Comments on news posted 2014-05-06 18:21:00: Google has been very quiet about sign up totals for Google Fiber so far, so Bernstein Research recently conducted a door to door survey across five Kansas City neighborhoods (via Multichannel News). ..
How about Google begins surveys on whether customers would want MORE bandwidth than 1 gigabit symmetric. I suspect there might be some interest in ramping up to 10 gigabits so that 1 gigabit can finally drop in price making it more accessible to the lower income groups. Once in deployment, it would once again make your incumbent ISP look like they're doing this to you..
One high income fiberhood had 83% subscription rate. A low income hood had 27%, which is still higher than I'd expect. Apparently avg is about 75% but they were polling just a few fiberhoods that had high demand for service. Would be surprising if Google gets 50% market share after a few years, but still interesting to see who has the interest. Most are going for Gbit only according to survey. I was expecting free 5M to have most but maybe they didn't poll apt/condo buildings that automatically get it for free.
About 400 apts/condo buildings have agreement with Google so far. Every unit automatically gets free 5/1 with option to upgrade. If 50 units/avg/building, that's potentially 20K subs already, not including single family homes. And they haven't started agreements in North/South KC, MO yet.
Lowell and his predecessor spent billions running FTTH, and the take rate simply doesn't pencil out.
Google has been permitted to brazenly cherry-pick its territory and only deploy to pre-contracted neighborhoods in cities where the council has laid down for them.
Are you going to permit Verizon to do the same with the same privileges?
Re: I have friend in north KC, MO who has signed up with Google Fiber
North KC won't get it for a while. I have some friends/family with 5M and it does work very well. The best thing is that the latency is same as Gbit, below 5ms locally, only about 10-15ms KC to Chicago.
Is fast enough for Netflix 720p and browsing at same time.
You often say this but in KC, all ISPs get the same privileges as Google and ATT/TWC are now laying a lot more fiber around KC. Google is working with cities to make it easier for all ISPs to deploy fiber, not just them. The incumbents are more interested in preventing competition through lobbying than working with local govts to improve efficiency for _all_. Since we've discussed this before, wouldn't you say you're intentionally spreading mis-information?
ATT cherry-picked in my area. Uverse is in my zipcode but not on my street. It's sporadically available around town.
I would think the reason the lower income neighborhoods take rate being smaller is the $300 they have to cough up to start the 'free' service. I don't know for sure, but even if you live in an apartment or condo that 'let's' google do installs, you probably still have to pony up the $300.
Did you read the Kirjner piece? It says that Google is not cherrypicking, but building heavily into the poor neighborhoods, and getting decent take rate even there!
What's your definition of Cherrypicking? Building Kansas City, KS (one of the poorest cities in the state), and not building Overland Park (the wealthiest city in KS)?
Maybe if they got a monopoly franchise like AT&T and the Cable guys got to build their networks, they would also build in the 10% of the area that didn't qualify yet.
And do you really think FIOS or U-verse is available to 100% of any city they rolled out in?
Which is why most say 'free' 5M. Although they do allow $25/month payments over a year. Could probably get more lower income if $12.50 over 2 years.
However for all apts/conds that come to agreement with Google, the building owner/condo assoc pays the $300 for all units and then they get $300 back for each unit that upgrades. Renters just pay a few $ in taxes/month. Perhaps fewer would upgrade in lower income buildings, but still a perk for building owner to market. There are a few low rent buildings in KC that have agreements, but not many so far.
Yeah, City of KC, KS is lowest income city of KC metro and Google chose that city first. Then they selected Central KC, MO and the E side of that area is among lowest income of metro area (though W side is avg to high income). They didn't pursue most avg/high income burbs until later.
A 27% uptake of lowest income fiberhoods is pretty good if the case.
...people will choose this over a similarly priced lower speed from the incumbent. but would it win against half the price for 1/4 the speed? ie we don't doubt Google can offer this at that price, but can Google make the business case that it is affordable and profitable to build out at these price points? even with a 50% take rate, assuming it remains that high could a for profit ISP afford to do this? without the personal data harvest fest Google is enjoying?
I would think the reason the lower income neighborhoods take rate being smaller is the $300 they have to cough up to start the 'free' service. I don't know for sure, but even if you live in an apartment or condo that 'let's' google do installs, you probably still have to pony up the $300.
It is free. Free refers to the month to month cost. If you think they're going to run the fiber and give you the equipment in addition to the connection for nothing you're nuts. Very strange people.
"ISP execs comfort themselves with the fact that Google Fiber won't be coming to most of their territories anytime soon. While Google recently announced they were considering delivering Google Fiber to 34 new cities in nine regions, only one or two of those cities are likely to see service anytime soon."
I think Google could do one city in each region, so 9 cities. Google has a wild streak.
Ivan seidenberg... spent billions running fiber, he seen the future and knew that it needed to be done to stay ahead of the curve, very intelligent man. He worked his way up, he was not a paper CEO... Which McAdam is.
The uptake is there, the investors just want their ROI now, and this will be the death null of wired services, I hope they can sell the fiber and copper and have a company take it up while these guys go to wireless.
Cherry picking is not going where they are allowed to do their business, it's called intelligent business. Take the low hanging fruit then build from there. They chose to stop building at what would have been the perfect time due to investors.
Had they taken the bad economy ins tride and contracted workers at 1/3rd the normal cost, they would have kept people busy and the economy rolling and they would have quite simply built at a 3rd of the cost... But that's not what McAdams wanted and Ivan was clearly told that before he left.
I see the options are either symmetrical gigabit for $70 or 5/1 for a 1x charge of $300 guaranteed for 7 years. So people that want/need internet fast enough for multiple video streams, HD video, fast downloads, cloud services, VPN, file sharing, simultaneous users, etc are forced to pick the gigabit plan.
I bet if they offered 100/100 for $35, more than 50% of their gigabit customers would have chosen that instead. Even though they'd technically be paying 5x more per megabit, the reality is the demand for gigabit mostly isn't there. Google is just smart enough to build their infrastructure to be ahead of the need and not bother offering all the various tiers, which decimates the incumbents.
Is this high demand for the service, or very good research and deployment on Google's part? Maybe Verizon/AT&T would have been able to see a higher sign on rate if they had targeted a heck of a lot better/slower (they moved slow enough already, but Google of course can do no wrong).
Honestly I think if Verizon/AT&T or anyone else could target well and research ahead of time they would see fantastic uptake of 100/50 for maybe $50 or $60 and 1000/100 for $100/mo. Their problem was they were pricing too high for initial uptake and honestly probably were doing the research Google was and instead just looking at demographics.
Verizon/ATT aren't interested in upgrading or offering higher tier service because it would cost money to deploy. See, they already have the customers because they are a monopoly, and they are already collecting the rent on whatever piss poor product they can offer so their is no reason to upgrade.
For an incumbent to be interested in upgrading would require real competition, not the pretend competition created in a duopoly.
And this is just one spoke in the wheel. Two other spokes Google has started are piloting small business class service on the cheap and public free WiFi around KC with Gbit backhaul.
without the personal data harvest fest Google is enjoying?
I don't understand your position. I have the read the TOS/AUP from all major service providers and Google's is no different on the privacy aspect than any of the rest.
"Doesn't pencil out"? The take rate has been profitable for Verizon. They keep jacking up rates and still stealing new customers from cable. What else are you expecting?
Lowell and his predecessor spent billions running FTTH, and the take rate simply doesn't pencil out.
Google has been permitted to brazenly cherry-pick its territory and only deploy to pre-contracted neighborhoods in cities where the council has laid down for them.
Are you going to permit Verizon to do the same with the same privileges?
Verizon, AT&T, and every other provider already cherry pick what they want and don't want. Just ask those that want Uverse, or those that want FiOS but cannot get it because VZ refuses to honor their past agreements and bails on the area.