8 ms·

San Jose's Google Fiber rollout is delayed to explores alternatives

cjbprime 10y ago
Title's misleading -- it's only delayed in one area (Silicon Valley).
- sctb 10y ago
  Thanks. We updated the title, which originally omitted “San Jose”.
  - gumby 10y ago
    They've also put Palo Alto (which has already had the fiber backbone in place for decades) and Mountain View on hold.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    The Merc changed their headline after publishing - see the URL, and how it was originally syndicated: http://www.topix.com/com/google/2016/08/google-fibers-silicon-valley-rollout-is-delayed-while-tech-giant-explores-alternatives?fromrss=1 http://www.topix.com/com/google/2016/08/google-fibers-silico... Also, in the second paragraph, it specifically calls out to other SV cities where delays are confirmed - Palo Alto and Mountain View.
- mountaineer 10y ago
  Also delayed in Portland[1] [1] http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/07/google_fiber_will_delay_portla.html http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/07/g...
zellyn 10y ago
FWIW, in Atlanta, signups just opened for residential service in some neighborhoods (I signed up today). So this is definitely not nationwide.
- wil421 10y ago
  I just got the email. Too bad Brookhaven's availability is limited to apartments right now. Looking forward to signing up but I am not sure how it works since I am off a street and not in a "neighborhood".
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    heck they tore up our yards in my sub, sent mail prior that we are getting fiber, only to now state there is no fiber in our area.
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Seems that Google was very premature about announcing these peninsula cities as rollout targets. Wireless is better than nothing, but it will never compete with wired connection to the premises. As an aside, I've always wondered if 5G or some other pending wireless tech could be used to one day replace Comcast...
- xchaotic 10y ago
  5G is still a shared-medium carrier so it will get congested no matter how fast the total is - all it takes is a few bad or uneducated players spamming the wireless spectrum. Or just bad weather.
- Cshelton 10y ago
  This is not wireless like 4g/5g or any cellular company you think of. This is point to point wireless they are talking about. Which can transmit incredibly high speeds and bandwidth. Here's the idea, and is actually the current setup I have with a private company: A p2p transmitter can broadcast to a lower tower that sits next to multiple neighborhoods. Then from that tower, lines can be run to individual houses and/or other small receivers like on people's rooftops. With this system, they can literally cover vast areas, with just as fast speeds, in a fraction of the costs and time. I have this setup right now, pointing my p2p device right at the top of a building downtown (not in San Jose.). It is crazy fast and even during heavy storms, there is no disruption. San Jose, I wouldn't complain just yet, you might actually get your 1 Gbps + speeds faster than you thought despite this "construction delay".
  - sn0v 10y ago
    How does the latency compare to a wired connection? Is it viable for gaming and the like?
    - jauer 10y ago
      Often very low. Urban 24Ghz/60Ghz point to point connections are usually 2ms or less per hop. My house (rural small town) is 4x5Ghz & 1x11Ghz hops away from my datacenter and I get ~15-20ms ping times to Google, League of Legends, etc). At various times I've had Frontier VDSL2 and Charter DOCSIS and both had higher latency.
sparky_ 10y ago
What a joke. So they're abandoning an already-finalized construction plan in favor of a return to the "service" that was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearwire ?
- wmf 10y ago
  Fixed wireless has been done poorly and it has been done well (Webpass). Fiber has also been done poorly (FIOS at >$2,000 per customer), so I don't know if historical anecdotes are useful here.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    FIOS may have been expensive to roll out, but the quality of service was good.
    - traek 10y ago
      > the quality of service was good. But that doesn't make it a good business. And when it's not a good business, it gets scrapped.
sideband 10y ago
Verizon's costs to deploy FiOS, which is the same underlying tech as Google Fiber, between 2004 and 2010 in some MSA's approached a billion in capital alone. They ended up spending $23 billion in total capital, and only in places where they already had data centers every few miles, conduit, fiber, poles, field cabinets, franchise agreements, a local workforce, a large customer base, storefronts, etc. And that only includes new equipment and construction, not recurring operational costs. $23 billion is more than Google's entire capital budget for the past 2.5 years. This is almost certainly the result of somebody at Google finally asking serious questions about the total cost, or at least being asked to cut a particularly large check for the first time.
- wmf 10y ago
  I am also skeptical of Google Fiber's economics, but they have some business model hacks up their sleeve that FIOS doesn't: redlining and rallies. FIOS spent a lot of money to pass homes that will never subscribe and they had to do a lot of separate truck rolls to connect customers over time. Google Fiber is more like Kickstarter where they don't have to do any work unless the 'hood is guaranteed to be profitable, then they wire the whole place at once. Whether this business model is good for society is an open question.
  - darkmarmot 10y ago
    Here in Nashville, the are rolling out access to only the richest communities first. But -- they are also about to wire some poor, subsidized Section 8 housing as well. It appears those of us in typical suburbia are likely last on the list, if we are on the list, for better or worse...
    - Cshelton 10y ago
      Hah. Well in Dallas, AT&T rolls out their fastest Gigabit speed (and most expensive offering) to the poor communities first. Because city council and politics. Makes sense.... the poor people, right after shopping with their food stamps and using their entire paycheck on rent can most definitely afford $130+/month internet...
Animats 10y ago
Google actually got that far and then backed out? That's incompetent management. Palo Alto has mostly underground utilities. No poles. Did someone at Google not know this?
benmorris 10y ago
I'm curious how webpass is achieving this type of coverage. I live in a pretty small town and our one Wisp has saturated nearly every channel of 900mhz, 2.4ghz and 5ghz. I work with the local radio station frequently that leases tower space to them. I know for a fact they have no spectrum left for unlicensed backhauls in those frequencies. It seems like the problem would be greatly amplified in urban areas unless they used licensed backhauls.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
Why is Silicon Valley of all places struggling to get reasonably fast Internet?
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  Most of these cities already have gigabit fiber through AT&T.
itisbiz 10y ago
I put some Google Fiber build, sales and financial data into a basic model to create forecast estimates Gfiber.us

Title's misleading -- it's only delayed in one area (Silicon Valley).

sctb 10y ago
Thanks. We updated the title, which originally omitted “San Jose”.
- gumby 10y ago
  They've also put Palo Alto (which has already had the fiber backbone in place for decades) and Mountain View on hold.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  The Merc changed their headline after publishing - see the URL, and how it was originally syndicated: http://www.topix.com/com/google/2016/08/google-fibers-silicon-valley-rollout-is-delayed-while-tech-giant-explores-alternatives?fromrss=1 http://www.topix.com/com/google/2016/08/google-fibers-silico... Also, in the second paragraph, it specifically calls out to other SV cities where delays are confirmed - Palo Alto and Mountain View.
mountaineer 10y ago
Also delayed in Portland[1] [1] http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/07/google_fiber_will_delay_portla.html http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/07/g...

FWIW, in Atlanta, signups just opened for residential service in some neighborhoods (I signed up today). So this is definitely not nationwide.

wil421 10y ago
I just got the email. Too bad Brookhaven's availability is limited to apartments right now. Looking forward to signing up but I am not sure how it works since I am off a street and not in a "neighborhood".
- Shivetya 10y ago
  heck they tore up our yards in my sub, sent mail prior that we are getting fiber, only to now state there is no fiber in our area.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

Seems that Google was very premature about announcing these peninsula cities as rollout targets. Wireless is better than nothing, but it will never compete with wired connection to the premises. As an aside, I've always wondered if 5G or some other pending wireless tech could be used to one day replace Comcast...

xchaotic 10y ago
5G is still a shared-medium carrier so it will get congested no matter how fast the total is - all it takes is a few bad or uneducated players spamming the wireless spectrum. Or just bad weather.
Cshelton 10y ago
This is not wireless like 4g/5g or any cellular company you think of. This is point to point wireless they are talking about. Which can transmit incredibly high speeds and bandwidth. Here's the idea, and is actually the current setup I have with a private company: A p2p transmitter can broadcast to a lower tower that sits next to multiple neighborhoods. Then from that tower, lines can be run to individual houses and/or other small receivers like on people's rooftops. With this system, they can literally cover vast areas, with just as fast speeds, in a fraction of the costs and time. I have this setup right now, pointing my p2p device right at the top of a building downtown (not in San Jose.). It is crazy fast and even during heavy storms, there is no disruption. San Jose, I wouldn't complain just yet, you might actually get your 1 Gbps + speeds faster than you thought despite this "construction delay".
- sn0v 10y ago
  How does the latency compare to a wired connection? Is it viable for gaming and the like?
  - jauer 10y ago
    Often very low. Urban 24Ghz/60Ghz point to point connections are usually 2ms or less per hop. My house (rural small town) is 4x5Ghz & 1x11Ghz hops away from my datacenter and I get ~15-20ms ping times to Google, League of Legends, etc). At various times I've had Frontier VDSL2 and Charter DOCSIS and both had higher latency.

sparky_ 10y ago

What a joke. So they're abandoning an already-finalized construction plan in favor of a return to the "service" that was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearwire ?

wmf 10y ago
Fixed wireless has been done poorly and it has been done well (Webpass). Fiber has also been done poorly (FIOS at >$2,000 per customer), so I don't know if historical anecdotes are useful here.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  FIOS may have been expensive to roll out, but the quality of service was good.
  - traek 10y ago
    > the quality of service was good. But that doesn't make it a good business. And when it's not a good business, it gets scrapped.

sideband 10y ago

Verizon's costs to deploy FiOS, which is the same underlying tech as Google Fiber, between 2004 and 2010 in some MSA's approached a billion in capital alone. They ended up spending $23 billion in total capital, and only in places where they already had data centers every few miles, conduit, fiber, poles, field cabinets, franchise agreements, a local workforce, a large customer base, storefronts, etc. And that only includes new equipment and construction, not recurring operational costs. $23 billion is more than Google's entire capital budget for the past 2.5 years. This is almost certainly the result of somebody at Google finally asking serious questions about the total cost, or at least being asked to cut a particularly large check for the first time.

wmf 10y ago
I am also skeptical of Google Fiber's economics, but they have some business model hacks up their sleeve that FIOS doesn't: redlining and rallies. FIOS spent a lot of money to pass homes that will never subscribe and they had to do a lot of separate truck rolls to connect customers over time. Google Fiber is more like Kickstarter where they don't have to do any work unless the 'hood is guaranteed to be profitable, then they wire the whole place at once. Whether this business model is good for society is an open question.
- darkmarmot 10y ago
  Here in Nashville, the are rolling out access to only the richest communities first. But -- they are also about to wire some poor, subsidized Section 8 housing as well. It appears those of us in typical suburbia are likely last on the list, if we are on the list, for better or worse...
  - Cshelton 10y ago
    Hah. Well in Dallas, AT&T rolls out their fastest Gigabit speed (and most expensive offering) to the poor communities first. Because city council and politics. Makes sense.... the poor people, right after shopping with their food stamps and using their entire paycheck on rent can most definitely afford $130+/month internet...

Animats 10y ago

Google actually got that far and then backed out? That's incompetent management. Palo Alto has mostly underground utilities. No poles. Did someone at Google not know this?

benmorris 10y ago

I'm curious how webpass is achieving this type of coverage. I live in a pretty small town and our one Wisp has saturated nearly every channel of 900mhz, 2.4ghz and 5ghz. I work with the local radio station frequently that leases tower space to them. I know for a fact they have no spectrum left for unlicensed backhauls in those frequencies. It seems like the problem would be greatly amplified in urban areas unless they used licensed backhauls.

Hydraulix989 10y ago

Why is Silicon Valley of all places struggling to get reasonably fast Internet?

lern_too_spel 10y ago
Most of these cities already have gigabit fiber through AT&T.

itisbiz 10y ago

I put some Google Fiber build, sales and financial data into a basic model to create forecast estimates Gfiber.us