
The future of Fiber - lawdawg
https://fiber.google.com/newcities/
======
27182818284
I'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 really real is going on there. It is just
awesome to see someone with a coding question, you can walk literally a few
doors down to a different house to ask one of the startups there. When you
walk inside, you see rooms that should be living rooms with hackers on laptops
and would-be dining rooms with iMacs setup on tables. Meanwhile a sleepy
hacker is waking up and making breakfast in the kitchen. The climate is
wonderful.

~~~
wmf
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.

~~~
Zigurd
> _If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to
> deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment._

Sun Tsu would flunk you out of strategy class. Why should Google engage with
an evil, bribery-based, rent-seeking competitor, and their bought politicians,
until they run out of relatively easier conquests, and have the revenue from
those conquests funding further expansion, and their relationships with
independent content creators at a much higher value from a larger customer
base?

Particularly when those competitors are not seeking to confront Google, and
are preferring to play rent-seeking games with anti-neutrality in their
networks, thus making their end game even more brittle?

~~~
wmf
I'd agree completely if Google's goal was to make money from Fiber, but I
suspect their goal is to demonstrate that fiber is economically viable and
shame other ISPs into deploying it. By that standard, winning on the easiest
setting seems unlikely to convince anyone.

See [http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-
with-g...](http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-
experimental.html) [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Many-Realizing-Google-
Fib...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Many-Realizing-Google-Fiber-Will-
Never-See-Massive-Deployment-123796) for Google's motivations.

~~~
banachtarski
That could be the overarching goal but it makes sense to pilot the technology
first so they understand the pitfalls before engaging in a more difficult
endeavor.

------
JunkDNA
I 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.

~~~
_greim_
It would go against their strategy. By wiring up all the GF-friendly cities
first, people living in GF-unfriendly cities start asking "why can't we have
that, too?" Thus ratcheting up pressure on the local political systems.

~~~
ohsnapman
This is something that works in theory, but not real life. Internet is
becoming a utility, and most people only ever have experienced one utility in
their life. People in the SF Bay Area choose between AT&T DSL and Comcast
cable internet - two of the WORST providers, ever. Verizon FiOS eats both
their lunches, yet, nobody rabble rouses to ask for fiber in that area. If
people in Silicon Valley won't even pressure their politicians (there are FAR
more urgent issues), why would people in other areas with far more pressing
economic concerns?

~~~
_greim_
It seems plausible that apathy would prevent people from agitating for faster
internet speeds, when speeds are only slightly below the national average
([http://www.speedtest.net/local/san-francisco-
ca](http://www.speedtest.net/local/san-francisco-ca)). It seems _implausible_
to claim that such apathy will remain absolute and unchanging if/when other
cities started getting major upgrades ([http://www.speedtest.net/local/kansas-
city-mo](http://www.speedtest.net/local/kansas-city-mo)), and especially if
the national average began pulling away. Plus, the CA regulatory environment
is somewhat of an outlier in terms of its conduciveness to infrastructure
progress, so it may not be the best litmus test.

------
willidiots
Full list of cities, from the FAQ:

Arizona \- Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe California \- San Jose, Santa Clara,
Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto Georgia \- Atlanta, Avondale Estates,
Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs,
Smyrna North Carolina \- Charlotte, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham,
Garner, Morrisville, Raleigh Oregon \- Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro,
Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard Tennessee \- Nashville-Davidson Texas \- San
Antonio Utah \- Salt Lake City

~~~
jader201
And with line breaks:

Arizona - Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe

California - San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto

Georgia - Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East
Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs, Smyrna

North Carolina - Charlotte, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner,
Morrisville, Raleigh

Oregon - Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard

Tennessee - Nashville-Davidson

Texas - San Antonio

Utah - Salt Lake City

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
And with frivolous awk formatting:

    
    
        Arizona           Phoenix
                          Scottsdale
                          Tempe
                          
        California        San Jose
                          Santa Clara
                          Sunnyvale
                          Mountain View
                          Palo Alto
                          
        Georgia           Atlanta
                          Avondale Estates
                          Brookhaven
                          College Park
                          Decatur
                          East Point
                          Hapeville
                          Sandy Springs
                          Smyrna
                          
        North Carolina    Charlotte
                          Carrboro
                          Cary
                          Chapel Hill
                          Durham
                          Garner
                          Morrisville
                          Raleigh
                          
        Oregon            Portland
                          Beaverton
                          Hillsboro
                          Gresham
                          Lake Oswego
                          Tigard
                          
        Tennessee         Nashville-Davidson
                          
        Texas             San Antonio
                          
        Utah              Salt Lake City
    
        cat jader \
          | sed 's/ - /\t/g; s/, /\n\t/g' \
          | awk -F'\t' '{ printf "%-18s%s\n", $1, $2 }'

~~~
mkr-hn
Hopefully one of those cities around Atlanta will grow a line out to Winder.

------
drawkbox
There is such a high demand for this product because it fulfills a great need
and requirement to be competitive, but we are being held back by our
providers. Our progress, held back due to lack of innovation. Google Fiber
will rule the US as soon as it can get rolled out. Cable companies better be
really nice and start being competitive. Please bring it to Chandler, AZ.

This article comes to mind, I recently, through normal work, started hitting
Cox's 250GB max, I work on games and can easily send 4-8GB per day in
assets/code to remote repos. Cringley from 2011...

[http://www.cringely.com/2011/07/28/bandwidth-caps-are-
rate-h...](http://www.cringely.com/2011/07/28/bandwidth-caps-are-rate-hikes/)

 _This isn’t about capping ISP losses, but are about increasing ISP profits.
The caps are a built-in revenue bump that will kick-in 2-3 years from now,
circumventing any existing regulatory structure for setting rates. The
regulators just haven’t realized it yet. By the time they do it may be too
late._

 _Most U. S. broadband customers don’t get anywhere near that 250 gigabyte
cap. The few who do hit those limits are big gamers or file downloaders for
the most part. Maybe they do take unfair advantage of the system, but the
question is whether this is the proper way to control their consumption? I
don’t think it is._

 _In time we will all bump into these caps and our Internet bills will
suddenly double as a result, circumventing competition and ending a 15 year
downward broadband price trend._

 _ISPs win, we lose._

Unless there is competition. Bandwidth is as needed as roads, shipping,
airplanes, etc to business and economies. This is an anti-competitive hostage
situation we are in in the US. This is also anti-small business as many are
run from home offices and co-location etc.

~~~
sandyarmstrong
I recently had to restore a 500GB cloud backup over Cox. I called them to ask
if they could give me an exemption for one month, and not only did they
refuse, but they could not honestly tell me what would happen if I went over
the cap, except that I would get an email about it and my Internet "might slow
down".

I work from home, and can't afford any degradation of service, so I've been
doing the restore piecemeal and checking
[https://myaccount.cox.net/internettools/datausage/usage.cox](https://myaccount.cox.net/internettools/datausage/usage.cox)
every day. It's annoying but doable.

What happens to you when you hit the cap?

~~~
drawkbox
I seemed to notice the last couple months after I get the messages my service
drops on download (but not on upload). I drop to their 5M connection instead.
Strangely when I check known download speed sites they work with correct
numbers, when I check other means I notice the difference there. So I hope
they are not nerfing me wholly except when I try to measure it with known
tools i.e. speedtest.net etc. They seem to be nice about it now but who knows,
this is the first time they have been as vocal about it.

Sadly the next two tiers (yep we are there) only add 50GB (300) and 150GB (400
total), with the speeds of 25Mbps and up to 50Mbps but if you have higher
speeds you will download more and be on HD more, get more files, backup more
and always go over.

------
jjallen
Google Fiber will pass <~0.5% of total U.S. homes[0], even after they build
out Austin and take over Provo. They have to start doing things much faster if
they will make a dent this decade. Google is selectively building out 'fiber
hoods' \- neighborhoods that bend over backwards to get the service, pre
commit and make construction super easy - not full cities, by any means.

Google Fiber was announced almost four years ago and has only a few tens of
thousands of subscribers. While it's fun to get excited about what Google
Fiber could be, it will be years before any material percentage of the country
has the opportunity to use Google Fiber.

Google is still building out small neighborhoods in Kansas City [1]

[0][https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q-sGUEiuT9VN__VPsFeo...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q-sGUEiuT9VN__VPsFeorRtqmBGwnlIpLN61MzRTsUA/edit#slide=id.g2bd4c3781_00)
[1][https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/#zone=Kansas+City...](https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/#zone=Kansas+City,+KS&fiberhood=)

~~~
abvdasker
Google Fiber has so far only been an experiment. I see it as a very expensive,
very ambitious proof of concept the likes of which only Google is capable of
creating. This new announcement is evidence that their experiment of the last
4 years has succeeded.

Google can only move so fast with this given the stranglehold Comcast has on
the market right now and the regulatory obstacles. There is a killing to be
made by undercutting the monopolistic pricing and terrible service Comcast
provides right now (not to mention the ways ownership of distribution might
benefit Google's content).

TL;DR This is the next step in Google's big, slow play to become a major ISP.

~~~
ericd
I think it's likely that this exists mostly as a threat to keep the big ISPs
from getting complacent. If internet speeds improve via themselves or the
ISPs, Google wins either way as internet usage increases.

------
rufugee
It 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? Do you really think Google won't
use your data to their advantage?

~~~
nostrademons
All the other telecoms have far worse privacy records than Google does. Who
were the original companies implicated in illegal NSA wiretapping? Verizon,
AT&T, and Bell South. [1] What happened to the CEO of the one company that
refused, Qwest? He went to jail on trumped-up insider trading charges. [2]

[1]
[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/09/30...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-
feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/)

~~~
rsync
... and google is racing to catch up. There is a monopoly to be created and
rent to be extracted and no matter how "not evil" an organization is, if they
play in this sphere, they _must_ adhere to this model or they won't be in
business.

Everything you need to know is written in a very nice book, recently
published:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch)

... you could have predicted well in advance that google would go this route.

------
aetherson
I guess I fundamentally do not understand what makes a city a good or bad
candidate for this kind of service. Why is SF or NY not an obvious candidate?
Density means that there are lots of customers for a given physical length of
infrastructure rollout, they're both wealthy cities with a large proportion of
techies who could use faster internet...

I'm sure they're both nightmares to deal with permitting processes for. Is
that it? Or is there something else that makes mid-tier, more spread-out
cities more attractive?

~~~
tdees40
I suspect they mostly want a compliant political infrastructure and relatively
easy construction. NYC and SF aren't really known for either. Also, NYC would
probably be biting off more than Google Fiber has any interest in chewing at
the moment. They're still scaling up, after all.

~~~
Nrsolis
YUP.

The short answer is: it's much easier to build in a greenfield environment
where there is a "helpful" local government, ready access to rights-of-way,
and underserved population, easy construction costs, access to labor,
favorable tax climate, and a host of other reasons that come before "lots of
people who want gigabit speeds".

The economics of building (or overbuilding) a gigabit fiber network drive you
towards areas where you can get a high degree of penetration for your
investment. That's not going to happen in a place like NYC or SF. The
construction costs (directional boring) and tax regime (network cables are
"property" for property tax purposes) mean that SF and NYC are probably going
to be the LAST places to get Google Fiber.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> (network cables are "property" for property tax purposes)

WUT.

~~~
Nrsolis
Look it up. If you install $15M of fiber in/around town, you can bet your
bottom dollar that the local taxing authority considers that real property and
will tax you on it at appropriate rates.

In TX, colo providers have had to send business property tax bills to people
who locate their servers in those centers. Sometimes those bills are quite
shocking.

In CT, the local phone companies started putting DSLAMs on poles because it
got them off the ground and saved them millions on property taxes because
there was a rate differential between property that was pole attached and
property that was on the ground.

Never underestimate the effect that taxes can have on the deployment,
operation, and maintenance of business property. You can explain great deals
of financial shenanigans to the real savings associated with avoiding taxes.

And who gets screwed? Anyone who doesn't have the scale or size to make
avoiding that tax worthwhile. e.g. the small-business owner.

------
turing
Woo! Moving to Mountain View in June, so I'm excited to see this.

On another note, I wonder if this will have any impact on the Comcast/Time
Warner merger. Comcast has specifically called out Google Fiber as a source of
legitimate competition in defending the merger[1]. With the announcement that
Google could increase the number of Fiber cities 10-fold, that claim might
have a little more weight.

1\. [http://gigaom.com/2014/02/13/comcast-cites-competition-
from-...](http://gigaom.com/2014/02/13/comcast-cites-competition-from-google-
fiber-netflix-hulu-as-reasons-to-approve-merger/)

~~~
jonlucc
I've been hearing that there will be no real threat to that merger. If that's
true, then I see this as a real threat to the new Comcast; basically Google
saying "you will have real competition even if you are massive".

Edit: Otherwise, why would they announce this at this stage? They've only
announced other cities when they were certain.

~~~
roc
> _" Otherwise, why would they announce this at this stage?"_

Drum up local interest and support to help with any local political
roadblocks.

------
csense
Why is there not a single city in the northeast or the Rust Belt?

Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh are all major cities that are at least
"on the map" as far as tech is concerned. I know for a fact that the local
authorities in Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland would bend over backwards for
any project that has even the slightest whiff of economic development.

I can understand NYC being a special case that they don't want to deal with,
but there are plenty of other cities in the region.

~~~
bgilroy26
I would have liked to have seen one in Ohio.

------
seanalltogether
The Denver-Boulder corridor is going to start losing it's place as one of the
top tech startup areas in the country if it doesn't get itself on this list of
potential fiber installs.

~~~
simmons
As a resident of greater Denver-Boulder, I, too, was disappointed to see the
big empty space on the map around Colorado. At least one ISP here is
experimenting with residential gigabit, though -- I'm hoping that maybe
someday I can get it in my neighborhood:
[http://fiber.forethought.net/](http://fiber.forethought.net/)

~~~
jcomis
interesting. Their website is a bit lacking in info. Do they offer residential
service at all right now? Looks like they are just servicing larger multi-
tenant buildings, I'm guessing where everyone needs to sign up to get them to
come and install.

~~~
simmons
It's in the extremely nascent stages right now. I think they'll be turning on
the first residential gigabit customers in downtown shortly. We've
occasionally discussed the idea of getting my condo complex in Arvada lit up
-- it's technically feasible, although I suppose the numbers would have to
work out.

------
kgermino
Cool to see they're expanding, but I'm disappointed to see that there's no
love for the upper Midwest. Wouldn't expect it in Chicago but Milwaukee (where
I am), Madison, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati,
Detroit, and possibly a few smaller cities would all seem like reasonable
candidates (although I acknowledge there's issues with all of them).

~~~
mitchty
Minneapolis kinda sorta not-quite has at least some parts with fibre.

[http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-
areas/](http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas/)

Barely though to be honest. >.<

------
mindcrime
The 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.

------
Deinos
Love to see challenges to the pathetic cable monopolies. I'd be willing to pay
more than I am now if it meant sticking it to TimeWarner.

~~~
mabad86
I wonder when this will be a reality in New York. The place where we all want
to stick it to Time Warner.

------
malandrew
Why not San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston and NYC?

San Francisco, NYC and Boston because they are big tech hubs where a lot of
Googlers live and Washington D.C. because it is the seat of politics in this
country and the best way to show what good can happen when we have broadband
connectivity.

In fact, rolling out Google Fiber in the capital cities of each state makes
the most sense in general. You lobby the political class by giving their home
base (state capitals) excellent broadband.

~~~
Glide
Suburbs of DC (at least NOVA) has a decent number of places that have FiOS.
Also the cable situation isn't that bad if you have Cox rather than Time
Warner.

But the dominating factor of what determines where people live in the suburbs
seems to be schools more so than internet. Google fiber here would be more of
a novelty.

~~~
grumps
Yes... there's also RCN in DC as well yet in my neighborhood I can only get
Comcast.

------
Moral_
At least for SLC there is already _Some_ fiber around the city:
[http://www.utopianet.org/](http://www.utopianet.org/)

Much like Provo, I think google saw that utopia already had some
infrastructure in place and wanted to swoop it up.

So while people are asking, why not this x,y,z city perhaps it's due to
infrastructure not already being in place.

------
epmatsw
Atlanta! Looks like they're targeting the nicer suburbs too. My mom's going to
get fiber before I am.

------
alwaysdoit
>We’re asking cities to ensure that we, and other providers, can access and
lease existing infrastructure.

This is probably my favorite part. They're not just trying to get special
privileges for themselves, they are trying to level the barriers to entry so
that there is actual competition in this space.

------
tostitos1979
Wish they had Google Fiber in Toronto :(

~~~
fidotron
It would be quite fun watching the incumbents playing the "but we're Canadian"
card in order to prevent such a thing.

Hard as it might be for Americans to believe the ISP scene in Canada is in
danger of falling behind even them.

~~~
adventured
Canada related question. Do all the major ISPs in Canada have bandwidth caps
on consumer broadband?

~~~
CountHackulus
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.

~~~
adventured
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.

~~~
nousernamesleft
>I've always thought of Canada as a fairly responsive democracy.

Nope. We elect one group of corrupt assholes to run things, and then complain
about them being corrupt assholes. We keep re-electing them till they do
something so hugely scandalous that we elect the _other_ group of corrupt
assholes instead. And then keep re-electing them until they fuck up so badly
that we switch back to electing the first group of corrupt assholes again. Our
government is currently pushing for more restrictive drug laws, including for
weed. They are pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for non violent crimes,
and for privatized prisons. These things are almost universally opposed by
Canadians. It simply doesn't matter, we re-elect them anyways.

~~~
x0054
> Our government is currently pushing for more restrictive drug laws,
> including for weed. They are pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for non
> violent crimes, and for privatized prisons.

WTF!?! Is it that US is trying out National Healthcare, so now Canada is going
to try out some of the worst American ideas? I don't know much about Canadian
politics, but the things you listed are some of the worst policies United
States ever implemented. Why on earth is Canada trying those things, I can
assure you, private prisons and mandatory minimum sentences are NOT working
here in US.

------
baddox
How 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.

~~~
ac29
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.

------
jmgrosen
Got my hopes up there for a little bit... if only they came to Santa Barbara
-- we have plenty of tech people here willing to pay for awesome internet!
(and get away from Cox...)

I'll keep dreaming :)

~~~
JaggedJax
I wish they'll come to Santa Barbara so badly (As I'm sure everyone also does
for their cities). We do have lots of tech here and even good connections to
Google, but I feel we're probably too small. Even Verizon pulled out from
installing FiOS.

~~~
jmgrosen
At least Cox isn't too bad in comparison with the horror stories I've heard
about dealing with Comcast or TWC... still, it is not fun to deal with them.
Plus, 1 gbps for $70 sounds a lot more appetizing than 50 mbps for $74.

------
teach
It is hard to wait for signups to begin in Austin.

------
cpeterso
The FAQ does not mention details about bandwidth other than "Internet that’s
up to 100 times faster than basic broadband", but Wikipedia says the free
service is 5 Mbps down (1 Mbps up) and the pay service is 1 Gbps down and up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Technical_specifi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Technical_specifications)

------
kickme444
Excited for Salt Lake City. We are growing our reddit office there a lot. It's
a really exciting city to be in and this helps us a lot!

~~~
toomuchtodo
Reddit has an office in Salt Lake City?? Need any DevOps? :-P

~~~
saturdayplace
It's redditgifts.com. Doesn't look like they're hiring for DevOps at the
moment, but they are looking for devs (among other things):
[http://redditgifts.com/jobs/](http://redditgifts.com/jobs/)

------
tehaaron
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.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
East Portland is wired up with Fibre backbone DSL from Century Link. Its $30 a
month for a connection that's roughly 40 mbps down / 15 mbps up. I generally
get 4 megabytes a sec downloads, and my friend who lives south around Holgate
and 65th sees about the same. No data caps that I'm aware of either.

Its faster than Comcast's two lower tier internet packages. I've heard North
Portland isn't as lucky but its certainly worth checking out.

Also various complexes around town are already offering FiOS.

~~~
brewdad
I'd love to see Google buy up Frontier's FIOS lines. Their service isn't bad,
but I get the feeling they don't really want to be in the fiber business and
just got stuck with it in the Verizon purchase.

------
help_wanted
So excited to to see Nashville on this list. Our technology scene has been
thriving recently and this only adds fuel to the fire.

~~~
rybosome
Nashville is a great city...I was totally unaware of the tech scene. Startups,
big companies? I have no idea if I'll ever move away from the west coast, but
Nashville is one of the few places in the eastern US that I could imagine
living.

------
pyrocat
Seriously? No Seattle?

~~~
mdturnerphys
Up until the last month or two, Gigabit Squared was supposed to be taking over
the city's fiber, which may have been keeping Google away.

~~~
pyrocat
Joke's on us :(

------
robryan
Would love to see Google, or anyone, come shake up the Australian market. We
are still beholden to low bandwidth, almost non existent upload and data usage
caps.

We also have a national broadband network that most people will never see due
to the politics played by the current government.

~~~
jimmcslim
This +infinity.

The National Broadband Network is the one policy that had reasonably bi-
partisan voter support, but the new conservative government has seen fit to
abandon the admittedly more expensive, but more future-proof 'Fiber to the
Premises' in exchange for what was going to be 'Fiber to the Node' but is now
'Multi-Technology Mix' or more appropriately 'Massive Telecommunications
Mistake'...

------
georgemcbay
Still no San Diego, but still happy to see this as the more Google Fiber
expands within different regions the more the dinosaur ISPs in those regions
will be forced to compete, hopefully rising boats even in areas not yet
covered by Google Fiber.

------
DigitalSea
Google needs to bring Google Fiber to Australia. The coalition have plans for
a fiber/copper hybrid in which the fibre runs to a box and then you connect
via outdated copper from the street to your house. It's like driving a sports
car 90% of the way and a horse and cart the rest of the 10% — I think what
Google are doing is great, they need to expand though. I know New Zealand
could use something like Google Fiber as well.

~~~
geitiegg
While I won't argue that Fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) is better than Fibre-to-
the-premises (FTTP) it is, at the very least, much cheaper.

The cost per consumer for "last mile" connections can be an order of magnitude
more than those used in the core network because of the economies of scale at
play. [1]

Most of the UK is currently being set up with FTTC, representing a dramatic
increase in the country's average broadband speed over the past few years. [2]
[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/fiber-its-not-
all...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/fiber-its-not-all-created-
equal/) [2] [http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/03/14/average-uk-broadband-
sp...](http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/03/14/average-uk-broadband-speeds-hit-
double-figures/)

~~~
_mulder_
Is it cheaper? It depends on how long you expect your investment to be
relevant for. If you accept that FTTH is going to be an ultimate 'end game',
at least for the foreseeable future, then going FTTC is not cheaper. It may
require less capital investment today than FTTH, but in 5 years, you're having
to invest a similar amount all over again, in new equipment or by going FTTH.

FTTC is just delaying FTTH.

------
mje__
It seems one of the biggest costs of fiber is installation; i.e. trenching.
Why is it not hung from poles? It must be much cheaper and quicker, surely?

~~~
liotier
Yes, whereas Europe puts everything underground, US operators will go cheap
and string stuff across poles. My supplier of infrastructure management
software was astonished when they saw at our data an realized we have almost
no aerial spans in France.

------
jmharvey
When I saw the headline, I cringed. At this point, whenever I see a Google
article titled, "The future of [google product]," I assume it's an
announcement that the product is being phased out. Needless to say, I'm glad
that's not what's happening here, but I'm still not holding my breath that
Google Fiber is going to take over the world.

------
ensignavenger
I wish Google would publish more technical information about their fiber
project. I am quite interested in what equipment they have chosen, what types
of cabling they are using, etc. (and why) Also, any other information that
could be used by community internet providers looking to roll out fiber!

------
maxmax
Always wondered why they didn't buy out Surewest or Consolidated
Communications. Instant fiber subscriber base, right-of-ways, and
complementary service areas. And the money found in Google's couch cushions
would probably more than cover the costs. Easy way to add 100K subscribers...

------
dark_night_tim
Is mountain view count as San Jose?

~~~
mikeevans
Yep, according to the FAQ: "San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View,
Palo Alto"

~~~
pravka
No Campbell. Guess I'm too sticks for Google Fiber. :\

~~~
jason_slack
LOL, I'm right on the border of SJ and Cupertino around De Anza and 85. I am
so hoping I can get it just to dump Comcast.

------
izzydata
Awesome. 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.

------
ck2
Google should install their fiber in the cities of corporate headquarters for
at&t, time warner, quest, verizon, and cox.

Should have an interesting effect on the top-down mentality of price setting.

FCC also needs to rule ISPs as common carriers.

------
jusben1369
"announce the next round of cities who’ll be getting Google Fiber by the end
of 2014."

\- announce which cities are chosen by the end of 2014? or those cities that
will have fiber in them by the end of 2014?

------
kushti
If you want to save money with Fiber, it's okay. But please use VPN with
encryption or other traffic-encryption methods to no let Big Brother intercept
all of your your data.

------
shaaaaawn
I live in Scottsdale and this is excellent news! Cox is the longstanding
primary internet/cable provider here and their speeds are good but service is
atrocious.

------
shitlord
I live near DC... shit! I wanted Google Fiber just for the awesome TV. DirecTV
is incredibly awful. Hopefully they can expand to even more cities in the
future.

------
carsonreinke
I don't understand, obviously there is a demand for this, so why aren't more
companies rolling this stuff out? Give the people what they want!

~~~
BlackDeath3
"15/1 should be enough for anybody!" \- something TWC would say.

Seriously though. Why are most of us still in the bandwidth dark ages?

------
quarterwave
Does 'do no evil' include canonical net-neutrality, or will it end up like
Animal Farm: but already it was impossible to say which was which.

------
jusben1369
how do people feel about mobile networks? In a lot of locations the speeds are
getting as good as or better than broadband. They're cost ineffective right
now for anything but short term tethering but that problem could be solved in
2 - 4 years. I just wonder if laying down fiber house to house is going to
seem outdated in 5 years or so for anyone except the hard core work at home
dev.

------
dav-
How is the free plan going to work? Are they going to monetize it somehow by
collecting data or serving ads?

~~~
thrownaway2424
It is free for "only" the first seven years.

------
fredgrott
I have a question does the cities Google picks have anything to do with their
CDN locations?

------
SimpleXYZ
So I guess I have a 1 in 34 chance of getting Google Fiber. Better than
nothing...

------
lukateake
Pfft. I'm waiting on Google Drone/Blimp; it solves the last-mile problem.

------
coreymgilmore
anything to get away from Comcast or Time Warner helps the greater population!

------
voidlogic
Not a single city in the upper-Midwest, Great Lakes region... :(

------
shmerl
Great. Google should just push for it everywhere gradually.

------
allsystemsgo
Why San Antonio over Dallas/Houston?

------
tmnsam
As an Englishman, I feel left out :(

------
benihana
I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh. It seems pretty clear that
tearing up New York City to lay fiber is a much more expensive and tedious
process than it would be in Raleigh. The state and local governments also seem
much more friendly to that kind of thing.

~~~
jseliger
_I currently live in NYC, and I 've lived in Raleigh_

Howdy neighbor: I live in NYC too. A lot of NYC already does have fiber in the
form of FiOS. I'll also observe that NYC's overall Internet situation appears
to be much better than many places; right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50
Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN. In Tucson, where I used to live, I was paying
$70 for 12 down / 1 or 2 up.

Google is presumably targeting the places with the crappiest service and the
most amenable local governments; NYC's service isn't terrible and its
government isn't exactly known for being responsive.

~~~
chimeracoder
> right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN

And I'm paying $54 for 20 Mbs/down on Time Warner, which is already a
"discounted rate". (I'm in Manhattan).

The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let
them wire my building too.

I agree that New York City isn't the best target for Google Fiber, but the
Internet situation here varies _very_ heavily based on where in the city you
live (not just the neighborhood, but which physical _building_ and management
company).

~~~
jimbokun
"The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to
let them wire my building too."

Is your building rent controlled?

If not, I suspect your landlord is short sighted. I am curious to see whether
property values will start to diverge based on quality of internet access.
With more people wanting to work from home, I think availability, speed, cost,
and quality of Internet access will have an impact on property values.

(Of course, you're in Manhattan, which means landlords can do almost anything
and still charge insane rents, so this may not apply to you. Sorry.)

~~~
chimeracoder
In New York City, buildings aren't rent-controlled (or rent-stabilized);
individual apartments are. I highly doubt that any units in my building are
rent-controlled (that's very rare in NYC these days). There may be one or two
that's rent-stabilized, but given the neighborhood and the tenancy of the
building, I doubt it.

> I think availability, speed, cost, and quality of Internet access will have
> an impact on property values.

In New York, that's vastly dwarfed by the many other factors that affect
property values. As much as you and I think Internet access is important, most
NYC tenants care more about location, bedbug history, sunlight, etc.

------
wil421
Nice try Google, I was really happy about Atlanta until I saw the cities
listed.

Most of the cities they listed are in very sketchy areas that probably dont
even know the difference between their regular connection and a faster fiber
connection.

Avondale Estates - not so nice Brookhaven - will probably benefit College Park
- crime area, could care less about fiber Decatur - some areas will benefit
East Point - crime area Hapeville - crime area Sandy Springs - will benefit,
lots of Apartment Complexes Smyrna - will benefit in some areas

~~~
thrownaway2424
Yeah, God forbid anyone should bring high-speed networking to poor areas.
Fiber should be reserved for rich white people.

~~~
wil421
When they laid fiber down in KC they had each neighborhood sign up and based
on how much interest each community had they would have precedence over the
others.

If the cities they choose dont have an interest then what is the point?

Who said anything about white people?

