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you can bet your bottom dollar that Google will expand this service QUICKLY and get into the wireless broadband business post-haste. With what? A city here and

you can bet your bottom dollar that Google will expand this service QUICKLY and get into the wireless broadband business post-haste. With what? A city here and a city there is a great experiment hoping to push telcos into action. Trying to expand nationally can get hairy and extremely expensive. I have a feeling that Google is losing on this project and the "real price" would be much higher than the current one.

Nrsolis 14y ago
Why would you believe that? Google makes a lot of money on ads. This is the broadcast television model applied to Internet service. They can subsidize their service with ad revenue (cablecos do this too) and still make money. But you don't have to cover the whole nation to have an effect. You just find out the cities where the CableCos are extracting the highest rents and target those. You take away their gravy with the fattest OPEX margins and repeat until they cry uncle.
jedberg 14y ago
They've state repeatedly that this is a profitable enterprise for them. As a public company, they couldn't say that if it weren't true.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  They've state repeatedly that this is a profitable enterprise for them. As a public company, they couldn't say that if it weren't true. “Google received stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments, including free access to virtually everything the city owns or controls: rights of way, central office space, power, interconnections with anchor institutions, marketing and direct mail, and office space for Google employees.” http://bgr.com/2012/09/10/google-fiber-criticism-crony-capitalism-alleged/ http://bgr.com/2012/09/10/google-fiber-criticism-crony-capit... maybe they're profitable but that's not going to last or others (Comcast, AT&T etc) will sue the government for favoring Google over them. Even if they said it's profitable, it all depends. Maybe some of the costs are shifted from division to division within Google. Either way, just because they said so, doesn't mean there isn't some wiggle room. They cannot lie about total sales and revenues, but many companies do not even break down division sales.
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    Comcast and AT&T have received "stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments" and government-granted monopolies for decades.
  - Nrsolis 14y ago
    Surely you realize that local governments have been doing this in all sorts of industries. The give property tax abatements to WalMart or sales tax abatements for equipment deployed in a data center within their borders. This is nothing new. And like someone else mentioned, TWC and Comcast have had de-facto monopolies for the past 20-30 years. Cable companies are bound by a franchise agreement with the city. One of the things they agree to in that agreement is that they have non-exclusive access to the market via the public right-of-way. Also consider that one of the things cities will do is try to get ANYTHING that will bring jobs and industry/investment to their community. Growing the tax base is a prime directive of any city.
foobarqux 14y ago
> With what? A city here and a city there is a great experiment hoping to push telcos into action. Trying to expand nationally can get hairy and extremely expensive. I think the main impediment is popular support. When people realize, by way of comparison with cities that have Google fiber, that they are getting gouged government will be under pressure to improve broadband everywhere.

Nrsolis 14y ago

Why would you believe that? Google makes a lot of money on ads. This is the broadcast television model applied to Internet service. They can subsidize their service with ad revenue (cablecos do this too) and still make money. But you don't have to cover the whole nation to have an effect. You just find out the cities where the CableCos are extracting the highest rents and target those. You take away their gravy with the fattest OPEX margins and repeat until they cry uncle.

jedberg 14y ago

They've state repeatedly that this is a profitable enterprise for them. As a public company, they couldn't say that if it weren't true.

OGinparadise 14y ago
They've state repeatedly that this is a profitable enterprise for them. As a public company, they couldn't say that if it weren't true. “Google received stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments, including free access to virtually everything the city owns or controls: rights of way, central office space, power, interconnections with anchor institutions, marketing and direct mail, and office space for Google employees.” http://bgr.com/2012/09/10/google-fiber-criticism-crony-capitalism-alleged/ http://bgr.com/2012/09/10/google-fiber-criticism-crony-capit... maybe they're profitable but that's not going to last or others (Comcast, AT&T etc) will sue the government for favoring Google over them. Even if they said it's profitable, it all depends. Maybe some of the costs are shifted from division to division within Google. Either way, just because they said so, doesn't mean there isn't some wiggle room. They cannot lie about total sales and revenues, but many companies do not even break down division sales.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  Comcast and AT&T have received "stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments" and government-granted monopolies for decades.
- Nrsolis 14y ago
  Surely you realize that local governments have been doing this in all sorts of industries. The give property tax abatements to WalMart or sales tax abatements for equipment deployed in a data center within their borders. This is nothing new. And like someone else mentioned, TWC and Comcast have had de-facto monopolies for the past 20-30 years. Cable companies are bound by a franchise agreement with the city. One of the things they agree to in that agreement is that they have non-exclusive access to the market via the public right-of-way. Also consider that one of the things cities will do is try to get ANYTHING that will bring jobs and industry/investment to their community. Growing the tax base is a prime directive of any city.

foobarqux 14y ago

> With what? A city here and a city there is a great experiment hoping to push telcos into action. Trying to expand nationally can get hairy and extremely expensive. I think the main impediment is popular support. When people realize, by way of comparison with cities that have Google fiber, that they are getting gouged government will be under pressure to improve broadband everywhere.