Google announces 1 GB per second internet and $0/a month internet

Theironhand

I was on reddit when I found this....is this true?

EDIT
Looks like there only offering this in Kansas city, it cost $70 a month, or $0 a month with a $300 construction fee o.o...I wonder what they have to construct.

https://fiber.google.com/about/

Thrax

They've been planning this for quite some time: http://icrontic.com/article/an-update-on-googles-1000mbit-fiber-initiative

The construction fee is to lay fiber to your house and wire you up. It ain't cheap. The $300 is waived with a 2-year contract on the $70/mo or $120/mo packages.

Theironhand

So my current internet speed is 35 MBPS, if somehow I get this google fiber I'll be able to download a 12GB game in almost 12 seconds?

Thrax

No, it's 100 GigaBITS per second, not gigaBYTES. 100 Gigabits is about 10 megabytes per second after all is said and done. You'd download a 12GB game in about 20 minutes.

ardichoke

I would (probably) sell my left testicle to have Google Fiber in Lansing. I could finally get rid of the terribly slow 1.5mbit AT&T DSL. As it is, I'm so tired of the low speed I'm thinking of switching back to *RETCH* Comcast.

Theironhand

Thrax said:

No, it's 100 GigaBITS per second, not gigaBYTES. 100 Gigabits is about 10 megabytes per second after all is said and done. You'd download a 12GB game in about 20 minutes.

Oh, I always forget about that, but 20 Minute for 12GB is amazing.

Ryder

Thrax said:

No, it's 100 GigaBITS per second, not gigaBYTES.

100Gb or 1000Mb /s? I thought it was only Gigabit, not 100 Gigabit.

Also, Gigabit is almost 100 MB/s, I mean you can transfer 10 MB/s over 100Mb Ethernet from PC to PC

Thrax

I fail at everything. Wasn't thinking.

1 Gbit = ~100 megs/sec = 12GB game in 2 minutes.

BobbyDigi

You guys are not the only ones having this conversation.

It's wording can be confusing, the speed is fast.

Cliff_Forster

Oh @Thrax you had this coming. I trust you will take it like a man!

I predicted this day would come sooner than later. My optimisim rewarded. Just a little "told ya so" accompanied by a big shit eatin grin! God I love forum archives.

I am the mighty oracle, bow to me!

My favorite moments from my good friend.....

"Prediction: in the next five years, the average bandwidth of a broadband connection will have increased less than 20%"

"Google has about as much bandwidth to give to the public as death valley has fresh water for the dehydrated children of Africa"

Tushon

Can you run the numbers on what the average bandwidth increase is going to be (even if you say that every Kansas City resident takes the internet offer)?

MiracleManS

Tushon said:

Can you run the numbers on what the average bandwidth increase is going to be (even if you say that every Kansas City resident takes the internet offer)?

Until every rural area in the US has this, the average is going to plummit. Even if they have phone lines and dial up, 2.5kb/s really chips into that 10mb/s+ speed

boasist

Good tech intiative here, too bad the last company I want to run my internet is Google. We should remember how we were bitching about them capturing SSIDs for street view. Now they will provide your internet entirely....nope.

Although, I have yet to see any fine print, I'm sure it will come, reddit will be angry.

Koreish

They're not running it to my area of KC though :'( At least Time Warner's monopoly in the area is done. They have had so many problems and haven't ever seemingly done anything to fix them.

ardichoke

boasist said:

Good tech intiative here, too bad the last company I want to run my internet is Google. We should remember how we were bitching about them capturing SSIDs for street view. Now they will provide your internet entirely....nope.

Although, I have yet to see any fine print, I'm sure it will come, reddit will be angry.

Not everyone was bitching about them capturing SSIDs, in fact, a lot of us pointed out that the pissing and moaning over that particular issue was all FUD. I still stand behind that. If you're going to broadcast something over the air, in the clear, you should expect people to receive it.

Linc

On one hand, I think this is a win for consumers (of course). Someone is finally shaking up the ISP market in the US in a big way. Great. Sign me up.

On the other hand, I think there's an inherent conflict of interest in an advertising company owning your Internet connection. I'm also concerned about the anti-competitive practice of taking your advertising profits and using them to underwrite your ISP business so its profitability doesn't matter.

If this were 2005 Google doing this I'd probably be a lot less wary.

Thrax

Cliff_Forster said:

Oh @Thrax you had this coming. I trust you will take it like a man!

I predicted this day would come sooner than later. My optimisim rewarded. Just a little "told ya so" accompanied by a big shit eatin grin! God I love forum archives.

I am the mighty oracle, bow to me!

My favorite moments from my good friend.....

"Prediction: in the next five years, the average bandwidth of a broadband connection will have increased less than 20%"

"Google has about as much bandwidth to give to the public as death valley has fresh water for the dehydrated children of Africa"

1. As of May, 2012, the average American broadband speed is 5.8Mbps. (Source: Akamai)

2. As of December, 2011, there are 85 million broadband users in America. (Source: OECD)

3. The population of KCMO is 463,202 (Source: US Census Bureau)

4. If every resident in Kansas City took 1Gbit GFi, the average bandwidth in America would rise a mere... Well, I'm bad at math, but I'm sure it's a drop in the bucket.

Certainly not a told-you-so moment. Also, Google isn't expecting to reach all of KCMO's neighborhoods until late next year. 2 years of planning and 18 months of deployment for one city.

Broadband is going nowhere fast.

Cliff_Forster

@Thrax I'm obviously thinking way beyond KC and Google's fiber roll out there. By my projections I was thinking 100 megabit would be common inside five years. 100 megabit is only 10% of the capability of Google's fiber service, which is just mind blowing at 1000 megabit! That's just insane! It's more than anyone could have ever really hoped for, and at least one market will be seeing that.

Comcast just recently doubled my speed from 25 megabit to 50 without raising my price. Think the news about a new advanced fiber network from Google motivated them a little bit? Maybe, maybe not, either way, I'm halfway there, and frankly, 50 megabit is pretty damn solid. Still I'm considering paying a little extra a month and getting a 100 megabit service, which they now offer in my suburban market. Comcast is in several major markets offering this service at a fairly obtainable cost. The adoption rate will improve and prices will continue to fall as Google makes its move over the next few years.

I know a few here will want to defend their argument including the average against an aging rural infrastructure. The USA is a huge country, so that is a challenge for obvious reasons. Frankly, I'm not that concerned about what kind of internet is available in the "middle of nowhere". They will lag, and this is acceptable. You make some trade off's when you decide to live in the country. If your want to fish in a clean pond, your internet is gonna be slower. For me, I'm concerned about the major urban and suburban markets, which many already have the 100 megabit offerings I predicted inside of five years. Broadband is getting better in this country. It's a fact.

Linc

Questions to ask about the Google Fiber announcement.

3. Quantification of subsidies: Given the agreement Kansas City gives Google for 10+ years: free central office space, free power, no charge "for access to the City's assets and infrastructure" (Sect. 2c-d, 3), no charge for rights of way, permits and inspection fees (Sect. 3), free city office space (Section 5c), settlement-free interconnections with anchor institutions (Sect. 5q), and free marketing and direct mail (Sect. 5p) -- substantial business subsidies not available to competitors -- what is the estimated total, and per-subscriber-amount of public subsidies that Google extracted from Kansas City taxpayers?

6. Deep-Packet-Inspection: Will Google's terms-of-use for this fiber service be similar to Google's terms-of-service for Android, YouTube, Chrome etc., so that Google is granted de facto "deep packet inspection" rights to all the traffic on Google Fiber?