
Google Fiber coming to Austin - nlh
http://www.kvue.com/home/Google-Fiber-coming-to-Austin-201695291.html
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6thSigma
Hopefully they work their way down to San Antonio before I work my way up to
Austin.

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mesozoic
Maybe next Google can fix the traffic problems in Austin :(

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mildweed
I'm surprised they're going into other markets when they haven't even started
phase 2 for Kansas City (getting the rest of the metro signed up).

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loceng
Testing in only one city would be silly.

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shmerl
Does Google have plans to expand it much more and in different states /
cities? I lost hope for Verizon FiOS to grow in urban areas, and I'm not going
to use any coax. cable companies for sure.

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__david__
> I'm not going to use any coax. cable companies for sure.

Why not? I'm all for fiber but really what I want is a fast symmetric
connection. If someone can provide that over coax, that's fine with me.

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shmerl
They are all media companies at core, who push all kind of idiocy on the
Internet, from DRM to SOPA-like stuff and who support all kind of censorship.
At least Verizon is just a communications company, even though their service
isn't the best.

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__david__
Ah, I thought you had something against coax itself :-). I agree, but
pragmatically there just isn't a real alternative to the local cable monopoly.
Maybe U-Verse, though AT&T isn't my favorite company either.

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aspensmonster
As an Austinite and an EE student, I am very excited about the potential.
However, our local media (KXAN)[<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8A08jNxAaA>]
is harping on all the benefits this will bring startups, and I'm not
convinced. Google's ToS for their fiber lines essentially forbids all of the
cool things that you could do with a symmetric﻿ gigabit link. They have a
wiggle-room clause in their (non-binding) FAQ about whether such things are
"legal and non-commercial," but I'm not holding my breath. I don't get the
obsession over how this will "help" tech startups if commercial use of the
line is expressly forbidden. If I were a founder, I'd be very wary about
basing my business on something Google could pull out from under me at any
time. If I developed a standalone Dropbox alternative that could take
advantage of fiber lines to customers' homes, would that constitute a
"commercial" use of the lines? Probably not for the customer, but what about
me? As well, I've heard that the hardware provided is relatively limited in
terms of network configuration, and has no bridge mode to hand off the
connection to hardware that _can_ handle such configuration. That means no
pfsense or other routers with Tomato or DD-WRT or other firmware. And I've yet
to see an official stance from Google on whether things like running exit
nodes or seeding legal content are permitted.

TL;DR - This Austinite isn't convinced.

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aspensmonster
Downvotes? How about an explanation?

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r0s
Austin really is a great place to be a techie.

Submitting resumes last week was a surprisingly optimistic experience. In
addition to several referrals from friends, I'm qualified for development work
at diverse companies, from games to chemicals to media to nuptials.

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modarts
Would you recommend it over the bay? I've lived and worked here all my life
and getting a bit bored.

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dr_doom
I think it's good to try different places but Austin is especially cool. The
nightlife is better than SF, the rents are more affordable, outdoor lifestyles
are huge, the girls are prettier, and the weather is better.

Austin is consistently ranked at the top of various best of lists, a quick
google search found this link. [http://www.austinhomelistings.com/blog/is-
austin-the-best-ci...](http://www.austinhomelistings.com/blog/is-austin-the-
best-city-to-live-in.html)

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pjbrunet
Yall should stay in SF. You won't like it here.

1\. No beach 2\. Snakes 3\. Scorpions 4\. Coyotes 5\. Steel guitars and
country music 6\. Guns 7\. Heat kills everything, you better love the color
brown 8\. Few sidewalks and biking is a misdemeanor downtown 9\. Everyone is
obsessed with football and 10\. Stevie Ray Vaughan

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Iterated
> and biking is a misdemeanor downtown

What? I see people biking downtown all the time. Is it really?

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pjbrunet
Unless they changed the law recently, certain roads you need to walk your
bike, such as "The Drag" and Congress Ave. Yes you do see a lot of hipsters
riding around the East 6th Street area. Generally speaking it's not a
pedestrian friendly state, Texans joke they can tell you're from another state
if you walk further than 20 feet. Because there's no coastline, everything is
spread out. Goes with the "Everything is bigger in Texas" mantra.

Really I don't dislike Austin. I moved here about 10 years ago. You will hear
some Texans complain about rude Californians moving here. But it makes sense
why you're moving here. Lower taxes = more jobs. Just about everything is more
expensive in California. I don't know what the situation is in California
lately but from reading the headlines, sounds like the government is broke.
Texas is more conservative. For example, "State legislators in Texas make $600
per month, or $7,200 per year" vs. "members of the California legislature are
paid $95,291 per year" Wikipedia.

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just2n
When I initially asked, I didn't get an answer: why wouldn't Google go ahead
and roll it out Fiber here, in its own back yard? How many times are we going
to see this story and then pay our monthly Comcast/AT&T/Verizon over-priced
tithe for a mediocre service?

The cynical old man in me thinks maybe there's some kind of bribery going on
to keep the Bay Area off the table for as long as possible. How much would
Comcast have to pay you, Google, to keep you from destroying its market here?
A billion? Ten? Fifty?

I've thought about relocating to Austin if I ever tire of the startup scene
here, but now it looks like I'd have a very good reason to just go ahead and
do that.

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banachtarski
As somebody in the area, I've been annoyed at how despite Apple, Google, and a
number of other tech companies are clustered together in the
Cupertino/Mountain View area, I still go home to shitty AT&T internet.

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protomyth
Telecom is weird. Here are some plans from a small city in ND:

    
    
      $34.95/month* - High Speed Advantage - up to 15 Mbps down & 3 Mbps up
      $54.95/month* - High Speed Advantage Plus - up to 15 Mbps down & 10 Mbps up
      $104.95 to $114.95/month - High Speed Extreme Advantage - up to 50 Mbps down & 25 Mbps up
    

They have optical lines they keep adding and no bandwidth caps.

(apparently contrasting crappy service in Silicon Valley to rural areas is
downvote worthy)

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banachtarski
I think what you're experiencing is the situation where people execute the
bearer of bad or unwelcome news.

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protomyth
Probably. It's funny how small groups tend to do great telecom service and
large companies don't. Kinda relates to a startup mentality.

