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Coming soon: Google Fiber 2 Gig
- rexreed 6y agoGoogle Fiber has such limited availability. The promise of widespread bandwidth has not met the hype. For those who have it I'm sure it's good. But like Google Glass, this has somewhat limited appeal to the "rest of us"
- johnghanks 6y agoCompetition in those areas is still good for the rest of us.
- kevincox 6y agoJust it existing is a threat to the other providers. I agree that it would have been nice if it spread faster. But I think slow and steady is probably actually the best strategy here. Serve your customers really well, then expand as it makes sense. If the other providers get their act together then you don't need to expand, if they don't show them how it is done.
- apohn 6y ago>Just it existing is a threat to the other providers. In my area (a suburban area near Raleigh) it seemed like AT&T really got moving and deployed Fiber after Google put out the "coming soon" flyers. I hope Google keeps pushing forward, even if it's very slow. This will force other providers to improve.
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoSimilar for me, Google never ended up coming through, but just having 'started talks' with the local authorities caused CenturyLink and Comcast to both roll out gigabit connections magically.
- thetinguy 6y agoIMHO google fiber is the reason isps in the us offer gigabit.
- dylz 6y agoUnfortunately most cable providers offer "gigabit" where upstream is sub-5 to 10 Mbit
- space_ghost 6y agoI've had AT&T gigabit fiber in Louisville for four years now and it's fully symmetric. I frequently run speed checks and I always see uploads close to 1gbit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- richiebful1 6y agoI was amazed to see gigabit AT&T in the Red River Gorge (Stanton, KY) when I was there last month. I have a feeling the public-owned fiber backbone (Kentucky Wired) has something to do with that level of accessibility
- zbrozek 6y agoI lust after such a thing. But here only AT&T copper is available, with a max speed of 20 mbps, and apparently they're no longer accepting new accounts: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2020/10/03/att-dsl-internet-digital-subscriber-line-outdated/5880219002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2020/10/03/att... This leaves me with zero options for wired broadband.
- ethanwillis 6y agoRecently I got an advertisement from t-mobile (as one of their customers) about their home internet offering. I currently have gigabit service through comcast/xfinity. Tons of stability issues, but that aside even in the best of times it's as you say.. super low upload bandwidth. And even worse they still impose a terabyte bandwidth cap on me unless I pay them an additional $30/mo. Well, I looked into the t-mobile internet. It's an LTE router, no bandwidth cap, a flat $50/mo total... and the upload bandwidth I get is around 40-60Mb/s. Download bandwidth between 60-100Mb/s.
- lazzlazzlazz 6y agoExciting, but like most Google projects: I'll believe it when I see it. Or when I scroll past the cancellation announcement. Only a massive cultural change, driven from above, can give Google long-term vision and follow-through. And it won't be from Pichai.
- balls187 6y agoGig to your domicile is fine, but getting it to various rooms is not a straight forward challenge. I tried the latest Ethernet over Power and it was abysmal. Wifi5 is good when close to the AP. At this point it's wiring for Cat6 in order to fully utilize my Gige from Comcast.
- cashewchoo 6y agoI bought a new construction (I wasn't specifically looking for a new construction so it was already done when I got to it) and was really disappointed to see that: - no conduit in the walls - no ethernet in the walls - coax to every room but it all terminates outside the house which I'm sure meets most people's needs but was annoying for me. And it would've been so cheap to do it "right." So I'm relegated to relying on the fact that I have very conveniently located unfinished half of basement and garage where I can do lots of cabling and just pop through the wall right at the end.
- derekdahmer 6y agoIt sucks but you just gotta do it! I just moved into a 100 year old house and my first home project was wiring the whole thing for ethernet, resulting in a funny situation where my house has gigabit ethernet cables running past the original knob and tube wiring in the attic.
- jedberg 6y agoDepending on how lazy they were, you might be able to use the coax as a pull string for the Cat5e.
- bratch 6y agoThis was my first thought too. I have done this successfully to get Cat5e everywhere in a house that used to have coax everywhere. If you do it, I recommend attaching multiple pull strings to the coax, then pulling the coax out, then using one of the new pull strings for the Cat5e - otherwise you risk the Cat5e and the coax becoming detached from one another in the wall.
- AceJohnny2 6y agoI thought Google was sunsetting Fiber and looking to sell it off? Or were they just stopping further deployments, and this only applies to existing customers/covered areas?
- rexreed 6y agoThis was announced way back in 2016: https://gizmodo.com/google-fiber-halts-operations-in-ten-cities-1788214992 https://gizmodo.com/google-fiber-halts-operations-in-ten-cit... Looks like it's still halted in all those cities. So I guess Fiber is limited to where they were as of 2016. [edit: in terms of new metro locations. Google Fiber seems to be slowly expanding in metros where they were already existing as of 2016]
- armadsen 6y agoThey recently announced an expansion into Millcreek, Utah, so they're not completely stopped. Millcreek is an adjacent suburb of Salt Lake City. It's clearly an expansion of an existing deployment, not a true new city, but still nice.
- adrianmonk 6y agoThey seem to be expanding into a few more neighborhoods in Austin. As recently as October 19th, there has been news of expansion. A neighborhood association Facebook page post from that date says Fiber will start shallow trenching in their neighborhood, and some service could be turned on as early as November.
- anderspitman 6y agoI believe they're still expanding in Utah at least.
- Corrado 6y agoI live in Louisville, KY and Google came in to lay fiber a couple of years ago. They tore up roads and made a mess and generally failed all around. Finally, they pulled out completely and left us high and dry. It was a pretty bad time, really. I just checked my address in the Google Fiber website and it says that it's "coming soon" to my home. I wonder what that means. Did they stop digging up roads? Are they doing something different now? What's changed in the past 3 years that allows them to suddenly come back to the cities that they abandoned? NOTE: Just to be clear, I'm not completely unhappy with Google as I have AT&T Gig Fiber thanks to Google Fiber scaring the incumbents into action.
- cashewchoo 6y agoI used to live in a Google Fiber city, but had to move away. I yearn desperately and dearly for google fiber (or a similarly interests-aligned ISP) to come to my new city. Unfortunately I moved out of a city metro area and am now in a smaller town that acts like a suburb of the major city I live near (~20-30 mins from the center of downtown). So my hopes for having google pay attention to us is ~0, at least over the next decade or two. Spectrum offers 940mbps down / 40 up and it's... fine. I watch my bill like a hawk because of the history of all these actors and I really wish I had more upload bandwidth (for linux iso torrents - and I'm actually not being euphemistic here. I host a lot of stuff locally that I wish had a bigger upload pipe - passion project stuff in addition to seeding linux-related content.)
- devwastaken 6y agoIirc the upload speed is capped that way because they're still using the old copper lines, they just improved the modulators so they can give high speeds but only in one direction. They'd have to run actual fiber to improve the upload.
- pixel16 6y agoThis isn't true for spectrum or Comcast. Both uss fttn nowadays.
- AceJohnny2 6y agoDepends on the location, deployment wasn't universal last I looked.
- scrapcode 6y agoSimilar situation and probably the same city. I really miss my Fiber but have been pleasantly surprised with Spectrum so far. I have far better network hardware so for what I do I can't tell much of a difference, for now.
- notyourwork 6y agoIn the 90s consumption was mostly single direction, content was downloaded and consumed. With video conferencing and other interactions, the idea that pipes are overly download oriented is flawed. We're producing more for the world to see and upload is becoming increasingly as important for stable internet.
- bearjaws 6y agoGoogle kills their services so often I had thought Google Fiber was dead / sold off.
- parthdesai 6y agoThis sort of comment is repeated so often, that at this point i feel people post this in order to get some easy upvotes
- suprfsat 6y agoThere is another article on the front page of HN right now about Google Photos' unlimited storage being shut down.
- 908B64B197 6y agoJust a few days ago there was a thread about internet coverage and prices in Canada [0] and it's a stark contrast to initiatives like Fiber. Truly incredible to see the difference between a company for which internet access must be commoditized and existing rent-seeking monopolies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25037074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25037074
- aidenn0 6y agoMeanwhile I got a notice from my ISP that I am near my 1TB/month limit and I will be charged $1/GB in $10 increments if I go over. I already pay over $100 per month for it.
- modoc 6y agoYou should see if you can pay for an unlimited data option. Comcast had a $50/month add-on that would remove all data caps, and saved me a TON of money.
- imglorp 6y agoUnlimited or "unlimited"?
- servercobra 6y agoAnd even check into that price. I thought it was $50/mo in Chicago, but I just checked and it was $30/mo, though it may be an introductory offer.
- aidenn0 6y agoI'm with Cox and they have a $50/month add-on, but even during covid I'm unlikely to regularly exceed my cap by enough to make that worth it. I'm usually right around the cap.
- ballenf 6y agoComcast unlimited option now costs less: https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/xfi-complete https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/xfi-complete $30 / mo if you byoe. Or a little less if you're already leasing their equipment.
- crymer11 6y agoMeanwhile, we've had residential 10Gbps fiber available since 2015 here in Chattanooga, TN - $299/month (no additional fees or taxes) with no contract.
- edm0nd 6y ago10Gbps for $299/m is still kinda pricey as heck for residential but certainly lovely if you need that kind of speeds.
- RIMR 6y agoIf I lived in Chattanooga, I'd undoubtedly subscribe to this, but I honestly don't even know what the actual value is of this. Pushing my download speed up above 900Mpbs is basically a novelty. The only thing I use that actually uses that speed in practice is my Gaming PC's Steam updates, everything else takes a herculean effort. Speed testing websites are basically reporting their own bandwidth restrictions to me. Even with that bandwidth, torrents struggle to perform at those kinds of speeds, and everything else is pretty much going to max out around 100mbps. I have no idea what I would actually do with 10x more bandwidth. I could theoretically fill an entire 16TB hard drive with stuff in one day, but there's not a compelling need for that, at least not for more than a single day.
- novok 6y agoWell its partly a chicken / egg issue, and large pipes start becoming relevant with larger households. Ex: 4-8 simultaneous 100mbit 4k video streams or similar while doing similar stuff. Im guessing they’re doing the 10gbit because the other option is bad cable internet for more reasonable options.
- phamilton 6y agoLarger households is a really big point. For the past few months I often have 5 simultaneous zoom calls (3 kids in school, my wife and I working) along with someone watching Netflix (our 2 year old). It's not like that all day every day, but there's a window of about an hour every Wednesday morning where that happens. Gigabit fiber has made that a complete non-issue.
- cletus 6y agoI used to work on Google Fiber. It still makes me sad that it essentially has been abandoned (to the point that it almost certainly won't expand beyond the current cities). Eric Schmidt liked to say that more revenue is the solution to all problems at a company (give or take). I think Fiber is proof that that isn't strictly true. High capex projects like this demand fiscal discipline. They demand the ability to plan, cost and estimate how long things will take. Fiscal discipline just isn't in Google's DNA. This is unsurprising given how insanely profitable AdWords is. I also describe something like running an ISP as a hyperlocal national business. Think of these issues: - Can you string up lines on poles? - If so, who owns the poles? - How do you get permissions to string things up? - How can competitors delay and hinder that process (believe me, they do)? - Do you dig trenches? - What's the soil composition? I can tell you that digging trenches doesn't work well when there's a ton of small limestone rocks in the soil. - Do you employ some form of micro/nano-trenching? - Etc And all of these issues vary from region to region, city to city and even within a city. The entrenched players have become very good at navigating this process, impeding competitors and capturing regulators and legislators through exclusive agreements, lobbying, protective legislation and so forth. How Congress, the DOJ and the FTC continues to completely ignore what a shit show broadband is in the US is beyond me.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago> more revenue is the solution to all problems at a company (give or take). I think Fiber is proof that that isn't strictly true. Revenue is still a solution, but you have to use it differently. People who just see all the technical problems their current ISP has assume that running an ISP is a technical problem; if you dig a little further (pun intended), it looks like an infrastructure problem, but that's not the root of it. Google Fiber is proof that running an ISP is fundamentally a political problem: how do you work around the many many things all trying to stop or kill you? (Hypothesis for one reason why ISPs are mostly terrible: the ones that exist were not optimized for good technology or good customer service, they were optimized for surviving politics, or built by companies who already had.) There was a broader spectrum of decent ISPs when modems were cutting-edge, because then you "just" need to run a dial-in service. There were at least some decent ISPs when DSL was cutting-edge, because in theory you can buy your service from anyone. But now that fiber is cutting-edge, there's no solution anymore, because fiber wasn't treated as infrastructure from day 1. There's a major reason why many "technology first" companies look into wireless and satellite to reach people. Not because those provide fundamentally better experiences or technologies, but because they can dodge the vast majority of local politics. In an ideal world, we'd have fiber to every home as infrastructure, connected to a local meet-me room, and you could contract any ISP you like to light up that fiber, with a tiny flat fee going to cover the infrastructure. And then we'd have a spectrum of ISPs again, from budget to full-service to tech-friendly.
- msoad 6y agoI have Gigabit connection but my WiFi doesn't allow me to fully leverage it. Thinking of getting a WiFi 6 router but not sure if it's necessary. Will my experience be any different if my laptop can pull 1Gbps vs. 400Mbps? Anyone has experienced upgrading to WiFi 6 and care to share?
- didibus 6y agoI have WiFi 6 router, but only Wifi 5 devices. I get 300Mbps speeds on my devices. I'd say Wifi 6 does seem to have a steadier and more reliable wifi connection even from my older Wifi 5 devices. The advantage for me is, I have multiple things using the internet, and if they all get 300Mbps it's pretty good. Haven't had a chance to try a WiFi 6 to Wifi 6 connection yet.
- IntelMiner 6y agoI upgraded my laptop to one with an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi chip Paired with a WRT32x router running OpenWRT, these are the speeds I get on my 1000/50* GPON fiber connection. They do tend to vary depending on what speedtest server I use and when. I have seen it max out at 950 megabits however https://www.speedtest.net/result/10403429271.png https://www.speedtest.net/result/10403429271.png *1000/50 due to political reasons, despite being symmetric capable
- msoad 6y agoYour ping is even more impressive! I have 2ms ping wired but nearly 15ms on WiFi! Maybe I need to upgrade to WiFi 6 after all
- Bayart 6y agoI don't think he's using a WiFi 6 router (those are still extremely expensive, at least the decent ones) but the AX200 (and I assume the brand new AX210) is just a great chip. I'm using one on my desktop (you can buy it with a PCIe adapter and an external antenna) since I just don't fill like drilling and routing wire all over than old house alongside a crappy Xiaomi router and it's been rock solid for a year and a half. I've got an average ping to the router of ~2ms. >PING 192.168.31.1 (192.168.31.1) 56(84) bytes of data. >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.69 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.16 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.54 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=1.88 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=4.79 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=2.10 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=2.04 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=1.76 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=1.91 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=1.84 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=1.64 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=1.71 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=2.54 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=1.60 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=1.62 ms >64 bytes from 192.168.31.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=1.56 ms AFAIK the spikes are due to Windows' network discovery.
- microtherion 6y agoSo... does the 2 Gbit only offer higher bandwidth, or will it also offer lower latency to Google when they inevitably sunset it in a few years?
- fowkswe 6y agoIt would be great if they could just make the 1GB here in KC work as promised. I can't get higher than 500Mbs and often times it slows to sub 10Mbs.
- derekdahmer 6y agoIs this purely a marketing move so Google Fiber can say they are the fastest? Netflix streams max out at 25 mbps, so even a 1gbps connection can support 40 people simultaneous streaming video. The fastest game download I've ever seen only hit ~600mbps and was over in minutes. I love maxing out my connection so would probably pay for 2gbps if offered but even I think its kind of a silly number at the moment. There isn't much consumer grade multigig networking equipment and the gear that does exist is easily 5x the price of the gigabit version. Not complaining though! Any internet speed upgrade is great news.
- jcelerier 6y ago... the fastest ? in france we had 5gbit for a few years and some providers are starting to get close to 10gbit for their fiber offers: https://blog.ariase.com/box/faq/debit-fibre-free#:~:text=Free%20est%20le%20premier%20op%C3%A9rateur%20%C3%A0%20int%C3%A9grer%20la,jusqu%E2%80%99%C3%A0%20700%20Mb%2Fs%20pour%20l%E2%80%99envoi%20de%20fichiers%20%28upload%29 https://blog.ariase.com/box/faq/debit-fibre-free#:~:text=Fre....
- criddell 6y agoFew people need sustained 2 gbps access, but everybody could use it in a bursty way. Every time I turn on my PS4 there's it seems like there's some multi-gigabyte update that I have to apply first. I'd love for that to be pulled down in a few seconds rather than ten minutes.
- jedberg 6y agoPS4 updates are limited by the server at that point. You'll never get a download from a single source at gigabit speed (well at least not for many years). I have gigabit and can barely max it out even when I start five torrents at once. By the time it's found enough peers, it's already done.
- lokedhs 6y agoAs far as I can tell, PS4 updates are limited by the hard drive that the data is written to. It seems to reliably cap out at around 300 Mb/s, which is actually pretty good for a 7200 rpm hard drive. It'll be interesting to see what speeds we'll get on the PS5, where they are constantly advertising just how fast the storage is. On Steam I consistently get 900 Mb/s, but I have pretty fast storage on my PC.
- rndmize 6y agoI expect to see Elon on Mars before there's any wide availability of Google Fiber. I remember hearing about Verizon doing a big fiber rollout with Fios, it was going to be everywhere, the next big leap... in 2005. Google's efforts have been no better - what is it now, a decade to get a dozen metro areas? Not even whole cities, or even whole blocks from looking at the SF map, but actually building-specific! Community broadband seems to be the only real way to go these days.
- js2 6y agoGoogle Fiber is coming to Cary, NC any day now. I've got the t-shirt to prove it. Meanwhile I've had AT&T fiber for almost two years. So thank you Google for motivating AT&T to trench my city. 1Gbps symmetric for $70/mo no data cap.
- paxys 6y agoAt this point what does bumping up already fast speeds even further (1 Gig/2 Gig/5 Gig whatever) in a handful of neighborhoods really achieve? No one needs that much bandwidth today, and the vast, vast majority of the country (even most urban areas) is still struggling to get any reliable broadband.
- lokedhs 6y agoNeed? There are a lot of things people use but doesn't "need". Can one make good use of gigabit Internet connectivity? Yes, definitely. I wouldn't want to go back. If that qualifies as "need", I don't know, but it sure is convenient.
- earthboundkid 6y agoIs fiber still a good last mile solution compared to putting 5G on the roof?
- wffurr 6y agoYes. Dense areas or areas with poor line of sight won't be well served by 5G home service. Long distance 5G is only marginally faster than 4G, and neither is anywhere close to the bandwidth of fiber. Nothing is going to beat widely deployed fiber in urban areas.
- anderspitman 6y agoI have yet to see any wireless technology match cables for reliability, and I expect 5G to be worse, not better, in this respect.
- x87678r 6y agoDoes anyone actually need it? I had gig fiber but downgraded to 200mbps cable and can't notice the difference. (Except upstream is slow for uploads)
- ponker 6y agoMy house is wired for 10 gigabit Ethernet and I have a 1000 megabit symmetric ISP, but I find that I really just can't take advantage of this except when running Speedtest.net. Almost nobody I download from can saturate my downlink.
- jedberg 6y agoI have a symmetric gigabit connection now, and I can barely max it out. My main machines are wired internally with gigabit, and my wifi supports 1.3Gbps across the backhaul. The only time I've ever maxed it out is with five torrents running at once, and that only lasts a second or two, because then they're done. And we're not a light usage household. It's pretty common for us to have three or four streams all running at 1080 at the same time, plus other big downloads and videoconferencing. One main limiting factor is that I've never seen single service provider get close to gigabit speed (like updates from Apple or Sony for example). It has to be a swarm to get even close. I'm not sure what I'd do with 2Gbps. The rest of the internet just isn't there to support fully utilizing that connection.
- Youden 6y agoI also have 1Gbps and I'm able to max it, so long as the other end supports it (which is quite often). I regularly do it for downloads and for backups. But generally, at 1Gbps, the speed bottleneck starts to move away from the connection between you and your ISP and towards your ISP's connection to the rest of the internet. At this point, most of the residential ISPs start to fall apart.
- jedberg 6y agoWhat providers have you seen full gigabit downloads from? In my two years with gigabit, I have never once seen a full gigabit download from any service provider not using swarm technology (like Steam does).
- Youden 6y agoGoogle, Hetzner, OVH, Online.net, Feralhosting, linux package mirrors. Those are just the things I specifically remember. I don't want to be misleading though, claiming "full gigabit" might be a bit hyperbolic of me. By "full gigabit", I don't mean "exactly 1Gbps", but I'm easily able to reach the same speed to an external network as I'm able to obtain within my ISP's network. For example right now if I run a speedtest to my ISP's Speedtest.net server, I see 820Mbps. If I run an iperf3 test to my Feralhosting server, I see 820Mbps. If I run a iperf3 test to my Hetzner server, I see 894Mbps. It's not technically right at the 1Gbps that I pay for but it's close enough that I'm generally happy.
- tasty_freeze 6y agoSo annoying. I live in Austin and for years watched as they slowly built out neighborhoods, waiting for them to come to mine. Eventually they did, and a guy went door to door asking for a $10 deposit as a way of gauging interest. For a year they trenched and installed underground lines. Just as they did it in front of my house, Google announced they were no longer expanding their fiber network. Now there are three orange cable butts sticking up from the ground at each end of the block, lashed up to telephone poles but not connected to anything electrically. But I'm glad the people a couple blocks over from me are getting 2Gbps service while I suffer with Spectrum cable internet. Oh, they recently refunded the $10 they collected a couple years (or more) ago.