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Chicago and Los Angeles Are Next Up for Google Fiber
- skorecky 11y agoReally hope this happens. Our current choice of Comcastholes or AT&T's Slow DSL is ridiculous for a city like Chicago.
- sredne 11y agoI have RCN and I really enjoy it. I've heard their TV service is garbage but I haven't had any problems with RCN and I only pay $50/mo for 50/10 speeds.
- thoughtpalette 11y agoHad RCN in Uptown, forced with Comcast in Logan. I really miss RCN. Couldn't beat the price/performance ratio.
- nkrisc 11y agoAs a Chicagoan I'm excited, but also worried it will lead to the incarceration of multiple public officials and a raw deal for the city, somehow.
- skorecky 11y ago> incarceration of multiple public officials and a raw deal for the city. What? How?
- ksenzee 11y agoChicago has a talent for it.
- toomuchtodo 11y agohttp://pols.uic.edu/political-science/chicago-politics http://pols.uic.edu/political-science/chicago-politics > The Windy City has kept its crown as the most corrupt major city in the country over the last 40 years. But Houston is starting to give Chicago a run for its money. > According to new research released today by University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson, there were 45 convictions for public corruption in 2013 (the latest year available) in the U.S. court district that covers the Chicago area. That's way, way above the 19 convictions in Los Angeles and 13 in the Southern District of New York (Manhattan). But Houston had far and away the most pols convicted on federal corruption charges in 2013, with 83.
- platz 11y agoso the more convictions, the more corrupt?
- thegreatpeter 11y agoI'm from Chicago. You gotta live here to understand.
- platz 11y agoI'm from chicago too, so I guess I do understand by that logic. I'm not even sure what we're arguing about, in fact
- BuckRogers 11y agoYou are both "from Chicago"? Meaning, the city itself or the suburbs. Big difference. The suburbs are not Chicago.
- thegreatpeter 11y agoI live in CHICAGO.
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- nkrisc 11y agoWhile some more recent examples have not yet ended in jail time for city officials [1][2] they have ended up in pretty bad deals for the city. [1]http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-parking-meter-kickback-scheme-met-20150617-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-parking... [2]http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/redlight/ct-chicago-sues-red-light-camera-firm-met-20150831-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/redlight/ct-chic...
- SEJeff 11y agoThis year one of them was released, but up until then, IL was the only state in the US to have 3 previous governors serving prison time for corruption. Yeah... it really is that bad. However, most all of the corruption happens where the money is... in the City of Chicago / Cook County.
- paulddraper 11y agoChicago mayors have a bad track record too.
- yeukhon 11y agoThe short-lived TV series Boss would tell you about the Chicago climate. Since I don't have first hand experience living in Chicago, I cannot compare Chicago to NYC, but from the sound of comments and the TV series, Chicago seems to be pretty notorious.
- meritt 11y agoDon't forget the new "fiber internet tax" they'll come up with to subsidize the losses of their buddies over at Comcast.
- ChrisBland 11y agoAs a resident of Chicago, I thought the exact same thing. They will either have to pay off the right alderman or they will never get this built in under 5 years. Sometimes this city embarrasses me, while at other times, I'm really proud of the work the DoIT has done in Chicago. The data they are making available is great, if only they could modernize the rest of our city services...
- nkrisc 11y agoYeah, in some regards I'm being awfully cynical. As you said, there are also good things the city has done. You can even view the location of every snowplow in the city in real time; pretty cool when you're waiting for your one-way side street to be plowed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- wiremine 11y agoPeople will think you're joking, but it's the first thing I thought, too. My parents live in Chicago, and they just roll their eyes about all the way people seem to steal from the city.
- logfromblammo 11y agoEx-Chicagoan here. This is absolutely, positively not a joke. I can probably come up with a half dozen schemes that would use the fiber build-out as a thinly-veiled excuse to bleed both Google and city residents. Let's try. 1. All network providers would be allowed to charge a new "infrastructure maintenance fee" to their customers. A fixed $2, plus 40% of the amount of the fee, would go to the city per customer-month. Most of the amount collected would go to a maintenance contractor chosen through a "competitive" bidding process. 2. Public schools, municipal offices, police stations, fire stations, and public libraries would be required to buy network access through a single company, who would also manage their public wi-fi access points. That company could strongarm the providers into selling at a discount, due to its size, yet would charge the municipal customers a grossly inflated price. The wi-fi service sucks for everyone. 3. All fiber work done on city or RTA property must be done by union members, CWA or IBEW, according to their local worksite rules. 4. An alderman stalls the fiber authorization measure in committee until receiving sufficient "lobbying" to move it along. 5. Google required to lay far more dark fibers than strictly necessary. Unknown parties light some up for their own uses, without paying. 6. Google required to give CPD special access to network, supposedly in order to combat CP and terr'ism. Special access instead used to run untraceable server to sell items out of the evidence lockups.
- cballard 11y ago> worried it will lead to the incarceration of multiple public officials Would that be a bad thing? I'm in New York, and I'll dance in the street if (when?) Preet Bharara charges Cuomo.
- lhc- 11y agoIt doesn't really change anything in Chicago. While it might be nice to get some individual corrupt official(s) where they belong, Chicago as a whole shows no evidence that it's becoming less corrupt.
- vasilipupkin 11y agoI think it is significantly less corrupt than under Daleys. You are confusing levels and changes. It is still very corrupt, just less so
- zupreme 11y agoFellow Chicagoan here, Google is going to have to grease quite a few palms to make this happen, if it ever does. Politicians here have perpetuated the AT&T and Comcast duopoly for quite awhile, and I have no doubt that they are well compensated to do so. For a new player to come into town who will raise quality of service and lower prices in a way that will force Comcast and AT&T to do the same in order to compete (resulting in lower profits and a lower payola budget) is not going to endear Google to anybody with an established interest in the status quo.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pasbesoin 11y agoLearn to embrace your inner Schadenfreude. I almost commented to the effect of, "Go, Google. Even though in general I might prefer a municipal deployment/solution." I might... in other environments. In Chicago... Well, at least Illinois seems to be in the process of getting away from treating filming public officials as a felony offense. So, when the Fiber team captures all the indirect language and outstretched palms, maybe they will actually have the advantage. I make this comment with mixed feelings and thoughts. I DON'T like a lot of the outsourcing and privatization as a means for a connected someone to middleman the revenue stream as well as perhaps dump on the actual workers (although sometimes, those workers have been making a killing). But the City's done little to take on consumer abuse by AT&T, Comcast, etc. I don't see a source for a genuine and effective municipal effort. So... let overwhelming consumer pressure force Google Fiber onto the poles, and let 'er rip. Google's bread is buttered elsewhere, giving more hope for a relatively clean and effective deployment. P.S. There is also the business aspect to Fiber. Let businesses -- generally a bit more organized and consistently communicative -- in search/need of a better ISP get behind this, and maybe it will really take off. Assuming Google doesn't start to flake in its support, as it has with many other "real world" products. One particular concern I would have in considering their viability.
- rayiner 11y agoAt least you can get shit built in Chicago by paying people off. In places like Baltimore, you're just not allowed to build anything.
- FireBeyond 11y agoSimilar in Seattle. Good luck getting Google Fiber here.
- notyourwork 11y agoUhh Seattle has fiber offerings already though? For example http://gowaveg.com/ http://gowaveg.com/
- RDeckard 11y agoThat used to be called Condo Internet and that is in very select buildings. Even out in Redmond, minutes away from MSFT campus, once can only get either Comcast or crappy 3mbit DSL from Frontier.
- notyourwork 11y agoComcast is offering fiber in some places and there is a another fiber company south downtown near the stadiums. Point is offerings exist.
- itsboring 11y agoMaybe not Google Fiber, but CenturyLink has me scheduled for gigabit fiber installation next month. North Seattle resident.
- vasilipupkin 11y agoit will also lead, hopefully, to less grainy videos of cops shooting fleeing suspects in the back.
- schwap 11y agoLos Angeles will be an impressive feat. The ridiculous number of jurisdictions will generate an ungodly amount of red tape.
- Shivetya 11y agoWell the announcements are kind of dishonest, they aren't doing whole cities. Select neighborhoods get the service and you actually be a street over and miss out. I remember the excitement when they announced Atlanta, until we saw the map. Yes it is impractical to cover a "city" but it would be more honest to say "Coming to select areas of X"
- makr17 11y agoexactly. my fear is that when Google says "Los Angeles" they really mean "Venice where a lot of our employees live and work", or at best "west of the 405"...
- HillaryBriss 11y agoNoHo is probably a no go too
- Axsuul 11y agoDTLA needs it badly too. Some of us are stuck with DSL :/
- nosuchthing 11y agoLA has had notoriously bad ISP coverage. Most houses in the area only have a choice between one cable provider or going DSL. Nice to hear AT&T is planning to roll out gigabit fiber in LA as well. http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/att-bringing-gigabit-fiber-to-la-and-dozens-of-other-metro-areas/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/att-bringing-gigabit... For some reason Verizon Fios has avoided LA proper but laid out Fiber along the outskirts and in Ventura County years ago.
- hughes 11y agoTWC coverage is not bad - my addresses in LA each have had 300Mbps available for $65/mo. Speed tests clock in around 330Mbps down.
- ceejayoz 11y agoTWC coverage here in Rochester, NY is $84/month for 50Mbps. I'd guess you only get 6x the speed for less money in LA in places where fiber is a viable competitor.
- tomkinstinch 11y agoI have gigabit fiber at my house in Rochester for $100/month via the new upstart ISP, Greenlight (actually their lower 500Mbps tier for $75/mo). They're expanding slowly, but they are expanding.
- ceejayoz 11y agoI'm drooling over Greenlight. Thus far they seem to be prioritizing high-density areas like apartment complexes, though. Down in Pittsford it's not looking hopeful for a few years at least.
- joshavant 11y agoAs a recent LA transplant from SF, I found it ironic that TWC offers such a fast, affordable internet service, yet SF - arguably the modern global hub of tech - struggles with slow, expensive internet, almost throughout. As a tech worker, this is easily one of the better LA v. SF advantages.
- niels_olson 11y agoCan we count San Diego as a large LA suburb? Please?
- jdstafford 11y agoBaltimorean here. Enjoy it, bastards :D
- legohead 11y agoHas Google announced San Diego officially yet? My friend said he noticed they were putting up hiring ads [1] there. But their San Diego page [2] doesn't make it sound quite official yet. [1] https://www.google.com/about/careers/search#!t=jo&jid=137035001& https://www.google.com/about/careers/search#!t=jo&jid=137035... [2] https://fiber.google.com/cities/sandiego/ https://fiber.google.com/cities/sandiego/
- technofiend 11y agoTries https://fiber.google.com/cities/houston https://fiber.google.com/cities/houston on a lark 500 Internal Server Error The server has either erred or is incapable of performing the requested operation. I feel like Olya Povlotsky - "Dog bite me, Seth. I think finally I will die. The dog die, Seth. I was poison to that dog." Sigh.
- drcode 11y agoIn the current fiber cities, does anyone know if the service made it out of the city limits into the burbs? (Asking as someone right outside the Chicago city limits...)
- hissworks 11y agoDon't want to give you a false sense of optimism on this, but an article I recall reading last year speculated that Fiber penetration in Chicago could begin outside the city and work its way downtown, rather than the other way around. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-google-fiber-lottery/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-google-fiber-lottery...
- Qiasfah 11y agoIn Austin, no, the map follows closely to the city limits. They provide maps of the rollout too: https://fiber.google.com/cities/austin/fiberhoods/ https://fiber.google.com/cities/austin/fiberhoods/
- carussell 11y agoTo be fair, the city limits in Austin are pretty huge, already encompassing lots of what would qualify as the suburbs. Take, for example, the West Gate/South Manchaca/Stassney/William Cannon area (marked as Emerald Forest above), where there's already heavy build out going on.
- jly 11y agoI am in Austin city limits but outside the city center and we are nowhere close to getting Google fiber. I wouldn't get too excited by this, yet, especially if you're not in a densely populated part of town.
- touchofevil 11y agoI can't wait for this in LA. I'm currently paying $115 per month for 1Mbps/10Mbps for Time Warner "business class" internet-only service. My company does visual effects work, so I actually have to drive my video files home on a USB drive to upload them since my home connection is 20Mbps/200Mbps for $50 per month. The internet monopoly situation in the US is terrible for businesses here.
- vdaniuk 11y agoThis is so ridiculous, it's literally unbelievable. My home city, Kiev(Ukraine), has multiple 1 Gbit residential broadband providers for $6 - $15. Not joking.
- jpollock 11y agoAs I learned in New Zealand, the data rate to the ISP is largely irrelevant. I had a 100mbps+ connection in NZ, but rarely got over 2mbps to any international location. It would speedtest at full line rate. However, here in the US, I've got a 50mbps connection, and I regularly get 50mbps.
- vdaniuk 11y agoThese are mostly real international data transfer rates, at least for torrents/CDN servers/S3.
- ethbro 11y agoUS broadband interconnects with the rest of the network are pretty terrible. Reference: those name-and-shame articles a while back from a network company (Level 3, from memory?) that produced hard numbers on how little $ US cable/DSL internet companies were willing to put into improving their capacity at the peer link. [Edit] Yup, Level 3. I thought they were interesting because hard numbers at this level seem difficult to come by. Here are the articles from 2014: http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/chicken-game-played-child-isps-internet/ http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/chicken-game-played-chi... http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-middleman/ http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-m...
- hissworks 11y agoI'd assumed that cities like Chicago with relatively old/dense/complex infrastructure would pose a tremendous challenge to a project like Google Fiber. Happy to have assumed incorrectly, but it does seem a significant jump from mid-sized metros like Provo/Austin/Kansas City.
- angryasian 11y agoIf I had to guess, I imagine they would start out around where their offices are in Venice and at least reach to where their Youtube studios are in Playa Vista. Both areas are big for startups along with all new development in Playa Vista.
- HillaryBriss 11y agoSounds like a good guess. Garcetti wants Silicon Beach to thrive in LA proper so the city can squeeze it for taxes. It would be neat if they could somehow bring it along the border between LA and Santa Monica so they could play the two cities off each other: "We'll roll it out to the city that promises not to tax the crap out of it. Come on people, you want all those startups in _your_ town, don't you?" Perhaps Google should also bring their fiber to Burbank (entertainment studio presence + related small service providers).
- tdaltonc 11y agoIt might actually emanate out of One Wilshire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Wilshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Wilshire
- angryasian 11y agoYeah actually that is a really good point. The place is integral for connectivity on the west coast.
- mmanfrin 11y agoDoes anyone know what it takes to start up municipal fiber? There is a dark fiber line about 4 blocks from my house (in Berkeley), I feel that if I got enough neighbors to sign on to helping fund the initial costs of piping a connection to that, we could all get much better internet service -- but I don't know where one would start with that.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoYou would need to sign up with one or more of the major transit providers, such as Cogent, HE.net, Level 3, XO, or similar. (Or someone who resells such service.) You'd obtain an agreement to hook up that fiber to the Internet (such as via a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet-me_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet-me_room that the fiber leads to), and pay for the amount of transit you use (commonly billed either by the actual amount of traffic or by the 95th percentile of bandwidth usage). Then you'd need all the necessary equipment to get that connectivity to the various customers. And you'd need either a block of IP addresses to hand out or a NAT infrastructure. (That leaves out all the non-connectivity-related issues you'd also have to handle, such as billing, cutting off service, collections, abuse reports, legal notices/investigations, support requests, etc.)
- dboreham 11y agoOnly time + money. But more of both than you likely want to invest. Disclosure: built my own ISP 13 years ago after a similar "how hard can it be??" moment.
- jessedhillon 11y agoHave you written up this experience anywhere? I'd love to read that.
- ccallebs 11y agoI second this. I'd love to know how ISP companies back then were operated.
- snowwrestler 11y agoI can't understand why Google hasn't picked Alexandria, VA. It's a small, fairly dense, highly educated city with high average household income. I bet the city government would welcome it. It's pretty much all Comcast right now, and the city is researching muni fiber. Plus it's right outside Washington DC and plenty of government officials live there. The effect of competition on broadband quality and price would be highly visible to federal lawmakers. edit: I'm curious why this is getting downvoted.
- rhino369 11y agoHas Google Fiber ever gone head to head with Fios areas? I'd imagine Fios can provide 1Gbps with minor upgrades. I get 75/75 from Fios for 60 bucks in Crystal City. Cox is rolling out gigabit for 100 dollars in Fairfax county.
- snowwrestler 11y agoNo FiOS in Alexandria. Edit: or Cox.
- johnpowell 11y agoPossibly because we could all make arguments for why google could pick where we live to install fiber.
- Qiasfah 11y agoDoes the city own its electric company? This was part of the selection in a lot of the cities, since fiber can be run alongside existing electric supply lines.
- ojbyrne 11y agoAs someone a few miles from Google HQ, this doesn't mean very much. Mountain View has been on the "potential" list for at least 2 years, with no movement whatsoever.
- rconti 11y agoThe less movement you have, the more you need fiber.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- scott_karana 11y ago> Yes, San Francisco has been skipped again and I’m going to go cry into my slow internet from Comcast. I seriously still cannot get over how funny this is. SF pitches itself as the centre of the tech universe, and yet, it still hasn't "disrupted" its own crappy broadband infrastructure. (Much less the rest of the country's!) I'm sure there's many good reasons for Google passing them over, but that doesn't keep it from being hilarious.
- jsn117 11y agoCan't even skype anymore from my home, too unreliable
- jedberg 11y agoActually it has, which is probably why they are avoiding it. There are many broadband choices in SF, some with pretty high speeds, some totally wireless. My guess is that the city, being as regulatory happy as it is (and being specifically anti-Google thanks to the bus fiasco), is not interested in working with Google to make fiber happen. You'll notice San Jose is on the list, and that actually includes a whole bunch of suburbs too (except notably Cupertino).
- Someone1234 11y agoThe whole bus thing was not remotely Google's fault. In fact the buses weren't even really the problem. The protests were largely about rent increases caused by tech workers. The buses were just a symbol of the difference between tech workers and everyone else (and broad inequality). Plus I struggle to side with the protesters when they do stuff like this[0]: > Last week, a group of activists stalked a Google engineer at his East Bay house, urging the masses to “Fight evil. Join the revolution.” [..] The group that stalked Anthony Levandowski, an engineer at Google X, the company’s clandestine research laboratory, calls itself the Counterforce, after a Thomas Pynchon novel. About a dozen members, all dressed in black, gathered outside the Berkeley house where Mr. Levandowski lives with his partner and two young children. > They unfurled a banner and handed out fliers detailing the engineer’s work on Google’s driverless car technology, Street View and Google Maps. The flier read: “Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation. He is also your neighbor.” That's pretty messed up. The dude was a random employee, with a family... [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/technology/tech-rides-are-focus-of-hostility-in-bay-area.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/technology/tech-rides-are-...
- pasbesoin 11y agoAT&T recently announced some initial "Gigabit" deploys in the Chicagoland suburbs. I guess now we know why. AT&T has been horrible in Illinois, with years and years of dragging their feet as well as reneging on commitments made to the State in return for e.g. tax breaks and rights of way. Even with their announced Gigabit service, one really faces roughly twice the cost of Google Fiber if one chooses to opt out of AT&T's connection/data spying. And they impose a 1 TB / billing cycle (month) data cap. At the supposed 1 Gbps maximum speed, that's a bit less than 154 minutes of data -- less than 2.5 hours. For the entire month / billing cycle. It's not difficult to imagine a 4K household easily exceeding this cap, or even a 1080p household with several users. So... Go, Google Fiber. I don't hold out much hope they'll get out to me, but I'm glad that they may finally be holding incumbents' feet to the fire in a large urban market -- one that is considered AT&T's "home turf", to boot. (The erstwhile SBC headquarters were/are in the Chicago suburbs, and a lot of corporate management/leadership is or has been in the area.)
- olivermarks 11y agoI'm on Sonic 1 gigabit fiber in Sebastopol 50 miles north of San Francisco, one of the reasons we moved north from the city. Sonic are excellent and are building out in San Francisco in small areas.
- blackguardx 11y agoI used to live in Santa Rosa (working for Agilent). Do you work remotely or have a job up there? The North Bay tech scene isn't as good as you think it would be.
- olivermarks 11y agoconsultant, wfh
- tdaltonc 11y agoMy start-up is in LA and we're been talking about moving to SF. This will definitely factor in to our discussion.
- HillaryBriss 11y agoJust curious: what specific factor(s) make you consider the move? I mean, in your view, what are the big draws to SF, things that LA either lacks or has only in low quantity/quality?
- tdaltonc 11y agoWe[0] make SAAS for developers, so we expect a lot more of our customers to be in the bay. There’s also a deeper market for technical talent and VC capital. LA has a lot of lifestyle perks (beach, forests, desert, great weather, more daylight in the summer, more sqft of office/apartments per $). I imagine that the bars and restaurants in LA are better (but I don’t know). So mostly, The Bay is where to ecosystem is. [0] https://UseDopamine.com https://UseDopamine.com
- WalterBright 11y agoSadly, Seattle bureaucracy has ruined google fiber here: http://crosscut.com/2014/12/google-fiber-never-come-seattle-broadband-internet-2/ http://crosscut.com/2014/12/google-fiber-never-come-seattle-...
- eeperson 11y agoCenturylink has started rolling out Gigabit in the Seattle area: https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/plans-and-pricing/seattle-washington/ https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/plans-and-pricing/seattle-...
- itsboring 11y agoI saw trucks working on all the poles up and down my street. Sure enough, a month or so later their site showed my address eligible for gigabit. Goodbye Comcast!
- arjunnarayan 11y agoI'm in Seattle, and I have gigabit (www.gowaveg.com) in my apartment. It's $80/month, and I get ~15ms latency to AWS West (Oregon). It's wonderful. Wave G has an interesting model - they mainly hook up apartment buildings (it used to be called "Condo Internet"). They are experimenting with hooking up houses on the street as well - they're doing fiber to the home in the Eastlake area, but I don't know if that's working out yet. I love them. When we moved to Seattle we only looked at apartments that had Wave G service. I'm going to be very sad when we move out of Seattle and have to return to normal Internet. But so far this model is encouraging, if non-inclusive to people outside the nice apartments.
- steve-howard 11y agoOne of the biggest losses moving out of my old First Hill apartment was that they had CondoInternet and where I was going they didn't. I don't even care about the throughput, it was just incredibly reliable.
- jmesserly 11y ago
- xigency 11y agoWhoo, Chicago.
- bfrog 11y agoExcellent, I await an actual gigabit connection and support people that actually know what their doing.
- intopieces 11y agoI'm still wondering if Google Fiber is a foundation for Google's ambitions to resurrect their city-wide WiFi plans that stalled in SF years back. Ever since Google-Fi rolled out, I've been more convinced that Google doesn't actually need to wire every home with Fiber, just to put it in enough places and blanket the area with their own fine-tuned data network. Then, charge people for accounts to access it.
- kristopolous 11y agoCome capitalism, save us from the vicious tyranny of capitalism!
- awqrre 11y agoHow much would it cost for the US government to connect all US households to fiber? about 1 month of war?
- orky56 11y agoYour first question is fair. Your second question brings politics into here for no reason.
- awqrre 11y agosorry, I was trying to put it in perspective...
- thrownaway2424 11y agoIt's a valuable exercise. My favorite example is that for the same cost as the Iraq War, the USA could have bought Canada.
- adventured 11y agoThat's actually amusing, but of course far off the mark. Iraq has a current price tag of $2 trillion (including benefits owed over time that were caused by the war). Both wars together are now at around $4 trillion, spanning the last 14 years. Canada would cost at least 20 times the Iraq war if you count land, financial + household + business assets and natural resources. Canadian households, including real estate, have $5 to $7 trillion in assets (depending on when you calculate due to the currency). They have ~170 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (it's likely far more than that). Let's go with something reasonable like 150b that is sanely recoverable, but only 100b is economical or environmentally tolerable before the end of the fossil fuel age (but you'd still have to pay for most of it to buy Canada today). That's $4 trillion just in that oil calculation at today's low price. Canada probably has $8 to $10 trillion just in natural resources. Granted, I know it's ridiculous that Iraq was so expensive you could buy maybe 5% of everything in Canada (or 1/3 of all their household assets). The US certainly could have purchased Greenland for $2 trillion (if such a thing were politically possible today, which it's not). With global warming, not a bad purchase.
- davidf18 11y agoCongrats to the residents of Chicago and LA for having the local government leadership to work with Google. I wish I could say the same for NYC where I live. Despite the fact that Google owns one of the largest office buildings in the city where many engineers and other staff work, there is no Google fiber here. Sadly, the mayor seems more focused attempting to slow the growth of Uber until the residents vociferously protested. Now he is trying to ban the popular horse drawn carriages in Central Park -- or ban most of them. Sigh....
- ugh123 11y ago> popular horse drawn carriages Popular with whom? The minimal revenue it brings from primarily tourists? Most of the backlash has come from NYC residents who deplore the conditions for the horses. The welfare of the horses should take precedence over the minimal revenue they bring.
- davidf18 11y agoAccording to a recent NYTimes article, most New Yorkers like the horse drawn carriages but the mayor made a commitment to a group that spent $1 million for ads against Ms. Quinn who was the mayor's leading competitor.
- oh_sigh 11y agoIf they care so much about the horses, why isn't he banning police horses too?
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>The welfare of the horses should take precedence over the minimal revenue they bring. Why? Animal welfare isn't important. If it were, we wouldn't commit mass slaughters just for the sake of making our meals tasty.
- cddotdotslash 11y agoMeh, from what I've read in this thread, the bandwidth situation is much worse in LA. At least you can get 300/20 here in NYC for under $100/month. Plus, while the competition is usually limited to a single provider (TWC or Verizon), there are some smaller ones like RCN.
- BuckRogers 11y agoI lived in Chicago (proper, not the burbs) for years. The existing city cable provider, RCN, was one of the best I ever had the pleasure of using. It's definitely no Comcast like the suburbanites are stuck with. The city is too old.. they don't even have all the schematics for all the gas lines and other pipes and wires laid over the centuries. Digging in Chicago is very dangerous and restricted. It will be interesting to learn how they deploy this if it happens. As for likelihood this goes through, I can't see this ever happening. It's very corrupt, city employees don't want to work too hard, it's running on borrowed time. Oh, I'm in Austin now. :) Can't say I care to return to the Windy City but this would certainly help pull in migrants other than native midwesterners.
- mc808 11y agoFive years ago, I honestly thought everyone in major cities would be using encrypted gigabit mesh networks by now. Maybe in 2020.
- hellameta 11y agoThere's some promising mesh projects. Stay strong!
- Animats 11y agoIt's just talk. Google has parts of three small cities wired. Google has never done a big city, or an entire city. Sonic already has parts of San Francisco hooked up with gigabit fiber.[1] [1] https://www.sonic.com/gigabit-fiber-internet https://www.sonic.com/gigabit-fiber-internet
- elliotec 11y agoI'm in Salt Lake City, where they announced they've been building a long time ago, and we ain't seen sh*t yet.
- noelsusman 11y agoI'm in Atlanta and we've seen the trucks out laying fiber already. I'm hoping for the end of next year.
- azinman2 11y agoNow Comcast is scared.
- r0m4n0 11y agoHeard about ATT gigabit coming to Sacramento yesterday (amongst many others). Finally seeing these lazy companies upgrade infrastructure. http://about.att.com/content/dam/snrdocs/GigaPower/FINAL%20-%20Sacramento%20GigaPower%20Commitment%20Release.pdf http://about.att.com/content/dam/snrdocs/GigaPower/FINAL%20-...
- caycep 11y agoI wonder how much of LA will be covered? it is a gigantic area. I do hope they go up to the Pasadena and San Marino areas...
- pkmiec 11y agogood for them to do a major city. i'm still waiting for pdx.
- jMyles 11y agoThe top comment is a (seemingly half or less than half-) joking comment about corruption in Chicago. I have another, related thought: These two cities are, without any reasonable dispute, centers of horrific police brutality. Will Google Fiber drive down internet prices (and promote more public wifi) so as to cause a measurable increase in reporting and uploading of high-definition video of incidents?
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoI won't mind if my Comcast Internet suddenly gets a free speed boost here! (But I won't sign myself up for an ISP that's primary business is tracking your data.
- top1percentduh 11y agoLOL force change with the pocketbook. yes internet is needed for modern use, use phone carrier for banking, bills, and email. disconnect cable, internet, Netflix, and all other streaming and cloud services, games and all the digital crap. Put a digital antenna on TV. Many businesses will quickly lose money and force change back to somewhat affordable rates. In the mean time back to reading, board games, hobbies, parks, exercise, etc.. they don't cost a penny. If everyone disconnected for a few months you would realize that there is life beyond these time wasting distractions. The best things in life are free anyway.