Google Fiber just announced their pricing and plans

[Dewey_Finn]

My understanding is that Google Fiber isn’t meant as a profit-making enterprise, but Google’s attempt to prod the cable and phone companies into improving internet access throughout the country. And BTW, I heard that they’re expanding the program to Austin and Provo.

[appleciders]

@tim314

How is it that they’re able to give away for “free” something equivalent to their competitors product and not run into any kind of antitrust law problems? (I don’t know much about these laws, but I thought giving away free stuff to drive your competitors out of business was a no-no.)

There’s no law against being so good at what you do that other companies are uncompetitive. It’s not Google’s fault that the other companies charge so much, while Google can do the same service very cheaply. Now, if Google charges nothing, runs everyone else out of business, and then uses their monopoly position to gouge customers, then there’s an antitrust problem. However, if Google runs everyone out of business by providing a cheaper and better product, and then continues to keep prices at rock-bottom, there’s no monopoly problem. It’s only the abusive use of monopoly power that’s a problem. And Google doesn’t have monopoly power yet, of course; all they’ve done is demonstrate that they have a better product at a better price.

[tim314]

@appleciders

There’s no law against being so good at what you do that other companies are uncompetitive. It’s not Google’s fault that the other companies charge so much, while Google can do the same service very cheaply. Now, if Google charges nothing, runs everyone else out of business, and then uses their monopoly position to gouge customers, then there’s an antitrust problem. However, if Google runs everyone out of business by providing a cheaper and better product, and then continues to keep prices at rock-bottom, there’s no monopoly problem. It’s only the abusive use of monopoly power that’s a problem. And Google doesn’t have monopoly power yet, of course; all they’ve done is demonstrate that they have a better product at a better price.

That makes sense. Thanks.

[gaffa]

@Dewey_Finn

My understanding is that Google Fiber isn’t meant as a profit-making enterprise, but Google’s attempt to prod the cable and phone companies into improving internet access throughout the country.

Right, to shame them into not providing such terrible and slow service.

Google’s business is built on advertising, and they provide ads for every way we use the Internet - ads on search results, ads on discussion forums like this one, ads on video clips. And the last was not possible before “broadband” became available, as YouTube was not possible before people had better than one megabit connections.

Google Fiber is intended to see what new applications developers will come up with when you give them a community that can access the Internet at one gigabit. What YouTube like game-changers will appear once we have it? There are roughly 1000 Google Fiber customers right now, but they are building the system quickly. The crew on my block was working all weekend, so they’re paying overtime to get this built.

Some idiot business analysts have doubted that this is economically viable, but that is a failure of their imagination. For instance, unlike cable, Google Fiber’s infrastructure is going to be built in such a way that they could deliver targeted television ads to every single viewer. I have Surewest right now, and I get ads for the neighborhood bar Governor Stumpy’s. Those ads only play in an area of a few square miles, within Surewest’s fiber to the neighborhood system. But Google will be able to deliver TV ads to my household with a level of specificity previously seen only on my Gmail account. Advertisers will pay a lot more to reach the “right” people. For instance, the first neighborhood to be hooked up on the Missouri side is Crown Center. I’m quite sure those people are going to get a ton of ads for financial services, the Wall Street Journal and boner pills.

And BTW, I heard that they’re expanding the program to Austin and Provo.

Austin will be built from scratch like KCK and KCMO. But in Provo, they are taking over the city’s iProvo system. Same thing in North Kansas City with their LinkCity system.

I’m taking bets on when they buy Chattanooga’s system.