7 ms·

> I'm sure Comcast and Time Warner and friends are all breathing a sigh of relief. They were never worried in the first place. Their network architects are not

by exelius 10y ago

> I'm sure Comcast and Time Warner and friends are all breathing a sigh of relief. They were never worried in the first place. Their network architects are not idiots or anything; they know the economics of what Google was trying to do and they knew it wouldn't turn into anything threatening unless Google was willing to sink over $20 billion into it. Their attitude has been "worst case, we buy the infrastructure from Google when they lose patience with it". Problem is, Google's business approach of coming to market with market-leading technology wasn't a novel approach here. Telecoms and cable companies have always worked closely with the innovators in their market -- and the limiting factor is often hard materials science, so Google didn't have the technology advantage they were used to. > Last-mile fiber is expensive, expensive, expensive. Last-mile anything is expensive. Maintenance is a bitch because all sorts of crap happens up on those poles -- wind, tree branches, ice, animals chewing the cables (squirrels will chew on almost anything), other vendors breaking your setup on accident... My guess is that Google didn't account for a lot of that crap and their maintenance costs were way higher than they expected.

Pigo 10y ago
Since Google Fiber started we got a fiber network in my area from Cincinnati Bell that allowed me to kick Time Warner in the nuts. It was more satisfying than the ending to Breaking Bad. I've saved money and gotten all the speed it promised. I don't know how much Google's example was involved in bringing this to us, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
- exelius 10y ago
  I'm sure it had some impact in generating market demand for higher speeds; because the reason nobody offered gigabit to the home was that customers value 100 mbps Internet at something like $60/mo and only value gigabit Internet at $75/mo. But it costs the ISPs a lot more to provide gigabit, so the numbers just don't work out. If Google helped to push the "willingness to pay" for gigabit Internet access up a bit, the ISPs are likely grateful for the help.
  - Pigo 10y ago
    I guess I see what you're paying. So right now you can get a 50 mbps plan for $50 through CinBell Fioptics or $65 through Time Warner. I've only ever paid up to the 100 mbps plan for Fioptics though, and then went down one grade because the speed was far more than I needed. I've had every time warner plan, and was ecstatic when Netflix wouldn't buffer constantly. Maybe it's just the far less traffic on the fiber making it superior, but everything about my Fioptics experience has been pleasant. They don't charge extra for a modem or router, and the reps have always been easy to deal with.
efa 10y ago
> Their network architects are not idiots or anything Google architects aren't idiots either are they? What did Google hope to achieve? Or did they really go into this naively thinking it could be done? Serious question - I haven't followed this very closely. Was this all a test bed to see what type of apps could be built with ubiquitous high speed access?
- exelius 10y ago
  I don't think they were idiots; but Google's whole operating model is built around taking Very Smart People and throwing them at Hard Problems. Sometimes, a problem may seem to be ripe for disruption because it is held back by what seems like a lot of legacy overhead. The assumption is that you can come in with a different approach, and change the operating model to the point you end up with a structural cost advantage over your competitors. And sometimes that doesn't happen. What may have looked like a stodgy and ripe-for-disruption industry may actually be one with huge logistical challenges that force the industry to be stodgy and slow -- not the other way around. Still, it was a good bet for Google as part of a portfolio strategy: if you make 10 of these types of bets and only 2 of them pan out, you're still doing pretty well. It's not always obvious which industries are ripe for disruption and which ones are held back by market forces and product constraints. I think they saw it as "Maybe we can find a new model that can disrupt the market, maybe not, but at the bare minimum we can force the ISPs to do better which benefits every other service we provide." They never provided Google Fiber with the kind of investment it would have taken to be successful on a large scale -- Verizon spends more money on its network in 3 days than Google Fiber spent in its entire existence -- so I don't think they seriously thought it would end up as a success. It's also a big CapEx investment in infrastructure, which has a pretty good salvage value if sold to other telecoms (so they'll likely get a good portion of their investment in GF back). At the end of the day if they end up losing $20-30 million on the whole Fiber deal, they'd call it a success for raising the mindshare of what consumer Internet can and should be. It also won Google a lot of points in the court of public opinion against the major ISPs, so as a marketing / PR exercise it was likely a positive contribution to Google.
  - efa 10y ago

by exelius 10y ago

Pigo 10y ago

Since Google Fiber started we got a fiber network in my area from Cincinnati Bell that allowed me to kick Time Warner in the nuts. It was more satisfying than the ending to Breaking Bad. I've saved money and gotten all the speed it promised. I don't know how much Google's example was involved in bringing this to us, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

exelius 10y ago
I'm sure it had some impact in generating market demand for higher speeds; because the reason nobody offered gigabit to the home was that customers value 100 mbps Internet at something like $60/mo and only value gigabit Internet at $75/mo. But it costs the ISPs a lot more to provide gigabit, so the numbers just don't work out. If Google helped to push the "willingness to pay" for gigabit Internet access up a bit, the ISPs are likely grateful for the help.
- Pigo 10y ago
  I guess I see what you're paying. So right now you can get a 50 mbps plan for $50 through CinBell Fioptics or $65 through Time Warner. I've only ever paid up to the 100 mbps plan for Fioptics though, and then went down one grade because the speed was far more than I needed. I've had every time warner plan, and was ecstatic when Netflix wouldn't buffer constantly. Maybe it's just the far less traffic on the fiber making it superior, but everything about my Fioptics experience has been pleasant. They don't charge extra for a modem or router, and the reps have always been easy to deal with.

efa 10y ago

> Their network architects are not idiots or anything Google architects aren't idiots either are they? What did Google hope to achieve? Or did they really go into this naively thinking it could be done? Serious question - I haven't followed this very closely. Was this all a test bed to see what type of apps could be built with ubiquitous high speed access?

exelius 10y ago
I don't think they were idiots; but Google's whole operating model is built around taking Very Smart People and throwing them at Hard Problems. Sometimes, a problem may seem to be ripe for disruption because it is held back by what seems like a lot of legacy overhead. The assumption is that you can come in with a different approach, and change the operating model to the point you end up with a structural cost advantage over your competitors. And sometimes that doesn't happen. What may have looked like a stodgy and ripe-for-disruption industry may actually be one with huge logistical challenges that force the industry to be stodgy and slow -- not the other way around. Still, it was a good bet for Google as part of a portfolio strategy: if you make 10 of these types of bets and only 2 of them pan out, you're still doing pretty well. It's not always obvious which industries are ripe for disruption and which ones are held back by market forces and product constraints. I think they saw it as "Maybe we can find a new model that can disrupt the market, maybe not, but at the bare minimum we can force the ISPs to do better which benefits every other service we provide." They never provided Google Fiber with the kind of investment it would have taken to be successful on a large scale -- Verizon spends more money on its network in 3 days than Google Fiber spent in its entire existence -- so I don't think they seriously thought it would end up as a success. It's also a big CapEx investment in infrastructure, which has a pretty good salvage value if sold to other telecoms (so they'll likely get a good portion of their investment in GF back). At the end of the day if they end up losing $20-30 million on the whole Fiber deal, they'd call it a success for raising the mindshare of what consumer Internet can and should be. It also won Google a lot of points in the court of public opinion against the major ISPs, so as a marketing / PR exercise it was likely a positive contribution to Google.
- efa 10y ago