
Google Fiber Plans & Pricing - stevewilhelm
http://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/
======
api
Thank GOD they're disrupting this industry. All the telcos are worthless
"Soviet bureaus" that deserve death.

It's really sort of amazing to think about. In all my years on this planet I
have _never_ been pleased with a telecom company. Never. I have always felt
like I was paying far too much for inferior service, contemptible customer
support, and endless efforts to further "monetize" me through harassing phone
calls trying to sell me more stuff, intrusive DNS systems that redirect me to
their crappy web sites, etc.

There is not a single other industry I can say that about, certainly not one
that comes to mind so quickly. Hell, I can't even say that about the
government.

As if that's not bad enough, this industry seems to spend a lot of money
lobbying to destroy the open Internet, which is like a car company lobbying to
increase the number of annoying traffic regulations in order to make it less
enjoyable to drive.

~~~
maratd
> contemptible customer support

Because Google will be so much better? Look, I hate telcos just like the next
guy, but the suckage is mostly due to the nature of the business. They form
natural monopolies and that sort of thing doesn't lead to customer
satisfaction. The only way that sector is going to get truly disrupted is
through gigabit wireless internet. You can have multiple competitors in one
space with comparatively limited infrastructure investment on their part.

That free tier? That is outright illegal and its sole purpose is to
_eradicate_ all competition. It' a good thing for Google that sort of thing
isn't really enforced anymore. They'll still get sued though. Look up price
bashing.

Once Google is the only player in town, you still think they'll shit lilacs
and spread rainbows and unicorns? That's just not how monopolies work.

~~~
neurotech1
"That free tier? That is outright illegal and its sole purpose is to eradicate
all competition."

Why don't we sue Google for providing free WiFi in Mountain View? And Google
Fiber isn't free - its $300 to cover the equipment costs. I'm pretty that 12
months of basic DSL for less than $300 anyway, installation included. Some
neighbors will "freely" share their internet, should incumbent cable co sue
them aswell for unfair competition?

What is to stop a cable co "recycling" old equipment to provide basic freemium
internet to people who don't want to pay more for premimum plans.

The unfairness of having all that equipment already owned and built out...
somebody stop them... oh wait what is Google doing?

~~~
drcube
Yeah, I wouldn't consider $300 up front "free". It's an amortized price,
similar to XM Radio's $400 lifetime subscription fee. Frankly, I'd like to see
more amortized pricing like this.

~~~
notaddicted
I'm cynical about this kind of pricing. Once you've paid up, in the companies'
books you're in the minus column until the end of time. Incentives are no
longer aligned. Combine this with the way that telcos treat regular paying
customers ... I wouldn't like to put myself in that position, even with a
company that tries to be aggressively benevolent.

~~~
praxulus
Just about every single person who uses the internet in any way is in Google's
positive column. They might not be a positive for the Fiber division alone,
but given where the vast majority of Google's income comes from, Fiber will
have a lot of pressure to keep customers happy.

------
Xcelerate
When I was at Georgia Tech, I got 650 Mbps. You realize the bottleneck isn't
your connection at that point -- it's everyone else's. Which means a lot of
sites still download just as slow. Although the big sites have optimized data
centers, so it was pretty cool downloading an entire OS in a few seconds
(although I think my hard drive write speed limited that a bit too).

My father works in the fiber optics industry and has told me that if fiber was
brought directly to each home, every person would have more bandwidth than
they knew what to do with. One thin, tiny fiber can carry an INSANE amount of
information. The problem is the processing circuitry that converts these light
signals into digital signals. These NICs have a much lower throughput than the
fiber itself, but if the fiber infrastructure was already in place everywhere,
upgrades would be much cheaper and quicker. (In other words, Google Fiber has
easy upgrade potential to 10, 100, ... Gbps).

~~~
stephengillie
Would Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, Amazon cloud storage, et al exist today
if we could send data across the US at even just 650Mbps?

~~~
betterth
Oh yeah! Think: a harddrive writes at what an average of 75MB/s [1], and 1Gbit
internet is 125MB/s [2]. (Note, Google currently advertises 'up to 1Gbit up
and down').

This means that dropbox no longer "syncs". It's just another harddrive in
terms of how it works. Copies to and from just as quickly as your harddrive.

Heck, it seems like if you installed an application to your dropbox, and ran
your computer off of an SSD, it seems like you could enjoy BETTER performance
than if you had that program installed on a 7200rpm drive and ran it
locally...

Can't wait to see what we end doing with 1GBit ubiquity!

[1] [http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive-
charts-200...](http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive-
charts-2008/Average-WriteTransfer-Performance,659.html)

[2] <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1Gbit+in+MB%2Fs>

~~~
tnorthcutt
First, even if you "installed an application to your dropbox", it would still
be running from your local machine - that's just how Dropbox works.

Second, even if it were running the application from Dropbox's server(s) (it
seems like that's what you mean?), it would still have to read from their
servers - you can't magically eliminate a bottleneck just by moving it to a
different physical computer; data still has to be read from disk.

~~~
betterth
Yes, I messed that up, sorry. But it's still an impressive feat and I'm still
very excited about getting 1Gbit internet!

------
pizza
Usually when people in Silicon Valley use the word "amazing", I roll my eyes.

But $0 internet is _very_ amazing.

On top of that, $120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap
in the face to other service providers.

~~~
untog
_$120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to
other service providers._

I pay $120/mo in New York and get high speed internet, and cable TV with HBO
(conspicuously missing from Google's offering) and ESPN. Don't get me wrong,
I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, but I don't actually think that $120
price point is much of a slap in the face to existing providers.

EDIT: and this is just in Kansas City. Given the existing variations in price
across the country, I'll be very surprised if we are all paying $120 when
(if?) it rolls out nationally.

~~~
fusiongyro
Did it come with a free Nexus 7? Google's going to decimate the existing cable
and DSL offerings in Kansas City in less than a week.

~~~
ntumlin
Wait, is this only in Kansas City? How long until everywhere gets it?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yes, although there are rumblings about other locations. I can tell you that
if it does 'decimate' the entrenched carriers they will go thermonuclear as
well (so Google ends up opening another front in the legal wars) You can
already see some of the tactics where cable companies have convinced
legislatures to make it illegal to allow either public funds to be spent on
infrastructure or to allow non-contracted third parties into a region.

------
corford
I might just be overcome with the sheer impressiveness of this but it feels
like the real reason behind everything that Google has done over the last 5 or
so years (Youtube, Android, Chromebook, buying dark fibre, Chrome, G+, tablets
etc.) has suddenly come in to crystal clear focus. They're going for the
jugular with a grand unified strategy the likes of which the tech industry has
never seen before.

~~~
sounds
There has been a good discussion on the previous article:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4293530>

w1ntermute has a comment that has been highly up-voted:

"I don't know about you, but I'll take Google over Verizon, AT&T, Comcast,
etc. any day of the week, regardless of their conflicts of interest."

Google may have an impressive business strategy, but they haven't done
anything to lock out a competitor. Google has tough competition in every
single area you have listed.

~~~
corford
Thanks, hadn't seen the other thread.

They have tough competition but who else is able (or even capable) of offering
such a compellingly unified and cutting edge platform? If they can crack the
content to go with the platform, they've won imho. Worst case: the incumbents
are forced to up their game dramatically.

------
neilk
Does this alter the trend towards mobile? Maybe not in terms of the kind of
device you use - it might still be a tablet or a phone-like device - but in
terms of data delivered over mobile telephony networks?

Perhaps part of the reason that my iPhone can compete with my desktop is that
home internet is just so terrible. Maybe there will be a whole new class of
bandwidth hungry apps that can't be duplicated in anything going over a phone
network.

In places like Korea I believe they have high bandwidth fiber everywhere;
what's the experience there?

------
topherjaynes
Was so excited then saw it was just limited to Kansas City, what a tease, but
glad to see they're 'shaking' things up.

~~~
danvideo
Right, I would have preferred a quiet roll out, until large metro areas were
ready to go live. It's going to be at least 2013 before most of us even have
the option to use it.

Sort of like hearing that the new Android upgrade is available, but only
international phones for the next year, and your phone might not even support
the new version.

~~~
mmahemoff
They're offering it to an entire city, a public website was always going to be
necessary.

------
michaelhoffman
Why start this in Kansas City? Is this like trying to produce a future
Broadway show in New Haven or San Diego, so you can work out the kinks before
you go to the big time?

~~~
_delirium
They solicited proposals from cities
([http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-
ou...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-
experimental.html), [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for-
our-ex...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for-our-
experimental-fiber.html)), and ended up choosing Kansas City as the initial
site ([http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-
broa...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-broadband-is-
coming-to.html)).

It looks like they wanted a market with between 50,000 and 500,000 subscribers
as the initial one, so not NYC or SF or LA. And, wanted strong local support
to avoid regulatory problems.

~~~
bicknergseng
"wanted strong local support to avoid regulatory problems."

Probably the most genius part of this whole thing. It may the reason we're not
hearing about the lobbying backlash someone like Uber received.

------
patrickod
I'm hoping that this becomes available in the bay area in the coming years.
$70/month for gigabit connection is an absolute no brainer.

~~~
ghshephard
Given that I pay $69.16/month for service from Comcast that in theory should
be 30 mbits, but in practice ranges all the way down to 3 megabits for hours
at a time, depending on time of day, yes, it would be a no brainer. $70/month
for an actual 30 megabit connection would be a no brainer as far as I'm
concerned.

~~~
whichdan
I'm paying around $100/mo for 50mbits, and it seems to fluctuate between 30
and 60 realistically. That's for just bare internet service and nothing else.
I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, provided they have atleast basic support.

------
InclinedPlane
If this pans out it'll be a huge boost for civilization for one reason:

The distributed internet. Today the internet as a transport layer is a
multiply redundant mesh, to some degree, but the _content_ of the internet is
still highly centralized.

Now imagine a world 25 years from now where everyone has >100 mbit/s internet
connections and multi-terabyte SSD (or memristor) drives are commonplace and
cheap. Now the idea of caching huge chunks of the internet starts not only
making sense but becomes imminently practical. Web sites will be viewed less
like applications and more like git repos with front-ends.

------
pwny
I guess living in Montreal means I'm not getting a piece of this action any
time soon.

It had the merit of making me reconsider how I live my life though. When you
think about moving to another country, even for just one quick second, for an
internet service, it's probably way too central to your way of life to be
healthy.

~~~
dgudkov
I'm sure big Canadian telcos are now forced to do something in the next 12-24
months, otherwise they will lose time, and then money very soon.

------
tokenadult
I browsed around the site,

<http://fiber.google.com/how/>

and although I have friends and relatives who live in the Kansas City
metropolitan area, I don't live there myself. So as rollout happens there,
I'll be glad to hear from HN participants who live there what's happening in
the local Internet access market. Meanwhile, I'll still be dealing with the
same SMALL subset of providers who reach my neighborhood as I have for years.
Please let us know what you think of Google Fiber when it arrives in your
neighborhood, okay?

------
babar
The cable channel lineup looks limited (no ESPN? can you add HBO?), so I
wonder if they will get much adoption there.

Internet pricing looks fantastic.

~~~
jcampbell1
ESPN is the most expensive cable channel. They charge the provider roughly
$4/month if it is part of a main package, or $20/month if it is part of an
upgrade.

------
soccerdave
Comcast in my area has been hurting due to the local power company offering
fast fiber speeds. This is going to be much worse for those local companies.
I'm not saying it's bad, that's what happens when you spend 10 years without
innovating.

------
zupreme
Here's a good quote from a friend of mine, Craig Clausen of New Paradigm
Resources Group (a market research firm specializing in telecom):

"This is more of a strategic play for Google. As they mentioned, there are
three essential components to the Internet (i.e. Google’s business model):
Computing power, cloud storage and access. The first two have worked in
Google’s favor. The third hasn’t kept pace. The telcos and other access
providers (like the cablecos) don’t care about what’s good for Google and
broadband speeds aren’t where Google would like them to be. As they’ve done in
similar situations (such as wireless and energy), Google is signaling to the
telcos that, while they’d prefer not to be in the telecom business, they are
certainly capable of doing so. Picking Kansas City – smack dab in the middle
of the country – has less to do with Kansas City showing the most interest and
more about being able to distribute that message evenly between the coasts.
It’s a different type of investment for Google – one in which they hope to
spur the access providers into stepping it up or risk having the guy with the
deepest pockets step in for them."

------
kayzee
Is anything actually 'free' in this world?? I wonder how much of my data they
will be using without my permission to serve me ads...although I guess
targeted TV commercials are a heck of a lot better than random stuff I see
now.

Double-edged sword if you ask me.

~~~
eavc
The only thing free here is low-tier internet if you pay for the installation.
This isn't about ads, this is about installation.

------
dkhenry
Nexus 7 as the remote. This could really be a game changer for tablets, and
for google.

------
rplnt
Free internet. That's rather creepy from Google. When they roll this big it
would hurt other providers, which in itself isn't bad, but having only Google
as a choice is. Can they even do that by the way (anti-monopoly regulations)?

~~~
randall
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)#Action...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_\(pricing_policy\)#Actions_in_the_United_States)

Maybe?

~~~
Avenger42
That only seems to apply to dumping as an action by international firms,
intended to damage domestic companies, and the rights domestic companies have
to address it. It's not strictly applicable between two local firms competing
for customers.

~~~
rplnt
I see, I don't think there's a difference between domestic/foreign firm when
it comes to dumping in EU. I think that you can't operate with loss in order
to crush competition. But Google might have it covered with other sources of
revenue coming from "free" users.

~~~
randall
The big difference is say a Japanese Steel maker dumps a bunch of foreign
steel on the US market, then suddenly disappears... there's a structural
crisis because the US steel industry has to rebuild from scratch. Or that's
the argument anyway.

------
jiggy2011
1 Gigabit Download _and_ Upload!

I have always believed that the internet would have been and fundamentally
different place if we had fast upload from the beginning.

Rather than having everything in the cloud (i.e big corporate datacenters)
people would have gotten used to running small server at home. After all was
the web not originally designed to work more in this way?

This would have fostered a much better culture of privacy and freedom when you
have ultimate control of what you are putting online, freedom from TOS etc.
Sure there are advantages to big datacenters such as backup and fireproofing
etc but is every piece of data really that precious?

------
normalfaults
The rally concept is pretty neat. If your fiberhood gets enough registrations
you will get the next install batch plus all schools, government buildings and
other public establishments will get gigabit in your fiberhood.

------
DASD
This might just make Kansas City the tech center scene for colocation
startups. Run this out of your bedroom. Amazon watch out!

Note to self: Cross KC off my list of colo locations if an offer appears with
outrageously low pricing.

------
Kell
As a matter of comparison. Here a regular situation in France :

I pay 63€ for a nominal 100MBps fiber connection + free calls from my landline
(to other landlines in most of the world (more than 100 countries, and all the
big ones (but neither Africa nor the Middle East)) and mobile phones in France
and US), plus 170 televion channels (that I don't watch anyway), plus a
femtocell device, plus a smartphone subsidized (2 years contract) with
illimited calls to other mobiles or landlines in France, free SMS and MMS, 1Gb
of "high speed" (in average 2Mbps) 3G , after 1Gb it switches to low speed
(512Kbps). Oh, and I get Spotify Premium. All that for 63€ a month (That's 78
american $) (but I'm in a 24 months contract) It's quite the usual "quadplay"
offer (Television + Phone + Internet + Mobile Phone) here in France. There are
cheaper ones.

So yeah, at 200$ there is somebody being ripped off. But the Google 120$
option doesn't seem too bad, it's a little less than twice the price I pay
here in France, but with great goodies like the tablet, and an incredible
1Gbps... Ten times my official speed. So the markup is deserved.

To French people, I have the SFR MultiPack offer with the Carré Web + the
Spotify Premium at 5€ option, and the Classic Fiber option (not the Evolution
one) cf. [http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/multi-packs-de-sfr-mobile-et-
adsl.j...](http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/multi-packs-de-sfr-mobile-et-adsl.jspe)

------
yumraj
Damn!!!! Their free tier is better (with a higher upload speed) that what the
max AT&T can provide my home, via DSL, in San Jose, Capital of Silicon Valley.
Go figure....

------
dr_
Very interesting. All the packages sound great but it's really the free
internet that's going to prove to be disruptive. I, as many other I'm
guessing, have moved away from traditional television, watching a lot of stuff
on my laptop and iPad. There are a couple of TV shows I enjoy but I'm not
bound to them and don't mind purchasing the episodes at a later time. And you
have to imagine that Apple and Google will strike their own deals with content
creators at some point.

------
swalsh
I think Google has another unmentioned monopoly. Some of the smartest people
in the world are employed by them. They have experience in AI, and as seen by
the self driving car they also know how to do practical things with it.

Google being the kind of company that is opposed to hiring an army of manual
labors, could very well create an army of digging robots to lay the fiber for
them. I can see google scaling this faster then anyone else.

------
spiffworks
<https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html>

Read this first, and read it well.

------
antonioevans
How would they get this into SF or NYC? Verizon currently testing a 300mps I
am sure they will scale that a bit in next 1-2 years.

~~~
stephengillie
What about smaller markets like Seattle, Portland, or other cities up here?

Is there any more info about their plan for build-out or how soon it'll be
available in our neighborhoods?

~~~
dannytatom
I'd imagine it would get to Seattle sooner than later since there's a Google
office here?

~~~
stephengillie
I would think so too...though technically it's in Kirkland...

~~~
dannytatom
There's an office in Fremont too, though, I think.

------
lawdawg
The $120/mo plan is incredible for what you get, considering 1TB on Google
Drive is normally $50/mo. So jealous ...

------
mikemoka
I'm surprised that I wasn't able to find the word privacy mentioned in the
first page.

I think that Google is clearly losing the "don't be evil" credo, whatever you
may think about a specific industry.

Google is trying to do everything, Google is not satisfied with ads and is
trying to remove the middlemen, all the possible ones.

They tried to attack the fashion ecommerce niche with Google Boutiques, they
tried to attack Groupon with Google Offers, now they become an Internet
Provider, but why? Here are my two cents:

-they will be able to know everything, and I mean everything, their users do online, and they are one of the few organizations actually able to parse and exploit this size of data -they will be able to know the identity of their users -they may be able to control the speed or stability of the connection to specific sites, they may even hijack specific banner ads without anyone noticing

------
drivingmenuts
I want this in Austin. Now. Yesterday.

Seriously, the customer service is a non-issue. You can't do any worse than
the telcos/cablecos other than having zero customer service ever.

If this forces the entrenched companies to man up and throw down some fiber,
it's worth whatever it costs as long as no one is getting physically injured.

------
romaniv
This would be awesome if it wasn't coming from Google. If they control the
browser, a good chunk of websites/services _and_ the delivery mechanism, there
are just too many opportunities for abuse. Although, maybe this will force
other telecom providers to stop sucking so much.

------
azakai
Does anyone know how they make money from the free option?

~~~
bryanlarsen
They don't. The $300 installation fee doesn't cover the cost of running fiber
to your house + the cost of the box.

But it's hugely cheaper to wire your house at the same time they are wiring
your neighbours. That's the catch -- the deal disappears once the
neighbourhood is connected. They're not going to do a truck roll for $300.

Once your house is connected, upsell potential is a lot better than if it
isn't.

------
dysoco
Living in Argentina, and paying quite a lot for a 3Mb/s connection, now I hate
America a bit more :D

------
27182818284
Even their homepage blows away the others. Simple and flat. It tells me the
mbps for each and whether there are data caps. Contrast that with, say,
Windstream where you have to go searching to find out the speed of "Merge"

The homepage alone is going to do good for the industry.

------
hoka
having spent the summer on true gigabit internet, it's a shame people won't
even understand how big of a difference this makes. Their site makes a cute
attempt at it, but I don't think it does it justice. Gig internet just has to
be experienced.

------
cygwin98
I looked at their Term * Resale and Redistribution

The Fiber Services are intended for the personal use of you and others with
whom you share your residence (including, within reason, guests who are
visiting you). You agree not to resell or repackage the Services for use by
people other than those with whom you share your residence. If you wish to use
the Google Fiber Services to provide Internet service to others, you must
enter a separate agreement with Google Fiber that specifically authorizes you
to do so. *

I do have some questions though. I get that a Fiber user cannot resell the
bandwidth like a VPS provider. But how about hosting his own web server
running a HN clone site?

------
jshowa
Read through a couple of comments and all I see is people bitching about phone
and cable companies.

The problem is, you can only get Google fiber if you get enough people in your
neighborhood that want it and you meet a preregistration goal. Then you can
choose the DSL crappy free internet, or the gigabit one for 70/month which is
comparable to the Comcast rate, except faster speeds. Of course, the more
people that choose Gigabit, the more demand there is to justify a price
increase.

And, to be honest, my employer is running on fiber with a link speed of 1 Gbps
and there isn't that much of a difference between Internet browsing at home.

------
______
The country of Australia is spending over $31 billion on a project called the
National Broadband Network (NBN) to bring fiber directly to 97% of homes. That
project is enormous in scale compared to the Kansas City experiment.

------
denzil_correa
The most important piece of information I see than the speeds is "No Data
Caps". Will this mean the end of Fair Usage Policies? I am anxiously hoping
that this is the start of the end of the evil FUP policies.

~~~
danielweber
Is it dedicated fiber, or are you sharing with neighbors? If shared, just how
many of your neighbors can shoving blu-ray rips around before your VOIP
suffers?

(Of course, even with dedicated, you still are meeting other people's bits
_somewhere_.)

~~~
denzil_correa
I presume it's dedicated. "No data caps" is a huge bonus in the world of FUPs.

------
tete
I am living in Europe/Vienna. I do not know the US situation too well. However
I think they really need an option in between. I think neither option is
really interesting to the average user. The buy once option with 5/1Mbps seems
too low for the average user, while the 1GBit seems really too expensive.

Wouldn't offers from 30 to 100MBit make much more sense. That's the broadly
available offer here for 20 to 50EUR.

Of course we have symmetric fiber offers with 10MBit for 17EUR and 100 for
25EUR too, but that's only available in bigger cities.

------
normalfaults
During the live event it was mentioned that premium channels will be available
at an extra charge per month. Google wanted to simplify the cable line up as
much as possible.

------
dhughes
Being in Canada this is going to suck immensely having people just across the
border with 1Gbps meanwhile I pay $100 for 15Mbps/950Kbps (cable TV included).

Pretty soon I bet I'll come across someone say _"Here look at this file...what
wrong? It's only 9GB you should be able to download this no problem."_

Or Xbox oh crap I'll forever be stuck with racist Scottish ten year-olds since
I'll never get matched to my own region everyone will be 1Gbps.

~~~
SimonSayz
So true. The other I went to change my cellphone plan and god forbid, I asked
why the monthly fees are so high in Canada compared to US. The answer "the
cost of running a country wide network for so few people is costly" Let me say
this, bulls __*.

~~~
dhughes
I know it's not like we are spread evenly across the country just Great
Toronto Area (GTA) alone has over six million people out of a country of 34
million.

My small city in my small province has almost 50% of the entire population of
the province in and around the one main capital city.

Clusters of people are in cities in fact I believe a few years ago Canada
tipped past being a rural country to an urban one with more people in cities
than in the country.

If anything you would think that would make it easier to supply mobile phone,
TV and Internet service.

------
zumth
In the FAQ :

> Can I run a server from my home? > > Google Fiber is intended as a
> residential Internet service. Our Terms of Service prohibit running a
> server.

This scares me.

------
delackner
Can't believe no one has mentioned that the TV option does not include AMC,
HBO, ESPN, Disney Channel, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network. (List from the Verge).

So the only channel it has that I actually would watch is The Daily Show, I
mean Comedy Central, which I can watch on the net for free (in a much better
extended length version).

Spreading real modern internet infrastructure to the masses in the US though,
yes that is a very positive thing.

------
sreyaNotfilc
It sucks that I turned down a job in KC during the spring because I didn't
want to move away from my house. It would be very cool to have a chance to use
Google Fiber.

I wonder what the timeline will be to spread this baby nationwide. Then again,
I wonder what Congress will do because Google is in yet another industry.
Hopefully then can pull this off. It'll be a great future!

------
kennethcwilbur
If Google Fiber catches on, and you consider combining it with Google TV,
Youtube content and Google TV Ads, the strategic possibilities are
fascinating.

I wish I knew whether enough consumers are willing to pay to justify a large-
scale infrastructure rollout. There is a whiff of that old saying here -
Google engineers are great at building products for Google engineers.

------
pbhjpbhj
One day Google will launch something new and there will be a highlighted note
at the top "based on your IP this release doesn't apply where you are [and
probably won't ever]" and then I won't need to stare blankly for 10 seconds at
an address form working out how it's possible to enter a real [read: my]
address in to that weird configuration.

But then again, maybe not.

------
jrwoodruff
Does it surprise anyone else that they're offering television with this
package?

Clearly it makes sense, and seems like a great way to give Apple TV/Roku etc.
a run for their money. Plus, if they expand this program, which they
presumably will, it could put Google TV in a lot of homes... although it
doesn't explicitly state that the 'tv box' will be running Google TV.

------
xutopia
This reminds me of when Bill Gates was purported saying that he'd enter the
RAM market if prices didn't go down. Google has nothing to lose here. They
want a faster web because it means more chances to provide ads. If ISPs aren't
willing to provide it they will... and once they start the ISPs will have to
follow suit.

------
ryana
I noticed that there are no FOX Broadcast Company channels on their channel
list. That's a shame because I'd really want to keep Fox Soccer Channel if I
was switching.

I would guess that has something to do with Google and Rupert Murdoch's well
publicized icy relationship. It'll be interesting to see who blinks first if
this takes off.

------
cocoflunchy
What's the average price for an average connection in the US ?

Here in France, I get Internet + TV + free phone to 50+ countries for about
40$/mo.

I don't think there is anything above 60-80£/mo here (that would include all
of the above + mobile + paid TV channels), so 120$/mo seems really kind of
expensive to me!

~~~
smackfu
Usually you'd expect to pay $100 or so for that.

But the history is that a cable TV package alone is generally $60 and has been
increasing. The secondary TV channels have figured out that if they produce
high quality original content (like Breaking Bad or Mad Men) they will be
considered essential by the consumer, and can raise their price to the TV
cable operators. Who then passes that on to the consumer.

------
EdwardTattsyrup
I'm sorry but this is not actually happening in a meaningful way for the vast
majority of people. Your city will never be on the list. There's way too much
local government corruption and cable-co monopoly. Please stop wet dreaming on
your HDTV. You'll void the warranty.

------
daimyoyo
When this comes to Vegas I will buy a TV specifically to take advantage of
this. If anyone at Google is reading this, please come here as soon as
possible. Seriously, the internet quality out here is atrocious and I REALLY
want to support this business model.

------
gojomo
This is another demonstration of why federal network neutrality regulations
would be premature.

------
e28eta
I really want this to succeed. I have never had a great experience with high
speed Internet.

I'd even consider adopting a KC home, and paying some or all of their $300 for
free Internet if it meant it would come to the San Jose area sooner.

Maybe a Kickstarter to wire a fiberhood?

------
pradeep89
I wish, this could come up in India early , Internet is worse here. If you
want high speed internet,the charges are too high to afford for common man. I
remember before 5 years i used to download at 2 kbps :(, now it's better but
not cheap

------
Trufa
Coming from a 3rd world country, free Internet sounds like a fiction, my
expensive connection is slower than the free one Google is offering! Though
I'm happy I will be one of the first homes to have fiber on the country.

------
captaintacos
After living in Australia for about two years (probably worst internet in the
developed world) and now living in Japan with gigabit speeds I can confidently
say: Do thank Google for this and do give them all your money!

------
blinkingled
Kansas, KS and Kansas, MO - what's with the Kansas fixation Google?

This sounds good but if they are going to take more than a few years just to
move out of Kansas I am not sure if it would even relevant in the grand scheme
of things.

~~~
aggronn
Kansas City is partly in both states. Why KC? Google had a competition and
they won.

------
mikebracco
With this announcement by Google, we're at stage in the game were cable
company execs hear this --> <http://youtu.be/_hHDxlm66dE> #finishhim
#mortalcombat

------
quellhorst
Meanwhile Verizon FIOS (fiber) is available in hundreds of cities.
<http://www.consumerfiber.com/fios-availability>

~~~
icefox
Of course on all of their plans they limit your speed. The top speed at over
$200 is only 300/65Mbps

Edit: and that is only for the connect, not the TV service. And the router
they give you isn't very good and same goes for the 'cable/tv box' which sucks
up more power than my PC and likes to die once a week forcing me or my wife to
physically unplug and re-plug it if we want to watch Tv. It would be a far
stretch to say Fios is good, it is only better than the alternatives in my
area.

------
JL2010
Did anyone else catch the "2 year contract" bullet point? Despite that, of all
the Telcos out there, I suppose I would be more willing to sign one with
Google than any of them.

------
tapsboy
Good for KC. Here, 3 blocks from Empire State building in Midtown Manhattan,
the max I can get is 10/2 from TWC. FiOS is still negotiating with building
authorities.

------
SjuulJanssen
In comparison the pricing of my local provider:
<http://www.onsbrabantnet.nl/internet-weert>

------
Brock_Lee
With the "Free Internet" plan, what happens if I pay the construction fee,
then move out of my "fiberhood" into a house that isn't part of a fiberhood?

------
pasbesoin
Google: The moment you're in my area, I'll sign up.

Unless sonic.net beats you to it. ;-)

( _Please_ do whatever you can to speed up planning and deployments in
additional areas!)

------
calinet6
Who wants to bet these have HD's (or SSDs) in them and are set up for peer-to-
peer content caching on the local city network?

They'd be stupid if they didn't do that.

------
jps359
I don't live in KC, but I'm very excited to see what kind of splash this will
make in the industry. A lot of neat things might come from this.

------
wildmXranat
We Canadians need this so badly it's not even funny. I would honestly pay for
a 5 year long contract as long if that's what it takes.

------
nsxwolf
Is Google going pull a Google with this and keep a copy of every you packet
transmit and receive, holding onto it for ever and ever?

------
mrschwabe
No thanks. Google already harvests enough data on me that I don't need to pipe
my entire internet & TV connection through them.

------
laserDinosaur
Could this ever come to Canada, or would Google be stuck behind the same
Canadian ownership requirements that nearly blocked Wind?

------
javert
Note to telcos: If all your customers hate you, you are begging to be made
obsolete. Looks like your wish is about to be granted.

------
thenomad
So, anyone know if this is coming outside the US any time soon? I'm getting
that "nose pressed against the glass" feeling...

------
engtech
Does anyone know what hardware companies they are using for their network?

Are customers going to have an optical transceiver in their house?

------
bfe
I hadn't seen the rabbit mascot before, but I hope it's meant as a nod to Mr.
Rabbit from Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.

------
cmelbye
It's still limited to just Kansas City? Hm.

------
lurchpop
Cool, but do they have a plan that doesn't freely give my data to law
enforcement as part of a regular dragnet?

------
Grepsy
I really like the little SVG animations on this site. Any ideas of how you
would go about authoring this?

------
dgudkov
It seems like Google TV now done right.

------
bmuon
I'm astonished! Free 5mb/1mb connection? I have to pay close to us$40/mo for
3mb down in Argentina.

------
nsxwolf
There's no point even checking to see if it's coming to my city. I already
know the answer is no.

------
catfish
Please GOOGLE, please come compete with ATT and TIME Warner in San Diego. I am
ready to pay....

------
dakrisht
Kansas City - yeah, that'll do it. I'm sure everyone in Kansas City needs
Gigabit Ethernet.

------
akennberg
One of these gigabit subscriptions is enough for a few houses / apartment
floor. :-)

------
jacoblyles
"fiber" is a horrible name for a suite of products! (But this still looks
awesome)

------
conradfr
So does it cut your Internet and your TV when your Google account gets
suspended ?

------
agumonkey
Onlive must be very excited.

------
neduma
the whole Comcast Experiene is really bad. We bought new HDTV and went comcast
store to get HD cable box to watch 2012 Olympics tonight. but they gave some
wrong box and said they're sorry.

------
brh_jr
How is Google going to get past all the state and city monopolies?

------
dropshop
Anybody else thinking of moving there just for fiber?

------
blktiger
I'm so sad that I can't get this where I live... :(

------
chaselee
This is exploding with awesome at every seam.

------
discountgenius
So... I can get gigabit internet for either $70/month locked in for 2 years or
$25/month locked in for 1 year. I'm not seeing the point of the $70 pricing
option.

~~~
grecy
The Free plan ($25/mo 1 year)says:

Up to 5Mbps download, 1Mbps upload speed.

The $70/mo for 2 years says:

Up to one gigabit upload & download.

Big difference

------
orphol
Anyone know when is so cal is in pipeline

------
ditoa
God I hope they bring this to the UK!

------
robotment
It is great, but never can use it.

------
suyash
Google is taking over our lives :(

------
zx1986
WOW! what a great news! I hope Google keep this job quicken in another
country. We here in Taiwan need a REAL FAST Internet!

------
sebastianavina
Why Kansas and not Durango, MX?

------
cma
DDoS will never be the same

------
knodi
Holy shit, I want this.

------
antihero
Anyone read Snow Crash?

------
Metrop0218
This is awesome.

------
azinman2
WANT

------
samstokes
Only available in Kansas City?

------
recoiledsnake
While I am super happy that the cable industry is getting disrupted as it
deserves to be(the wireless industry sucks too, maybe a tech company can buy
TMobile or Sprint), I feel uneasy about the following two points:

1) Profitability: I wonder how profitable and sustainable this is for Google?
They can subsidize it for only so long before deciding to discontinue it as
has been happening to many of their services recently.

2) With Google as your ISP and TV channel provider, they will have the
potential to know everything about you, probably even more than you know about
yourself! Imagine you use all their services, they will know about your
surfing habits(via ISP, Google searches and clicks, G+ buttons, Google ads,
Google analytics etc.), your location(Android location services/GPS. Google
Maps), TV channel viewing habits, Gmail, social network(Google+), phone
calls(Google voice), etc. etc. It will also provide malicious and state actors
with a one stop shop to steal/request information from.

~~~
engtech
re: #2

have you been following this story at all?

<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+binney>

(lmgtfy used not because I'm trying to be a dick, but rather because the
direct google search gives a url that contains all kinds of extra parameters)

~~~
delano
You only need one:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+bi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+binney)

------
funthree
> Free internet at today's average speeds

> $300 construction fee (one time or 12 monthly payments of $25) + taxes and
> fees

Google is going full circle. I wonder if the cost for Google to give internet
to people who didn't otherwise have it (and at no charge to them) actually
paid dividends because that person is going to immediately generate new
revenue for google from the inevitable use of Google/adwords. I think John D.
Rockefeller would tip his hat.

------
andyl
Wow - impressive. Can't wait to say goodbye to comcast.

------
tubbo
aww i wish they were around philly

------
thiagodotfm
Holy shit.

That's a lot of porn.

