The local government and news folks seem to think I should be.
I live in the Triangle area of NC – so I can certainly see some of the high tech companies here being happy about it. But should I be as a residential customer? It looks like it will be a bit pricey at $70/month for Internet service and $120-$130 if you include television (and so far I haven’t heard what the advantages of having TV service would be, exactly, though we do have a smart TV with Netflix and Amazon streaming services).
I’m on Google Fiber here in Kansas City. I also live in Chicago where I am on AT&T DSL. I shoot concert video, and it is faster for me to get on a bus to Kansas City, upload a 2 hour HD concert file on Google Fiber, and take the bus back to Chicago than to stay in Chicago and upload it.
The TV service had a few rough spots originally, but they ironed them out.
5 megabits down/1 megabit up for the low, low price of free.
You pay $300 for installation, but you can pay that off at $25 a month. And since the system is built for gigabit up and down, that is always 5 megabit/1 megabit. You can stream Netflix in HD with 5 megabits all day, and Google Fiber just installed Netflix co-hosting in their data center.
1000 megabits up/1000 megabits down for $70 a month. If you have no interest in the TV box, get this and a bunch of Roku boxes and never worry. They waive the $300 build fee.
As above, plus TV. All their channels are HD if available. Also, you pay $120 for each TV box, and can pay that off $5 a month, after which you own the TV box. None of this cable company “rent a box from us forever” bullshit.
Of course I’m serious. So far I’ve not heard anything about free service being offered here at all, and at $70/month for their currently publicized Internet-only offering, that’s almost twice what I currently pay for DSL. You get faster speeds, yes, but unlike you, I don’t have a need to upload 2-hour long HD video clips, so from that standpoint I am unsure if it is worth it the extra cost.
If the TV service is good, though, and we could dump our satellite service and get an Internet +TV bundle, that brings the price into a much more competitive range.
The competition may have some effect on the pricing of significantly slower services in the area that now have to compete with blazing fast for customers. That potentially is a benefit to the community (and you) even for the people that won’t benefit much from fiber’s speed.
Look at what they are offering in Kansas City. Then look at what they are offering in Austin and in Provo. Same deal in all three currently active cities. I have no reason to believe that they will not offer the free service in your area.
Again, the 5 megabit down/1 megabit up offering is via exactly the same connection being offered to gigabit customers. I have a friend who is on the free version, and he is perfectly happy streaming stuff from NetFlix and Amazon Prime, and will probably go for the upcoming Sling service.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for people saying “Why can’t I get 500 megabits down/250 megabit up for $35 a month?” Google isn’t building this system because they want to be in the cable business, but to see what new things people will come up with when they have gigabit speeds.
Oh, and Time-Warner and AT&T have been frantically building their systems out in Kansas City in a last-ditch effort to compete with Google Fiber. Isn’t working. According to realtors, having Google Fiber available increases the value of a house up to $2500.
Oh, how I wish Google fiber would come to the metro Detroit area, but it’s not on the radar yet. Google has a presence in Ann Arbor Michigan, which is just outside the metro Detroit area, so it would make sense to fiber up AA and hopefully all of Detroit and environs as well. Please, Google? I frickin’ hate Comcast.
This current thread has touched on bandwidth speed and if gigabit speed is useful. I linked to this article about a guy in the Portland, OR area with a gigabit line and what he gets out of it.
Bottom line, someone like gaffa uploading HD videos can certainly use it. Most other people probably don’t need that much bandwidth today. If you have a slow connection now, it might be worth it. And it certainly will be great in a few years when bandwidth and video quality improves on the providers’ side.
Here’s the thing - when Google started, most people had 56k lines. Until most people had at least 1 megabit, a service like YouTube just wasn’t possible. The vast majority of Google’s income is from advertising done via media that didn’t exist 20 years ago. They want to get people on something an order of magnitude better and see what new services will be created (and sell ads on it.)
Yeah, I’m uploading HD videos, but the idea is that the equivilant to YouTube will appear once a critical number of people have gigabit that will make everyone need it. Who knew in 1988 that in 2015 everyone would need better than T1 speeds to watch cat videos?
The $70 a month gigabit connectivity is cheap, because it is reliable and is more than enough for most anything you can add. Looking at the interface of my Google Fiber Network box, there are 18 IP addresses active at the moment - 4 Google TV Boxes, Rokus, computers, phones, tablets, smart TVs, etc.
For instance, I have a cordless phone because I don’t want the expense of a cell plan. I have an Obihai 100 telephone interface and paid $89 for a year of unlimited long distance and local VOIP phone service. Because I’m not on a Baby Bell or cable company, they are not messing with my VOIP and I make hours of phone calls a day.
I loathe sports, but if I wanted ESPN, I could get the new Sling TV service for $20 a month., but personally I watch everything via my Roku and Plex.
I expect it will be at least a few years until the service is actually available here. Google has said they’re bringing it, but they are just in the design stage now. What will be interesting is seeing how everyone else - especially service providers - react to it.
It’s a great deal (I pay $66 a month to Comcast for their 25/5 plan)! I live just riiight outside the city limits of Decatur and Avondale Estates, GA, which were both in the Fiber announcement for Atlanta, so I assume I will be getting it (as in the other metro areas they went by neighborhoods and not necessarily in specific city limits).
Though I have read they actually won’t be offering a free service (at least not in Atlanta metro), but a $3 a month service… which is close enough to free.
[QUOTE=gaffa]
I’m on Google Fiber here in Kansas City. I also live in Chicago where I am on AT&T DSL. I shoot concert video, and it is faster for me to get on a bus to Kansas City, upload a 2 hour HD concert file on Google Fiber, and take the bus back to Chicago than to stay in Chicago and upload it.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t doubt it.
An ISP that I get some email service from is working on building out fiber service in an adjacent suburb. That city was clever enough to require underground conduit for utilities, so it’s relatively trivial for someone to start pulling fiber to homes. The city I’m in also has underground utilities as well, but with direct-buried lines, so pulling new stuff is harder.