# I'm getting Google Fiber - 1 gigabit up and down **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 13, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872 "2013-06-13T02:24:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/21 "2013-06-17T20:27:08Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > Man, this ain’t even SNEAK bragging! I was pretty happy with 30 Mb down, 6 up, til the kids discovered Youtube. I don’t think they’ll EVER pay for cable or satellite. No sneaking needed. I’m gonna have a GIGABYTE beyitches! A big pimpin’ fiber connection, yo! ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/22 "2013-06-18T01:37:15Z")
Status report: I left Kansas City for Chicago at 10:30 Friday morning. I just got back here at 8 PM Monday. Between Friday morning and Monday evening, they have equipped my neighborhood with fiber.[There is a big loop at the pole behind my apartment](http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3220/dwsx.jpg), so someone will be by to put in the distribution equipment later. Oh, and there was a personal call from someone from my current ISP, Surewest. I have been a customer so long that my personal e-mail address with them is my _initials_. He was calling to make sure I had read the letter from them about the complimentary speed upgrade. Yeah, thanks folks, but 4 down/1 up is just not enough. I need more - _a thousand times more!_ ETA: I checked with my sister, and they installed it Sunday night. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/23 "2013-06-18T15:06:53Z")
A friend of mine in the #5 Kansas City, MO just called with the news that her home has already been hooked up. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/24 "2013-06-20T22:59:19Z")
[Very cool CNet article about people buying houses in Kansas City](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57589981-93/google-fiber-spawns-startup-renaissance-in-kansas-city/?ttag=twic) and filling them with hackers. If I were in real estate, I’d buy an apartment complex in an area that is already hooked up or getting hooked up soon, and market it in gaming magazines. It would be like living at a LAN party. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/25 "2013-06-20T23:19:41Z")
It really bugs me that this type of internet speed isn’t more widely available. I have a buddy in Japan that regularly clocks speeds of around 60Mbps down and 30 up and he pays a pittance for his internet. That’s not close to Google fiber speeds, but it’s far faster than most of America enjoys without paying through the nose for it. I realize that urban density affects what can be offered, but damn…my Comcast cable internet is pretty expensive and I get about 30 down and 7-8 up, and [Speedtest.net](http://Speedtest.net) tells me I am faster than 90% of America. That’s kinda sad, really. We can and should do better. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/26 "2013-06-20T23:29:44Z")
The main thing about what Google is offering is not that it is fast, but that it is symmetrical. I’m going to take a laptop with a few videos of songs I just finished editing over to my friend’s place. Taking the bus there and back will be faster than uploading a single song via my one megabit cable connection. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/27 "2013-06-22T19:27:06Z")
At the Google Fiberspace right now. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/28 "2013-06-22T20:01:06Z")
They prevented me from asking tech questikn to the room in general. pretty annoying. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/29 "2013-06-22T23:33:00Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > They prevented me from asking tech questikn to the room in general. pretty annoying. They had one reasonably knowledgeable person from marketing running the show and tell, one very knowledgeable person on the other side, and a not particularly knowledgeable person on my side, who seemed to think it was her job to prevent me from asking any questions of the host. I picked the wrong side. What was especially annoying was that I was going to ask general interest questions about the TV box. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/30 "2013-06-23T02:32:02Z")
I managed to get over to my friend’s house to test Google Fiber. Nobody is home, nobody is watching TV, as as far as I can tell, there are no computers on except my laptop, which is plugged in via Cat 5e directly into the router. I’m uploading videos to YouTube, which is owned by Google. So everything should be optimum, right? No. I am uploading three videos - one 306 megs, one 368 megs and one 533 megs. And it’s going to take 18 minutes. Now that is a lot faster than I get on my measly one megabit cable upload, but damn sure not by a factor of a thousand. Normally it takes me from 48 to 60 minutes per file at one megabit. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/31 "2013-06-23T02:37:50Z")
The quoted bandwidth speed is the total theoretical throughput on the network interface. You’re not going to max it out with a single TCP connection (i.e. uploading a video.) Try uploading a couple dozen videos to several sites simultaneously. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/32 "2013-06-23T02:50:10Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > The quoted bandwidth speed is the total theoretical throughput on the network interface. You’re not going to max it out with a single TCP connection (i.e. uploading a video.) Try uploading a couple dozen videos to several sites simultaneously. I was using Firefox to upload. Maybe it will upload more efficiently if I use Chrome (though I really don’t like Chrome’s interface). Would you think Google would have a server farm here in Kansas City to speed up Google products? ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/33 "2013-06-23T02:55:56Z")
The bottleneck may very well be at the other end. They might be bandwidth shaping to keep any one source from unfairly over utilizing their service. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/34 "2013-06-23T03:22:03Z")
I just did a test on Google’s own optimized speed test. It timed out. Download test was fine, and came out with 869.86 mb/sec. Upload started out fine at the same general speed, [then started dropping and eventually timed out.](http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4766/fmw.png) ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/35 "2013-06-23T04:00:56Z")
Working with their techs on the problem. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/36 "2013-06-23T05:06:21Z")
Had exactly the same results on [speedtest.net](http://speedtest.net). So the tech has started a trouble ticket and we’ll see how quick they fix it. I really would prefer that the tweak their YouTube servers to give Google Fiber customers an optimized experience. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/37 "2013-07-01T02:08:50Z")
They are building this system very quickly. There have been crews from several different companies in my immediate neighborhood, working on different elements of the build-out - one to trim trees, one to put up the support wire, one to put up the raw fiber, one to put up [the splitters behind the homes](http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/997/lcau.jpg) and yet another to handle the distribution boxes. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/38 "2013-07-02T05:46:23Z")
Ha. I was Fios tech support for a while when it was East Coast almost exclusively. When it works, it works well, and it’s FAST. Every other time it’s a PROBLEM. Awesome or nightmare, that seems to be the binary set of issues with fiber. I’d bet my dinner that your issues aren’t fully resolved within a month. These are highly complicated issues (sometimes), and the old guys that know all about POTS and such are of almost no use now. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/39 "2013-07-03T17:24:06Z")
> [@dnooman](#): > > Ha. I was Fios tech support for a while when it was East Coast almost exclusively. > > When it works, it works well, and it’s FAST. > > Every other time it’s a PROBLEM. > > Awesome or nightmare, that seems to be the binary set of issues with fiber. > > I’d bet my dinner that your issues aren’t fully resolved within a month. These are highly complicated issues (sometimes), and the old guys that know all about POTS and such are of almost no use now. I haven’t been back over to my friend’s place to see if the issue has been fixed. But I have hope. When they first announced availability, I wasn’t able to get service at my location. So I checked to see if anyone else on my block would be able to, and they couldn’t. I then proceeded to check sample addresses on every block in my neighborhood and found that a quarter of the addresses were missing. I contacted a person at the Google FiberSpace and sent her a list of all the missing addresses. It was fixed in two days. Let’s just say that I have never had that kind of responsiveness from a telephone company. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872/40 "2013-08-27T23:50:55Z")
My Google Fiber was just hooked up. I discovered that the network cable I installed in the walls of my apartment several years ago is CAT5, and not CAT5E, so I’ll have to re-pull that. Right now, I have a cable running across the floor to the Network box. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-getting-google-fiber-1-gigabit-up-and-down/660872.md?page=3)