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In general 'content' should be a seperate bill (or bill line item) from the wires & maintenance and the Cable co. should allow much more flexibity in your content. In the past you could say there was a technical impasse to doing that easily but now since they've forced most to encrypted cable boxes.
And why did you have that story to share? Just to let everyone know your internet experience and brag that you now have Google Fiber? I'm not trying to get on your ass or anything, but I'm wondering why that story was relevant.
I have a story to share and I will try and keep it brief ( doubtful) 1st of all, I've been on the internet for 20 years. 2013 was my anniversary date. My first IPS was Databank out of Lawrence, Kansas, 1993 and I was 24 I think. 9600 baud dial-up via Windows 3.11 and Trumpet Winsock. To put that into a bit of perspective, I and I am sure many others beta tested Windows 95 a year later in fall of 94.
I was addicted to the internet almost from the start. See, I had already been spending $100 - $200 a month and sometimes more calling up Amiga BBS's, mostly in NYC but also the UK, Germany as well on my Amiga 500. So you can see that BBS's and the Internet go hand in hand. Outside communication and content.
A few years later I saved up and got Direct PC. Up-front hardware cost $600 and unlimited service cost me $129 a month. Direct PC obviously made my internet experience better but only briefly each day as FAP would kick in and cripple speeds for a few hours. Everyone hated FAP including me ( Fair Access Policy ) This was around 1996 maybe.
In Dec of 1999 I started to hear rumors that Cox Communications in Topeka, KS, the local cable company was testing broadband internet with it's employes. I remember racing down to where I sometimes paid my bill and speaking with one of the girls. She didn't know much but confirmed that yes, they would very soon offer super faster internet service. I was also very lucky in that one of the service techs was standing near and came over and even gave me more info as he was personally testing out the service in his home and had been for a few months. He took my name down and told me he would get me on the list, if he could, for installation when they started the roll-out. In Jan of 2000, I got cable broadband and have never looked back since.
Since then I've always been lucky in that I've had pretty good service. I even tried DSL a few times only to cancel twice, both within the first day. Promises were made but the speed was never there.
Recently, I lived in Falls City, Ne and it was first community in the state of Nebraska to have Fiber Optic Internet. This was nearly 3 years ago. For those of you that have Fiber Optic now, you know how incredible the latency is. It's 10 - 20ms and yes, everything loads up instantly. The best way to describe this, is in the difference we all saw going from a mechanical hard-drive to SSD. It's not as profound but close. With cable, you click your link and it takes around 1.5 to 2+ seconds to get the page loaded. Of course this various from one person to the next but with Fiber, it's normally 0.5 to less than one second that you see something loading. I would guess a 50% improvement. So it's not just data speed.
Fast forward to 2010. Google announces that they are looking to start a new program called "Fiber for Communities" and asks that any cities that are interested, to register by March 26 to tell Google they're interested in the venture. Several weeks later, Kansas City, Kansas it picked. The reason for this was, from Google's perspective is that the Kansas City area already had a massive Fiber Optic infrastructure in place because of Sprint. The companies HQ is here in KC. Also, Kansas City has one of the few major internet backbones in the US. It was then that I decided I would be moving to Kansas City for Google Fiber.
Fast forward to now .........
I'm living in Kansas City now and love it. The following picture will explain everything else.