Google Fiber Coming to the Triangle!!

[94duke]

Woo Hoo!!

http://www.wral.com/google-fiber-bri...ngle/14394746/

[bjornolf]

Is that new cereal for us guys who need to eat more bran?

[fuse]

Not to Apex....grrr.

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

Here's the blog post from Google. http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/...o-atlanta.html

These are the town/cities in the Triangle listed:
Carrboro
Cary
Chapel Hill
Durham
Garner
Morrisville
Raleigh

It's going to take years for this to get deployed, but it's great news if you are in one of the areas served. Interesting that all the areas listed are former Bell South areas with relatively weak competition in cable. AT&T really dropped the ball with U-verse.

[aimo]

Supposedly, the areas where Google Fiber already exists saw a drop in Time Warner prices. Hopefully, the same will happen here. So tired of lack of choices, but I'm worried that I'm in too much of an outlying area that I'll never see it, even though I'm right next to RTP. AT&T won't touch my neighborhood.

[moonpie23]

I'm hoping the pressure will force TW to lower their fees and tighten up the customer service...

I live it cary, so it will be interesting to see what OTHER tiers Google has to offer as well....I personally don't need a gigabit service RIGHT NOW. My next TV will, of course, be a 4k model, and the future is data delivery, but i'm good with the 50/5 that TW has for me now...

The TW 50/5 service is supposed to automatically increase to 300/50 here soon, so we shall see what they want to charge me for that when the re-up time comes..


what i REALLY need is faster access at my recording studio, so that i can upload large audio files faster to Drop Box and FTP. If google comes calling in downtown raleigh, i may take them up on that rocket ship...

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

I'm hoping the pressure will force TW to lower their fees and tighten up the customer service...

I live it cary, so it will be interesting to see what OTHER tiers Google has to offer as well....I personally don't need a gigabit service RIGHT NOW. My next TV will, of course, be a 4k model, and the future is data delivery, but i'm good with the 50/5 that TW has for me now...

The TW 50/5 service is supposed to automatically increase to 300/50 here soon, so we shall see what they want to charge me for that when the re-up time comes..


what i REALLY need is faster access at my recording studio, so that i can upload large audio files faster to Drop Box and FTP. If google comes calling in downtown raleigh, i may take them up on that rocket ship...

It's not just customer service that TWC needs to improve to compete. While I agree that after a certain point extra fast download speeds lose their advantages right now, I think there are plenty of other reasons to switch to Google Fiber from a Comcast, TWC, or AT&T. $120 for cable/internet a great price as they include the DVR and 1 STB in that price. This is going to seem like an advertisement, but I'm doing a little background research on their offerings...

• Up to one gigabit upload & download speed
• Record up to 8 shows at once. And with two terabytes of storage on our DVR, you can record up to 500 hours of TV. (guide looks slick too)
• High performance Wi-Fi: Enjoy powerful Wi-Fi with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 3x3 MIMO antennas, and dual concurrent radios.
• Channel list from KC (locals will be different, but the national channels would likely remain the same) https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/channels/
• Cloud storage - 1 TB of storage across Gmail, Drive, and Google+ Photos

This is pretty aggressive pricing. Typically all of these features would be add-ons with significant monthly recurring charges.

[Devil in the Blue Dress]

Here's the blog post from Google. http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/...o-atlanta.html

These are the town/cities in the Triangle listed:
Carrboro
Cary
Chapel Hill
Durham
Garner
Morrisville
Raleigh

It's going to take years for this to get deployed, but it's great news if you are in one of the areas served. Interesting that all the areas listed are former Bell South areas with relatively weak competition in cable. AT&T really dropped the ball with U-verse.

I can't speak for most of the areas listed, but I am familiar with Durham. General Telephone/Verizon served Durham during the 40+ years I lived there. If Bell South was there, it was many decades in the past.

[snowdenscold]

Here's my question about getting the super high-speed rates (e.g. > 100 Mbps): Are you ever able to truly realize that speed, or is 99% of what your'e trying to access online going to hit a bottleneck somewhere with slower speeds?

The connection speed you get from your provider is only the last-mile access. But what about the other dozen links in the network between that and the web servers you're ultimately going to? I feel like getting 500M speeds on all links end-to-end is wishful thinking. I figured I'd be fine in the 25-50 Mbps range for now and wait a couple years for the rest of the infrastructure to catch up, while keeping my payments lower.

Of course, if Verizon and others had just agreed to let Netflix cache a lot of content locally at various aggregation points around the country (which from what I've read they've refused to do since they would prefer you purchase content from themselves and not Netflix), the last-mile speed might be more relevant.

Sort of like not buy a new 4K TV right now since I can't get enough content to make it worth my while. But in 3 years or so, when prices on those TVs have come down, and the amount of content has caught up, I might spring for it then.

[-jk]

Here's my question about getting the super high-speed rates (e.g. > 100 Mbps): Are you ever able to truly realize that speed, or is 99% of what your'e trying to access online going to hit a bottleneck somewhere with slower speeds?

The connection speed you get from your provider is only the last-mile access. But what about the other dozen links in the network between that and the web servers you're ultimately going to? I feel like getting 500M speeds on all links end-to-end is wishful thinking. I figured I'd be fine in the 25-50 Mbps range for now and wait a couple years for the rest of the infrastructure to catch up, while keeping my payments lower.

Of course, if Verizon and others had just agreed to let Netflix cache a lot of content locally at various aggregation points around the country (which from what I've read they've refused to do since they would prefer you purchase content from themselves and not Netflix), the last-mile speed might be more relevant.

Sort of like not buy a new 4K TV right now since I can't get enough content to make it worth my while. But in 3 years or so, when prices on those TVs have come down, and the amount of content has caught up, I might spring for it then.

I was rebuilding a client's computer recently. The seemingly unending MS updates didn't come in anywhere close to my 25Mb/s download speed. Hours later...

So, yeah, last mile speeds are ephemera.

-jk

[DU82]

I was rebuilding a client's computer recently. The seemingly unending MS updates didn't come in anywhere close to my 25Mb/s download speed. Hours later...

So, yeah, last mile speeds are ephemera.

-jk

I get better speeds on the visitor network in Cameron than I get from TWC at home. Can't wait for GoogleFiber to get here. Looking at the TV listings linked above (thanks!), that's a no brainer addition, too. (Only major cable network that seems to be missing is AMC.)

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

I can't speak for most of the areas listed, but I am familiar with Durham. General Telephone/Verizon served Durham during the 40+ years I lived there. If Bell South was there, it was many decades in the past.

Yup, I wasn't very clear, I was more speaking to Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and most of RDU. Should have mentioned GTE in Durham/RTP.

[aimo]

So, the power outage last week killed my cable box, big surprise. I mentioned something to the Time warner guy about Google Fiber coming. He said, but that's just internet. I said, no, it's tv, too. He said that Google Fiber is using DirectTV for its television. I know cable guys by law are full of crap, but I checked anyway, and have seen no evidence that this is the case. Anyone?

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

So, the power outage last week killed my cable box, big surprise. I mentioned something to the Time warner guy about Google Fiber coming. He said, but that's just internet. I said, no, it's tv, too. He said that Google Fiber is using DirectTV for its television. I know cable guys by law are full of crap, but I checked anyway, and have seen no evidence that this is the case. Anyone?

He's incorrect, it's Internet and TV. I wouldn't expect TWC techs to be up on the ins and outs of all the competitors, it's not a big deal.

BTW, it's AT&T that is looking to acquire DirecTV.

[77devil]

You all are going to love fiber. First, firing TWC or Comcast is so satisfying in and of itself. Competition is a wonderful thing. I have had Verizon fiber since 2008 in a market previously dominated by Comcast. It was forced to upgrade everything at lower prices to compete, and work hard to improve its abysmal customer service. But over time, say 3 years, the prices will creep back to what they were before. A duopoly is not enough to sustain price competition, and for many, satellite is not an alternative.

In addition to fast internet, all the HD content is uncompressed. Copper wire providers have to compress HD to to fit into the pipe. The difference is real.

I can only wish fiber comes to my other residence sometime in the near future but unfortunately it's not a big enough market. TWC is worse than Comcast.

[Acymetric]

This is exciting enough to make me want to jump the gun by a few years and buy a house so I can get in on it early.

[alteran]

Here's the blog post from Google. http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/...o-atlanta.html

These are the town/cities in the Triangle listed:
Carrboro
Cary
Chapel Hill
Durham
Garner
Morrisville
Raleigh

It's going to take years for this to get deployed, but it's great news if you are in one of the areas served. Interesting that all the areas listed are former Bell South areas with relatively weak competition in cable. AT&T really dropped the ball with U-verse.

{corporate strategery rant}

AT&T doesn't think so-- or at least they dropped that ball on purpose. They see landline internet service as low-margin / high-maintenance. This is the same reason Verizon got out of the local phone business+DSL, and sold it all to Frontier. They knew the future was either upgrading their lines to fiber or getting out. Mostly, they're getting out. Ultimately, AT&T and Verizon both just want to peddle high-margin cell plans as long as we Americans are enamored of 2-year commitments and "free" phones.

Verizon sold local phone service and DSL to Frontier. Frontier's strategy is to maintain the existing infrastructure and keep the highest margin they can, until their customers die of old age. They have no interest in upgrading the lines beyond DSL, which they know is on the edge of obsolescence.

Cable is currently where the phone companies were about 8 years ago-- the lines they have are currently fast enough for modern needs, but they can either reap big margins now, or smaller margins and upgrade for the future. TWC, Comcast, and their ilk are all opting for the former.

{end corporate strategery rant}

While I'm concerned about Google controlling yet another aspect of my life, I'm thrilled that some organization who actually wants to lay some (wanker, etc.) fiber is coming out here. I am a little worried that they're the only one.

[moonpie23]

i just love that the "big boys" (ATT, TW, Comcast) are horrified as godzilla approaches....

[davekay1971]

I am now writing this through a Google Fiber connection. I even type faster now...

[rasputin]

I am now writing this through a Google Fiber connection. I even type faster now...

Goody! My doctor says I need more fiber.