Google Fiber Slightly Behind Schedule in Austin → Lowest income areas first again

The article sez...

quote:

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the Austin-American Statesman reported this week that south and east Austin are among those being targeted first, citing data culled from its review of hundreds of city-issued permits showing where Google Fiber has begun to install conduit.

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East and most of SE Austin are the lowest income areas of city. When they started in KC metro, they selected city of KC, KS first (lowest income city in KC metro, especially older areas) and then selected Central KC, MO of which E Side is among lowest income in metro - although Central W is mixed to very high income. N/S KC, MO rollouts are just now kicking into gear, which are mixed income of all levels. The wealthier burbs didn't come to agreements til later and may take a few more years to rollout. One purpose they claimed was to get access to the last segment of non-Internet users - low income. Seems it might be the pattern in Austin too.

If like KC, they'll only get a few connections up and running the quarter after the signups start. It took almost another year to really kick rollout into gear. Maybe with some experience now under belt it can happen a little faster but laying fiber from scratch isn't like pace of developing software.

Just because they're being first doesn't mean those cities will be able to afford any of the services- including the free services where they have to pay the install fee. $25 a month still is a matter of paying an actual bill or going without electric.

In KC, it was estimated that over 25% of homes passed by in lower income areas have GFiber, most going for the 5M service. And each fiberhood has public spaces that have free Gbit. There are many who now have Internet who didn't in past.

Either way, it looks like Google will again start with lower income areas. If they weren't satisfied with that approach in KC, they probably wouldn't do that again in Austin.

estimated? Who estimates this? Where are the real numbers at? If it's such as great product why not release the actual numbers if it works?

And yes Google would do it again, why? this is a hobby and what ever they spend comes from those poor saps called Shareholders/investors and people claiming that Google is the best.

Man you are bitter about Google. As existenz can attest to, we LOVE having them here in Kansas City.

One of my neighbors spotted workers in the Mueller Neighborhood and they said our area would not be live until most likely the middle of next year. Still, nice to see people doing the work even if it is another year until I can fire someone. 8-)

BTW, for those outside of Austin, the Mueller Neighborhood is a mixed development where eventually 25% of the homes will be occupied by those earning less than 80% of the median income. The other 75% are fairly affluent since it is about 4 miles from downtown Austin.

Yeah, I hope his head doesn't explode but haters are gonna hate even when reasonable information is provided. I've posted links to numbers before and yet still pretends nobody is using the service. He uses the argument of how much the city takes on yet I've explained to him many times KC, MO is willing to offer same conditions to other ISPs as long as they provide similar free/low priced services in each hood (Google gives free Gbit to a couple public orgs in every hood and then the cheap 5M service).

»www.cnet.com/news/google ··· petitor/

In terms of current homes passed by...

quote:

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The initial numbers from the survey when it comes to market penetration are very promising. In medium to high-income neighborhoods, Google Fiber is capturing about 75 percent of the homes passed with its Google Fiber service. In low-income neighborhoods penetration rates are closer to 30 percent. The analysts concluded that Google Fiber has gained a significant foothold in its early Kansas City fiberhoods. And that consumers are highly satisfied with the service and would recommend it to others.

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In terms of pre-registrations, according to someone from City are in the 20-35% range of all households, 2-3X higher than Google requires overall (halfway down page)...
»kcrag.com/viewtopic.php? ··· art=1660

They've laid down 7000 miles of FTTH so far in KC, before hitting the suburbs. Even if Google pulls out eventually, that's a significant infrastructure investment that KC will continue to benefit from.