Google Fiber Hits Speed Bumps As Alphabet Looks To Cut Costs

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It seems like every person you talk to wants Google Fiber to come to their town but, if this report is to be believed, Google Fiber isn't doing so well when it comes to subscribers. Maybe they are just picking crappy towns?

The report says that Google had expected to land 5 million subscribers over the course of five years, but the company's actual progress was much slower. At the end of 2014 Google Fiber only had 200,000 subscribers. Its TV service has also suffered from sluggish growth. Last month, CEO Larry Page reportedly asked Google Fiber head Craig Barratt to cut his staff in half, to 500 people, and reduce costs of delivering fiber to customers' homes to one-tenth of their current rate.
 
Well, Atlanta IS a crappy town, but I doubt that's why GF isn't coming to my condo building.
 
...I think Big Telecom is to blame for this one.
Big Telecom is responsible for which part - the fact that is costs them more than their fairy-tale business case suggested or the fact that they aren't even able to get more than 200,000 subscribers to sign up for what they have built to date? That's less than 1/25th of what they expected to sell in the cities already built.
 
I think Big Telecom is to blame for this one.

Gigapower became available in my new house right when I moved in. It took two weeks to get fiber line ran to my house but that's better than waiting years for Google.
In the South Florida area, it's AT&T or Comcast. I don't see anyone with enough money to break through in this market.

AT&T owns the telephone poles and Comcast owns the ground. Either way, any new company will have to negotiate with these companies for space.
A big reason why we never saw Google come markets like this.
 
Gigapower became available in my new house right when I moved in. It took two weeks to get fiber line ran to my house but that's better than waiting years for Google.
In the South Florida area, it's AT&T or Comcast. I don't see anyone with enough money to break through in this market.

AT&T owns the telephone poles and Comcast owns the ground. Either way, any new company will have to negotiate with these companies for space.
A big reason why we never saw Google come markets like this.

Where I live, the city owns the ground, it's called easement. Google announced they were coming here but between the city and the power company that owns the poles they just gave up.
 
People have no idea how insanely expensive it is to run lines no matter if it's cable or fiber.

I Wonder why?

Oh that is right....companies don't want to confess what costs are so they can jack up prices or bribe the government into breaks or contracts....because if people actually did know, they wouldn't be happy.
 
Google fiber is just a loss leader. Has U.S. internet speeds broken into the top 15 world wide yet? A slow & "crappy" internet is bad for Google. They figured out the oligarchy would let the internet rot on the vine before upgrading it so Google decided to toss a few bills (as in billions) into spurring internet upgrades. Gotta spend money to make money.
 
Google fiber is just a loss leader.

That would be...because they are still building infrastructure. Whereas everyone else already built it and is milking it for all they can.

Not that shareholders care about that.
 
If they came to my suburb outside of Boston, I'd stand in line to drop FiOS on launch day to switch...

I think th eproblem is that your typical internet service customer doesn't know shit about internet service and doesn't care.

When the majority of consumers are uneducated you don't get nice things.

It leads to a lifetime of frustration for those of us who care, as time and time again, the few good things that are out there get diluted, watered down, ruined or canceled.
 
Big Telecom is responsible for which part - the fact that is costs them more than their fairy-tale business case suggested or the fact that they aren't even able to get more than 200,000 subscribers to sign up for what they have built to date? That's less than 1/25th of what they expected to sell in the cities already built.
I blame the cities, the rental property owners, the apartment complex owners, and most of all other telecom companies. Their so far rooted that they have all kinds of deals with them preventing anyone else coming in. I tried to get WAVE in my apartment because fuck comcast. I had wave interested, I had the other residents interested, I had the manager interested. The property owner told me to go fuck myself as he gets a nice $7K check from comcast every year for having only comcast.
 
Well they do have to build out the entire fiber network and that takes time. I signed up for Google Fiber over 2 years ago and it just got installed this week. Fast as F tho.
 
i dont know about this report, but i do know that as soon as they finish setting up their hardware in the triangle, every nerd in NC is going to switch from TWC, guaranteed, overnight.
 
i dont know about this report, but i do know that as soon as they finish setting up their hardware in the triangle, every nerd in NC is going to switch from TWC, guaranteed, overnight.

I guess that's the problem. The nerd to non-nerd ratio isn't high enough. Unsophisticated shitty "normal" people ruin it for everyone else :p
 
I blame the cities, the rental property owners, the apartment complex owners, and most of all other telecom companies. Their so far rooted that they have all kinds of deals with them preventing anyone else coming in. I tried to get WAVE in my apartment because fuck comcast. I had wave interested, I had the other residents interested, I had the manager interested. The property owner told me to go fuck myself as he gets a nice $7K check from comcast every year for having only comcast.

Shit like that ought to be illegal, and is why I will never live in a condo, apartment building or gated community.

If there is a homeowners association involved, I won't go anywhere near it. They are effing satan.
 
That is the free market. Everyone wants and gets a piece. Everyone has a right to contract. Simply sucks to be the smallest losing fish. Welcome to corporatism.

That's not a free market. In a free market individual consumers get to choose which products they buy, among freely competing products on a marketplace.

This is anti-competitive practices, what happens when the free market isn't properly policed. It becomes less free.
 
There are about a dozen condos and apartment complexes in the downtown area of my metro area that have access to $70/month gigabit fiber (small local ISP). I am looking for a house/condo for 11 months from now. Basically it comes down to sharing walls with neighbors, gigabit internet, no lawn (plus for me) and almost new construction or a standalone house, 100Mb internet, a lawn and 40-60 year old house. I am torn.
 
That's not a free market. In a free market individual consumers get to choose which products they buy, among freely competing products on a marketplace.

This is anti-competitive practices, what happens when the free market isn't properly policed. It becomes less free.

No it is quite competitive. The fish above you have just as much a right to contract services as you do.

Your landlord has as much right to contract service providers, as you have a right to contract a landlord and be a tenant. Don't like getting boned by bigger fish?> Use your bootstraps and be a bigger fish. OIr are you really calling a "free market" one where certain classes of property owners have zero right to contract?

Sounds to me like your "free market" is just as unfree as the present "free market"...only difference is that people who do not own property win, but property owners lose out.
 
If they came to my suburb outside of Boston, I'd stand in line to drop FiOS on launch day to switch...

I think th eproblem is that your typical internet service customer doesn't know shit about internet service and doesn't care.

When the majority of consumers are uneducated you don't get nice things.

It leads to a lifetime of frustration for those of us who care, as time and time again, the few good things that are out there get diluted, watered down, ruined or canceled.

I'm in the Boston area too and I have Comcast. I'm currently paying $40 (heavily discounted) for 25Mbps. I'd switch in a hearbeat.
 
I wouldn't read into this too much. Anyone who runs a business knows that you learn lessons as you go. You figure out those 4 guys you hired are doing the job of two. The building you rented is way to big. The supplier you are using is charging way to much for shipping. Google is streamlining the business because they didn't know what they were doing when they started. Nothing has changed as far as them wanting to provided everyone with Gigabit service. The only real change to the plan is that now they are looking at doing it via wifi along with fiber. They aren't gonna just up and abandon the countless miles of fiber they have invested in. People who have Google Fiber now will have it forever. People in the future may just have Google Gigabit Wifi instead.

And let's not kid ourselves. Google could lose billions and it wouldn't hurt them. They just want to streamline and figure out the best way to get their internet to everyone as fast a possible. They are playing the long game. Their goal is to be the ISP everyone uses. Which makes since for a company that makes internet related products and services.

Why buy the milk from Wal-Mart when you can own that farm that raises the cows?
 
I guess that's the problem. The nerd to non-nerd ratio isn't high enough. Unsophisticated shitty "normal" people ruin it for everyone else :p

hahaha, amen

Any idea if Google is using any of the abandoned RST Fiber mess?

im not sure actually. i watched them throw down quite a bit of conduit around the interstate close to RTP, which of course means theyre going to lay down new fiber there. beyond that i have no idea
 
No it is quite competitive. The fish above you have just as much a right to contract services as you do.

Your landlord has as much right to contract service providers, as you have a right to contract a landlord and be a tenant. Don't like getting boned by bigger fish?> Use your bootstraps and be a bigger fish. OIr are you really calling a "free market" one where certain classes of property owners have zero right to contract?

Sounds to me like your "free market" is just as unfree as the present "free market"...only difference is that people who do not own property win, but property owners lose out.

So, you think it is OK for a property owner to receive payola in order to lock out competition and force his tenants to only have one option? No, that is anticompetitive behavior, and if not outright illegal is certainly a loop-hole grey zone area which needs to be closed.

The free market depends on end user choice, and the elimination of all monopolies.
 
So, you think it is OK for a property owner to receive payola in order to lock out competition and force his tenants to only have one option? No, that is anticompetitive behavior, and if not outright illegal is certainly a loop-hole grey zone area which needs to be closed.

The free market depends on end user choice, and the elimination of all monopolies.

I didn't say I liked it. And while it may end up being anti-competitive in effect...it is a right of everyone to contract, so long as you are of legal age and sound-mind. Don't like your landlords choice of paint or ISP? Move somewhere else. Boot straps, after all. Being the little guy and being boned is the fundamental nature of capitalism and free-as-in-freedom markets and freedom-to-contract. Capitalism and free-markets exist to make some people money and bone everyone else, you are NOT the person making money in any of this ISPing. That is your lot in life. You are the boned. Such is how the system is. It is functioning as intended.

Unless, as I said...you are of the opinion the property owners have no rights to contract services on their property. Which is a most interesting legal theory, that any conservative on HardForum would explode at the notion of. :)
 
i dont know about this report, but i do know that as soon as they finish setting up their hardware in the triangle, every nerd in NC is going to switch from TWC, guaranteed, overnight.

Everyone here has that sentiment- the homeowners had the HOA contact google to try and get the dates- but no dice- atleast they got the fiber installed.
They lay down the fiber outside my house a few weeks back. I have the option of getting gigapower now but no way that i am getting myself tied to their horribly tiered pricing for the next 2 years with google coming in (hopefully) in the next year or so.
The worst part is not knowing how long Google will take to get it rolling in the triangle given that it is their largest rollout yet.
 
they should have partnered up with Verizon and used their existing fiber network... ;)
 
So they don't have infinite money to throw at whatever. Hello reality.
 
Shit like that ought to be illegal, and is why I will never live in a condo, apartment building or gated community.

If there is a homeowners association involved, I won't go anywhere near it. They are effing satan.

Actually depending on which state they live in, it may be illegal. If you really want another provider there all you have to do is get petition together that majority the tenets of you complex sign saying you want the other provider. Then the property owner will have to allow it or you and every other tenet can sue him.

I did it at my old complex that had a lock in exclusive with TWC a few years ago out here in Southern California. I simply got most the tents to sign a petition that they wanted FiOS, walked into the management office and told them I want FiOS and they have 90 days to make it happen or I am suing them. 74 days after that, FiOS was installed in my building.
 
So Google (alphabet) is finally learning that building and selling physical assets is actually hard. And risky.

Go figure.

It's hard when you have existing companies with regional and local monopolies doing everything they can to stop it.



That is the free market. Everyone wants and gets a piece. Everyone has a right to contract. Simply sucks to be the smallest losing fish. Welcome to corporatism.

No, companies buying out governments to prevent competition is not a free market. It's crony capitalism.
 
I Wonder why?

Oh that is right....companies don't want to confess what costs are so they can jack up prices or bribe the government into breaks or contracts....because if people actually did know, they wouldn't be happy.

What the heck are you talking about? You obviously don't work in the field. A single aerial span can easily cost thousands of dollars in parts and labor and that's only a couple hundred feet. Underground work is exponentially higher.
 
Come to Sydney, we'll gladly pay lots of dollars for internet faster than 15Mb/s
 
So, you think it is OK for a property owner to receive payola in order to lock out competition and force his tenants to only have one option? No, that is anticompetitive behavior, and if not outright illegal is certainly a loop-hole grey zone area which needs to be closed.

The free market depends on end user choice, and the elimination of all monopolies.

DONT LIVE THERE
 
It sounds like google fiber is able to reach a decent number of people already, but the uptake has been a lot slower than they expected. I chalk this up to them CONSTANTLY choosing to build out in weedhole Oklahoma instead of coming to Los Angeles. They need to go to a REAL city where civilization actually exists.

nb4 LA is a desert with nothing interesting and not a real city.
 
It sounds like google fiber is able to reach a decent number of people already, but the uptake has been a lot slower than they expected. I chalk this up to them CONSTANTLY choosing to build out in weedhole Oklahoma instead of coming to Los Angeles. They need to go to a REAL city where civilization actually exists.

nb4 LA is a desert with nothing interesting and not a real city.

I agree the only thing seems dire about the investment is the uptake. It doesn't talk %s so we dont really know what that looks like but 200k seems quite low regardless.
I guess this is when we realize most people don't give a shit, pays whatever the cable company asks for and calls it day.
Not enough of us tech-aware people to put a dent on anything obviously.
I was going to argue it was a bad business decision on Google's part, but its hard to argue with those seemingly abysmal numbers.
Maybe the should cut down on infrastructure build out and ramp up promotion in the areas that are ready.. but if they already did that..
then people just suck and are pure idiots that would rather get reamed by cable companies, as I am sure they will eventually sell current infrastructure considering the drastic cuts they made.
 
I agree the only thing seems dire about the investment is the uptake. It doesn't talk %s so we dont really know what that looks like but 200k seems quite low regardless.
I guess this is when we realize most people don't give a shit, pays whatever the cable company asks for and calls it day.
Not enough of us tech-aware people to put a dent on anything obviously.
I was going to argue it was a bad business decision on Google's part, but its hard to argue with those seemingly abysmal numbers.
Maybe the should cut down on infrastructure build out and ramp up promotion in the areas that are ready.. but if they already did that..
then people just suck and are pure idiots that would rather get reamed by cable companies, as I am sure they will eventually sell current infrastructure considering the drastic cuts they made.


Perhaps the solution is to create a city fill with people who care as a magnet to drain the caring from the surrounding areas, leaving them to wallow in the gutter speed internet they seem contented with, while the tech focused city is offered faster speeds and lower latency. It would be an actual realization of this image.

gloriouspmr13_2048x2048.jpg



Right now the people in the know, the master race who actually desire and crave faster internet are too dispersed among the zombies of the world. We need to gather together and create out own shining city on a hill.
 
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