The Other Kansas City to Get Google Fiber Company to Extend 1 Gbps Across State Line Tuesday May 17 2011 08:45 EDT Back in March Google finally announced that Kansas City, Kansas would be the first city to get Google's new 1 Gbps fiber to the home service. While details are pretty scarce at the moment, tthe Kansas City Star reports that the ultra-fast service will be extended across the state line and offered in Kansas City, Missouri as well. The added complexity of stringing service to every resident on the Missouri side supposedly delayed the announcement, but Google plans to run fiber via access to Kansas City Power & Light infrastructure. In exchange, Google is promising free Internet connections to a significant number of schools and municipal office buildings. |
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Huh?"Kansas City, Kansas would be the first company" | |
|  FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ |
FFH5
Premium Member
2011-May-17 9:02 am
Kansas City, Mo has many more peopleKansas City, Missouri has about 3x the number of people than Kansas City, Kansas has. 483,000 vs 147,000. Google is committing to a much larger rollout with this announcement. I wonder if today they will address if that is going to extend how long the deployment takes. | |
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Re: Kansas City, Mo has many more peopleA source who spoke on condition of not being named said Google would have access to Kansas City Power & Light infrastructure to string its lines through Kansas City. Google will pay a fee to KCP&L for access to those lines, the source said. | |
| |  thegeek
Premium Member
join:2008-02-21
right here |
to FFH5
So hopefully Google will spread it to the rest of the metro area. I'm sure they'd go to Overland Park and Olathe first, but I'll keep my hopes up they spread to the north too! | |
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| xenophon |
1Gbps for $50/month?The KC Star article says Google 'hints' service will be $50/month.
If so, will be interesting to see how TWC responds, which covers most of KCMO and KCK. ATT Uverse is also in some areas and SureWest is rolling out FTTH to KC metro. If Google succeeds, this should truly shakeup the industry. | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?They only come to that number as a guess based on local prices for existing services....I'm not sure if even Google has decided what they plan to price this at yet. | |
| |  powerspec88
Premium Member
join:2007-03-11
Lees Summit, MO |
to xenophon
said by xenophon:If Google succeeds, this should truly shakeup the industry.
That they will, but I don't see $50/month 1Gbps w/o a cap. | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by powerspec88:said by xenophon:If Google succeeds, this should truly shakeup the industry.
That they will, but I don't see $50/month 1Gbps w/o a cap. I doubt it will have a cap. I see it being more like Verizon FIOS. South Korea offers uncapped Gigabit connections for about 45 dollars and Japan has 100 mbit/s connections for about the same price. ( the Japanese connections have an upload cap of 900+ gigabytes, and no download caps at all ) Firstly, there is no technical reason for caps, and secondly the service is meant to be disruptive. | |
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to powerspec88
Remember when a 1.5M T1 cost hundreds/month and then consumer grade cable modem comes along and delivers over 1Mbps for under $50? Yeah, consumer isn't guaranteed as business class is but is still achievable.
Around 1995, T1 was at work and I dreamed of having that at home someday. A couple years later, it happened for much less than I would've expected - was less than ISDN at 128K. Google's model is to profit from clicks/hits and data mining the traffic. They might be able to pull off that pricepoint. | |
| | | | mmay149q
Premium Member
join:2009-03-05
Dallas, TX |
mmay149q
Premium Member
2011-May-17 10:34 am
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by xenophon:Google's model is to profit from clicks/hits and data mining the traffic. They might be able to pull off that pricepoint.
Since it's Google, I doubt you'll even have to click anything, every site you go to will probably be sold wholesale to make up for the profit loss of the cost per month of service to advertisers and etc. However to be honest I'm more in favor of that than I am caps with monthly overages, that's what pisses me off about ISP's doing caps/overages is that they already sell your information on the backend as well, so they are already double dipping. (if they already have a nationwide backbone other people pay them to use) Now with overages on the caps instead of throttling, they are now triple dipping on you as well, while protecting TV revenues... I don't even want to think about what they do to the people who connect into their backbones for bandwidth and what they charge, and they might be double dipping there as well with just selling information of every data that comes across their network, so even if you aren't a customer of them directly they are making money off you. Either way none of the ISP's (especially the large ones) are fooling me, they are probably getting paid 4 - 5 times more than what I pay for service per month just from all the whole sale they make off me (4 to 5 times as in actual payments received, not as in $50 x 4/5 or etc) and yet they don't have $$$ to pay for upgrades in the future? Or can't pay to take care of the last mile? BS... we seriously need another civil war and need to completely rip apart our corrupt government and re-build it, it's sad that so many people in this country and blind to it.... Matt | |
| | | | Kamus
join:2011-01-27
El Paso, TX |
to xenophon
"emember when a 1.5M T1 cost hundreds/month and then consumer grade cable modem comes along and delivers over 1Mbps for under $50? Yeah, consumer isn't guaranteed as business class is but is still achievable."
You bring up a very good point, you'd think that by now, we'd see the same price for 10 - 20 gigabit Ethernet connections by now at the price of those T1's. | |
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| | | Kamus |
to powerspec88
WOW, you really think they will cap such a monster connection?
Of course not, it defeats the purpose of a gigabit altogether.
Once the infrastructure is laid out, the only thing Google has to worry about is maintenance, what goes on the network makes no difference what so ever.
Just how would you even go about capping a gigabit connection anyway? you have the potential to download a full 50 GB bluray in a couple of minutes.
It amazes me the misconceptions some people have about data, it's like saying that you can't get a 4 Ghz processor with out caps for 300 dollars. (yes, it's that dumb of an analogy)
The only problem you'll run into with a connection like this, is maxing it out, or maxing even half of it out at any given time, and that's a very good thing!
It means that no matter what anyone in your house is doing, your connection will never be saturated. At least not for a few years.
This is the way new networks should be thought off, with bandwidth to spare, to avoid any unwelcome slowness. | |
| | | | powerspec88
Premium Member
join:2007-03-11
Lees Summit, MO |
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?Go tell Comcast that... | |
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to Kamus
well, see, gpon is currently limited to 2.5 gbit down, 1.25 gbit up. So if you have a few hundred users on each node, then at some point it's going to run into the same restrictions as cable. Cable is running into the same problems, where 8 channels of docsis 3 are 300 mbit, and 120 upload.... so unless it's an active system where everyone gets a dedicated link, it'll happen. | |
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| |  r81984Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX |
to powerspec88
said by powerspec88:said by xenophon:If Google succeeds, this should truly shakeup the industry.
That they will, but I don't see $50/month 1Gbps w/o a cap. Google has no reason to cap since they do not have a non-internet tv service to protect like ATT. | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by r81984:Google has no reason to cap since they do not have a non-internet tv service to protect like ATT. They also have no reason to cap because they have so much money that the fiber build never even has to be profitable for them. It can lose money indefinitely and it wouldn't hurt Google a bit. | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by jcremin:said by r81984:Google has no reason to cap since they do not have a non-internet tv service to protect like ATT. They also have no reason to cap because they have so much money that the fiber build never even has to be profitable for them. It can lose money indefinitely and it wouldn't hurt Google a bit. While this could've been an R&D network that doesn't have to make money, Google has come out to say they intend to make a profit on this. They'll make a gobs more money data mining the traffic. » Google: We're in Kansas City To Make Money [75] comments | |
| | | | | r81984Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX |
to jcremin
said by jcremin:said by r81984:Google has no reason to cap since they do not have a non-internet tv service to protect like ATT. They also have no reason to cap because they have so much money that the fiber build never even has to be profitable for them. It can lose money indefinitely and it wouldn't hurt Google a bit. Bandwidth is cheap. They will be profitable at $50 a month just like ATT was greatly profitable giving 6 meg uncapped at $20. | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by r81984:Bandwidth is cheap. Bandwidth is cheap in a datacenter, building fiber to the home isn't. I'm just saying that Google will do just fine regardless of whether they actually charge enough to profit from it or not. They have lots of money in their deep pockets AT&T was profitable because the rates for phone service and the federal subsidies paid for building the copper plant years ago so the cost to deploy an additional service over the existing infrastructure was quite low. | |
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DataRiker
Premium Member
2011-May-17 10:50 pm
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?The only way google wouldn't turn a profit is if they gave it away for free. You know whats funny? Cox magically was able to offer an uncapped 50+ mbit/s plan overnight when LUS fiber came to Lafayette. As far as I know, its their only uncapped market. It also happens to be its only truly competitive one as well. What a coincidence.
I love disruptive competition. | |
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jcremin
Member
2011-May-18 12:57 am
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by DataRiker:The only way google wouldn't turn a profit is if they gave it away for free. So you are saying there are no fixed monthly costs of providing service? I'm talking support, technicians, bandwidth, electricity, etc. Ok, I know that you didn't literally mean it had to be free, but there is obviously a cost of goods sold for internet, most on this site don't want to accept that fact, but there is. Then take the cost per house past and divide the monthly rate that is charged for the service. That gives you the best case payback period for. Let's say the monthly rate is $50/mo and it costs $1500 per home passed (I believe Verizon threw out that number for their deployments), if EVERY house signs up for service, that means that if you don't factor in any of the monthly costs of providing the service, it will take 2.5 years just to break even on the initial service. Obviously not every house will sign up, even if the service were only $1/mo, so let's say that 25% of people actually sign up. That puts the payback period at 10 years just to break even. Now take out the monthly cost of actually providing the service and add in repairs, upgrades, etc. That could easily put the payback period at 15 to 20 years. I'm just trying to show that deploying fiber and providing service isn't an immediate cash cow. It will take plenty of time to make money on it, and they will have to charge a heck of a lot more than free to make it profitable. FYI: I'm 100% for competition. But not all competition is good competition. Walmart, for example, is bad competition. Sure, it saves people a few dollars compared to a local store. Because they are so huge they can purchase huge quantities dirt cheap. And while they do provide jobs, they also cause tens of thousands of smaller local businesses to close down, at the cost of selling a A/C unit $5 cheaper than shopping locally, and most of that money leaves the town rather than circulating inside of it. Most large national ISP's cause the same effect. Google's super-fast fiber will have a "coolness" factor, and it will help with competition, but it also de-values people's perception of the cost of service. Because they have lots of money, they could easily provide the service for free, or something insanely cheap (like $20/mo) by subsidizing it from their other income sources. It leads people to believe that it only costs an ISP $20/mo to provide gigabit internet over fiber, when that is far from reality. So while it does good, it also does some harm as it will most likely put all of the small, local ISP's out of business. The people will always shoot their own local economy in the foot in order to save a buck or two, never realizing the side affect it causes. Ok, I got carried away.. lol. Time to stop typing  | |
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DataRiker
Premium Member
2011-May-22 10:51 pm
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by jcremin:said by DataRiker:The only way google wouldn't turn a profit is if they gave it away for free. So you are saying there are no fixed monthly costs of providing service? I'm talking support, technicians, bandwidth, electricity, etc. Ok, I know that you didn't literally mean it had to be free, but there is obviously a cost of goods sold for internet, most on this site don't want to accept that fact, but there is. Then take the cost per house past and divide the monthly rate that is charged for the service. That gives you the best case payback period for. Let's say the monthly rate is $50/mo and it costs $1500 per home passed (I believe Verizon threw out that number for their deployments), if EVERY house signs up for service, that means that if you don't factor in any of the monthly costs of providing the service, it will take 2.5 years just to break even on the initial service. Obviously not every house will sign up, even if the service were only $1/mo, so let's say that 25% of people actually sign up. That puts the payback period at 10 years just to break even. Now take out the monthly cost of actually providing the service and add in repairs, upgrades, etc. That could easily put the payback period at 15 to 20 years. I'm just trying to show that deploying fiber and providing service isn't an immediate cash cow. It will take plenty of time to make money on it, and they will have to charge a heck of a lot more than free to make it profitable. FYI: I'm 100% for competition. But not all competition is good competition. Walmart, for example, is bad competition. Sure, it saves people a few dollars compared to a local store. Because they are so huge they can purchase huge quantities dirt cheap. And while they do provide jobs, they also cause tens of thousands of smaller local businesses to close down, at the cost of selling a A/C unit $5 cheaper than shopping locally, and most of that money leaves the town rather than circulating inside of it. Most large national ISP's cause the same effect. Google's super-fast fiber will have a "coolness" factor, and it will help with competition, but it also de-values people's perception of the cost of service. Because they have lots of money, they could easily provide the service for free, or something insanely cheap (like $20/mo) by subsidizing it from their other income sources. It leads people to believe that it only costs an ISP $20/mo to provide gigabit internet over fiber, when that is far from reality. So while it does good, it also does some harm as it will most likely put all of the small, local ISP's out of business. The people will always shoot their own local economy in the foot in order to save a buck or two, never realizing the side affect it causes. Ok, I got carried away.. lol. Time to stop typing South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and a few European countries do it with far less subsidization than the US ( USF, Tax considerations, non-compete Duopoly guarantees , ect... ) Having lived in Asia where bandwidth is cheap and ubiquitous I have a hard time understanding why it should be any different here. | |
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|  cdruGo Colts
MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
1 recommendation |
to xenophon
said by xenophon:If so, will be interesting to see how TWC responds, which covers most of KCMO and KCK. ATT Uverse is also in some areas and SureWest is rolling out FTTH to KC metro. TWC and AT&T have issued a joint press release announcing the introduction of sister bills in both the Kansas and Missouri State legislatures that will ban municipal fiber projects. quote:
Time Warner Corporation and AT&T have long been about providing minimal service at maximum cost to our customers. Using tax payer funds to enhance broadband availability goes counter to our pledge to serve the community, plus we can't actually compete with that. These bills when passed will help ensure that customers are continued to be screwed for years to come
When pointed out that this wasn't a muni fiber project, and instead a private company completely doing their own financing and offering residents *gasp* actual options and alternatives to taking it up the pocketbook, both spokespeople in unison were heard muttering "oh shit." | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?Yeah, the KCMO project doesn't really involve the City govt. Google's agreement is with KC Power & Light, which is a separate entity from the city. KCK does own the power utility but they aren't funding the rollout. I think there is some kind of non-compete in MO but there isn't one in KS. | |
| | | | cdruGo Colts
MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN |
cdru
MVM
2011-May-17 3:49 pm
Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?said by xenophon:Yeah, the KCMO project doesn't really involve the City govt. Google's agreement is with KC Power & Light, which is a separate entity from the city. KCK does own the power utility but they aren't funding the rollout. I think there is some kind of non-compete in MO but there isn't one in KS.
Did you even attempt to read what I wrote? | |
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Re: 1Gbps for $50/month?Yeah... what did I miss? Sarcasm/parody noted. True, this isn't really a muni project. | |
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Who gets itWhat buildings is Google providing fiber to? Only those with overhead / aerial utilities? Are homes / businesses with underground utilities not going to get it? | |
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Re: Who gets itSupposedly both. You'd think sites/areas that have least path of resistance will get higher priority. Given that schools/govt buildings are to get free access in exchange... some of those areas also might be first. | |
| | | cdruGo Colts
MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN |
cdru
MVM
2011-May-17 3:41 pm
Re: Who gets itsaid by xenophon:Supposedly both. You'd think sites/areas that have least path of resistance will get higher priority. Given that schools/govt buildings are to get free access in exchange... some of those areas also might be first. If it's anything like Verizon's FiOS rollout, they usually start out at a couple of locations around the city. Crews go neighborhood by neighborhood directional boring and/or aerial hanging of fiber lines, then a while later crews splice together the fiber. It's not so much a matter of who's easier, free vs. paid customers, wealthy neighborhoods vs. poor. It helps prevent some of the rhetoric about cherry picking that always seems to pop up but never has any real evidence of happening. | |
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Re: Who gets itThe VZW model is very different than Google. VZW income is from the service connection, Google's is from data mining the connection.
I suspect Google also wants poorer parts of town as that is where they're growth is - those who are not yet on the Net. They just need clicks and hits from new customers, perhaps not as much the income from the connection. Now with access to the entire network layer, they can data mine the entire connection. They'll probably make magnitudes more $ on that data than clicks/hits on ads. | |
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| | jtel
join:2005-06-28
Bristol, RI |
jtel
Member
2011-May-17 1:17 pm
I am JealousThose receiving this are lucky. Euro/Asian pricing in the heartland. | |
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Re: I am Jealoussaid by jtel:Those receiving this are lucky. Euro/Asian pricing in the heartland.
Euro/Asian pricing is often partially govt funded. | |
| | | jtel
join:2005-06-28
Bristol, RI |
jtel
Member
2011-May-20 5:33 pm
Re: I am JealousYou have to figure Google is also. | |
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 MerinXCrunching for Cures
Premium Member
join:2011-02-03 |
MerinX
Premium Member
2011-May-17 2:33 pm
Can't waitIt will be cool to see the 1gig users seeding torrents with connections this fast. I imagine verizon fios users will no longer feel so smug  | |
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Re: Can't waitdamn right  | |
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 VeloslaveGeek For God
Premium Member
join:2003-07-11
Martinez, CA
1 edit |
Veloslave
Premium Member
2011-May-18 12:40 am
All I can say is... | |
| me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO |
me1212
Member
2011-May-18 12:07 pm
Hopefully they spread it to the rest of the metro.I want it. I live 30 min away come on google gimme! | |
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