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>> But although the cost of fiber — the glass itself — has fallen through the floor, and the gear needed to deliver signals over fiber has gotten cheaper over t

>> But although the cost of fiber — the glass itself — has fallen through the floor, and the gear needed to deliver signals over fiber has gotten cheaper over time, 80 percent or more of the cost of installing fiber is labor. Surely Google must've known that though. The article seems to say they're just not making money fast enough and that's because of labor, and that cost won't drop, but that seems like a totally obvious thing they would've known about, doesn't it?

njharman 10y ago
Yeah. Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Incumbents (in those locations they are pausing) used their lobbyists, political connections, right of ways, existing contracts, etc. To block, delay and vastly increase the time and costs for Google. Driving Google to go wireless. [edit] here in Austin (where they didn't lose the lobbying war) it's full steam ahead. They have been continually spreading across city. Dug trenches at coworker's house last week.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Like what? There have been some lobbying skirmishes. But where was the big lobbying war they lost that prevented them from bringing Fiber to New York, Philly, SF, Chicago, DC, LA, or pretty much any major city? And what about all the cities begging Google for fiber? Why didn't Google take LA up on its bid to build fiber? http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring-free-fiber-internet-to-every-resident-without-paying-for-it http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring...? Or Baltimore? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubbed-by-google-fiber-mad-at-comcast-baltimore-seeks-its-own-fiber https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubb....
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    Because the existing cities are enough of a proxy war with the incumbents? Louisville's OTMR lawsuit involves AT&T and Spectrum (Charter/Time Warner). Nashville's involves AT&T and Comcast. That's a big majority of the incumbents right there covered by just two cities on the Google Fiber interest map, in already relatively low regulated states.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      I think the lawsuits are kinda stupid, but saying they amount to a "proxy war" is ridiculous. Any infrastructure deployment will involve lawsuits to resolve competing rights to physical property. It's not like the incumbents are invoking some secret "we are guaranteed a monopoly in Louisville/Nashville" law. These are boring lawsuits about whether Google can touch/move AT&T/Spectrum's property while deploying its own infrastructure. Verizon/AT&T/TMO/Sprint somehow manage to build cell networks despite dealing with hundreds of lawsuits in connection with cell tower siting. It's naive to assert that it's these two lawsuits stopping Google from building a service it would otherwise build.
      - WorldMaker 10y ago
        I used "proxy war" very intentionally. A) Proxy: Google isn't even fighting these particular lawsuits directly, the cities themselves are. B) War: These examples are the first two off the top of my head out of many. As you point out there are hundreds of "boring lawsuits" involved in this process. There are many battles in a war, these are two of them as examples of the war between Google and incumbents. In a war, you pick your theaters and you pick your battles. The question was "Why isn't Google Fiber fighting in theaters of war that are practically begging for it when they are already spread thin across a number of theaters?" and the answer I'm pointing to is probably "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles." Whether or not you think these example lawsuits are stupid is beside that core point of "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles."
  - njharman 10y ago
    like these https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&oq=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.6058j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&o... and these https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&oq=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.7316j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&...
hinkley 10y ago
My gut reaction is always to wonder how a company this big can miss simple things, but I've worked for enough big companies to know how often critical elements of big decisions get delegated to a single person. You might think, 'how can a multibillion dollar company be so stupid' but it's really some guy named Bill who has 14 direct reports and can't even get enough server hardware unless he tells tall tales. The soberest people in the organization don't get promoted often, and don't get their ideas approved because they are too conservative. They make small promises and say No a lot. Boring. It's always the loudmouth who goes off half-cocked that gets attention.
wmf 10y ago
It's hard to know what Google was thinking since they've never said much. Installation labor of Google Fiber should be far lower than FIOS/GigaPower due to Google's "rally" redlining model, but we don't know if that panned out. Google Fiber reminds me of Uber's business model; it looks like it can never become profitable yet everybody loves it.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  Everybody loves it because it can never become profitable. Except the small handful of folks on the wrong side of that wealth transfer, that is.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Google obviously knew that; they may have thought that revenue over time would justify the high build-out costs (and their preferred profitability time horizon may have changed with corporate changes at Alphabet since then), or the reorg to Access may have given a broader mission than Fiber previously had and they may actually just be taking a real pause to evaluate whether the previous approach is really the best, given the tools available, for the new mission.

njharman 10y ago

Yeah. Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Incumbents (in those locations they are pausing) used their lobbyists, political connections, right of ways, existing contracts, etc. To block, delay and vastly increase the time and costs for Google. Driving Google to go wireless. [edit] here in Austin (where they didn't lose the lobbying war) it's full steam ahead. They have been continually spreading across city. Dug trenches at coworker's house last week.

rayiner 10y ago
> Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Like what? There have been some lobbying skirmishes. But where was the big lobbying war they lost that prevented them from bringing Fiber to New York, Philly, SF, Chicago, DC, LA, or pretty much any major city? And what about all the cities begging Google for fiber? Why didn't Google take LA up on its bid to build fiber? http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring-free-fiber-internet-to-every-resident-without-paying-for-it http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring...? Or Baltimore? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubbed-by-google-fiber-mad-at-comcast-baltimore-seeks-its-own-fiber https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubb....
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Because the existing cities are enough of a proxy war with the incumbents? Louisville's OTMR lawsuit involves AT&T and Spectrum (Charter/Time Warner). Nashville's involves AT&T and Comcast. That's a big majority of the incumbents right there covered by just two cities on the Google Fiber interest map, in already relatively low regulated states.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I think the lawsuits are kinda stupid, but saying they amount to a "proxy war" is ridiculous. Any infrastructure deployment will involve lawsuits to resolve competing rights to physical property. It's not like the incumbents are invoking some secret "we are guaranteed a monopoly in Louisville/Nashville" law. These are boring lawsuits about whether Google can touch/move AT&T/Spectrum's property while deploying its own infrastructure. Verizon/AT&T/TMO/Sprint somehow manage to build cell networks despite dealing with hundreds of lawsuits in connection with cell tower siting. It's naive to assert that it's these two lawsuits stopping Google from building a service it would otherwise build.
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      I used "proxy war" very intentionally. A) Proxy: Google isn't even fighting these particular lawsuits directly, the cities themselves are. B) War: These examples are the first two off the top of my head out of many. As you point out there are hundreds of "boring lawsuits" involved in this process. There are many battles in a war, these are two of them as examples of the war between Google and incumbents. In a war, you pick your theaters and you pick your battles. The question was "Why isn't Google Fiber fighting in theaters of war that are practically begging for it when they are already spread thin across a number of theaters?" and the answer I'm pointing to is probably "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles." Whether or not you think these example lawsuits are stupid is beside that core point of "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles."
- njharman 10y ago
  like these https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&oq=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.6058j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&o... and these https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&oq=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.7316j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&...

hinkley 10y ago

My gut reaction is always to wonder how a company this big can miss simple things, but I've worked for enough big companies to know how often critical elements of big decisions get delegated to a single person. You might think, 'how can a multibillion dollar company be so stupid' but it's really some guy named Bill who has 14 direct reports and can't even get enough server hardware unless he tells tall tales. The soberest people in the organization don't get promoted often, and don't get their ideas approved because they are too conservative. They make small promises and say No a lot. Boring. It's always the loudmouth who goes off half-cocked that gets attention.

wmf 10y ago

It's hard to know what Google was thinking since they've never said much. Installation labor of Google Fiber should be far lower than FIOS/GigaPower due to Google's "rally" redlining model, but we don't know if that panned out. Google Fiber reminds me of Uber's business model; it looks like it can never become profitable yet everybody loves it.

throwaway729 10y ago
Everybody loves it because it can never become profitable. Except the small handful of folks on the wrong side of that wealth transfer, that is.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Google obviously knew that; they may have thought that revenue over time would justify the high build-out costs (and their preferred profitability time horizon may have changed with corporate changes at Alphabet since then), or the reorg to Access may have given a broader mission than Fiber previously had and they may actually just be taking a real pause to evaluate whether the previous approach is really the best, given the tools available, for the new mission.