Google Fiber considering Los Angeles and Chicago

Will Google free me from the evil clutches of the dreaded Time Warner Cable?

Google's first foray into municipal networking was connecting 12 square miles of Mountain View California in 2007. In 2010 they issued a call for proposals from cities wishing to participate in an "experiment" called Google Fiber, which would offer symmetric, 1 Gbps connectivity to customers. In 2012, Kansas City was selected as the first Google Fiber city.

But, was it an experiment? An attempt to goad ISPs to upgrade their networks? The start of a new Google business? In 2013, Milo Medin, who was heading the Google Fiber project, said that they intended to make money from Google Fiber and that it was a "great business to be in."

Today, Google Fiber is operating in three cities and they are committed to installing it in six others. Eleven cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, have been invited to apply.

Google is considering big cities Los Angeles and Chicago.

Los Angeles and Chicago were just added to the list and it is significant that they are the first very large cities -- both in population and area -- on the list.

Since the initial installation in Kansas City, Google has codified the city-selection process in an informative checklist document. Google knows they are offering a service that will benefit the city in many ways, so the checklist is essentially the guide to an application form in which the city has to offer access to poles and tunnels, 2,000 square-foot parcels for equipment "huts," fast track permitting, etc.

I expect that Google will also have their eye on the Los Angeles tech startup community and entertainment industries. While Google Fiber does not seem to be a mere "experiment," they will doubtless enable and discover new applications that captialize upon gigabit connectivity (and increase Google ad revenue).

Rollout order within a selected city is governed by the willingness of residents of a neighborhood to sign up for the service. High demand areas get high priority. But, this can exacerbate the digital divide within the city -- serving wealthy areas before poor areas. Google encountered this problem in Kansas City. As shown below, wealthy neighborhoods (green) committed before the poorer areas, so Google initiated programs to reach out to them.

Wealthy KC neighborhoods committed early.

Based on that experience, they now consider inclusion plans in the application process and hire city-impact managers for fiber cities. They also offer very low-cost copper connections for those who cannot afford fiber.

I am not familiar with the situation in Chicago, but Los Angeles has been pursuing fiber connectivity for some time. The city issued a request for proposals for city-wide fiber two years ago, and last year CityLinkLA was formed with the goal of providing "basic access to all for free or at a very low cost and gigabit (1 Gbps) or higher speed access at competitive rates." The effort has been led by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Bob Blumenfield and they are working with both Google and AT&T toward that goal.

I assume that AT&T will upgrade their current infrastructure to DOCSIS 3.1 in order to achieve faster speeds over copper running from fiber nodes to individual premises, but they only serve a portion of Los Angeles. Other areas may have to wait for Google. It seems that Verizon gave up on their fiber offering, FIOS, some time ago.

Now for the belated full-disclosure. I live in Los Angeles, and am hoping that competition between Google or AT&T or someone will one day free me from the evil clutches of my current monopoly broadband service provider, the dreaded Time Warner Cable.

Google may give us some ISP competition

Just after we heard the competition-reducing news of Comcast buying Time Warner Cable, Google has announced that they may become a competitor in the ISP market -- they are evaluating 34 cities in 9 metropolitan areas as potential Google Fiber installations.

This is not a complete surprise. A Google executive announced their intention to expand last year, stating that Google Fiber is "a great business to be in."

Google is evaluating nine metropolitan areas, but none are big like New York or Chicago. I know a large installation would be daunting, but it would also be a learning experience and at least one big city mayor, Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles, is looking for a fiber partner.

(Full disclosure on that last "hint" for Google -- I live in Los Angeles, and my chance for getting fiber dropped to zero when my phone company, Verizon, decided to get out of that business).

Will Google Fiber go nationwide?

Today's New York Times has an article on yanking US broadband out of the slow lane. Might Google Fiber inspire broadband competition? Better yet, might it be broadband competition? (One also wonders why this article appeared now -- might it have been encouraged by Google PR)?

The article presents a good overview of the mediocre state of broadband connectivity in the US. It prominently features Google Fiber as a possible solution, quoting Milo Medin, who heads the Google Fiber project and was a co-founder of @ Home Networks, a pioneering first attempt to bring broadband to homes shortly after the passage of the 1996 Telecommunication Act (which was designed to create competition, but failed).

Google's announcement that they would install Google Fiber in Provo, Utah, drove speculation that they were planning to go nation wide. This article does nothing to dampen that speculation.

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Update 5/31/2013

Speaking at the Fiber-to-the-Home Council meeting, Milo Medin, Vice President of Access Services for Google, told an audience of city planners, engineers, and mayors that Google Fiber is a business that they expect to make money from -- "a great business to be in."

Medin admitted that at first Google didn't see Google Fiber as a viable business -- it was to be a testbed for Google services. At that time, Google was lobbying for a Gigabit networking bill in Congress, but "someone on the management team" said "If we really think this is important, why whine to the government, when we can do it ourselves?"

Rather than worry about Federal or State governments and subsidies, as the phone and cable companies do, it seems that cooperation with cities is a strategic part of their plan.

The project began with a call for proposals from cities wishing to become the first gigabit testbed. Medin said "We thought a handful of cities would say they were interested ... Then we saw that 1,100 communities replied. No one at the time thought there was a real business here. But that changed when we saw the interest."

Google wants to be your ISP! Wow -- when do the come to Los Angeles?

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Update 6/25/2013

Seattle will have gigabit connectivity for $80 per month with no installation fee with a one year contract. This sounds pretty much like Google Fiber and lends credence to Google's claim that this is a real business.

One caveat -- it is not clear which parts of the city will be covered. As of last December, they spoke of 14 neighborhoods, shown on this map:

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Update 7/2/2013

This article and picture gallery profiles Startup Village, home to more than 20 startups in a cluster of small houses in Kansas City. The village was established to take advantage of Google Fiber, but the community of local start-ups is even more important than 1Gbps speed.

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Update 7/15/2013

More innovation spurred by Google Fiber -- The KC Gigabit Education Project.

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Update 8/1/2013

Google to offer Starbucks WiFi (http://bit.ly/142g2Mp). Google says that most locations should see 10x faster Internet speeds than currently available. Every single one of the over 7,000 locations will see this increase in speeds, and the rollout should be completed over the next 18 months. And, Starbucks in areas with Google Fiber access will utilize Google Fiber and its gigabit Internet speeds.

Bob Frankston (http://bit.ly/1edA9J7) has pointed out that as browsing speed rises, ad clicks rise, so Google has a hidden motive for gigabit speed.

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Update 8/5/2013

Japan and Korea lead in fiber penetration -- US 14th

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports that Japan and Korea lead the world in fiber broadband penetration. The US is 14th, trailing Turkey. I've given up on ever seeing FIOS in my neighborhood -- let's root for Google Fiber.

More statistics at the OECD Broadband Portal.

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Update 8/15/2013

DSL Reports has seen an internal memo sent to Comcast employees, which says they will revise their bundle offerings and pricing in Provo, Utah in response to Google Fiber.  Google is offering aggressive competition, and, if the leaked report is accurate, Comcast will still be much slower than Google.

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Update 10/26/2014

Google has a 180 day license to experiment with millimeter wirelss transmission. The high frequency transmission would cover only short distances, but, if they are thinking of taking Google Fiber nationwide, they may be looking for a technology to cover the last few hundred yards from an access point on a street to the houses on the block. Google (or municipally owned fiber) would provide high speed backhaul.

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Update 10/27/2014

Google is evaluating 34 cities for the possibility of installing Google Fiber.

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Update 10/29/2014

Google has a 180 day license to experiment with millimeter wireless transmission. The high frequency transmission would cover only short distances, but, if they are thinking of taking Google Fiber nationwide, they may be looking for a technology to cover the last few hundred yards from an access point on a street to the houses on the block. Google fiber (or municipal fiber, as in Stockholm) would provide high speed backhaul.

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Update 3/2/2015

Milo Medin, VP of Access Services at Google Fiber, spoke of problems they have dealing with city bureaucracy at the Comtel Summit last week.

Medin mentioned byzantine permission processes, inaccurate information about infrastructure and the reluctance of owners of multi-unit buildings to cooperate as hurting some cities chance to attract Google Fiber.

His remarks must have left folks from the incumbent ISPs smiling and mumbling "we told you so." They also make me curious as to the nature of the deals Google makes with the cities. Does Google expect some sort of advantage over the incumbents? Do they prohibit municipal ownership of infrastructure in the future?

Google is offering a terrific deal in Fiber cities today, but what will happen in, say, ten years if Google advertising revenue has flattened and the company has a lot of employees and overhead? Will they become just another oligopolistic ISP?

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Update 3/4/2015

Under Title II, Google can now access telephone poles, simplifying the installation of Google fiber, but what fees do they have to pay for that access and what sort of red tape permitting may they face?

When the 1996 Telecommunications Act ordered incumbent telephone companies to grant competitors access to their lines, the incumbents stifled those efforts. Could something similar happen with respect to phone pole access? (That is not a rhetorical question -- I don't know).