Google may say that, but the truth is, they are purveyors of online services. This country’s shitty internet situation is negatively impacting their ability to sell online products, including their own OS alternative, Chrome OS. They’re not going to “shame” Verizon or AT&T into anything. They won’t care about Google Fiber unless Google Fiber starts costing them money.
I suspect we’ll see widespread Google Fiber adoption long before we see Verizon & ATT stepping it up.
Fiber to the home is expensive of course. I think the solution (to the problem of the relatively slow speed of Internet access in the US) might be faster wireless technologies. For example, what sort of speed and coverage can you get if you use the old analog TV spectrum for data services?
Having no use for a tablet, I’d rather the fee be $100 with no tablet.
That point aside, Monticello, MN is an interesting case. The city had the same shitty internet service that the rest of the state did, but they decided to do something about it. The city built a fiber to the premises network. Guess what happened? The local cable company build a fiber network too, you think that would have happened had the city not started taking their customers? Now the cities losing money and the small government types are screaming about it, but the town is now better off than most of the rest of the state.
Dood. I’m watching live at your computer right now on Google House View. Nice place, but maybe straighten up a little. Hey, is that an authentic didgeridoo?!
Not true. In the Argintine neighborhood, I’ve been following the progress avidly. Heck, I’ve touched an actual reel of fiber that was in the process of being pulled on Strong Avenue. The Google Fiber store at 43rd and State Line is connected, as well as several local hospitals.
I suspect the neighborhood approach is a way to get a huge amount of free advocacy/advertising by geeks. A friend of mine is talking about buying a bunny suit and rainbow dyeing it to to sign people up. Or failing that, sign them up and pay the $10 fee on their behalf.
Yeah, the TV portion of this is pretty useless: no ESPN networks, no Turner networks (CNN/TBS/TNT/etc), no Fox cable networks (FX mostly, and I’m sure there’s a significant number of people there who care that there’s no Fox News as well), no AMC… I don’t see an option for adding HBO either.
That said, if I were in KC I’d probably still go for the $70 internet tier and deal with my TV watching elsewhere. That much speed for that reasonable a rate is so cool for a 6 devices connected at all times techie type.
The tablet is the remote control. Rather than some infra-red thing with physical buttons that only works line of sight from a cable box, you now have something wi-fi based that will probably work anywhere in the world, with a graphical interface.
A lot of the potential customers for this have been trying to cut the cable for a while. ESPN means nothing for me, and if I had the option of deleting it from the cable I have right now, I would. But I believe ESPN will start selling bundles of their channels for “IP only” customers, with all the ESPN-U and ESPN-360 stuff.
Also, this is way early. I’m sure they are a long way from done with negotiations. One interesting thing - since this system is pure IP, no legacy analog channels, Google could pay for only the number of viewers, rather than the deal Time-Warner and Surewest have where they have to pay for every single connected home.
Will Google have bandwidth caps? Because even if I can currently get acceptable speed from the telephone or cable company, they have monthly limits on the amounts you can download.
Go to the website, it says no bandwidth restrictions.
The Plans & Pricing page says no data caps.
OK. But while I see benefits for fast internet, why would I need a $200 tablet to turn my TV on and change the channel on my TV while I was vacationing thousands of miles away in Croatia? Why would I need a $200 tablet to turn my TV on and change the channel while sitting on a couch when they could have set it up to use a $10 IR remote?
The idea (and this is speculation, but from someone who does a lot of home theater tech) is that it will be a whole other level of control interface. “Change the channel”? How about program the recording of a program from Croatia, watch recordings in Croatia, etc. Every really high end system involves some sort of programmable remote, and if they do it right, this is the ultimate programmable remote.
If you want a $10 IR remote, Time-Warner is your supplier.
Even with my digital cable subscription, there are so many channels that it would take a really long time to flip through all of them. So instead, it would be faster to use a tablet interface to search what’s available and change to it immediately. Also, I’ll bet that Google also intends to expand the available options beyond those being transmitted now to anything that’s available via iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Ultimately (I think) the goal is to make available any movie or television show ever produced.
I might add that most Americans are pretty clueless on the fact that the US ranks as 26th in terms of global internet speed.
We love our internet and techno toys, but have fallen way behind in the infrastructure that makes things zip and fly! Hopefully Google will, if nothing else, shame/force those cable/internet [del]rip-off gougers[/del] providers into updating their technology and service.
I would sign up for Google Fiber immediately if it were in my area…geez, at that price, it is a steal!
that TV spectrum is still being used for TV. there are different numbers of broadcasters on individual channels but that spectrum is still used by TV.
Google bid on wireless spectrum when the upper UHF channels (60 through 67) went up, but were out-bid by a phone company. Speculation was that they planned some sort of free wireless service.
Exactly. Rather than flipping through pages of a grid, imagine a system that could show you everything that fits your particular tastes, with enough bandwidth and storage that it basically constructs a custom TV channel just for you.
I’d imagine that is what Google Play is intended to evolve into.
I will be visiting the Google Store in Kansas City next week and will report.
I was referring to the analog spectrum that the FCC auctioned off a couple of years ago.