Tag: Google Fiber

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Google Fiber

Blog Post

Housing Authority for the City of Austin

Digital Inclusion document (PDF)

My Comments

Google Fiber to enable digital literacy in poorer communities

Google Fiber is participating in a community-based initiative to break the digital divide in the public-housing communities in Austin, Texas as part of their rollout in to that city.

This is a public-private affair in co-operation with the Housing Authority for the City of Austin which is a local-government-run public-housing authority in that city. The main premise of this exercise is that every child to have a chance to succeed in the 21st century global economy, but I also see as being important adults including mature adults and senior citizens who haven’t had much exposure to computing and technology in their school and work life also benefiting.

It is also encompassing training and study in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As well, the program is also providing access to devices and affordable Internet connectivity in the public-housing districts. For example, Google Fiber is intending to provide for HACA development in their fibre footprint, free basic Internet service for each household for 10 years, with the option to upgrade to the “full-on” Gigabit connection for extra cost.

There is the all-important support for the household’s devices including the necessary digital-literacy training, something that typically is provided on an ad-hoc basis to these households by family and friends and it is being provided by Austin Free-Net.

What I see of this is an attempt by public and private efforts to help poorer communities with access to today’s technology for productive activities and expose people, young and old, to today’s technology. What needs to be underscored in the remit for these programs is that it is not just the children who are intended to benefit but adults, especially mature adults and senior citizens who spent most of their school and work life before the desktop-computer-driven 1980s, who need to become technologically literate. As well, the remit to help with computer literacy for older generations cuts across all social classes.

Article

Comcast, Time Warner boost net speeds in Google Fiber city – COINCIDENCE? | The Register

My Comments

Regular readers will have noticed my comments about the lack of real competition in the US fixed broadband market thank you to very cosy deals arranged by incumbent cable-TV and telecommunications companies and various governments on a state and federal level.

Google have just rolled out their Google Fiber FTTP broadband service, known for offering headline data-transfer speeds of a gigabit each way, into Kansas City. Now Comcast and Time Warner Cable, for fear of hemorrhaging cable-broadband customers to Google, have upped their cable Internet service’s headline data-transfer speeds without charging their customers a single penny extra for the upgrade.

Issues have been raised about the pricing and customer-service behavior of cable-TV companies when they are faced with real competition beyond the DSL service offered by the incumbent telco. This has come in to play during discussions concerning the proposed merger between Comcast and Time-Warner Cable, as well as the issue of Net Neutrality.

As well, I would see the Google Fiber rollout as a boost for local government in Kansas City because the properties in the area that have Google Fiber past their doors become increasingly valuable to live in or do business there. It is a similar situation that has happened in various UK neighbourhoods where houses are assessed by prospective buyers on whether next-generation broadband is passing their doors or the property is connected to a next-generation broadband service.

Who knows what this means for other US cities who are pushing Google for their fibre-optic service?

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Google

Exploring New Cities For Google Fiber

My Comments

After its success with Kansas City, Provo and Austin, Google is planning to hit nine more US cities with their fibre-optic broadband service. Here, I see this as an attempt to bring competition to Internet service in these communities in a situation where competition is dwindling due to the pending merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Even though most of the city fathers representing these communities are behind these projects, usually to see their communities grow economically, there are issues with state and federal authorities who have frustrated competitive activity like municipal Wi-Fi deployments. This is typically to protect incumbent cable and telephony companies against competitive service, but it allows these companies to treat their customers as second-class citizens by redlining good services away from certain communities or simply providing poor-value service to their customers.

But something needs to be done to assure competition on the Internet-service front and this may involve the US Department Of Justice rather than the Federal Communications Commission. It may involve prohibition of uncompetitive mergers or overriding anti-competitive state requirements in order to make sure that third-party Internet service providers can operate in more communities. It may even require a repetition of the 1980s court action that took place to break up “Ma Bell” to assure competition. Once we see more of Google Fiber in action and other Silicon Valley Internet companies work towards providing end-to-end Internet service, it could open up the idea of competition to the US market.

Article

Google Fiber Installs In Provo | Broadband News & DSL Reports

My Comments

The work at the coalface has begin for Google Fiber’s deployment in Provo, Utah. In early October, the signing up has begun but yesterday (Tuesday 12 November 2013 (Western Hemisphere)), the work has started on connecting the very customers to this fibre-to-the-premises service.

What I see of this is that the incumbent telephone company and the cable company servicing this town will be squirming because the duopoly that they enjoyed in this town is being lost as a fibre-optic residential Internet service is being rolled out/ This is with a tariff chart being a symmetrical 1 Gbps for US$70 / month, a TV service with this 1 Gbps service for US$50 / month extra and a free 5/1 Mbps service for the installation cost of US$30. It also means that Provo could become a startup and “work-from-home” town due to the 1Gbps upload speeds offered by Google Fiber.

There have to be steps taken to keep the lively competition on foot so that the cost and quality of Internet service doesn’t deteriorate in the towns where competing Internet service exists.

Article

A City Getting Google Fiber Explains How Awesome Google Fiber Is

Click here to view the video

Previous Coverage on HomeNetworking01.info

Real Internet Service Competition Arrives in Utah Courtesy Of Google Fiber

My Comments

Now that Google has started work on providing fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband service to Provo, Utah, the city fathers of that town have celebrated by preparing a commercial-length video to explain what this is all about.

Here, this clip uses the analogy of a large temporary swimming pool being filled with water. Firstly, the householder starts filling it with a regular garden hose but it takes a very long time. But a fire engine arrives and dumps a huge quantity of water in the pool and the pool is full enough for a family to start swimming.

The garden hose represents current-generation cable or DSL broadband service while the fire engine’s water supply represents Google Fiber or other next-generation broadband Internet service. The act of filling that swimming pool is similar to transferring content between your home network and a file server somewhere on the Internet such as downloading a video from Netflix or uploading a quantity of pictures to Facebook or Flickr.

This funny video can be used as a way to illustrate this concept when justifying the benefits of deploying larger bandwidth to your home or business network or rolling out any next-generation broadband Internet service.

Article

Google Fiber now faces Comcast’s 250 Mbps offering in Provo – FierceTelecom

Comcast Offering 250 Mbps in Provo for $80 | Broadband DSL Reports

My Comments

The Internet press in the USA have lamented the lack of real competition for consumer fixed-line broadband services. This has come about with an incumbent telephony provider, typically a “Baby Bell”, offering the ADSL service along with one of the big cable-TV names like Comcast, Cox or Time-Warner Cable providing the cable-modem service for most markets.

Typically these companies have been given exclusive franchise to sell telephony or cable-TV to that particular market and these companies own the infrastructure to the customer’s home. Concepts like loop unbundling where a competing provider has direct access to the electrical infrastructure have been met with resistance in the American market.

Now Google Fiber have established their fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure in Provo, Utah by buying the iProvo network in that town and is starting to light up the service there. This has caused Comcast to be worried and had them offer packages like a 250Mbps pure-play Internet service for US$80 and double-play TV+105Mbps Internet services for US$70-100. The “Free Utopia” blog had quoted that the impending competition is good for the customer.

I also wonder whether the established “Baby Bell” telephone provider will raise the bar and offer attractive ADSL deals in response to the impending arrival of Google Fiber. Other issues that will be interesting to observe include whether the competition will also affect how Comcast behaves towards their customers such as customer-support issues and service-level agreements including Net Neutrality.