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Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network
- khelloworld 17y agoYay!!.....hmm..wait a second.. (addendum: whoa, my tail's on fire!!)
- dpcan 17y agoI 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 17y agoProbably because there's no content to the comment? It doesn't even explain which "hmm" is being hmm'd.
- lanstein 17y agoNo 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 17y agoCertainly, 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
- swombat 17y agoTime 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.
- hypermatt 17y agoI think this is more around trying to force the broadband providers to get their act together. Scare them ;0)
- stingraycharles 17y agoRight. At Google's scale, it will even benefit them a lot if other broadband providers provide a better service, since it promotes more use of the internet, and thus more ad income for Google.
- waterlesscloud 17y agoOr will make video ads more practical. Uhm, yay?
- MikeCapone 17y agoI guess people said the same thing when pictures were first being used on the net. I'd say that it was still a net benefit not to be text only, wouldn't you agree? Ads can be annoying, but they also pay for a lot of what we're using online every day.
- bad_user 17y agoThe way Google throws products on the market to increase competition for the benefit of its core products ... it's genius. Are there any other companies that do this?
- emmett 17y agoYes, tons. See "commoditize your complements". Microsoft is a master of this as well. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
- Shamiq 17y agoOwning 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 17y agoWhile 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.
- mseebach 17y agohttp://store.cablesplususa.com/riinar.html http://store.cablesplususa.com/riinar.html http://www.gardeners-world.net/prod_show.asp?id=853 http://www.gardeners-world.net/prod_show.asp?id=853 Alternatively, look into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet
- pavs 17y agoThis 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.
- fossuser 17y agoIt's as if all the collective anger towards comcast and time warner will now have an outlet.
- tjic 17y agoYou 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.
- pavs 17y agoThanks man. I feel much better now.
- jonknee 17y agoNot 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 17y agoRolling 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.
- theblackbox 17y agoWorth 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=viewlink&link_id=874&Itemid=10 http://www.cybermoor.org/index.php?option=com_mtree&task...]
- andyking 17y agoWe 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...
- patrickgzill 17y agoComcast 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.
- siculars 17y agoThis 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.
- imgabe 17y agoOr 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...
- brk 17y agoWhy? They still control the content and the licensing. I don't think they really care about the carrier media (DVD or packets), they care about extracting every last possible dime from the consumer for the content. If the content can be distributed AND billed effectively over this pipe, then it's fine. If the content can NOT be billed appropriately, it simply won't be licensed for this distribution channel.
- imgabe 17y agoI think their concern is that it will be distributed over this channel whether it's licensed for it or not.
- gbookman 17y agoThe 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 17y agoI think purchasing will become much more of an impulse decision— much like what the App Store has done with software.
- brianobush 17y agoCompanies like sony have much capital tied up in movie theaters right? This would be a negative impact to those revenue generation mechanisms.
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- timdorr 17y agoThis 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.
- swombat 17y agoDon't most South Korean already have fiber to the home? The internet hasn't melted down yet.
- icey 17y agoI've never looked into it, or even thought about it until now, but I wonder what virus / bot infection rates look like in non-English speaking countries. Most infections seem to result from an automatically created subject line in English... I'm sure there are viruses created specifically in other languages, but are they as successful?
- pavs 17y agoIf 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 17y agoThe 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 17y agoI 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.
- zitterbewegung 17y agoI for one welcome google as an fiber based internet service provider. Especially if its better than the competitors
- zitterbewegung 17y agoI 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
- jsz0 17y agoI 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.
- clistctrl 17y agoThis is very true, but google also has a vast amount of resources, and some of the smartest and technologically literate people in the world working for them. Its entirely possible that they have an army of robots or some game changing technology to do things differently from the norm.
- wmf 17y agoSince it's a pilot project, Google can simply choose to install it in places that are easy to install. Of course, the results won't be representative.
- jonknee 17y agoConsidering they are only looking for a couple communities at most (and maybe just one), it's pretty logical that they will choose one where it's relatively easy. Temperate climate, clear rights of way, city government assisting, etc. They're not going to choose Manhattan. I watched Verizon install FiOS around my city several years back and it was all quite efficient. Contracting firms dug the ditches, another firm put the cables down while the digging crew came back behind and filled in the trench. It was amazing how quickly they could hook up a neighborhood.
- thrdOriginal 17y agoInteresting 2007 Cringley article predicting something like this, except more focused on providing the backbone. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_0015... He also claims Google "controls more network fiber than any other organization."
- ilamont 17y agoCool idea, but was anyone else reminded of the Internet2 hype when they read this?
- paul9290 17y agoGoogle 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.
- JunkDNA 17y agoI'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?
- meta 17y agoHere are the Sub numbers for digital tv providers. http://www.ncta.com/Stats/TopMSOs.aspx http://www.ncta.com/Stats/TopMSOs.aspx
- chadgeidel 17y agoThat's a good point. When I left they didn't even ask why.
- ippisl 17y agoI 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 17y agoMass market applications that utilise 1gbit connections do not exist because the mass market does not have 1gbit connections.
- ippisl 17y agoBut connections above 10 mbit/sec exist in many places outside and inside the u.s.
- warfangle 17y agoSure, my connection is advertised as 10 mbit/s. At 7PM, I'm lucky to get 512kbps.
- olefoo 17y ago1 gigabit with relatively low latency would be enough for live jam sessions for serious musicians. I've seen a couple of tele-concerts where the bandwidth between venues was especially set up and I can see some potential there. Also, multiviewpoint live video feeds, full-size catalog photos for e-commerce (full 12-megapixel photos of the actual product so you can zoom in close enough to see the stitches.). All this and more.
- ac 17y agoAquinas Router, anyone?...
- ez77 17y agoWe'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 17y agoIt sounds like Google will be the "fiber service provider" and you'll have a choice of ISPs.
- kerringtonx 17y agoReally excited about this. Blazing speed!
- sumeeta 17y agoReminds me of the Google toilet ISP (http://www.google.com/tisp/ http://www.google.com/tisp/).
- JCThoughtscream 17y agoThis 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
- mannylee1 17y agoForget 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 17y agoThe 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 17y agoJeez. Back in my day, movies were ~700MB. That way we could put them on these things called CDs. Ever hear of CDs? Damn kids.
- drtse4 17y agoLinking 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 17y agoSupposedly 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.
- teeja 17y agoGoogle makes me laugh. They want the world, they want it now, and nobody is going to get in their way. It's great!
- deltaqueue 17y agoThere 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.
- ubu 17y agointeresing, if only google wouldn't bring the cpu speed down to zero by some of its bad javascript code.