy it was for Google, only that it's possible.
Re: The future of Fiber
#100It always surprises me how excited people get about Google Fiber, yet how up-in-arms they get about GMail, Google+ and other Google services which tend to invade and/or expose your privacy. Do you really think that using a advertising company's fiber as your gateway to the internet is going to offer a private experience? Don't you see how much easier it will make it for them to gather your personal details and habits…
We're excited for better service at lower prices, and if you think Google would be (or is) the only one snooping traffic, well I think you're giving a lot of trust to people like Comcast.