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Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas
- pash 14y ago> Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014. The timeline Google's followed in Kansas City suggests it will be another year until service is available to a significant chunk of Austin, and likely well into 2016 or beyond before the whole city is hooked up. Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that. But hopefully the build-out gets ramped up, both in Austin and KC, now that Google's had some time to work out some of the early kinks.
- clauretano 14y agoThis is how it goes with most service roll outs. If the people in the suburbs are really miffed that they aren't one of the first areas picked for Google Fiber, perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl. Congrats to any Austin HNers on your freedom from [insert Austin cable monopoly here]
- mayneack 14y agoI wonder if this timeline is slow enough for a given city's cable monopoly to respond with price/terms/bandwidth competition in time to head off google fiber. Doesn't mean they will, but I would think that this is slow enough that they could theoretically ramp it up.
- jseliger 14y ago>perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl. I'm sympathetic to this point of view, but in many places it's not possible for everyone to live in the city center because of development restrictions that drive up prices (see here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... one discussion that I've posted before, albeit about California).
- thrownaway2424 14y agoThat article you linked demonstrates the opposite of what you claimed. It's talking about building restrictions in the sprawl itself and, in the Lucas case, in the middle of a rural area.
- njharman 14y agoClose to downtown is expensive because all the shit people are willing to pay a premium for. Distance to work, nightlife, parks, scarcity of family oriented suburbanites, and being where things like Google Fiber are first to roll out.
- driverdan 14y agoTX is not CA. There are high rises going up all over downtown Austin. People are building as fast as they can get permits.
- unwiredben 14y agoWe actually have a bit of a cable duopoly in a lot of the city. Both Grande Communications and Time Warner run systems here, although Grande's build-out area is a bit smaller.
- sounds 14y agoGrande is a small(ish) Texas ISP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Communications I do hope Time-Warner is severely disrupted, though.
- bullfightonmars 14y agoI've been really happy with Grande, they provide the best cable internet I've ever had (65/5 mb/s) for $70. Great uptime, with very consistent service. That said google fiber at 1gb/s, yes plz.
- weej 14y agoDon't forget AT&T.
- mesozoic 14y agoThere's also AT&T with Uverse. I'm pretty sure Grande just leases lines but may have better service.
- Legion 14y ago> Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that. I'm interested to see where in the priority list some of the closer suburbs are. Round Rock, after all, is Dell headquarters. I'd have to imagine there is going to be some strong demand up there.
- j4ustin 14y agoThey said the roll-out was focusing on Austin City Limits, and more specifically they stated the desire to release Fiber in public buildings (offices, hospitals, schools, etc.). This paired with the UT Austin teacher video they released leads me to believe it'll be available to the campus area, probably downtown as well (St. Davids main and Brackenridge Medical Center) and probably the surrounding neighborhoods. Personally, I would be surprised if it went east of I-35, south of Capitol of Texas highway, west of Mopac, or North of 183 in its initial release.
- johnwyles 14y agoI hope you're right! I just bought a house in 78704 :)
- jmsduran 14y agoI hope the fiber roll-out will also include the 78758/78759 Austin areas, not just because I live in the area, but also cause Google's Austin office is located there too :).
- gonzo 14y agoThat office is limited to sales and marketing. But yes, I'd expect that 78758/78759 was lit.
- hadees 14y agoI would say with out a doubt it'll go east of I-35. East Austin is an up and coming neighborhood. The Hipster demand there will be fierce plus it has a ton of lower income households still which will look good for the free internet (with installation fee) version of google fiber. Additionally during SXSW a lot of the tech people stay over there. I think one of the reasons Austin was picked was to show off the speed during events like SXSW and Austin City Limits. The only question is how far east it'll go.
- dkhenry 14y agoI really want to see the ROI google is planning on having for theses projects. If my calculations[1] are correct they only need something like 200,000 customers to sign up to get a ROI of one year on both roll outs. ~ 100M for both rollouts @ $70 per customer per month
- meritt 14y agoI'd argue Google's ROI on the service itself a very small piece of the pie and almost irrelevant. Google gains most of their revenue from advertising on their properties. More people online + faster access = more advertising revenue. Especially in a market like Kansas City which is dominated by TWC who is notorious for misrepresenting bandwidth, throttling against high bandwidth sites (youtube & netflix) and has noticeable capacity issues during peak usage times.
- mikeash 14y agoI imagine they're aiming for a high multiplier effect, too. Even if Google Fiber never reaches a large percentage of the American public, its mere existence may spur action on the part of other ISPs. For every Fiber customer Google signs up directly, they might indirectly obtain much better internet (and thus more advertising revenue) for maybe 10 other people using other ISPs.
- dkhenry 14y agobut what do you do if that multiplier doesn't appear ? From what I have seen even when Verizon started a massive rollout of FiOS it didn't spur other ISP's to offer a competing service, they just relied on the fact that rolling out to _every_ market would be cost prohibitive. It looks like with Google Fiber the existing ISP's are taking the same track.
- mikeash 14y agoI don't know, my Comcast offerings got substantially better over the last few years before I moved, going from 6/1Mbps to about 20/5, and I could have had well beyond 100Mbps down by the end if I felt like paying for it.
- wesray 14y agoLove it, Austin is such a great tech bubble right now, this will just continue the trend for a long while, they picked a great spot to do this (mainly because I live in Austin, lol)
- xradionut 14y agoAustin is in a state, (Texas), with a lot of pending issues coming to roost... education, traffic, migration, water/drought, social safety net. As much as I love my native state, I don't see any leadership addressing these.
- dr_doom 14y agoIt's important to note that California is just as bad or worse in a lot of those areas. All the things you mentioned are pretty bad in California. Public education is terrible, traffic is outrageous, there is a huge immigration 'problem', and the forest fires are pretty bad. To each his own but Californian leadership isn't really that great. I just can't decide who is worse Perry or Brown.
- tufyjggbfhry 14y agoNyc also had a pretty bad immigration problem. Those pesky italians and their mafia. The Irish were no better. And on top of that Mexicans are no arriving in droves. When will it ever end? When?
- enraged_camel 14y agoI realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here. On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(
- kintamanimatt 14y agoWhat environmental regulations?
- wj 14y agoMaybe the California Coastal Commission. They have a notoriously long approval process for almost anything.
- DannyBee 14y agoRemove environmental, and you've got it. California in general has a ridiculous set of regulations for doing anything related to building. Individual counties are even worse (often requiring fighting with county-paid or city-paid arborists to remove trees on your own property, etc) For giggles, read the story of PEX tubing and California. PEX has been used in Europe with no issues since the 60's. For many years, California was the only state to ban PEX, for no reason. After it's adoption into the 2006 UPC, california started to take steps to add it to the california codes. This resulted in 3 environmental studies, two environmental impact reports, 2 lawsuits against California for trying to adopt it, and 5 years of work. http://www.bsc.ca.gov/Home/New/PEX.aspx http://www.bsc.ca.gov/Home/New/PEX.aspx This covers only the post-2009 part of the saga.
- jseliger 14y agoCEPA, the California Environmental Protection Act, is the most obvious, and IIRC the most onerous state-mandated environmental act in the country. It's (one) part of what makes building in CA so difficult.
- ericabiz 14y ago
- BryanB55 14y agoI'm in Austin and can't wait. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to continue to pay TimeWarner for another 1-2 years at least. I'm interested to see where the first 'fiberhood' is going to be in Austin. South Austin, 78704 would be awesome. Any Austin people on here have any guesses?
- mildweed 14y agoIf not longer. I live in KC and am probably going to have to wait another 1-2 years.
- j4ustin 14y agoI would bet you'll be in the first (or second) roll out of fiberhoods. My best bet is UT Austin and downtown first, plus surrounding neighborhoods. Then they'll move West, then South.
- christopherscot 14y agoborn & raised in Austin, just might have to move back (from Silicon Valley) :)
- DoggettCK 14y agoAnnounced the day after I signed a contract on a house outside the service area. It was clearly me holding you back the whole time, Austin. I'm so sorry.
- iamdave 14y agoYou can redeem yourself by washing your car and summoning the rain gods. That little sprinkle we got last week was a bit of a tease.
- DoggettCK 14y agoI literally did get my car washed last week, and the next evening, we had water 10 feet past the doors at work. Willie Nelson never should've built this place below the parking lot. This is the worst superpower.
- specialp 14y agoGoogle here is doing what they do best which is sticking to their core business of advertising/search while spending a bit here and there to disrupt businesses that they see as threatening to their core business. It is to Google's advantage to have fast pipes to their users. Right now they are getting their intended result from people in the USA. If Kansas City can have gigabit internet for a low price why can't I? The consumers then will pressure their provider to do the same. However it is not as easy for every other telco. 1. They need to be profitable. 2. They cannot cherry pick areas with high density yet low costs of rollout/living like KC and Austin. So I do not think Google will ever do this nationwide as it is a bad business to be in with enormous red tape, capital expenditures and geographic distribution. It is a smart move on their behalf to do this but people should not get their hopes up for a nationwide distribution, it will never happen.
- brd 14y ago"In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats" - Warren Buffett I completely agree that its in Google's interest to have faster pipes. But I think Google Fiber may just be another moat for Google, another way for them to hinder their perceived threats. This was an excellent write up on Google's strategy to build business moats (from 2011): http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-android/ http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-an...
- loganfrederick 14y agoI tried search for a direct link and didn't immediately see one, but Buffett himself has said before that he likes Google and, if it were older and had a slightly less risky profile for him, it would be the ideal company. It's core business is vitally important and is very capital efficient.
- OGinparadise 14y agoBut I think Google Fiber may just be another moat for Google, another way for them to hinder their perceived threats. When FB was asked about a phone they said that any phone user they'd get it wouldn't move the scale given their 1 billion+ users. Same with Google, it's extremely expensive to wire a significant number of their users, so they are doing this hoping AT&T, Comcast etc upgrade their connection and match the price. Which they might--in the areas where Google is entering. Personally, I would not count of the price being, say $70 for a long time.
- 6thSigma 14y agoNow AT&T is announcing that they are building a 1Gbps fiber service in Austin as well. http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet-austin-texas-official/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet-...
- k3n 14y agoI've heard a lot of things from AT&T customers, and "satisfied" is never one of them. This is too little too late, and I'm pretty sure that most of their current customers can't wait to jump ship -- regardless of whatever carrots that they bring out at the last minute.
- kyrra 14y agoUverse has been solid for me. I've had them for 4 years now and they've had very limited downtime (a lot less then I had with TimeWarner). I'll happily move to Google Fiber, but Uverse has treated me just fine. While I wish their upload speeds were faster, but I haven't really had any options that were faster. What issues have you had with them exactly?
- k3n 14y agoI've never used them -- but my friends constantly complain of disconnects, slow speeds, shotty tech support, high rates, etc. While I'm sure these types of problems are often localized, I've heard the same complaints from geographically diverse friends. My only problem is that they're a monopoly slowly reconstituting itself like the T-1000 from Terminator[1]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-1000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-1000
- bconway 14y agoMaybe you're referring to Internet access only, but the over-compressed picture quality on Uverse is horrible, especially compared to easily-obtained OTA in the Austin area.
- CrazedGeek 14y ago
- kyrra 14y agoFor those wondering where Google will roll out, we don't have exact details, but we have some information. 1) They said they will stick to Austin City Limits, which means within these boundaries [1]. 2) For those that followed up with how KC operated, Google runs their lines on electrical poles and all places the city power company has lines. This is one of the big things KC and Austin have in common: city owned electric utility. With that google can run all their lines much easier. So, if you get electricity from Austin Energy, you will likely be eligible to get Google Fiber at some point. 3) Beyond that, it will be up to people like us to advocate in our neighborhood to get people to sign up for the service. Whatever areas have a large # of people pledge to sign up will be more likely to get it. To me this means south and east Austin. But at the same time, north austin has a lot of tech employees from Dell, Freescale, PayPal, and other large companies (though many of those people may live in Round Rock). [1] http://www.zipmap.net/Texas/Travis_County/Austin.htm http://www.zipmap.net/Texas/Travis_County/Austin.htm [1.1] (easier on the eyes map) http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary-map/city/Austin/state/TX/cityid/4805000 http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary-map/city/Austin/...
- bretthoerner 14y ago> To me this means south and east Austin. Why is that?
- kyrra 14y agoThinking about it now, I'd say south Austin more than east. Check out the population density map of austin (PDF): http://www.austinchamber.com/do-business/files/maps/PopDensity2012.pdf http://www.austinchamber.com/do-business/files/maps/PopDensi... If I were google, I would want to deploy to the more dense places (that could afford the service). South Austin seems to be the more "hip" place to live, and I think people in their 20-35 age range would be more likely to want to jump on Google Fiber. I could be totally wrong, but it's just a guess.
- clavalle 14y agoI'd guess north and west myself. Some south. The hipster parts of east.
- stephenhuey 14y agoGoogle, come launch in a small subset of Houston! I'll bet the city would love to make a deal for you to deploy in EaDo. START Houston is there and it'd attract significant investment to an underutilized area literally a few blocks from downtown that Houston is eager to develop.
- phireph0x 14y agoGoogle, Tulsa, Oklahoma is waiting with open arms.
- juddlyon 14y agoThis is going to be awesome, I feel lucky to live here (double lucky that my neighborhood is a prime target). I'd love to connect with some hackers in KC to hear how Google Fiber has affected them. Does anyone have any resources about KC startups, what Google Fiber opens up, etc.?
- sarde 14y agoGoogle, Chicago wants gigabit speeds:P
- BryanB55 14y agoThis is kind of funny... AT&T suddenly decided to offer a 1gb network: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=24032&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=36275 http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=24032&cdvn=news...
- clavalle 14y ago"This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T’s anticipated 2013 capital expenditures." This is what pisses me off. Telcos have the capability and it won't even hit them that hard, financially. They just want to drag their feet to eek out whatever extra sliver of profit they can out of the current status quo.
- caw 14y agoIn big-co speak that could mean either it's close to free, or they're rearranging their capex to prioritize Austin in order to compete (e.g. someone else isn't getting upgrades)
- gonzo 14y agoOr that AT&T already has a TON of fiber in the ground in Austin, from back in the 90s.
- caw 14y agoEven if they have dark or underutilized fiber it doesn't mean that it's a 0 expenditure. So you don't have to rip up the street, but optics are pretty expensive. That's not even counting a need for new switches if it's not 1 Gbps capable.
- aspensmonster 14y agoSo they're aiming for the suburbs (where they already have FTTN) before Google has a chance to roll out from the city. This is gonna be good. Microwaving my popcorn already.
- bhartzer 14y agoCan't wait til it comes to the Dallas area. It's getting closer...
- ippisl 14y agoI wonder if we'll see a counter measure by cable companies: offer google to run their tv ads and build them set top boxesand share profits, while google stops this broadband stuff ? That would be interesting.
- rdl 14y agoI wonder how hard it would be to get both AT&T gigabit and google gigabit in the same place.
- yoster 14y agoI'm so jealous.
- maximedegreve 14y agoWe need you in London!