said by tshirt: So you recognize this experiment is not for profit, and thus plays by different rules, had the incumbents been given free RoW power and rackspace in public buildings/areas, there own city inspectors and traffic coordinators and FREE citywide franchises rights that existing companies begged and paid for and the right to walk away in 2 years, without penalty, should problems occur, finished or not, along with an open checkbook from the head office all ISP's additudes and rates would probably more closely mimic google.
OR (if we wait 20+ years) google or their offspring may be just as driven to make the quarterly and annual figures for their ISP business.
Google PAYS for pole connections & ROW access to string fiber.. so that is a myth.. but where you also go astray is the comparisons of what Google's negotiated compared with the incumbent Telco AND Cableco's benefits by local communities.. Telcos have taken BILLIONS of dollars in subsidies, tax breaks, sweetheart deals over the years in the hopes of getting customers served better.. and aside from lots of northeast build, that's largely NOT happened.. and places it has happened, the costs were not really worth the pitiful state broadband is in today with a lack of competition. Even the Verizon FIOS deal gives the company the ability to reneg on completing it's commitments so there isn't much difference... I think one key difference might be that status of the network.. Verizon' wouldn't abandon it's infrastructure (if not sold off to a company they load up on debt first). There's been no mention who would get the infrastructure if Google cancels their plans and it seems an open question. One I would have wanted to know the answer to before making the deal.
The google deal isn't that good to incumbent companies, or the current incumbents would have jumped on it years ago... but why should they? They can fleece the customer base w/o much recourse from the citizenry.. and it's that APATHY which gets no innovation done.. Let's be clear about what we've seen from Time Warner, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and a plethora if telco & cable companies.. they spent MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in lobbying federal, state and local government to protect their monopoly and duopolies to the tune of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS(direct subsidy and cost savings).. you'd think a deal could have been reached to BUILD instead of CORRUPT government and keep the monopoly / duopoly in place... but NO... they had to have not just cake, but the whole damned bakery (just to extend a metaphor) and eat it too.. LOBBY, and NOT spend money on infrastructure... and if they did.. cherry pick the best areas--that's why you primarily see the best broadband in the northeast.. uptake rates for it are through the roof.. maybe 90 - 95% of wireless and wireline customers subscribe to two or more services; either voice,wireless, video, and internet access... compare to the southwest where uptake is 85% or less.. for one or more services simultaneously.
Google is fighting the usage based billing system which disadvantages outside providers of content and steals from consumers by overcharging them while blocking innovation. If successful, this will spur on communties to draw the line on innovate & build or get out of the way....