Google Is Deploying Fiber To The Home

Between 50,000 and 500,000 to see 1 Gbps connections....

tags: business · alternatives · bandwidth
As if ISPs didn't hate Google enough already for recent disruptions in the wireless space, the search giant today announced via their corporate blog that the company is deploying an experimental fiber to the home network in a handful of trial locations across the United States. According to Google, the project will deliver fiber to the home speeds at up to 1 gigabit per second to a rather murky number of total subscribers:

Google is planning to build, and test ultra-high speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the country. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections.
In a YouTube video entitled "think big with a gig," Google Product Manager James Kelly says that a lucky group of users will be offered the blisteringly-fast speeds at "competitive prices." Why? According to the fiber to the home project page, Google says they want to test next-generation applications and explore new ways to help deliver fiber to the home service.

But the carrier also says they want to explore the idea of "openness," and likely wants to use the network and collected data as argumentative fodder in their debate with carriers over network neutrality and competitiveness. As such, Google will be giving subscribers to this fiber network "the choice of multiple service providers," and insists they'll be managing the network in "an open, non-discriminatory, and transparent way."

While the announcement will surely be greeted with a litany of people proclaiming that this is the arrival of "Google the ISP," such a broader move remains unlikely. For years Google has tinkered with the idea of offering limited range wireless broadband service, and while this too fostered talk about Google as a carrier, most of these projects were little more than test beds for ad delivery. Google projects like their Wi-Fi network in their hometown of Mountain View, California, never extended beyond their initial target area.

Still it's an interesting development, and even if Google doesn't take the idea past trial stage, it will be a kick in the digital posterior of upgrade-complacent ISPs, while demonstrating the viability of an open access delivery model. The collected data will also be useful in debating ISPs on topics ranging from congestion and neutrality, to transit prices and consumer trends. This kind of data has long been held tightly to the chest of major service providers.

Google says they've issued a Request for Information (RFI) to help identify interested communities that's due by March 26. Community members and government officials can officially begin begging Google via this link.
by Karl Bode


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