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Speed is not even the biggest thing here. Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s. I'm sure if they wanted to go to 1Gbit

by nlh 14y ago

Speed is not even the biggest thing here. Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s. I'm sure if they wanted to go to 1Gbit they could. As can AT&T in Austin. The thing that's exciting about Google Fiber is what it represents -- reasonable cost, no bandwidth caps, net neutrality, etc. Google WANTS its customers to use the Internet as much as possible. The more HD videos people watch on YouTube and the more people surf the web the more ads they show and the more money they make. The opposite is true with AT&T -- they'll start metering and charging the second they can. I'd take 100Mbit Google service over 1Gbit AT&T service any day of the week.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Not to mention the latency. Apparently gFiber has much better ping times.
- dmishe 14y ago
  I think it's too small to make any kind of judgement on that, first ATT networks were probably very good. That said, I'm sure they will keep up the quality
- zero_intp 14y ago
  times to what is always the question. The big G has some limited backbone but growing, but what is their transit for that service?
chez17 14y ago
As someone else pointed out, when you have an entire OS built on being connected to the cloud, connection speeds becomes an important issue.
pifflesnort 14y ago
> Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s Where? The entire time I've lived in NYC, in neighborhoods with population density between 30k to 70k people per square mile, I've never, ever, ever had FIOS available to me. Sure, I've heard about the rare building that has it, but as far as I can tell, it's marketing with just enough actual deployment that we can't call it vaporware.
- nlh 14y ago
  I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm on the UWS and my building got FiOS a few years ago. Started at 100Mbit, then upped it to 150 at half the price. They offer a 300Mbit service but it's $300 a month and even bandwidth-hungry I can't justify that. Some friends who live in Silver Towers (42nd St) also have it.
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  http://www22.verizon.com/local/new-york-fios/ http://www22.verizon.com/local/new-york-fios/ Google search term: verizon fios nyc. Put Manhattan in the search box on the map. Looks like a few hundred buildings in a 1 mile radius from the center of Manhattan.
  - shmerl 14y ago
    FiOS in NY is expanding very slowly (not just in Manhattan but in all 5 boroughs). Staten Island got more coverage than most, because it's less urban. Constructing in the middle of the city is always way more expensive, and Verizon is not rushing to do it.
  - king_jester 14y ago
    When you look at that map, the majority of manhattan doesn't have fios available, let alone the other boroughs.
    - jamesaguilar 14y ago
      What? http://i.imgur.com/r6ZJny0.png http://i.imgur.com/r6ZJny0.png Looking at that map, it's not clear at all that Manhattan doesn't have coverage. And this is only what's within a two mile radius of the center.
      - pifflesnort 14y ago
        It only looks like a lot when you're not zoomed in. The density here is very, very, very high. The vast majority of buildings aren't covered.
smcguinness 14y ago
What I want is competition. I have U-verse, but why can't I have FIOS. Here in Frisco, TX it seems there are agreements between the providers to focus on certain neighborhoods have one or the other, but never both. I want to choose who I connect to the internet through, just like I choose grocery stores, cell phone providers and just about anything else.
- techsupporter 14y ago
  What's funny is, depending on which side of Frisco you are on, you do have that choice. In general, if you are west of the Tollway, you can get both services. Several other cities in north Texas are like that (Watauga, for instance, as well as Keller, north Fort Worth, far North Dallas). What you are seeing, at least in Texas, is the historical division between what used to be GTE and Southwestern Bell. Back when those companies were regulated utilities, you are exactly right: the markets were divvied up between the two. Generally, Southwestern Bell got the big cities and GTE got the suburbs and rural areas. Inertia and a general unwillingness to rock the boat means that situation persists, though you can see some areas where it has melded.
commandar 14y ago
>Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s. Which is great if you're in NYC. There are huge portions of the country -- I'm familiar with the former Bellsouth territories personally -- where you can't get FiOS or U-Verse at all. I'm in a metro area with ~250k people, and you might be able to get 6Mbs DSL from AT&T; many areas of the city top out at 3Mbs.
- mikeash 14y ago
  Even here in Northern Virginia, it's spotty. Alexandria is still a FiOS-free zone, for example. Verizon was planning on it for a couple of years, but then changed their mind. Their statement said, essentially, that they already had enough FiOS customers and didn't need any more, thanks but no thanks.

by nlh 14y ago

sliverstorm 14y ago

Not to mention the latency. Apparently gFiber has much better ping times.

dmishe 14y ago
I think it's too small to make any kind of judgement on that, first ATT networks were probably very good. That said, I'm sure they will keep up the quality
zero_intp 14y ago
times to what is always the question. The big G has some limited backbone but growing, but what is their transit for that service?

chez17 14y ago

As someone else pointed out, when you have an entire OS built on being connected to the cloud, connection speeds becomes an important issue.

pifflesnort 14y ago

> Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s Where? The entire time I've lived in NYC, in neighborhoods with population density between 30k to 70k people per square mile, I've never, ever, ever had FIOS available to me. Sure, I've heard about the rare building that has it, but as far as I can tell, it's marketing with just enough actual deployment that we can't call it vaporware.

nlh 14y ago
I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm on the UWS and my building got FiOS a few years ago. Started at 100Mbit, then upped it to 150 at half the price. They offer a 300Mbit service but it's $300 a month and even bandwidth-hungry I can't justify that. Some friends who live in Silver Towers (42nd St) also have it.
jamesaguilar 14y ago
http://www22.verizon.com/local/new-york-fios/ http://www22.verizon.com/local/new-york-fios/ Google search term: verizon fios nyc. Put Manhattan in the search box on the map. Looks like a few hundred buildings in a 1 mile radius from the center of Manhattan.
- shmerl 14y ago
  FiOS in NY is expanding very slowly (not just in Manhattan but in all 5 boroughs). Staten Island got more coverage than most, because it's less urban. Constructing in the middle of the city is always way more expensive, and Verizon is not rushing to do it.
- king_jester 14y ago
  When you look at that map, the majority of manhattan doesn't have fios available, let alone the other boroughs.
  - jamesaguilar 14y ago
    What? http://i.imgur.com/r6ZJny0.png http://i.imgur.com/r6ZJny0.png Looking at that map, it's not clear at all that Manhattan doesn't have coverage. And this is only what's within a two mile radius of the center.
    - pifflesnort 14y ago
      It only looks like a lot when you're not zoomed in. The density here is very, very, very high. The vast majority of buildings aren't covered.

smcguinness 14y ago

What I want is competition. I have U-verse, but why can't I have FIOS. Here in Frisco, TX it seems there are agreements between the providers to focus on certain neighborhoods have one or the other, but never both. I want to choose who I connect to the internet through, just like I choose grocery stores, cell phone providers and just about anything else.

techsupporter 14y ago
What's funny is, depending on which side of Frisco you are on, you do have that choice. In general, if you are west of the Tollway, you can get both services. Several other cities in north Texas are like that (Watauga, for instance, as well as Keller, north Fort Worth, far North Dallas). What you are seeing, at least in Texas, is the historical division between what used to be GTE and Southwestern Bell. Back when those companies were regulated utilities, you are exactly right: the markets were divvied up between the two. Generally, Southwestern Bell got the big cities and GTE got the suburbs and rural areas. Inertia and a general unwillingness to rock the boat means that situation persists, though you can see some areas where it has melded.

commandar 14y ago

>Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s. Which is great if you're in NYC. There are huge portions of the country -- I'm familiar with the former Bellsouth territories personally -- where you can't get FiOS or U-Verse at all. I'm in a metro area with ~250k people, and you might be able to get 6Mbs DSL from AT&T; many areas of the city top out at 3Mbs.

mikeash 14y ago
Even here in Northern Virginia, it's spotty. Alexandria is still a FiOS-free zone, for example. Verizon was planning on it for a couple of years, but then changed their mind. Their statement said, essentially, that they already had enough FiOS customers and didn't need any more, thanks but no thanks.