

Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network - ashishbharthi
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html

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swombat
Time for the other so-called broadband providers to shake in their boots.

I like companies that have no respect for established business models. In this
perspective, despite its size, I think it's fair to call Google a start-up.

~~~
Groxx
I forget where the link was (I think somewhere on yc), but it showed a chart
of internet access speed through a few years, rated by countries. Most of the
large-nation world had grown by 10%+, many over 50%, in a few years, while the
US had _dropped_ by a couple percent. This is in addition to most of those
countries being higher already, so it's not merely a 5kbps -> 8kbps jump. My
price for internet access not going down, and speed not going up (personal
experience) in several years implies the ISPs are gouging because they can.

Proper competition is essential in every industry. If Google can provide it,
good for them. This is an area where _only_ the big players can compete, but
nobody's stepped forward to fix things. Maybe this will be it.

~~~
drewr
There is the possibility that the providers aren't intentionally gouging their
customers. Even though the market is small, there is enough of a market to
drive prices down. I think it's much more likely that those companies are just
so horribly inefficient that it really does cost them a lot to provide you
with high-speed access.

~~~
wtallis
Several years ago my family got cable internet from Time Warner. The
modem/router they provided was one of the first models to support DOCSIS 3.0.
We stayed with Time Warner for at least 2 years, and they never rolled out
DOCSIS 3 support at their end. The maximum speed we could get from them was
6Mbps. We're now using DSL, and the maximum we can get is 6Mbps, though with
more reliability than from cable.

The nearest cable box is next to our neighbor's driveway. The phone company
has fiber to their box in our other neighbor's yard.

There's enough competition to keep price inflation mostly at bay, but there
clearly isn't enough to convince the ISPs to invest in the equipment that
would be able to give us connections that are four times faster. Efficiency
doesn't have a lot to do with it. For all practical purposes, our local ISPs
aren't spending _any_ money to improve service in areas that already have some
service.

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theblackbox
Worth noting: We had something quite inspirational up in the Lakeland fells
recently. One villiage (Alston Moor[1]) was so sick of constantly being set
back by ISPs, that they organised a community action group to lay their own
fibre optic cable during some planned roadworks. Everyone pitched in,
cloudsourced infrastructure if you will, and with just enough people they look
set to have 100Mb broadband before a lot of places.

The guys who got it off the ground set up www.cybermoor.org and are
encouraging similar grass roots development for other remote areas. I like
that.

[1:[http://www.cybermoor.org/index.php?option=com_mtree&task...](http://www.cybermoor.org/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=874&Itemid=10)]

~~~
andyking
We need more of this sort of thing.

It's arguably far more important to get good internet access to rural areas
than to inner cities. If you're in Central London or Manchester, you can quite
easily shop, meet others in your field of work, network, be entertained
without touching a computer if you don't want to.

Meanwhile in remote areas, it's not so easy to pop out and do these things and
the internet has been a huge leap forward - but we're being held-back by
spotty, slow, distinctly iffy internet connections that just aren't capable of
sustaining meaningful economic activity. The advent of the internet is a huge
chance to revive rural communities which have been in decline for years now.

But while BT, Google and other companies concentrate their high-speed efforts
exclusively on profitable inner-city areas which already have a plethora of
other options, we're in serious danger of leaving "forgotten" rural areas
behind. I have friends on a Scottish island which currently only has 512kbps
on its exchange...

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imgabe
_Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five
minutes._

Did you hear that? It sounded as if millions of hollywood executives suddenly
cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...

~~~
gbookman
The sad thing is that hollywood execs are scared by news like this when they
should be looking at it as an opportunity.

The ability to download a full HD movie in <5 minutes opens up a treasure
trove of revenue possibilities. It makes content delivery much more convenient
and thus much more compelling for customers.

~~~
grinich
I think purchasing will become much more of an impulse decision— much like
what the App Store has done with software.

------
pavs
This will shake up the broadband industry the same way ebook readers are
transforming the publishing industry. This is HUGE.

I am in NY and I am waiting for years for fios in my area. Hopefully this
adoption will move faster than FIOS.

~~~
tjic
You may have a problem in NY.

In general, the more built up a place is, the more vested interests there are,
and the more they are able to manipulate the legislative process.

Google moves at Internet speed.

Out in the "real world", it's still illegal to sell cars and wine over the
Internet, because the local car and liquor distributors have gotten their
preferences written into the law.

You may find that Google can't go the last 20 feet to your house without
buying off a few hundred interest groups, politicians, and unions.

~~~
jonknee
Not to mention it's harder to build a network where everything is paved over
and digging requires navigating through a couple hundred years of previous
projects (and having to use union labor for it). I don't envy anyone having to
plan a network buildout in NYC.

In many other parts of the country it's mostly digging through dirt and in
when you're in a neighborhood using a water jet to tunnel under driveways.
Piece of cake.

~~~
Retric
Rolling out fiber in NYC takes less digging than you might think, there is a
lot of open space where huge bundles of copper wire where used by the telcos.
It can become expensive to rewire a building, but cable companies did this not
so long ago.

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timdorr
This may be paranoia, but I'm actually worried about this much bandwidth being
the hands of ordinary people. My reasoning: super-botnets. This has the
potential to very easily create a several 100Gbit DDOS network, which is
essentially unstoppable. I understand the need and potential for high speed
networks, but I think gigabit might be taking it a bit too far. It's a "with
great power comes great responsibility" sort of thing. But perhaps I'm just
being overly paranoid.

~~~
pavs
If I am not wrong, this kind of speed already exists for few years in some
parts of the world. S.Korea, Japan and England comes to my mind.

~~~
smiler
The maximum you can get at a reasonable price in England is 50mb download at
around $80 / month. It's also worth bearing in mind that upload is the
critical speed for DDOS and that is _severely_ limited on most connections.

The maximum you can get on a residental connection in the UK is around 2mb.

~~~
tjogin
I live in Sweden. I had _10/10 mbit fibre_ in my (regular non-campus)
apartment back in _2001_ , for peanuts, maybe $20 a month. In 2005 I briefly
upgraded to 100/100 mbit (very common today), but found that it wasn't worth
it (about $55) because what good will that do me when most of the internet
can't keep up with it? I think it about doubled my speed from my previous
connection, but that's it.

Today I have 12/4 mbit DSL, and I pay less than $20. I don't need more
bandwidth, but if I did I could get a lot more than I could use for less than
$50 a month.

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Shamiq
Owning your net access, owning the DNS, routing through their backbone. These
guys have all your bases covered.

How do you form an underground internet that bypasses the big players?

~~~
pavs
While I understand some of the concerns about privacy with Google, one thing I
like about Google is that instead of shouldering competition through backdoor
deals (like MS did with OLPC), they go out of their way with superior products
and services.

They are late comers in search, gmail and Browser, but their success has been
smashing thanks to superior products. You have to give them that.

------
siculars
This is more than just kinda great, this is definitively awesomely great.
Words can not describe how crappy Time Warner is in NYC.

Bonus points for doing this in a recession when traditional companies are
running for the hills and laying off people left and right. Google continues
to innovate and crush competition in multiple industries. I have no doubt that
if they want to become an ISP or even pretend to become one to force
traditional ISP's to innovate then good for them and better for us.

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jsz0
I think Google would be better off partnering with existing service providers
for this project. It's a hugely complex process to start from scratch. Getting
the pole rights alone to build infrastructure is going to take them years. In
some area's within the span of a mile you might pass poles owned by half a
dozen different entities. Most of them owned by incumbent Internet service
providers who will tell you the pole is already at capacity and if you want to
put up your fiber they need to replace 50 poles to cover one new street of
infrastructure build out. In many places they'll have to dig trenches for new
construction. In cold areas that means you lose at least 5 months a year of
actual work time or you spend a fortune digging into the frozen ground.
They're going to need to hire a small army of contractors to build plant and
splice fiber or make the investment in man power, bucket trucks, gear, etc to
do it in house. They're going to need warehouses and office space all over the
country. And of course they'll need customer & technical support staff. I'd be
shocked if Google makes any real progress on this outside of extremely limited
deployments. The whole system is setup to make it _very_ hard for any outside
force to compete with incumbents.

~~~
protomyth
I would think it would be good for Google to partner with the local non-telco
/ non-cable provider of utilities. The local electric or gas company (who is
used to commodity business models) would be a ideal. They already have access
to the houses and would make a good "franchise" partner. They probably
wouldn't mind another "dumb pipe".

~~~
ippisl
In israel the electric company is working on being an ISP. they use some kind
of robot that lays fiber on top of electric cables.

------
JunkDNA
I'm not sure this will have the effect on competition some around here think
it will. The only way this will cause traditional providers to lower their
rates and increase their capacity is if they actually feel threatened by
Google's offering. 50,000 - 500,000 people is just not going to be enough to
impact any of the big player's bottom lines. Comcast has 15 million Internet
customers. Are they really going to mis 50,000 of them?

~~~
chadgeidel
That's a good point. When I left they didn't even ask why.

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ilamont
Cool idea, but was anyone else reminded of the Internet2 hype when they read
this?

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thrdOriginal
Interesting 2007 Cringley article predicting something like this, except more
focused on providing the backbone.
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_0015...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html)
He also claims Google "controls more network fiber than any other
organization."

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drtse4
Linking this news to what i read an year ago about google criticizing the
router manufacturer for their lousy equipments(performance and both hw/sw
quality) i just wonder from who they will buy their optical equipments...
Sadly they are not an hw company, so no google router anytime soon.

~~~
wmf
Supposedly Google designs their own servers and switches already; routers
wouldn't be much of a stretch. Or they could call an existing vendor and get
customized equipment. At the 50,000-customer level the economy of scale might
work.

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deltaqueue
There seem to be a large number of comments on the possible effects, motives,
and general thoughts about Google's effort, but I'm intrigued with what it's
going to take to get them to consider a particular community or city. Will
they be partial to urban or rural neighborhoods? Densely- or openly-developed
communities? Newer or older cities? Will demographics play a role?

I'm sure they're going to be considering all of these, but short of keeping my
fingers crossed and filling out an application I hope some part of Austin, TX
gets on the map.

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paul9290
Google needs to sell access to entrepreneurs/large entities who want to get
into the ISP business. Doing this will create a market over the
monopoly/oligopoly we have here in the US.

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ippisl
I don't understand why the go for the 1gbit fiber to the home. it would be
more helpfull to their business if everybody in the u.s would have 2 or 5 or
10mbit/sec in a short time , then if everybody has 1gbit/sec in a much longer
time.

Also , does anybody know mass market applications that require more then
10mbit up/10mbit down?

~~~
enneff
Mass market applications that utilise 1gbit connections do not exist because
the mass market does not have 1gbit connections.

~~~
ippisl
But connections above 10 mbit/sec exist in many places outside and inside the
u.s.

~~~
warfangle
Sure, my connection is advertised as 10 mbit/s.

At 7PM, I'm lucky to get 512kbps.

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sumeeta
Reminds me of the Google toilet ISP (<http://www.google.com/tisp/>).

------
patrickgzill
Comcast is slowly getting into enterprise fiber-based bandwidth for business;
my guess is that they will use the enterprise to grow their installed base,
then eventually go wholly into fiber based delivery. Of course, at a price...
whether this will spur Comcast into a faster rollout is the question.

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ez77
_We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple
service providers._

I'm confused. Won't Google be the sole service provider of its own network?

~~~
wmf
It sounds like Google will be the "fiber service provider" and you'll have a
choice of ISPs.

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mannylee1
Forget 5 minutes for a full feature film. If you are getting 1gb/sec., you
will be able to download a BlueRay movie in 30-60 sec.

~~~
ghoerz
The speeds are 1 gigabit connections. The Dark Knight Blu Ray was approx.
35GiB. At 1 gigabit connections speed it would take 280 seconds in a best case
scenario.

That doesn't account for any network overhead and assumes the storage medium
can write > 125MiB/s (Pretty much discounting all standard platter drives)

The 5-10 minute figure is reasonable.

~~~
andreyf
Jeez. Back in my day, movies were ~700MB. That way we could put them on these
things called CDs. Ever hear of CDs? Damn kids.

------
teeja
Google makes me laugh. They want the world, they want it now, and nobody is
going to get in their way. It's great!

------
kerringtonx
Really excited about this. Blazing speed!

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ubu
interesing, if only google wouldn't bring the cpu speed down to zero by some
of its bad javascript code.

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ac
Aquinas Router, anyone?...

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khelloworld
Yay!!.....hmm..wait a second..

(addendum: whoa, my tail's on fire!!)

~~~
dpcan
I don't understand the down-votes here. This is exactly what I was thinking.

Google Phone, Email, ISP, Website, Checkout, Calendar, Docs, Search, Stats,
your DNA .....

People are making a stink about Comcast buying NBC, but Google seems to get
away with much more and people cheer. If the argument is "sure, but they make
great products", that doesn't cut it for me.

~~~
Groxx
Probably because there's no content to the comment? It doesn't even explain
which "hmm" is being hmm'd.

~~~
lanstein
No offense, but there are some comments posted here that may take a second or
two of interpretation to understand, perhaps making them that much more witty?

~~~
Groxx
Certainly, but few of them are _that_ vague. Something being witty implies
hidden content that further thought will reveal. That one, while perhaps
_inspiring_ thought along those lines, contains nothing in and of itself.

Besides. Given the yc crowd and their response to monopolistic habits, I'd be
willing to bet that something like 90% or more had the same thought. So you
can argue that it's not even inspiring.

"It's a trap!" ~Admiral Ackbar

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zitterbewegung
I for one welcome google as an fiber based internet service provider.
Especially if its better than the competitors

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zitterbewegung
I for one welcome google as an fiber based internet service provider.
Especially if its better than the competitors I wonder if they will do
analytics on the packets or information

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JCThoughtscream
This is a very - 1 GIGABIT/SEC - interesting development on part of Google.
They've successfully - 1 GIGABIT/SEC - established unified control of - 1
GIGABIT/SEC - their entire chain of service without strangling competition.
Where Google goes - 1 GIGABIT/SEC - so does everybody else, it seems - and I,
for one, fully welcome our thoroughly broadbanded - 1 GIGABIT/SEC - future.

There seems to be a lot to look forward to. Say, the INCREDIBLE 1 GIGABIT/SEC
SPEED AHAHAHAHAAYES

