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Google Fiber Now Selling Gigabit Fixed Wireless Via Website

The folks over at 9to5 Google note that Webpass wireless broadband service is now listed as available in six markets via Google Fiber's availability map. Alphabet/Google acquired Webpass last October as part of the company's pivot toward next-generation wireless broadband. Webpass is a smaller ISP founded in 2003 that delivers gigabit connectivity to select apartment complexes and MDUs. Before the acquisition, Webpass already served roughly 20,000 business and residential customers in San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, and Miami.

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Clicking on one of the Webpass-enabled cities on Google Fiber's map now directs you over to the Webpass website, where users are informed they can sign up for service -- if their building meets select criteria:
quote:
Customers in six metro areas -- now marked by a green pin -- may be eligible to use Webpass if their building has at least 10 units, and is wired with Ethernet cabling. Copper Ethernet wiring can allow for blazing gigabit speeds, making them an affordable alternative for building owners to install vs. coaxial cable or even fiber.
Google Fiber's future direction has been murky of late; the company eliminated its CEO and a number of employees last year as part of a rumored pivote toward wireless. Several reports suggested a number of Google executives had grown weary of the slow pace, high cost and relatively low adoption numbers of traditional fiber deployment, and had become enamoured by next-generation wireless broadband technologies like millimeter wave.
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karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

2 edits

-14 recommendations

karpodiem

Premium Member

LOL

"Customers in six metro areas -- now marked by a green pin -- may be eligible to use Webpass if their building has at least 10 units, and is wired with Ethernet cabling."

Show is over folks, time to go home. Google, the ADHD adolescent with the vast majority of PhD's in the software industry, couldn't figure out how to make a dollar on something tangible that exists outside of a datacenter.

PS - Remember Loon?

God I wish Steve Jobs was still alive. In the last remaining years of his life, he saw this coming, wanted to explore wifi mesh networks. Not saying he would have deployed FTTH, or that being an ISP is in Apple's wheelhouse, but there's one thing that drove everything he did with Apple - control. We are controlled by the ISPs, a captive audience. He would have found a way to break that control, with Apple's $250 billion in cash & marketable securities war chest.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

6 recommendations

silbaco

Premium Member

Re: LOL

Webpass was always about delivering wireless service to MDU's or apartment building. Not individual homes. The media just ignored that aspect. Google may bring that to individual homes or they may not.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

1 recommendation

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: LOL

said by silbaco:

Webpass was always about delivering wireless service to MDU's or apartment building. Not individual homes. The media just ignored that aspect. Google may bring that to individual homes or they may not.

thanks, never knew that.

steelgaze
Premium Member
join:2002-02-01
San Francisco, CA

1 recommendation

steelgaze to silbaco

Premium Member

to silbaco
While true of webpass, I don't see google having the stomach now to string more fiber until all these legal cases are settled.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

1 recommendation

tshirt to silbaco

Premium Member

to silbaco
said by silbaco:

The media just ignored that aspect. Google may bring that to individual homes or they may not.

probably NOT to single homes (the antenna and setup are expensive thus the idea of splitting that cost to 30 or more units....however any group/HOA of thirty+ homes could see this as a central backhaul point and pay the additional costs for house to house wiring or a mesh/Wi-Fi with a long term commitment.

Anon0a6aa
@comcastbusiness.net

7 recommendations

Anon0a6aa to karpodiem

Anon

to karpodiem
said by karpodiem:

...Steve Jobs was still alive.

We are controlled by the ISPs, a captive audience. He would have found a way to break that control...

Apple's Steve Jobs only would have broken that ISP control in an effort to control it for himself. Just think about how much control Apple insists on keeping of every product they make.

somms
join:2003-07-28
Centerville, UT

1 recommendation

somms

Member

Alphabet Gigabit?

Is it time for a name change since Google Fiber is now going wireless!?
existenz
join:2014-02-12

1 recommendation

existenz

Member

Re: Alphabet Gigabit?

The division is Google Access if I recall but sounds like they'll continue branding Google Fiber for now with Webpass under it. Webpass only targets apt/condo buildups (MDUs) for now. Google also testing another flavor of fixed wireless in KC for homes and small biz. Maybe they'll market and brand as Google Access in the future - that is if they even stay in the ISP biz long term.
openbox9
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join:2004-01-26
71144

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openbox9 to somms

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to somms
Why? It's branding. Verizon didn't change the name when they started rolling non-FTTH infrastructure into their FiOS brand. Neither did AT&T with its Uverse brand.

GlennLouEarl
3 brothers, 1 gone
Premium Member
join:2002-11-17
Richmond, VA

1 recommendation

GlennLouEarl to somms

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to somms
Merge Google Fiber with Project Fi for wired (if you live in the "right" area) and wireless (mobile and/or home in most areas [eventually]) ... GooFi for short.

(disclaimer: I already have Fi and would be happy to subscribe to a wireless home Internet product, you know, just to test it out for 'em and all)

wavelength
CyberSec Pro
join:2015-05-22
Raleigh, NC
Juniper SRX240
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

wavelength

Member

And in other news...

Google Fiber announced a new area open to sign-ups in Raleigh.

»wraltechwire.com/google- ··· 6490042/

There has been a definite pick-up in construction activity in Raleigh since they announced a freeze on expansion plans.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
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Troy, MI

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karpodiem

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Re: And in other news...

said by wavelength:

Google Fiber announced a new area open to sign-ups in Raleigh.

»wraltechwire.com/google- ··· 6490042/

There has been a definite pick-up in construction activity in Raleigh since they announced a freeze on expansion plans.

Good to hear they're completing FTTH buildouts in the cities lucky enough to be a blue pin.
CEG
join:2015-10-27
Cary, NC

1 recommendation

CEG to wavelength

Member

to wavelength
As a minor aside I noticed recently when running a speed test of my Roku that it picked Google Fiber in Raleigh to ping, so it seemed likely at that time that Raleigh Fiber is ramping up. That location had never been available before now.

F100
join:2013-01-15
Durham, NC
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F100 to wavelength

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to wavelength
Rick Smith is about the worst tech reporter and one of the worst reporters WRAL has. Must be buddies with Goodmans. Anyway, what Rick failed to mention is that the Raleigh area is one of the FCC test site locations for Google to test Fixed Wireless. Smith would know that if he bothered to do real research for their paywall tech site.

Seeing as that Google has as application for a FCC license test, I'm almost sure they will use the existing Google Fiber and Hut infrastructure to run some Webpass like tests in this area. If you control the back end fiber and connection, you can get a good sense of how the actual wireless performs.

I know the new Huts have wireless radios in addition to the OLT and routing/switching gear. The Thermobond engineers that were in my neighborhood when they set Fiber HUT RDU-127 told me these also have RF gear installed. They didn't give me specifics but they were nice. They built the Hut for Google and wired up the inside.

Erik Garr is the head for GFBR in the Triangle. I'm going to see if I can get an interview with him for the fiber forums.

Because streets in my neighborhood sit along the feeder path for RDU-127, Duke Energy has replaces almost every pole in the area with newer taller poles. I've also finally seen them running fiber for the trunk like to the hut. Soon I suspect they will start pulling the distribution fiber on the poles and conduit that was set in August.

There is still major work needed in the Triangle though. The Chapel Hill site at the Library has not started at all. Same with a few other huts. So until they built all the Huts on the original fiber ring map, I'm always cautious as to what can change with a company like Google.

Takuro
join:2016-10-17
Chapel Hill, NC

1 edit

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Takuro to wavelength

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to wavelength
said by wavelength:

There has been a definite pick-up in construction activity in Raleigh since they announced a freeze on expansion plans.

I hope so. I live in an apartment complex where paper hangers were put on our door *a year ago* saying service was coming. They ran fiber to each building, but the project had ground to a halt within a couple months. More recently, every now and then, I see a small unmarked trailer pulled up on the side of the road with one of the access panels pulled open to the fiber they ran last year. It's still dark though...

EDIT: Alright, so apparently if I enter my address on their availability checker site, I can now order it. I'm moving out of here in about 4 months though, so probably not worth it. :/

F100
join:2013-01-15
Durham, NC
Alcatel-Lucent G-010G-A
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Pace 5268AC

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F100

Member

Re: And in other news...

said by Takuro:

I hope so. I live in an apartment complex where paper hangers were put on our door *a year ago* saying service was coming. They ran fiber to each building, but the project had ground to a halt within a couple months. More recently, every now and then, I see a small unmarked trailer pulled up on the side of the road with one of the access panels pulled open to the fiber they ran last year. It's still dark though...

EDIT: Alright, so apparently if I enter my address on their availability checker site, I can now order it. I'm moving out of here in about 4 months though, so probably not worth it. :/

Wait, is this in Carrboro? Has to be because there is no hut in Chapel Hill yet. And the trunk ring that feeds Carrboro from Pinney Woodpark in SW Durham has not been finished yet as far as I can tell. I live near NC54 in Durham and drive to Campus along the part for that route. They have been working on it almost daily. They could always use some temp line I guess because the Hut is ready. Go ahead and connect the drop to residences and such.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

tc1uscg

Member

Yawn..

Why is this even news? After looking at the map, seems Google isn't serious about deploying fiber. Maybe they should stick to producing apps for their OS instead.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

1 recommendation

existenz

Member

Re: Yawn..

They still appear committed to deploying FTTH in the markets that have been started with FTTH. Future markets likely to be mostly fixed wireless, unless markets build their own fiber framework that Google can use (like Huntsville model). Google has a good reason to stay in the ISP biz given ISP behavior impacts their core biz. But if they can't balance the uptake rate with cost to deploy, they could sell off.

Google Fiber is a solid service that is well engineered, especially the Gigabit connection. Few Gigabit ISPs can sustain near Gbit up/down speeds at long distances thanks to a longhaul network that is dedicated to Google Fiber service, not shared with other Google services.

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

1 recommendation

michieru

Premium Member

A solid plan

Wireless makes more sense as 5G approaches with actual tests showing speeds up to 12Gbps.

Source: »www.ericsson.com/news/2043477

Qualcomm already has in the pipeline a chip capable of 5Gbps.

»www.qualcomm.com/product ··· s/5g/x50

They are more than likely setting themselves up to upgrade the current microwave infrastructure with newer 5G technologies and keeping these tenants locked into only using them within the building. (Same stuff every provider does).

This makes Google Fiber actually profitable and allows them to consider the same approach AT&T currently plans with AirGig. AT&T already realized this potential and this is why Google Fiber is rethinking their strategy since the cost difference in deployment is enormous.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

1 recommendation

existenz

Member

Re: A solid plan

Fixed wireless will be good enough but not quite same class as FTTH. Google mentioned last mile FTTH is 50% of the overall rollout cost so fixed wireless makes more sense in cost and time to deliver. But I'd take FTTH if available.

Will be interesting to see if GFBR eventually offers TV service over wireless.

Takuro
join:2016-10-17
Chapel Hill, NC

1 recommendation

Takuro

Member

Re: A solid plan

said by existenz:

Will be interesting to see if GFBR eventually offers TV service over wireless.

Why not? Even if fixed wireless for some reason only offered 200-300 Mbps rather than Gigabit (a lowball estimate), this is more than enough to watch IPTV at 1080p on several TV's at once.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

existenz

Member

Re: A solid plan

They certainly could, but will they.

Maelish
join:2014-11-03
Nashville, TN

1 recommendation

Maelish

Member

Home owners screwed?

If their building has at least 10 units?
Gee guys, thanks. I guess home owners aren't interesting enough for your business model. {/sarcasm}
existenz
join:2014-02-12

1 recommendation

existenz

Member

Re: Home owners screwed?

Google is testing a different flavor of fixed wireless in KC that will target homes and small biz. WebPass design targets MDUs.

Anon8a25b
@rr.com

Anon8a25b to Maelish

Anon

to Maelish
It says MDUs not single family homes.
etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

etaadmin

Member

Google can't even make the US map right...

much less offer wireless gigabit service.

What happened to the south most tip of Florida and Texas? What happened to the north most tip of Washington, Montana and Maryland? Are these areas not part of the US?

Nothing interesting here... move on.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

2 recommendations

existenz

Member

Re: Google can't even make the US map right...

My sarcasm meter might be broken but otherwise whoever copied the image from Google's site cropped it too much.

Here's the original...
»fiber.google.com/newcities/

Anonc0908
@comcast.net

Anonc0908 to etaadmin

Anon

to etaadmin
Be happy that Dallas is included in the future fiber city list, at least. I am in Houston and we are always overlooked.

Anon5a5e9
@mycingular.net

1 recommendation

Anon5a5e9

Anon

Pissed

Don't people get pissed at dozens of ISPs "exiting new" deployments of bullshit is where YOU CAN ALREADY GET FIBER???? WTF? I am about 60 miles from Dallas area and have exactly ONE wireless ISP available, no wired... overpriced douchbag unreliable Zulu Internet with 6mbit MAX for nearly $100/mo with real speeds in the KILOBIT range, far from even ONE megabit.