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Google Fiber is coming to Las Vegas
- ddlutz 2y agoI'm surprised Google hasn't forgotten about Google fiber.
- thrtythreeforty 2y agoI'm forced to conclude that it's actually making money, else they would have killed it by now. I have it - signed up the day it was available at my house. One of the few Google things I'm pretty sure will continue to exist.
- benatkin 2y agoI think it must be that it will have the net effect of making people less free. They throw out stuff that could make money when it's good for freedom like Google Reader.
- astrange 2y agoI've been told why Reader was shut down and it was the opposite of this. (I can't repeat it because I forgot most of it.)
- somanyphotons 2y agoGoogle is perfectly willing to shut down a profitable product
- teractiveodular 2y agoAny examples you'd care to point out? All the high-profile Google shutdowns I can think of either failed in the marketplace (Stadia, Plus) or were successful but not making money (Reader, Hangouts).
- klooney 2y agoTheir DNS service comes to mind- although I guess it was divested, not killed.
- bagels 2y agoThey did kill it before. But it's back again.
- jldugger 2y agoGOOGLE: There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.
- HaZeust 2y agoAnd when they’re all dead, there’s only one thing you can do: Run their pockets and look for loose change.
- teractiveodular 2y agoFiber was not killed in the cities where it had already launched. What's new is that they're expanding again.
- hirvi74 2y agoI have also had Google Fiber since near its inception. I imagine it is profitable for Google because instead of tracking my browsing data, Google can just track all my packets now.
- LeafItAlone 2y agoOr maybe leadership has, and that’s why it’s still alive.
- wil421 2y agoThey did in my area 7 years ago almost as soon as it was announced. They wired new condos and apartments but nothing else. Luckily AT&T installed it on the pole by my house. I moved and lost fiber but have 1.2 down over coax but only 200 up.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Luckily AT&T installed it on the pole by my house This seems to be Google Fiber's purpose. Spurring the telcos into investing to maintain share.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThere was a spur from them starting up at all. I don't want to diminish that too badly. But since then, increasing their coverage area from a fraction of a percent up to 1% of the US population, I don't think that has spurred very much.
- bb88 2y agoThey basically did at some point about a decade or so ago maybe. Wimax and LTE were taking off at that time. Then about 2 years ago, Google woke up and started pushing fiber again. It's clear now that high speed fiber is the future. Cable companies aren't upgrading their networks anymore. It's unclear if the wireless companies will be able to support 10gig service. And the single mode fiber laid into the ground a decade or more ago has only increased in value.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y agois there any desire for residential 10g service? it's pretty hard to image how 90% of families would use up 200meg
- Schnitz 2y agoEver download a 100GB game? The 5x speed increase from 200mbit to 1gbit is significant. Most families have kids that game.
- vel0city 2y agoI'm actually downloading one right now off Steam, and I'm limited more by IOPS on the drive I'm installing to than I am my internet speed due to the compression/encryption/unpacking. Not even using much more than 100Mbits consistently here, but I am installing to a microSD on a gaming handheld. But devices like this are getting more popular especially for a multi-kid household. But even then, it's not something most people are constantly doing. Maybe a couple of times a month. I'd still probably go with more than 200Mbit for a family, but knowing how many of the families I know use their home internet they're rarely coming even close to routinely maxing out a 500Mbit connection even with several kids.
- bb88 2y agoThat's kinda like saying back in the 1990's that 90% of families wouldn't use more than 56.6k. Well, because that's all they had access to.
- UncleOxidant 2y agoThat's the problem. I'd be afraid that if I signed up for it they'd just cancel it a year or two later.
- scottyah 2y agoIt does align pretty closely to their mission statement "to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful for everyone", so it might be easier to make a case for its continued existence. It also is another branch of Alphabet so not directly in the Google mgmt chain. Though it looks like Alphabet is looking to sell it off, according to a reuters article Feb 5th, 2024.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 2y agoMaybe the AI people convinced them that downloading models would require faster internet.
- sounds 2y agoA common complaint I hear at defcon and other cons in vegas is that the hotel internet is terrible. Hopefully good internet service comes as a result of this?
- TheDudeMan 2y agoI'm guessing that's mostly wifi congestion.
- pxx 2y agoit's probably just a skill issue. the wifi at the Chaos Communication Congress, on the other hand, is spectacular.
- mschuster91 2y agowell the CCC crowd has many years of experience on their belt dealing with the absurd amount of traffic that only a nerd conference can sustain - and they do all of it on their own, the only thing the venue has to give them are rooms, power and fiber uplinks. CCC erects a whole damn ass datacenter and tears it down in a few days, that's a massive expense both financially and in volunteer time. Oh and on top of that comes all the video streaming and recording infrastructure, that stuff is rivaling actual large TV networks from what I hear. In contrast, for almost all other venues, providing networking is the responsibility of their owner, and they plan their networking gear not for the "one conference to rule them all" but for your everyday trade show.
- hooli_gan 2y agoAre there behind scenes videos of their wifi setup? I haven't found any.
- mschuster91 2y agoThe video team has a wiki [1] and the NOC a few photos on mastodon [2]. There used to be at least one more detailed report but FFS Google is useless these days. [1] https://c3voc.de/wiki/hardware https://c3voc.de/wiki/hardware [2] https://chaos.social/@c3noc/media https://chaos.social/@c3noc/media
- htrp 2y agoI thought they killed this project years ago
- zie 2y agoIt was basically dead for a while, apparently it's being resurrected.
- rconti 2y ago> GFiber service will be available in parts of the metro area later this year. Nevada residents and business owners will be able to choose between Google Fiber’s plans with prices that haven’t changed since 2012 and speeds up to 8 gig. The author of the press release is under the mistaken belief that unchanged broadband pricing is a good thing. From the linked price page: 1gig: $70/mo 2gig: $100/mo 5gig: $125/mo 8 gig: $150/mo There was a time I would have been insanely jealous of any fiber option at all here in the Bay Area, and I know how hard it is to find fiber anywhere in the US, even still here in many parts of the Bay. But when the fiber actually arrives, it becomes clear how cheap it is to provide. When AT&T finally rolled fiber to my house in ~2019 it was $80/mo for 1gig symmetrical. And you know AT&T's shareholders are still making money hand over fist at that price, because today, I pay Sonic $50 per month for 10gig symmetrical.
- doublepg23 2y agoI’m paying $59.95 for symmetric 1Gbps in Pittsburgh and my only complaint is the lack of IPv6. It’s absolutely rock solid.
- homefree 2y agoIt's still pretty hard to find fiber in the bay for decent prices. I have 1gb symmetric in SF, but that's pretty uncommon. The 10gb sonic is only in some neighborhoods. I lived in Palo Alto for a long time and the options there were awful. 1gb down 35mbps up Comcast was the best option and it was well over $100/mo - there may have been a 2gb option for $300/mo and a 2yr commitment.
- rconti 2y agoYep, my in-laws in Menlo Park had insanely slow SBC DSL with high packet loss. SBC actually just discontinued the service rather than do anything useful. I once paid that ridiculous $149/mo for the 1gig Comcast service until I got tired of the bill that I was really only paying for bragging rights, and went back to 250Mbps.
- ghaff 2y ago
- bonestamp2 2y agoSince Google made a big donation, maybe Trump will clear the way for google to plow through the red tape to create more high-speed internet competition, which should lower the price for many Americans. I doubt it will happen, but one can dream.
- cheshire137 2y agoIs it really? Still waiting for it to be available everywhere in Nashville after they started here nearly a decade ago.
- warmedcookie 2y agoGot fiber here in Memphis last year (CSpire), don't lose hope!
- silisili 2y agoDo y'all have fiber at all? Most if not all of remote middle TN from Cookeville to Winchester has cheap FTTH. I live in unincorporated acreage, and was surprised they just came out this year to run a fiber line to my house. 57/mo for symmetrical gig. Goes up to 8, but that's a couple hundred.
- cwalv 2y agoThat's how it is in Vegas presently: CenturyLink has fiber service but it's scattered around unpredictability, and in areas where it's not available it may never be. Hopefully Google fiber (un)availability doesn't overlap too much, but I expect that it will.
- amelius 2y agoLet me guess ... Download speed: 10Gbps Upload speed: 10Mbps
- bb88 2y agoGoogle Fiber is symmetrical.
- bitpush 2y agoIsnt fiber symmetrical?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- monocasa 2y agoIt doesn't have to be, but Google fiber is.
- lazycouchpotato 2y agoXfinity hasn't gotten that notice apparently. They offer 1 Gbps download in my area with 20 Mbps upload. And it comes with a 1.2 TB limit. EDIT: I'm wrong. The Xfinity in my area is on cable.
- kbolino 2y agoAFAIK Xfinity (Comcast) is not deploying FTTP anywhere. It's a cable network on DOCSIS. The fiber usually stops at the CMTS which is far away from the home; one CMTS serves multiple neighborhoods if not the entire town.
- lazycouchpotato 2y agoTook another look at the connection info and yeah you're right. The Xfinity connection in my area is cable. Not sure why I thought it was fiber. Thanks for the correction.
- 2y ago
- jakebasile 2y agoGoogle Fiber was announced for Austin in 2013, and 12 years later it's still not available at my Austin address. I have used AT&T Fiber for as many years and it works great (currently at 2G symmetrical for $105/m).
- trashcan 2y agoSame. My neighbors have it and apparently I am never getting it.
- aizk 2y agoI forgot google fiber existed, but more shocked that google hasn't cancelled it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- idontwantthis 2y agoThere are three different fiber ISPs all “coming soon” in Vegas. I hope they come sooner.
- alostpuppy 2y agoWhat are the other ones?
- idontwantthis 2y agoATT and Quantum. Those both have fiber in some neighborhoods but don’t seem to be expanding quickly.
- cwalv 2y agoI wouldn't hold my breath. At my previous house, CenturyLink/quantum site said it was available. I called half a dozen times to get it installed, each time some contractor would show up and tell me it's not available. I was confused because they spent months very visibility installing it throughout the neighborhood. Talking to some of the contractors, it was interesting to hear stories about why it was available in some areas but not others just a few houses down. Eventually, one of them did figure out how to get me connected.
- idontwantthis 2y agoCan you say what the issue was?
- cwalv 2y agoI didn't fully understand the details when they were explaining it to be, but iirc something was disconnected around the corner, and they couldn't just reconnect it because it wasn't the right hardware. This played out over several months
- newsclues 2y agoStill sad more cities don't roll out their own fiber and own the utility for the local community.
- nashashmi 2y agoThey should rename the company to reflect their pivot to wireless broadband
- randmeerkat 2y agoIt’s Google, it’ll be shut down a week after the fiber goes live.
- kernal 2y agoIt started in 2010. How much longer should we wait for your prediction to come true?
- randmeerkat 2y ago> It started in 2010. How much longer should we wait for your prediction to come true? Google has already actively started soliciting outside investors to spin off Google Fiber. Don't hold your breath. Nothing escapes the Google Graveyard, its gravitational mass is simply too large. "GFiber has already hired an investment bank to start the process of selling equity in the company, according to a source close to Alphabet's efforts. The future goal is for GFiber to be independent from Alphabet, the source said on condition of anonymity." https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/alphabet-is-seeking-outside-investment-its-gfiber-internet-business-2024-02-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/alphabet-is-s...
- Dylan16807 2y agoI don't see any reason to think that would involve a shutdown. Especially because, who would invest in that?
- wzyoi 2y agoBack when I lived in Ukraine in 2021, I got our family a 1Gbps fiber connection. We lived on the edge of the city, and it was insanely hard to find a provider. I knew internet was super cheap in Ukraine and was going to leave Ukraine in the following years, so getting a 1Gbps fiber as an all-time-at-home person was a great idea. I ended up finding 2 providers that had fiber, and 1 of them had 1Gbps. I was super happy to have symmetrical 1Gbps for $15 a month for the time I could spend there. Here, in Vancouver, I am happy to have 250Mbps/15Mbps for $40 per month.
- tills13 2y ago$15 for 1gpbs is insane. That was costing me $120+ over on Vancouver Island. If you want a good deal wait for BF / CM / Boxing Week. I upgraded to 3gbps fibre for $75/mo from Telus over boxing week. Almost as good a deal as your Internet in Ukraine.
- griomnib 2y agoSo the FCC is going to let them spy on the last mile with no restrictions. Nice of Sundar to come back from DC with a gift.
- Glyptodon 2y agoI have 2gig symmetrical from a non-Google provider that works fine in an (at least) second tier city for $100/mo. It seemed really trivial to install, I don't think there's an excuse to not have it everywhere than can have a telephone line.
- roflmaostc 2y agoOn another note, I'm living in Switzerland and have 10Gbit/s symmetric up and download. For CHF 50/month ($55/month).
- kernal 2y agoI was told by the pundits on here that it would be shutting down. Is there a new estimate?
- naushniki 2y agoI remember reading about Google Fiber in the news 10+ years ago. At that time the idea of having a multi-gigabit internet connection at home felt very exciting and futuristic. Today, fiber at home is almost a given in many countries. I mean, it is good that LA residents will have access to fast internet. But this is commodity now. I don't get it why is this in the news.
- saagarjha 2y agoLas Vegas, not Los Angeles.
- hirvi74 2y agoI've had Google Fiber for almost a decade now. It's fine enough. I've had weird issues in the past though and it's been rather unfriendly when it comes to setting up things like a VPN on a router -- though this was many years ago. Perhaps things have changed? I also had an issue 6 or so years ago where Google Fiber would block sites that did not have both an IPv6 and IPv4 address. Nonetheless, service has been fine otherwise. I'd say Google Fiber has probably been the second best ISP I have used despite my ever slowly growing hatred of all things Google.
- cletus 2y agoSpeaking as a former Google Fiber software engineer, I'm honestly surprised this is still around. In 2017, basically all the Google Fiber software teams went on hiatus (mine included). I can't speak to the timing or rationale but my theory is that the Google leadership couldn't decide if the future of Internet was wired or wireless and a huge investment in wired may be invalidated if the future Internet was wired so rather than guessing wrong, the leadership simply decided to definitely lose by mothballing the whole thing. At that time, several proposed cities were put on hiatus, some of which had already hired local people. In 2019, Google Fiber exited Louisville, KY, paying penalties for doing so [1]. That really seemed like the end. I also speculated that Google had tried or was trying to sell the whole thing. I do wonder if the resurrection it seems to have undergone is simply a result of the inability to find a buyer. I have no information to suggest that one way or the other. There were missteps along the way. A big example was the TV software that was originally an acquisition, SageTV [2]. Somebody decided it would be a good idea to completely rewrite this Java app into Web technologies on an embedded Chrome instance on a memory-limited embedded CPU in a set-top box. Originally planned to take 6 months, it took (IIRC) 3.5+ years. But that didn't actually matter at all in the grand scheme of things because the biggest problem and the biggest cost was physical network infrastructure. It is incredibly expensive and most of the issues are hyperlocal (eg soil conditions, city ordinances) as well as decades of lobbying by ISPs of state and local governments to create barriers against competition. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/google-fiber-exits-louisville-pays-city-3-8m-to-clean-up-the-mess-it-left https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/googl... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/06/google-buys-up-sagetv-to-bolster-google-tv-with-useful-features/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/06/googl...
- throwaway314155 2y ago> In 2017, basically all the Google Fiber software teams went on hiatus (mine included). What does a hiatus entail in this case? Did these teams all just stop working on Fiber stuff and sit around all day hoping they would be given something to do?
- dtaht 2y ago
- anonymousiam 2y agoI've got a place in Vegas that's presently served by CenturyLink. It has 1G/1G symmetrical fiber at a guaranteed fixed price of $65/mo. 8G is appealing. So far I haven't seen a map or a timeline of where/when. I signed up for status emails from Google over a year ago.
- jhloa2 2y agoThey just raised the price on my fixed for life deal from Century Link. If you look back, there's nothing in the documentation/terms that actually claimed it was for life. Super shady on their end and I'm going to switch to Google Fiber once they're finished installing it in my neighborhood (they're currently in the installation process)
- cwalv 2y agoSame here ($65 -> $75); I think it's an "equipment fee." I don't even use the router. My employer covers the cost so I haven't called to complain, but I suspect if you do you can return the router and lose the fee.
- anonymousiam 2y agoI keep the router they gave me in one of my garages. The only time I've ever connected it was when their service had a problem and they wanted to run remote diagnostics. The other 99.9999% of the time, I use an OpenWRT VM. I would not have accepted the router if there were any strings attached, and they're welcome to take it back if they want to start charging me for it.
- anonymousiam 2y agoThe only way they could have raised the price was if you opted into their new "Quantum Fiber" plan. I got the snail-mail postcards offering me the "upgrade", but I did not see any benefit. They offered exactly the same service I already have. I assumed (correctly) that they were just trying to get out of the $65/mo "lifetime" deal they promised. I still have the deal. Edit: I just checked, and Quantum Fiber now offers 2G/1G (two down, one up) fiber in my Vegas neighborhood for $95/mo. They are claiming it's a "lifetime" price guarantee. I'll keep waiting for Google's 10G fiber.
- more_corn 2y agoWoah. gFiber still exists?
- vyrotek 2y agoThe comments here are interesting. Mesa AZ signed a deal with Google in 2022 and I got fiber installed last summer. It was all new fiber in the streets in my neighborhood too. And I still see lots of constructions signs for it around. Definitely seem to still be growing. Two other new competitors are also in the area.
- b8 2y agoWell that's good, but they haven't even installed GFiber in cities they're in right now such as Omaha and Chicago etc. It's surprising how many places still don't have Fiber, and you can check your area with FCC's website: https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home
- sneak 2y agoCan’t come soon enough. I pay over $200/mo for Cox here in LV (including a surcharge for “unlimited data”) and still get 20% of advertised speeds at 7pm and nastygrams when I upload a 2TB photography backup. Cox and CenturyLink are monopolistic criminals and should receive corporate death penalties for their misconduct.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoMeanwhile; in the world capital of tech, I’m paying Cox for lousy coaxial over nearly 30 year old cable because nobody will pay to lay a fiber on my street (not even neighborhood… street)
- qwertox 2y agoI love the photo of the information sign "GFiber - Work being performed by ... Permit # ... Phone numbers:" All the relevant information on one sign.
- sakopov 2y agoMy parents have had Google Fiber since 2011 or 2012. It's been a joy. The uptime has been great and the price has pretty much remained the same for 1Gig. In Los Angeles I pay $90/mo for 100mbps Spectrum connection which drops once a week and has gone up from $40 to $90/mo in just under 2 years. Worst of all is Spectrum has complete monopoly and I have nowhere else to go.
- getpost 2y agoCheck again? https://frontier.com/shop/internet/fiber-internet https://frontier.com/shop/internet/fiber-internet We used to have Spectrum, but switched to Frontier Fiber as soon as it was available, a couple years ago now. Apart from a few hiccups during the first few weeks of service, it's been very reliable.
- yalogin 2y agoWait, google fiber is not shutdown?
- kjellsbells 2y agoI cant shake a feeling that above 50pM/1gig, it doesnt matter how fast residential Internet is. Back when WFH really meant FTPing a whole file down, working on it, and then FTPing it back up, sure. But gdrive and OneDrive and so on all seem quite happy to only send you the blocks you are working on, Teams/Zoom uses remarkably little bandwidth, and games distribution seems to use a combination of CDN and JIT downloads, at least after the initial 80G download for the first user. I know this is n=1 sampling, but my house of 5 was merrily WFH-ing on 100M for ages with nary a whimper. Does it really matter, in 2025? What does seem to matter is variability: latency and jitter, and the stability of the network inside the house (eg wifi contention). The pipe is the least of one's worries, it would seem.