7 ms·

I wonder, if Verizon would step into Googles game, could we get actually good infrastructure, when the empire retaliates?

nostrademons 10y ago
They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that local authority be delegated by statute from state governments? Google Fiber was a fluffy bunny sort of thing. Verizon trying to drain the river of gold before it reaches Google is existential-threat stuff. In their position I would go to the mattresses.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    Yeah, AFAIU the local authority is delegated by state governments. Voters could fix this if they got organized and cared about it enough, but it's pretty hard to get voters organized about anything these days, and of all the political issues out there, "gigabit fiber" tends to rank below "save democracy", "get cops to stop killing black people", "preserve women's healthcare", "stop global warming", "don't go to war", and the other things people are protesting these days. Google Fiber was Larry realizing that Google was vulnerable to competition from its infrastructure providers and trying to get ahead of it before those companies realized too. I worked on it when it launched in 2012. It was very much a defensive play then as now: the idea was that if Google won, they would get revenue and a defensive moat, while even if they lost, they would improve broadband speeds, spur competition, and build a defensive moat. They just didn't figure on a bureaucratic quagmire. I suspect that Larry still recognizes the threat, but thinks that Loon, Fi, and WebPass are more promising approaches to head it off.
    - jacques_chester 10y ago
      > They just didn't figure on a bureaucratic quagmire. They also apparently didn't figure on the slow and expensive business of lobbying. If the matter is unimportant to voters, that makes it available to what I will charitably call "the most civic-minded and purposefully engaged company".
    - x0x0 10y ago
      There's national laws under consideration to force cities to lay fiber any time they dig up a road. That's imo the most promising, yet very slow, way forward. Coincidentally, Congresswoman Eshoo is one of the sponsors of the bill.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Way more municipal governments gave Google better regulatory treatment than incumbents than did the opposite. Even the Louisville lawsuits are over municipal ordinances that gave Google what it wanted for fiber deployment. Moreover, two large cities (LA and Baltimore) have publicly bad mouthed their incumbents and tried to get Google to build there without success. And of course, your theory would imply Google has less pull with municipal governments in Silicon Valley than an incumbent based on the opposite coast. It's an utterly ridiculous theory akin to complaining that WalMart can't get a fair shake in Benton, Arkansas.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    Regulations can be easier for Google than any other company building now while still being more difficult than when the incumbent companies put their wires in. Google Fiber didn't expand to California because of CEQA; the practical effect of CEQA is that it lets any property owner along the dig sue to block the project entirely. Note that Google Fiber's beta test was at Stanford, which is in Silicon Valley but happens to be private property.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      CEQA is quite a bit different than saying the "municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket." Also, CEQA was enacted in 1970. All modern broadband networks were built under the auspices of laws like that.
      - nostrademons 10y ago
        Yeah, perhaps I should retract the implication that the officials involved are corrupt. There doesn't have to be outright corruption for regulations to be an effective barrier to new entrants, and to prevent consumers from getting new services they want. All it requires is a cost of compliance that is greater than the delta in perceived consumer welfare, or even just a failure to pass the benefits to consumers of regulatory changes along to the regulators who are responsible for making them. The broadband technology may have postdated CEQA, but Verizon already had the right-of-ways, utility poles, and trenches dug. My parents were one of the first customers for Verizon Fios when it launched. They ran our fiber line over the telephone pole that had been outside our house since it was built in 1960.

nostrademons 10y ago

They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.

jacques_chester 10y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that local authority be delegated by statute from state governments? Google Fiber was a fluffy bunny sort of thing. Verizon trying to drain the river of gold before it reaches Google is existential-threat stuff. In their position I would go to the mattresses.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Yeah, AFAIU the local authority is delegated by state governments. Voters could fix this if they got organized and cared about it enough, but it's pretty hard to get voters organized about anything these days, and of all the political issues out there, "gigabit fiber" tends to rank below "save democracy", "get cops to stop killing black people", "preserve women's healthcare", "stop global warming", "don't go to war", and the other things people are protesting these days. Google Fiber was Larry realizing that Google was vulnerable to competition from its infrastructure providers and trying to get ahead of it before those companies realized too. I worked on it when it launched in 2012. It was very much a defensive play then as now: the idea was that if Google won, they would get revenue and a defensive moat, while even if they lost, they would improve broadband speeds, spur competition, and build a defensive moat. They just didn't figure on a bureaucratic quagmire. I suspect that Larry still recognizes the threat, but thinks that Loon, Fi, and WebPass are more promising approaches to head it off.
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    > They just didn't figure on a bureaucratic quagmire. They also apparently didn't figure on the slow and expensive business of lobbying. If the matter is unimportant to voters, that makes it available to what I will charitably call "the most civic-minded and purposefully engaged company".
  - x0x0 10y ago
    There's national laws under consideration to force cities to lay fiber any time they dig up a road. That's imo the most promising, yet very slow, way forward. Coincidentally, Congresswoman Eshoo is one of the sponsors of the bill.
rayiner 10y ago
Way more municipal governments gave Google better regulatory treatment than incumbents than did the opposite. Even the Louisville lawsuits are over municipal ordinances that gave Google what it wanted for fiber deployment. Moreover, two large cities (LA and Baltimore) have publicly bad mouthed their incumbents and tried to get Google to build there without success. And of course, your theory would imply Google has less pull with municipal governments in Silicon Valley than an incumbent based on the opposite coast. It's an utterly ridiculous theory akin to complaining that WalMart can't get a fair shake in Benton, Arkansas.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Regulations can be easier for Google than any other company building now while still being more difficult than when the incumbent companies put their wires in. Google Fiber didn't expand to California because of CEQA; the practical effect of CEQA is that it lets any property owner along the dig sue to block the project entirely. Note that Google Fiber's beta test was at Stanford, which is in Silicon Valley but happens to be private property.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    CEQA is quite a bit different than saying the "municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket." Also, CEQA was enacted in 1970. All modern broadband networks were built under the auspices of laws like that.
    - nostrademons 10y ago
      Yeah, perhaps I should retract the implication that the officials involved are corrupt. There doesn't have to be outright corruption for regulations to be an effective barrier to new entrants, and to prevent consumers from getting new services they want. All it requires is a cost of compliance that is greater than the delta in perceived consumer welfare, or even just a failure to pass the benefits to consumers of regulatory changes along to the regulators who are responsible for making them. The broadband technology may have postdated CEQA, but Verizon already had the right-of-ways, utility poles, and trenches dug. My parents were one of the first customers for Verizon Fios when it launched. They ran our fiber line over the telephone pole that had been outside our house since it was built in 1960.