Thursday, January 17, 2013

Google Fiber Update

Good article in Wired about why Google fiber will be a one-off. It basically comes down to 2 reasons: the RBOCs would rather spend the CAPEX on cellular that has a higher return and less competition, while other companies cannot get shareholders to understand that the ROI on the expense of fiber is long term.

Kansas City has already seen a bump in start-ups and tech workers since Google Fiber's announcement. Cities without FTTx will be at a competitive disadvantage for jobs, especially knowledge and technology workers.

Gigabit Squared is working in Seattle to pull off a plan similar to Google.

The constant reference to Lafayette and Chattanooga will chafe most ISP's that live near either network. Public networks have sustainability issues. However, if you look at it from the point of view of the EDC (Economic Development Commission) whose sole mission is to bring jobs to a region as its only metric for budget, you will see that losing money on a utility service that gives a region an economic advantage over another is worthwhile. You have to see how the sausage is made in politics to realize that common sense is non-existent.

A blog post about the Google install process. Note the fact that

In different news, Netflix is offering Super HD but you have to connect to the Netflix CDN for your customers to get it.

1 comment:

Peter Radizeski said...

BTW, NetFlix Open Connect
"ISPs can directly connect their networks to Open Connect for free. ISPs can do this either by free peering with us at common Internet exchanges, or can save even more transit costs by putting our free storage appliances in or near their network."