Long-time industry analyst Dave Burstein argues that everything about Google's fiber business model indicates that the company will be looking to expand its 1 Gbps services outside of Kansas City -- potentially to the tune of "tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions" of homes. Burstein's justification for this is the $70 price tag for the symmetrical 1 Gbps service, which he argues should be "quickly profitable" if just 20-30% of potential subscribers sign on (not including the money that will be made via service ads or spying on everything these users do). Says Burstein:Existing higher speed services (50 Mbps plus) often don't see particularly good take rate, but Burstein argues that's primarily due to the ridiculous prices carriers tend to affix on these tiers (usually $100-$300) to keep users from actually using them. At $70, Burstein argues that the take rate changes dramatically:The problem is that Google has long dabbled in this space, from their 1 Gbps deployment in Stanford to their Wi-Fi deployment in Mountain View. However, every indication has been that Google is primarily interested in lighting a fire under other carriers, showing the press and the public that fiber to the home deployment isn't quite the ridiculous, unprofitable monster it has long been portrayed as by companies that for the last decade have been more interested in investor returns than quality product.

However, despite the national attention, Google Fiber still feels like a vanity PR project intended to inspire, useful predominately for testing next-gen advertising services and collecting the kind of real-world data ISPs never divulge. There's a dramatic difference between wiring one medium-sized city and diving head first into wiring a nation, and so far Google's shown no real indication they have the stomach for the latter. The money is probably there, but the intestinal capital required to navigate telecom's often bizarre incumbent-dominated anti-competitive minefield may not be.