
Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout - gm-conspiracy
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/technology/google-curbs-expansion-of-fiber-optic-network-cutting-jobs.html?_r=0
======
staticelf
That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for
bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior.

The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables,
letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it
to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the
networks are continually upgraded.

For example, I have 250/100 mbit/s for free. My rent pays for this. But I
could if I wanted to easily upgrade to 1gbit/s up and down. I can change ISP
(even if that wouldn't be paid for by my rent) and I would know that I always
could get the same internet-connectivity speeds.

Although, while this is true for many parts of Sweden, it's not available for
everyone. Some places still have networks owned by one company without any
access to the city network.

~~~
markbnj
When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would
take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You
may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the
way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more
reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state
I live in, New Jersey (population 8.9m), which is one of the geographically
smaller states in the U.S. We've enjoyed wide access to high speed broadband
here for fifteen years or so now. I currently have clean 120 mbps service that
is operated at utility levels of reliability. I have no complaints.

~~~
xigency
> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey

Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental
US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible)
comparison geographically.

Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New
Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each
have at least half the area of Sweden with varying population density.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area.
The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from
Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S.,
it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city.

Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the
airport. That would be quite unusual in the U.S.

~~~
tastythrowaway2
'That would be quite unusual in the U.S.'

...depending on your provider. try driving around in the sticks of Maryland
just 20 minutes outside Baltimore, good luck getting EDGE on tmo!

~~~
jsight
And that is why I don't use tmo. :) I bet that your experience would be
different with Verizon, AT&T, or maybe even Sprint.

~~~
tastythrowaway2
but that hardly makes it an unusual proposition - tmo is the 3rd largest
network.

------
SEJeff
Well google announced they were exploring a fiber rollout in Chicago. Now both
AT&T along with Time Warner Cable have 1G service throughout parts of the
city.

Alternatively, one can look at this not as a failure, but as a success. The
point of Google fiber was to force carriers to get faster internet to
everyone. It appears that it has been working. This benefits google directly
as their properties such as Youtube can deliver more and better content.

For Google, this is a win/win proposition.

~~~
arenaninja
That's nice for Chicago, and Austin, but what about LA, Houston, etc.?

I pay $75/month for 150Mbps via Comcast... and most days a speed test will say
around half of that, and there's infrequent outages (averaging roughly one
every month).

The only other service where I live is AT&T: 18Mbps for $50/month. And
whatever you may think of Comcast, my experience with AT&T's service and
customer service has been far, far worse.

This loss of competition hurts consumers

~~~
briffle
I pay $63.25 for a 2M/256K rural WISP connection, and i'm in a county with
500,000 people. In fact, i'm only 4 miles south of Madison, WI city limits.. I
live in a neighborhood of 100 homes. I would kill for a 10M connection, and
more than 2M up..

~~~
briffle
Should add, ATT has said on their website for the last 9 years that DSL is
available at my house.. I sign up once a year, to have a guy 2 days later say
its a mistake, and neighborhood is too far from the CO. I have been told 4
times to get a petition around the neighborhood, but of course, the people at
the call center can't tell me what to do with that petition, or where to send
it, etc. so its just to get me off the phone.

So fed up, and needing to start working from home soon, that I'm moving in a
few months..

~~~
doctorshady
I wonder if you can get regulators involved here. I know internet is still
relatively lightly regulated compared to the phone network, but AT&T has been
willingly refusing to do new non-Uverse DSL installs the past couple years.

If you can document that DSL was once available at your house or that your
neighbors still have it, you might be able to get somewhere.

------
jgrowl
Forgive me if I'm incorrect... The way I understand it is that they are
halting planning in cities that they marked as potential locations, but that
does not mean they are discontinuing the roll out and service in cities that
are already in progress.

For example in Nashville, they have been trying to roll out fiber in Nashville
for over a year now but have only been able to install on less than a dozen
utility poles so far.

This is because of the rules that prevented anyone other than the owner of the
existing lines to move anything. This meant that if Google wanted to add lines
to a pole with existing AT&T and Comcast lines, it would require both
companies to move their own lines independently of each other in coordination.
This means roads would have to be closed 3 separate times for each vendor.
Nashville recently passed the One Touch Make Ready ordinance that allows
approved vendors to do all of the work at the same time.

Now both AT&T and Comcast are suing the city: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2016/10/comcast-sues-nash...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2016/10/comcast-sues-nashville-to-halt-rules-that-help-google-fiber/)

I hope that google stills continues to deploy to cities that are already in
progress. It took community effort to get the ordinance passed and subjects
them a lawsuit. It would be a real letdown.

~~~
silverlight
I live in KC and they are still rolling out here. Next phase ends Nov 3. I
assume they are I'll keep rolling out in the metros they are already in as the
leg work is done for the most part.

~~~
BatFastard
I am in Atlanta and we are scheduled for it on Dec 15 2016! If there is a god,
don't stop now!!!!

------
samfisher83
Building infrastructure is hard. Even 100 years later we still have original
AT&T (Verizon and AT&T) as the dominant telecommunications company.

Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products: Google+ Hangouts
Project Ara Google Buzz Google video Orkut Talk Meebo etc.

[http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/visuel/2015/03/06/google-
memori...](http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/visuel/2015/03/06/google-memorial-le-
petit-musee-des-projets-google-abandonnes_4588392_4408996.html)

~~~
gist
> Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products

Yes remember when the mantra was "don't be evil"? They also just let products
linger w/o any or many improvements. Google voice is an example. Text to
speech is in many cases totally worthless, even with clear speaking speakers.

~~~
secure
I think “Don’t be evil” is way to amenable to mean “Don’t do what I personally
don’t like”.

In this concrete example, I don’t think “Google cancelled a product” can be
equated with “Google is evil”.

~~~
gist
Well sure but it says "I don't care if you invested time and energy thinking
this product would be around. Even though we make billions when it doesn't
suit our business purpose we will make a decision that isn't in your interest
but ours". And it's not like companies don't do this but they generally don't
do it in the way that I have seen google do it with such callousness.

------
yekim
So bummed to read this. Even though I wasn't going to directly benefit from
Google Fiber, it was sure nice to have a non-entrenched player tackle this
market.

From the big G's standpoint, it makes good biz sense to exit this market. I
sure hope the subtext in the article comes to fruition ie that Google /
Alphabet has figured out a better way to get high speed internet to homes in
the US sans fiber.

In an ideal world, this fast fiber internet ought to be a municipally managed
utility, with my tax dollars paying for the fiber in the ground. Then, my take
home dollars paying for whatever competing service(s) I choose to light up
said fiber to bring me access to the net.

------
Leszek
Previous discussion (mostly about the blog post):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792928)

~~~
Yhippa
I read that one first then started seeing these articles like the OP all over.
What incredible spin. Two completely different things happened if you read
each one separately.

~~~
ihsw
I was thinking this article is simply reducing the market-speak down to
relevant information -- Google is putting Fiber on life-support until someone
buys them out. Like many acquisitions to buy customers, Fiber may be acquired
for the same reasons.

~~~
curiouscats
It sure would be great to see Sonic
[https://www.sonic.com/](https://www.sonic.com/) buy it out.

------
the_mitsuhiko
Can't say I'm surprised. I expect Google fi to have a similar fate in a few
years. It's not Google business.

~~~
jonknee
Project Fi doesn't involve nearly the amount of staff though--they're using
someone else's network. As Google has found out, digging holes and getting
permits doesn't get cheaper with better software.

~~~
Yhippa
I have no idea what the economics are but I imagine the carriers they're
piggybacking off of could charge higher fees for MVNOing if Fi were to get to
a certain scale.

~~~
jonknee
Depending on the contracts they have I guess anything's possible, but MVNOs
aren't a new thing and they don't typically get kicked off a network for being
successful.

------
cargo8
The title of this post is pretty deceptive — it clearly implies that the Fiber
project altogether is being halted.

My understanding from this article amongst others is that they are simply
rethinking their approach to, rather than laying down fiber throughout all
target cities, beam high speed internet from local way points to the roofs of
high rises (like WebPass does in SF, which they acquired).

It is pretty reasonable to, if this seems a viable approach, halt expensive
infrastructure operations to lay down hard wired fiber and cut the jobs
associated with these logistics and operations.

~~~
draw_down
If you think this is deceptive try reading the original announcement.

------
fowlerpower
See this title about what's happening to Google Fiber is much more direct,
honest, and to the point than the corporate PR google Post and title that
confused me into thinking I'm actually going to be able to sign up for Google
Fiber.

Their title: "Advancing our amazing bet"

Point being that our ISPs right now need some disruption and I think a lot of
people were hoping this Google Fiber would catch on. A lot of folks assumed
Google would eat whatever losses to make this a hit. Apperatnly not,
apperantly some short term profits trump anything else.

~~~
TearsInTheRain
Google has been going in a new direction towards "fiscal responsibility" when
it comes to their moon shots.

~~~
fowlerpower
I get that but let's be honest and up front about it.

------
ryao
People in the technology community should start organizing the construction of
local government owned municipal fiber networks in their communities. I am
abroad right now, but I have decided to start speaking up in mine when I
return to the United States because I finally believe that I know how such a
thing can succeed.

Local communities could use municipal bonds to pay for a 10G-EPON build outs
where multiple providers can provide transit, VoIP and IPTV over the same
cables using PPPoE and VLANs. Then a per subscriber fee could be assessed to
make pay back the bonds. This would be an ILEC/CLEC model, except with local
government ownership much like they own the roads.

The situation where incumbents drop prices could be handled by having a
default CLEC that offers free ITU broadband service at 256Kbps. People would
switch for that and then switching to a better CLEC could just be a phone
call. The incumbents could not compete with free service over a 30 year period
and the municipal government owned ILEC + private CLEC model would win.

~~~
consultutah
Provo Utah did something like this which failed and was bought by Google which
now has also apparently failed. Fun times.

~~~
ryao
Did Provo handle the fiber to the premise while requiring people to purchase
internet service from CLECs to use it with the exception of a crippled free
tier to get people to bite? If not, they did not do this. Furthermore, they
did not stick with it over 30 years, which is the time frame required for such
an endeavor to be a success. The entire point of the idea is to divide
responsibilities so that no one organization takes on too much and do so in a
way that fosters competition. That includes funding via municipal bonds where
pay back is expected to take ~3 decades. Had they done this, Google could have
just been one CLEC among many and Provo would still be at it.

Local governments ought to focus on building roads while businesses focus on
building the services that are provided through them. Having each business
build its own network of private roads is infeasible. It sounds absurd when
stated in this way, but that is what is happening. We need the local
government to do the one thing it is good at doing, which is enabling
transportation for private industry. Private industry can do the rest. That
includes IP transit in such a way that tier 1 ISPs like Hurricane Electric
would have a very low barrier to becoming CLECs. If each subscriber pays a fee
dedicated to repaying the municipal bonds over a 30 year period, this would
pay for itself.

If people operating it mess up, they can be replaced. The CLECs are
interchangeable from the customer's standpoint. The contractors running the
infrastructure are interchangeable from the community advisory board's
standpoint. The members of the community advisory board overseeing are
replaceable from the local politicians' standpoint. The local politicians are
replaceable by the public. It is very different than what we have now where if
people are unhappy, they cannot replace the incumbents and have little ability
to voice grievances. This is the sort of system that I want in my community. I
am abroad right now, but when I get back to the US, I intend to start
gathering people to discuss how this could become a reality in my area.

------
gm-conspiracy
Anybody know what is going on here?

This seems like a page out of Verizon's FIOS rollout.

Is Google working on their own cellular network (non-MVNO)?

Is this due to the FCC reclassification of internet as a common carrier?

~~~
dboreham
It's due to the fact that building a decent network for residential customers
at scale is very expensive and not that profitable unless you have a long-term
monopoly.

~~~
coldcode
And the people with the long term monopolies want to keep it that way.

------
shmerl
They should have known it's a long term investment and ROI happens only when
certain scale is reached. Why change their mind now?

~~~
mdip
I think there are two big reasons:

The market changed. When they launched Fiber, they're announcement was
reminiscent of GMail when it launched. Back then, getting a 15-30MB free web
mailbox was normal and Google announced a start at 2GB. Memory may not serve
me perfectly, but I believe when they launched Fiber, there wasn't a single
ISP offering residential service at 1Gbps and very few at even 100Mbps. I live
in a city that is neither Fiber available or even on the list of future Fiber
cities, but I can get multi-gig service for the price that I think the 100Mbps
service was offered when Fiber launched. Most of this happened _because_ of
Google Fiber -- these companies were not terribly interested in increasing
their capacity and service before, but knowing that a huge company like
Google, who realistically _had_ the funds to do a roll out, was potentially
going to invade their monopoly territories was enough to get the market to
move. This also, unfortunately, reduced the need for them to do it. Market-
wise, they'd have to fight harder for customers since their service may not be
so much faster/better/cheaper to get people to endure the hassle of switching.

The reality of what the market _is_ was discovered. They had _hoped_ they'd be
able to do the roll out cheaper, with the involvement of local regulatory
bodies _itching_ to have their cities added to the program and paving over
regulations that historically made doing a roll out like this _very_
expensive, time consuming and difficult. The incumbents, who already had
networks and had to deal with and work through those same regulations cried
foul, started suing and made this all more costly and difficult. Back to point
#1, with other ISPs offering service at a similar speed and at a far reduced
price from when Fiber launched, this took some of the motivation to pave over
those regulations away from the regulatory bodies. And this is _all without_
the reality that many of those elected officials who make the laws that caused
these problems have their re-election paid for by the AT&Ts, Comcasts and
Verizons to a far greater extent than they do Google, so they're even _less_
motivated to help them out.

~~~
shmerl
But now that GF is slowing down, incumbents will fall back into their
monopolistic slumber. Without threat of competition, they won't be motivated
to spread their upgrades wider. So in a sense, yes, spreading more Google
Fiber makes monopolists compete, which makes spreading it harder, but that was
the whole point for Google, wasn't it? So if they back down now, their goals
will be compromised.

~~~
mdip
I see the point you're making and it's valid, however, there's one component
that's missing. Unlike prior to Fiber, there's now Gigabit offerings from
Comcast and AT&T and in many places, Comcast and AT&T are the _two_ available
options for internet service. In reality, it's the fact that those two
companies are providing Gigabit (and multi-gig service) that's causing the
expansion of gigabit service nationwide at this point.

Google Fiber was _never_ offered in my area nor was it even hinted at being a
future Fiber city, but Comcast currently offers multi-gig service. I'm not
sure about AT&T because my past experience with them has had me swear them
off. They could offer next-to-free service and I'd turn it down, so I don't
pay attention to their offerings in my area, but I am able to get top-tier
U-Verse TV/Internet in my home so I'd imagine gig will be around the corner at
some point. Google Fiber wouldn't cause this expansion over here, though it
may have been responsible for the initial expansion (or even the _idea_ of
delivering speeds like that to consumers). The "cat is out of the bag" so to
say. The (limited) competition exists and isn't going to go away with Fiber
out of the picture. I think Google saw this and realized it was a somewhat
safe time to shed the expense/headaches they're having getting Fiber rolled
out nationwide.

And then there's the start-up factor. In the City of Detroit, I'm aware of one
small company that's offering (building-to-building) gigabit service on par
with Google Fiber. These micro-ISPs probably won't get a footprint the size of
Fiber, but if enough of them pop up, the combined numbers might reach that
point, further forcing the incumbent's hands. It's not a _terrible_ business
to get into the way some of these start-ups are funding their efforts. The
fact stands that _practically nobody_ who has worked with the customer service
arms of their "big company" ISPs anything positive to say about them. I _pay
2.5 times the price of residential broadband_ for the _same speed_ to get
better customer service out of Comcast[0], and I wouldn't _dream_ of leaving
Comcast Business for AT&T Business or Comcast _or_ AT&T consumer. I work at
home, I need reliable service without caps and nonsense, and I need to know I
can get a service call handled quickly when problems arise. If a start-up came
to my area offering faster speeds at the same or better price, _despite my
relative happiness with Comcast_ , I'd switch just because I know _at some
point_ they're going to discover the expense they're paying for Comcast
Business's service isn't necessary because "We're a utility company. We don't
have to care."

[0] The service paid for itself a while back when I took the bait for U-Verse
TV service (offered at a huge discount for 6-months and no cancellation
penalty -- yes, I cancelled), and the contractor from AT&T -- who's eyes were
bloodshot and speech was slurred -- came to bury my U-Verse wire and managed
to cleanly slice my Comcast Business Internet cable. I called at 5:00 PM and
they had a guy out at 6:30 PM _same day_ who ran a completely new cable,
hooked it all back up, and did so _apologising_ for the service disruption
that was _their competitor 's inept contractor's fault_. He was done by 7:00
PM and despite this not being _Comcast 's_ fault, I was not charged for the
service call (which I would have been fine with paying for). I have not had a
single outage lasting more than 15 minutes in three years (which was _one
time_ , though, luck may be a factor here), and their Business help line gets
me to a proper English speaking representative who doesn't just recite "did
you turn it on and then off again" from a script. It's actually a bit
_distressing_ knowing that this same company, which deserves its terrible
service reputation on the residential side is perfectly _capable_ of providing
service bordering on _fantastic_ , but just doesn't (unless you opt into a
substantially higher bill).

------
post_break
Wonder if Google fiber will just shut down and give a 30 day notice or
something scummy like that.

~~~
ihsw
They will sooner let the Fiber division be acquired than simply cancel them
all outright.

------
Animats
This is discouraging. I thought that Google Fiber was over-hyped for the
number of users actually connected, but didn't think they'd just give up.

Perhaps Sonic, which provides gigabit Internet service to parts of San
Francisco at a lower price than Google [1], will take over Google's operation
there.

[1] [https://www.sonic.com/sanfrancisco](https://www.sonic.com/sanfrancisco)

~~~
dragonwriter
There is some indication in the article that they aren't giving up on
providing broadband, but halting expansion of the current Fiber offering and
business model as a vehicle for that, preferring other approaches.

------
dbg31415
The Google Fiber rollout in my neighborhood has been a debacle from the start.

They walked around and put up door tags -- really really big ones saying,
"Google Fiber is coming!" and immediately after that the 0 crime neighborhood
I live in had a slew of break ins. Anyone who didn't remove this massive door
tag was an easy target, the crooks knew who was home and who wasn't.

Then like a week later... they put the exact same door tag up on all the
doors. And we all laughed... but we were like, "WTF, Google..." Then the next
day they put the exact same door tag up again... even doubling it up on homes
that already had a door tag. They door tags were just promos to sign up; they
didn't tell us to mark our sprinkler systems, or who to call in case the
construction crew accidentally cut our water lines...

The actual cable laying came about a month later... and it's been going on for
7 weeks at this point. Some days the guys work, most they don't. Doesn't
appear to be any pattern to it. There are a bunch of expensive drilling and
trenching machines parked at the end of my cul-de-sac and along the street in
the spots where residents used to park. 7 weeks and counting...

~~~
madengr
Are you in KC? I am in OP.

~~~
dbg31415
Austin, and I get that it's the construction firm and not Google, but yeah...
it not good UX. Ha.

------
hcayless
GF has been tearing up our neighborhood this week and last laying cable (I'm
in Chapel Hill). AT&T did the same about 6 months back. I was holding out for
Google, but this makes me think even when they get it up and running, the
support will be nonexistent. So maybe better to go with the devil we know (we
already have AT&T U-Verse, just not gigabit). At least they lasted long enough
to force AT&T's hand...

~~~
madamelic
I was really confused for a second why your girlfriend was laying cable... :)

------
josh_carterPDX
They backed out of Portland after spending a ton of money and time with city
officials. Sad to hear this is not happening and hope Google finds a way to
get back into this because the options today are a joke. This will just
embolden companies like Comcast to charge more for horrible service.

~~~
kyledrake
Portland spent a lot of time and resources (during a serious housing crisis),
bent over backwards to give them everything they wanted... and they decide to
just punk out, lay off their operations team and walk away from years of
planning because they can "do fast wireless for some apartment buildings".
Thanks, guys.

There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of
the city with fiber with some loans as capital, they're not a public company
and they don't have billions in CoH and they still figured it out. They've
already started offering 10Gbps to home users. Yes, _ten gigabits_ , that's
not a typo. And they're profitable.

Laying fiber is impossible for a megacorp with billions of CoH and access to
the overflowing "talent" of Silicon Valley like Google perhaps, but not for a
small business like US Internet. Let's hope Portland gets a US Internet of
it's own. We're all better off if the future of the web is built by smaller
decentralized companies anyways.

~~~
2trill2spill
> There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of
> the city with fiber with some loans as capital, they're not a public company
> and they don't have billions in CoH and they still figured it out. They've
> already started offering 10Gbps to home users. Yes, ten gigabits, that's not
> a typo. And they're profitable.

That's not entirely correct they have about a quarter of the city wired with
plans to finish in 6 or 7 years[1]. The linked image is pretty small but it's
all I can find. Note the linked map only shows 40% or so of Minneapolis. Also
they have been providing Business services like dark fiber for the last 20
years, so it's not like they are completely dependent on home fiber income or
new to the business.

I just recently got US Internet fiber, we have the 100 Mbps plan for $39.95 a
month and it's great! I noticed that when I ping 8.8.8.8 latency went down
from 33ms to 22ms. Also we have more bandwidth and cheaper internet than when
we had Comcast. Of course the best part of US Internet is not having to deal
with Comcast anymore!

Finally US Internet forced Century Link and Comcast to launch their own fiber
services[2].

[1] [https://fiber.usinternet.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/08/Scre...](https://fiber.usinternet.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/08/Screen-Shot-2016-09-19-at-3.02.22-PM.png)

[2] [http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/comcast-fires-back-
at-c...](http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/comcast-fires-back-at-
centurylink-us-internet-2-gbps-launch-minneapolis)

------
rch
This should have been the headline on yesterday's news.

------
windlep
Fiber the way the US does it is rather lame. Consider that where Google has
put in fiber the houses now have:

\- Copper telco lines

\- Coax cable lines

\- Google fiber

There's zero reason for anything other than fiber in an area being updated to
it. States/municipalities should solicit bids for a company that wants to
maintain the fiber infrastructure, and other companies wishing to provide
phone/tv/internet over the fiber can all compete on their service over the one
fiber line.

We only have one telco and one cable line because states blessed monopolies
for this, they should do the same for fiber, and open access to it for
competition from service/content providers. It'll never happen, but I can
dream...

------
jcoffland
> Because Google runs most of its business on the internet, analysts have
> suggested that its entry into the costly world of fiber optic internet was
> an attempt to motivate existing internet providers to accelerate the
> introduction of faster web connections.

Hasn't Google said before that one of their reasons for starting Google Fiber
was to push other companies to expand high-speed Internet access in the US?
Has this happened or has Google Fiber just run out of steam? I know Sonic is
rolling out fiber in the Bay Area. I'm sure Google Fiber has put some pressure
on them to up their game.

------
josh2600
I wrote about this elsewhere and am pasting my thoughts here as I think
they're relevant to this community:

1) Google Fiber is dead. Long Live Google ISP.

Google cannot afford to lay fiber in the ground because it's a long game and
Google doesn't really want to play the long game (they just want to put
pressure on competitors so they can move more bits along the wires, generating
more searches and more streams with which to shove ads in your face). Fiber
never was the most efficient way to do this, but there's something sexy about
"Google Fiber" as opposed to "Google Point to Point Radio Towers". The reality
is that wireless delivery of bits is way cheaper than fiber because you don't
have to tear the ground up (over the last mile obviously since the arteries
must be fiber links).

Clarification: "long" refers to 30-year payback periods for physical asset
investment. There are a lot of things with higher returns on that timeline
than fiber that google can invest in. I don't actually think it's profitable
for anyone to build unsubsidized networks. This is why networks should be
public and operators should be private, but that's a topic for another day!

2) Fiber is cheap, construction is expensive.

When I helped Comcast build out the fiber network in SF, what struck me was
the relative cheapness of the assets we were putting in the ground compared to
the cost of tearing up the street. The conduit and the glass inside the
conduit cost almost nothing, but tearing up the street in SF is $300/sq ft.
Crossing cable car tracks was like $50,000. Then there's the actual cost of
construction: people. Getting contractors to arrive on time, finish on time,
and avoid overtime is fraught with peril. It's actually really hard to move
physical atoms around in a manner similar to programmatic systems, and so many
models that have real world elements stumble against the harshness of
actuality. I suspect Google's cost modeling for building a fiber network was
optimistic.

3) Wireless is fast, but does it scale to city size?

It's not hard or particularly expensive to deliver gigabit over wireless. You
basically need a tall building to rain down radio waves onto the masses. What
I wonder about, given that we have no cities running on majority wireless
point to points, is what happens when you hit scale? That is to say, point to
points have a limited wireless footprint (because using beamforming we don't
need to splay the signal everywhere, we just send it in one direction), but
one can easily imagine a saturated wireless environment as generating a
significant amount of noise. Wireless networks are easy when there's only a
few objects on the network but get significantly harder as the physical area
reaches device saturation. That is to say, WebPass might be super easy to
operate when only a handful of buildings are on WebPass, but it might be much
harder if a whole section of the city is online.

4) Google bought WebPass a while back.

The writing has been on the wall for a while that the fiber game was killing
uncle Google. I can only hope that they don't bow out completely. I think that
wireless makes Google significantly less of an existential threat to their
carrier partners as well.

Overall, I remain cautiously optimistic about Google's future as an ISP.

On a final note: Google Fi is not an answer to Google fiber disappearing. The
two are tangential, disjointed offerings that cannot, for a bunch of reasons,
compete with one another (most notably the wireless data caps).

~~~
csours
Do you have to literally dig up the street? If so, why?

~~~
josh2600
To put the fiber in the ground.

There are pieces of conduit that we run fiber through into your building.
Inside your building there's a fiber termination point that hands off to
ethernet. On the other end is a repeater/node that boosts the signal from the
other termination point back in the DC.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
I'm not expert on this, but I think that the use of a horizontal drill is more
common.

Check out this horizontal drill:
[http://www.ballantineinc.com/sites/default/files/img/Copy%20...](http://www.ballantineinc.com/sites/default/files/img/Copy%20of%20hdd%20drillers%20\(8\).jpg)

See this diagram for how they're used:
[http://www.ajvac.ca/images/directional%20drill%20diag2.jpg](http://www.ajvac.ca/images/directional%20drill%20diag2.jpg)

~~~
RyJones
For a city like San Francisco, only a fraction of what is in the ground is
mapped. The only reasonable option is many places is to dig up the ground and
look at what you're working with.

Even in the area I live in, ripping up the streets is how it's done. I've only
seen horizontal boring machines deployed a few times around here. Maybe
they're used a lot and I don't notice them because I don't have to drive
around them, but I do keep a eye open for them in the wild. I considered
renting or buying one for a project and was impressed how cheap they are, but
the benefit of burying things versus the price - no contest.

What I learned, though, is there are eBay-like markets for TBMs and it seems
most people buy one with so many hours on it, use it for a project, and sell
it +so many hours. I didn't find the thriving rental market I expected.

~~~
josh2600
I can confirm that horizontal boring machines have never been used in any
telco digging opportunity I've been a part of :/. I wish it were the case but
it is all tear-up-the-streets territory.

------
askopress
In Estonia I get 500mbps up and down with unlimited bandwidth for 35 euros,
monthly. I think it has a lot to do with the ability to roll out newer, faster
stuff much easier than with a big country - and we do have quite a few ISPs,
each of them fighting to provide even faster speeds. Wonder why in U.S they
don't really try to do anything to be better, and if they do increase speeds,
the bandwidth is still stupid low.

------
dmalvarado
That was fast.

Give it 5 years before the infrastructure and service is sold to ATT/Time
Warner/Spectrum/WTF

------
mark_l_watson
I understand the legal and other difficulties of dealing with local
governments and incumbent providers.

However, it may also be that Google is going to be more careful where it
spends its money. Hoarding cash may be protection against interesting changes
in the economy.

------
andrewvijay
Just as expected. It was just to force the network carriers to speed up wasn't
it?

~~~
ethanbond
Force them to speed up (maybe) in a dozen cities? I don't think that's "just
as expected."

~~~
andrewvijay
If they have sped up in a couple of cities then the next cities will get soon
too. You have to evaluate a new business move before scaling up. And data is
one of their primary modes of income. Measurement is very valuable.

------
mtw
And here I was hoping the service would be extended to Canada :/

------
client4
In Montana we're having success installing fiber, but we aren't outsourcing
construction and using cheap electronics. I do wish we could use Google's set-
top ONT though.

------
ukyrgf
This news comes out one week after Comcast informed me they'd be enabling an
arbitrary 1 TB data cap. I have to get out of Florida, I guess.

------
izzydata
I had just signed up for it in Overland Park, Kansas. Hopefully they still do
the construction here where they already said they would.

------
sidgup
Oh google, at least see through on one of your bold ideas?

------
davesque
Well this is some pretty depressing news.

------
stinger
another one bites the dust

------
exabrial
Sensationalist headline...

My analysis: They're realizing big cities are not profitable and installation
costs a ton of $. My guess is they'll try to go for smaller towns with better
utility pole infrastructure.

------
nickysielicki
I think it's hilarious how many people think it's consistent to simultaneously
hold the opinion that this is a tragedy and that Google Fiber was _the_ ISP
that they wish they could have, while also supporting federally-imposed "net
neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs are just
dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic about who
does it.

All the sheep on Reddit who got behind FCC mandated "net neutrality" are
directly responsible for this. Urbanites get a warped view of this country and
vastly underestimate the amount of places where satellite internet is their
only option. Yet they have the nerve to bitch and moan about what a tragedy it
is that they can't stream 4k video without buffering. The government must fix
this! To hell with the rural schoolchildren and their lack of access to
wikipedia, I want to watch high-def cartoons!

There was so much innovation taking place behind the scenes to provide a
decent web-browsing experience via satellite internet and WISPs. And it's all
for naught.

I'm still excited for this next year.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2)

~~~
MagnumOpus
What is the contradiction here?

> "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs
> are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic
> about who does it

This is consistent with wanting a dumb ISP that moves more bits for less money
and with fewer outages. Nobody wants Goog Fibre because it comes with #"google
prime video library" or whatever tie-in. They want it because it moves more
bits more reliably as a big dumb pipe ought to.

~~~
nickysielicki
That's a fair point, maybe some people don't care about the added services...
but Google Fiber comes with a lot of added extras:

* 1TB of Google drive

* A Google-made 802.11AC WAP that doesn't suck.

* Cable box has built-in chromecast and is built on top of SageTV.

* Bill management through a Google website.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist but I don't believe that Google put ~$100MM into
Fiber simply because they wanted to be a dumb pipe and put pressure on other
telecoms to compete. How do you rationalize that to shareholders?

Maybe they have some people in the public convinced that they entered this
market out of the goodness of their heart. But it's pretty clear to me from
Fiber and from Project Fi and OnHub and NEST that they believed that they
could succeed as an ISP because of the frameworks they would put _around_
their internet services, not simply by outperforming in performance.

