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axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus to Smith6612

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Re: The cost

Why do you think it would cost so much to provide a gigabit connection? You can rent a server with Gigabit speeds for like $20/mo, the hardware cost to Google is probably on the level of the server price. Maintaining a fiber network is cheaper than a copper one, right?

I think Time Warner is actually right, high demand is not there for Gigabit. People want cheap. But, there is a free 5Mbps connection. How many people are paying $70/mo instead of free? Most people don't want 5Mbps, no matter how cheap it is. Google proved it. They want something better, why not make it Gigabit. What is Time Warner giving for $70?
JTR
join:2012-05-19
Westmont, IL
MikroTik CCR2004-1G-12S-2XS
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JTR

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said by axus:

Why do you think it would cost so much to provide a gigabit connection? You can rent a server with Gigabit speeds for like $20/mo, the hardware cost to Google is probably on the level of the server price. Maintaining a fiber network is cheaper than a copper one, right?

You are wrong on every single one of those points.

First of all, the server. Go find me a truly unlimited gigabit dedicated server with a decent BGP blend of bw providers for under, let's say, $500/mo. Good luck, because such a thing dosn't exist. There's only a handful of dedis in this price range, all of which have extremely terrible networks.

That $20 server? Shared gigabit line, low bandwidth, probably oversold, and a budget transit or single-homed network. And that's being optimistic.

Datacenters are NOT a good comparison to use. They do not have to maintain their own fiber rings/backbones, last-mile networks, nodes, infrastructure, etc. They do not have to pay for modems for every customer, they do not have to run miles and miles of fiber through a large city, they do not have to pay for permits to run said fiber... They need a building, stable power, some pricy UPS/genset systems, a few fiber lines, and a ridiculous cooling system.

Also, good luck finding a dedicated server at $20 with a gigabit line. Online.net is the only provider offering gigabit at that price, and their gigabit has exceedingly bad international transit (as well as a impressively bad network). Kimsufi doesn't count, they use 100Mbit lines with 5TB limits.

An ISP has WAY more infrastructure to maintain than a server provider. Comparing the two directly is idiotic.

Smith6612
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North Tonawanda, NY
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Smith6612 to axus

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to axus
said by axus:

Why do you think it would cost so much to provide a gigabit connection? You can rent a server with Gigabit speeds for like $20/mo, the hardware cost to Google is probably on the level of the server price. Maintaining a fiber network is cheaper than a copper one, right?

I think Time Warner is actually right, high demand is not there for Gigabit. People want cheap. But, there is a free 5Mbps connection. How many people are paying $70/mo instead of free? Most people don't want 5Mbps, no matter how cheap it is. Google proved it. They want something better, why not make it Gigabit. What is Time Warner giving for $70?

The reason being is I'm not so much in the sticks, but out here we have DSL or Cable, with some blend of one or the other only being available. Go a half a mile North and you'll find homes that can't get anything but spotty LTE, 3G, or Satellite (or Point to Point Wi-Fi if those providers are still around in this area). Time Warner supplies the Fiber going to all of the schools in this area and to many other large organizations out here, and they have Gigabit connections but I do know they pay a fortune for them, but work well when their IT Departments aren't breaking things with overly restrictive security policies on their Firewalls.

The cost of getting the fiber isn't accounting for everything, but Time Warner would have to get the needed equipment to me, bury some fiber for some time, run some aerial fiber, and get me a connection back to their office. From there, the bandwidth has to be paid for at least to their interconnection. If they're going to give me a dedicated line so to speak but mix in traffic back at the office, that's basically taking you to the price of an enterprise circuit.

I do pay $450 a month for a rented, custom order dedicated server out in Chicago with a Gigabit connection that is unmetered, which also includes a private 1Gbps circuit which is also unmetered if I get another server with the provider. Their main providers for bandwidth is AboveNet and PNAP. But yes Datacenters are an unfair comparison.
axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus to JTR

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Hey, good info there, so how much do you think it all costs Google when you add up all those and divide by the number of subscribers? BTW, google is providing a Nexus 7 as a remote control, don't forget to include that cost

I shouldn't have implied dedicated server for $20. How many VPS users do you think they have per physical server?

5TB seems pretty high to me, do you think Google fiber customers will be hitting that? Does Kimsufi have a good network, maybe I should rent a server there if it's really dedicated.