Comments on news posted 2012-10-02 10:34:25: A few weeks back we noted how Google's franchise deal with Kansas City for Google Fiber was a particularly sweet arrangement. ..
I'm sure they'd be willing to grant similair sweet arangements if AT&T or TW wanted to deployed 1Gbps ftth, if you want that deal with lame ass old copper or cable lines, keep dreaming.
I'm sure they'd be willing to grant similair sweet arangements if AT&T or TW wanted to deployed 1Gbps ftth, if you want that deal with lame ass old copper or cable lines, keep dreaming.
Will AT&T and TW offer free service for a one time install fee? Will they match or beat Google's pricing? If so, let them have parity.
The Google offer seems very good imo. If it works in KC, then maybe other cities will benefit.
Google walking away, leaves a lot of infrastructure for the city to hire a 3rd party operator to manage, potentially at very low costs to consumers.
I'm sure they'd be willing to grant similair sweet arangements if AT&T or TW wanted to deployed 1Gbps ftth, if you want that deal with lame ass old copper or cable lines, keep dreaming.
KC, MO is already granting TWC & AT&T similar perks as Google got without requiring any special promises from them. And they are doing it because the cities know they are on a weak legal footing in providing Google perks not extended to Goggle's competitors.
Title says it all. Especially when the project only has to last for 2 years, if they had plans on making it last longer, they wouldn't have the 2year clause.
Now this was inevitable. If a gov't discriminates between vendors and doesn't go thru open bidding processes, they will be challenged in court. But KC knows they are on weak footing and is doing deals with TWC & AT&T.
Among the sweeteners granted Google by both cities are free office space and free power for Google's equipment, according to the agreement on file with the cities. The company also gets the use of all the cities' "assets and infrastructure"including fiber, buildings, land and computer tools, for no charge. Both cities are even providing Google a team of government employees "dedicated to the project."
Time Warner Cable has been negotiating with Kansas City, Kan.,to get a "parity agreement" granting it the same concessions as Google got, the city and the company says. Time Warner Cable has already signed such a deal with Kansas City, Mo.
AT&T also has approached Kansas City, Mo., for the same deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.
All of a sudden, the cost to Kansas City taxpayers is going up and up for this Google deal.
Considering the attitude Time Warner and AT&T had over services it would seem they would accept but not provide gigabit ethernet like Google is currently doing. The amount of funding AT&T has already received from other sources has not caused any great innovation in the market of Kansas either.
A fair approach would of been for no red carpet towards anyone in that market but since there was a demand for faster services then this is a burden the tax payers must face but towards the provider chosen for those incentives not a free lunch for the rest who couldn't deliver or much rather wouldn't deliver.
Judging how Kansas City is making deals now with the other two it seems that they didn't really follow proper procedures when entering this Google deal and Time Warner including AT&T know it.
I wonder what the fine print really says. Public service request anyone?
No the cost goes down. If they get lower pole costs, then theoretically franchise fees should go down, but you know that one will need to be pulled off like "dial tone fee".
What the crux of this is NOT about franchise fees, they simply pass them through to the customer, but Franchise agreements which today say wire me 100% or not. What these guys want to do is have selective "cherry picking" WITHIN a franchise market so they can only wire the profitable markets.
This is great because if this happens, these corporations won't help themselves and will just start wiring where they can make money, and sooner or later the taxpayers will revolt and voila fiber will become a utility like it should have 10 years ago.
Then rinse and repeat on the big guys finding legislative ways to block competitors so that thinks are only fair....and by fair keeping all those potential innovators out...
With AT&T and other Telcos the have to provide POTS service to everyone. The cable companies only have to provide it to the city limits. They can move outside the limits of their franchise if it will be profitable but not required. Google did get get a lot of exemptions like pole placement and I am guessing most of their cable placement will get speedy approval where AT&T and TWC have to go through the normal procedures.
I agree they need to get their act together and put fiber in and compete or they need one physical network fiber provider and then the customer chooses the content provider. If you have one communications connection provider and it is a private company you have to have a very good watchdog commission to make sure the private company gives excellent service as the network get older and needs repair, maintenance, and upgrades. I would suggest the Fiber provider only provide one or two terminated fibers to the house and let the content providers provide the end electronics and content. That way anybody that wants to provide content has a chance to sell to customers. The customer would pay the fiber provider separate from the content provider. If the Fiber provider is a city department it becomes like the other utility departments some cities do a great job and other cities let their water, sewer, power, streets fall apart.
As you can see the right of way is getting crowded. With Google a house may have a connection to Google, AT&T and TWC plus any satellite connections. They also have power, water, sewer and maybe gas connection.
Time Warner Cable has been negotiating with Kansas City, Kan.,to get a "parity agreement" granting it the same concessions as Google got, the city and the company says. Time Warner Cable has already signed such a deal with Kansas City, Mo.
AT&T also has approached Kansas City, Mo., for the same deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.
All of a sudden, the cost to Kansas City taxpayers is going up and up for this Google deal.
Just a note, TWC already had this deal before Google every even talked about fiber. AT&T has had the deal on the table waiting for their signature for about 5 years. Kansas City taxpayers have no say in the matter, as both deals were brokered at the state level.
Also, Missouri has a professional services clause to its contracts. You do not have to put ISP services out to bid as long as a state level contract is in place (which TWC, AT&T, and Charter all have).
You make assumptions that you know nothing of concerning why it was a 2 year agreement.
At least they openly put a limit on their plans if it is not going well where as your corporate bed buddies just keep on saying they are doing this and doing that while getting incentives and then suddenly stop without warning.
Bottom line, as pointed out in the article, is that both TW and AT&T had their chance. They choose to do nothing, they choose not to try and work out a deal with the city to improve there, they ultimately choose to have a competitor come in and pickup the market they didnt want to invest in.
I personally would tell them NO, you can lease the lines from Google as we dont think it is in our cities best interest to run multiple fiber lines all over the city to reach the same destination of homes and businesses.
Did AT&T and Time Warner Cable make franchise agreements with Kansas City? Contract law is fair, if AT&T doesn't like the deal they made then they can make a new one when it expires.
It would be better to have lower barriers to entry, I think everyone should get the perks Google got, except for cherry picking. AT&T would love to switch wires for data-capped towers. That wouldn't be in Kansas City's best interest.
Compared to AT&T giving complete phone and internet data to the NSA without a court oversight? Compared to AT&T, Google is Jesus.
You don't think Google will give out internet data to the NSA?
Google monitors everyone and uses it to build a database about you. They probably know more about you than your closest friend or significant other. I don't think that is much better.
what purpose does having a file on > 300 million people do for a private company that doesn't sell products to all of those people?
That's a great question. Google must have some reason. A lot of it is advertising. The more then know, the more they can charge for more accurate advertising.
As opposed to AT&T? Do you really want to make that comparison? Or as opposed to the big cable companies like TWC that built their initial systems with a local monopoly on video service? Who has the unfair advantage?
By and large, there is NO competitive free market in telecom in the USA. At least not at the consumer level. And it is beyond stupid to maintain the fiction that we somehow need to provide a "level playing field" to the duopoly "competitors" in the field, while ignoring that they were put in place by monopoly protections and HUGE taxpayer/ratepayer subsidies.
Actually, I have to agree with Time Warner and At&t for once
It is not necessarily At&t/Time Warner's problem that they have old infrastructure. They have been operating services for a long time. Google is coming in with brand new infrastructure capable of fast and unnecessary speeds. It would be extremely expensive for At&t and TW to do the same thing google is, and they would not be able to turn a profit at the same prices google is charging. If Google were in this for real and not just for experimental projects that they will probably find a way to use as a tax write-off, things would be different.
So I have to agree with TW and At&t. If google gets the perks, so should they.
Make sure the local media knows and reports on what TWC and ATT are asking for and then someone shove a mic in their reps. face and ask if they will be providing the same service that Google will be providing. Sometimes you just have to call out crazy and make them defend their decisions in front of the camera.
do they promise $70 1 gigabit symmetric broadband? if it doesn't resemble anything like it, then they can go to hell.. these big fat ISP companies choked down BILLIONS of dollars in the past two decades of freebies.. more than paying for the hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying.. and yet screwed the consumer just about at every turn for their trouble.
besides, there are only justifications for any type of benefit in places where it is geographically expensive to deploy fiber.. and that is primarily to rural places.. with how much fiber optic cable is strong along the northeast.. these ISPs should practically be paying YOU to take their service.. and not looking for a hand-out..
the bar's been set so high now that ISPs are crying poor when some have made unwise investments and disadvantaged the consumer for so long they've blown they're credibility putting the idea of hefty TF (termination fees) on the table as part of the strings attached.
remains to be seen what these Kansas and Missouri people DO with 1 gigabit fiber.. will the find ways to max it out?!? hehe...
"Google Fiber exists because companies like AT&T and Time Warner Cable failed to provide the kind of connectivity consumers want; despite adequate resources"
I am quite sure that 95% of everyone else does not have your same viewpoint. All they care about is the cost of said services. Personally I think this is another attempt by Google to pressure others to do their own bidding which will ultimately fail with Google leaving a junk network behind.
"Google Fiber exists because companies like AT&T and Time Warner Cable failed to provide the kind of connectivity consumers want; despite adequate resources"
I am quite sure that 95% of everyone else does not have your same viewpoint. All they care about is the cost of said services. Personally I think this is another attempt by Google to pressure others to do their own bidding which will ultimately fail with Google leaving a junk network behind.
The first person into a new market always has an advantage. They at any time could have offered gigabit without caps and negotiated deals with the city for any regulatory breaks. They chose not to.
Someone else beat them to it, now they lose. Notice how they are not taking advantage of google targeting a single city by immediately offering gigabit without caps in other cities using existing infrastructure to negotiate deals.
Notice how they are not taking advantage of google targeting a single city by immediately offering gigabit without caps in other cities using existing infrastructure to negotiate deals.
Exactly, these companies have never had consumer interests as a priority. And the way they work, they never will.
Too bad for them the internet is an information technology, and even if they are not advancing at the same rate Moore's law advances, it doesn't mean that the technology to keep up with Moore's law will stop existing. Progress waits for nobody.
The first person into a new market always has an advantage. They at any time could have offered gigabit without caps and negotiated deals with the city for any regulatory breaks. They chose not to.
Someone else beat them to it, now they lose. Notice how they are not taking advantage of google targeting a single city by immediately offering gigabit without caps in other cities using existing infrastructure to negotiate deals.
In this case, the late mover has the advantage of lower network gear and fiber costs, as well as not having a workforce and farming everything out to largely non-union, lower paid workers.
The legacy infrastructure that the telcos have is a disadvantage because they can't easily ditch their copper plant because some phone services don't work over VOIP.
Since the phone service is regulated for them, makes it hard to ditch some of the existing plant.
Google has an inherent advantage over cable/telco in that they are willing to build their own gear and do custom things to reduce costs/improve performance - the cable and telcos only buy gear and pay someone to install into their network.
...for an "unlevel playing field": gigabit to the areas who wanted it, for less than TWC charges for 50/5 on-promo.
If TWC and AT&T are promising FTTH builds with comparable speeds in return for the same things Google is getting...and if there are penalties (like being forced to pay back franchise fees or the coax/telco infrastructure gets repo'd by the city) if they don't meet their promises, fine. Give 'em the perks that Google has gotten.
But if TWC or AT&T are going to turn around and use those perks to offer the same services at roughly the same price (or maybe they'll try predatory pricing to make sure that GFiber fails), then the incentives (and that's all these perks are) have failed.
I still haven't seen Google's Plan for The Last Mile. You guys seem to think that dropping Fiber from the closes Pole is a Plan. I think Google is not going forward in Kansas City because they want to clean things up, not add to the mess. Fiber is the Future, and that means Clean and Out of Site. Going underground is more costly, and that is the problem. The solution, Communities and Cities have to Fiber Wire themselves. Then Google or the ISP's could just meet them at the HeadIn.
I am astounded how shills for the cable and telco duopoly can make their ($$$Paid$$$) excuses for these plutocrat lamebrains.
UNDERGROUND? Both sewer and water are undeground EVERYWHERE! Guaranteed! Fiber in the same place will not send water or (yuck!) pouring out your connection. They did it in France and other places without any problem.
These telco/cable clowns can make endless excuses, but they cannot execute! To make it simple: they are greedy, stupid morons who cannot and will not make it happen, while their monopoly loads them with profits and bonuses, without COMPETITION! To them "investment" means greasing up local politicians!
eat a shit sandwich! Both have been the beneficiaries of the FCC allowing them to collect fees to upgrade their network, yet they haven't. AT&T is still milking every penny they can out of their copper lines. TW still has pathetic speeds for a premium. Now that Google is showing them how things should be done, they scream and cry.
So lets summarize all arguments that are Pro-TW&ATT
When AT&T and TW are completely and utterly raping consumers and the companies locked out any and all competition? - ::crickets::
When AT&T and TW are behind in the race because of their own stupidity and greed? - WAHHHHHHHHH
Everyone crying about how "unfair" this is should shut up until they can explain where they were when these two companies shot down any and all consumer friendly laws that have come up around the country.
...also oppose muni fiber efforts, despite not wanting to provide competitive services. Instead, the municipalities had to step in where they (the incumbents) fell short.
AT&T? TWC? Here's the NOC Google built on city property, and here's a nice shiny rack waiting for your fiber switch. Your fiber bundles can enter over there, and run through this conduit. Install your 10/40/100GigE fiber switches & routers, install the cross-connects and peer with the customers, and you can sell services to Google's customers over the same fiber Google laid.
Good luck trying to get anyone to pay $54/month for 18mbps down/1mbps up Uverse FTTH, though, considering that anyone with fiber there can get faster internet connectivity for free, and a few bucks more will buy them connectivity that makes 18/1 look like dialup by comparison.
TWC? With some HyperMegacheapSupermassivelyDiscountedChannelBundling, you might be able to compete if you charge $50/month more than Google for TV, but deliver every premium and HD channel known to exist somewhere in the free world, and offer the channels at Blu-Ray bitrates with 32-bit 192khz PCM surround audio.
Oh, you mean you just want the right to cherry-pick FTTC and cable markets? Go to hell, and come back when your plans for the markets you want to cherry-pick include gigabit fiber to the home and open peering with Google (so Google can offer internet and TV over YOUR fiber, just like you can offer internet and TV over theirs). Fair is fair, after all...
We are talking about video providers. There is no requirement whatsoever for an ISP to get a franchise agreement in Missouri. The agreements only pertain to video service. AT&T and TWC could build whatever ISP infrastructure they want in KCMO, cherrypick anywhere they want, and abandon it after 3 months. There's nothing KCMO could do to stop them.
This is only about the TV agreement.
Which is why this is only grandstanding. Missouri has a very generous statewide cable franchise. That statewide franchise, which both AT&T and TWC have signed on to, allows both of those incumbents to ignore the city completely. They can cherrypick neighborhoods without penalty and back out whenever they want. In other words, both TWC and AT&T already have a better deal than Google. This is all just PR and nothing more.