Google challenges US ISPs with 100Gbps fiber broadband
- Reference: 1664469011
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/09/29/google_100gbps_fiber/
- Source link:
[1]Google Fiber , part of the Access division of the search giant's parent company, Alphabet, currently provides a 1Gbps service, and began upgrading its speed in 2021 with the introduction of a 2Gbps product offering downstream bandwidth of 2Gbps and upstream bandwidth of 1Gbps for $100 a month.
That comes up against AT&T Fiber's similar tier at $110, Verizon Fios and Ziply Fiber's 120 plans, and Frontier's Fiber 2-gig is $150, although, of course, Google's $100 pricing may not hold.
[2]
The ad giant now says that this was just one step in a journey to making multi-gig speeds widely available and accessible, and claims new multi-gigabit tiers unveiled over the coming months will be "critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical internet."
[3]
[4]
This was revealed in a [5]blog post by Access CEO Dinesh Jain, who said Google Fiber foresees an internet that depends on faster and faster speeds, which doesn't seem especially controversial. The pricing – if it remains – seems reasonable for a service that is many times faster than the broadband services many Americans have access to.
"We're already closer than you might think. This month, we took our testing out of the lab and into the home, starting with our first trusted tester, Nick Saporito, the Head of Commercial Strategy for GFiber," Jain wrote.
[6]Consolidation looms for UK broadband providers
[7]Starlink broadband speeds slow as subscriber numbers grow
[8]FCC Commissioner demands review of Starlink rural broadband subsidies
[9]FCC awards $800m for rural broadband development
This test installation at Saporito's home in Kansas City is supposedly capable of providing a download speed of 20.2Gbps, with a screenshot offered to prove it, although curiously omitting the upload speeds.
Jain said he can see a time when communities across America will have at least two, if not three, fiber providers, and that differentiation will then have to be delivered in how the network is built to deliver symmetrical multi-gig speeds at accessible pricing – which is what Google Fiber believes it is doing, of course.
It's 'near-impossible to escape persistent surveillance' by American ISPs, says FTC [10]READ MORE
Last month, the company disclosed it was in talks with city leaders in several states, with the goal of introducing its high-speed fiber-to-the-home service in more locations. These included Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Idaho, which it said will be the main focus for growth for the next several years, along with continued expansion in existing metro areas.
Such expansion hasn't always gone so well for Google, however. Back in 2019, Google Fiber [11]pulled the plug on its service in Louisville, Kentucky, after agreeing to pay the local authorities $3.84 million for damage to the streets apparently caused by the use of "micro-trenching" techniques that saw fiber lines buried just a few inches below the pavement rather than much deeper down.
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According to the company itself, which spun out of Google in 2015, burying trenches less deep than others should [13]save time . ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://fiber.google.com/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YzYVfC93eS-B1s7z5N7pawAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YzYVfC93eS-B1s7z5N7pawAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YzYVfC93eS-B1s7z5N7pawAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://fiber.google.com/blog/2022/09/fast-forward-future-is-multi-gig.html
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/27/uk_broadband_consolidation/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/starlink_broadband_speeds_slow/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/13/fcc_starlink_subsidies_review/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/fcc_funding_broadband/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/ftc_isp_privacy/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/16/google_fiber_louisville/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YzYVfC93eS-B1s7z5N7pawAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/exclusive-google-fiber-plans-5-state-growth-spurt-biggest-since-2015-2022-08-10/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Failed the 1st time.
How many states still have the plain old 1gbit through them?... 3? Back about 8 years or so I knew of 4 players on Xbox Live that had it. It was always dropping out and was never reliable but, even if it was none of them could use it because they pulled out years ago. It will fail again but, the one advantage they have now is that it sounds like many have forgotten Google has been in the "ISP" business for over a decade, so at least they can pretend it's a fresh start.
The only thing that Google has that is truly successful is search, nothing else spies quite like search. At a purely technical level, everyone does everything else better than Google.
Fool me once
Here we see Google once again taking up it's toolbelt and dreaming of a future where it controls the consumer Internet. Same promise as before, blazing speeds at rock bottom pricing. With the same strings attached?
Google suddenly got cold feet when people started to dig into their "Privacy Fee" up on capitol hill. When the FCC got involved it was clear Google would rather shut down operations if it couldn't legally spy on all of your traffic, or charge you more per month than the average cost of the service of their most popular competitor.
Then during the Idjit Pai and Trump corruption express, it was clear the administration was fine with carriers and ISPs logging and selling user traffic data(as long at they didn't touch content, and sometimes even then when the allowed Verison to literally MITM TLS/SSL connections.)
So as the FCC hasn't grown a pair, and Styrofoam Joe isn't paying it much attention, their testing the waters to be ready in the event $$$$ from the rural broadband initiative will pay for their infrastructure build out. Likely after they collect subsidies and funds, they will buy high bandwidth dark fiber into those areas, never get around to hooking more than a Potempkin village or two up. Then they will cancel the project, keep the fiber they bought on our dime, and shift it to their internal and commercial networks.
Or maybe I'm just a cynic.
The other thing is...
It's a Google project. Not being ones for hyperbole or dropping services it's a certainty that this will be a huuuuge success, run for decades and serve us all utopian wet dream of Internet speeds*.
* terms and conditions apply, Alphabet reserves the right to change it's mind quicker than a squirrel on crack, store all of your searches/downloads/uploads until 7 years after the heat death of the universe and transmit your actual soul to an offshore data center somewhere near the core of the earth... Alphabet is not responsible for purchase and maintenance of networking equipment capable of 100Gbps, nor provide access to external networks capable of such speeds.
Pssst....
Hey Buddy, I hear you have google internet services, I'll come by for 20 quatloos and a pizza and set up your PI-Hole! You'll thank me!
I have trouble thinking what my computers, with their comm jacks clearly labeled "1000 Mb/s", are going to do with a 100 Gb/s service.
Remember when you could set your browser not to load images at all until you requested them?
It's called VPN, problem solved. We were in Google Fiber's trial area for a while and it was very fast and reliable.
"our first trusted tester"
So, are we expected to believe this person's comments on Google's Internet service will be 100% accurate and unbiased?
"what could go wrong?"
Most obviously, as soon as multi-gig speeds are available retail, web designers will immediately add so much bloat that anyone without these speeds will be left utterly stranded. It's starting to happen already, despite large swathes of the internet connected world still being limited to sub-100Mb.