When we say your part, we mean the part of a few key people here and there, which pretty much doesn't include you or anyone you know, or anyone you'll ever even meet. In general we mean.
And what, prey tell, is this experiment?
Why, of course, that's Google Fiber. Or as some may put it Google Fibre, or even erbifelgoog, and a number of less than flattering things. But do not fret, we shall explain all.
See, there's this thing, called fiber (as in fiber optic network cabling and the associated hardware) which has some amazing properties. It can transfer data really really fast, and over long distances, well sometimes. Since it can be really really expensive to put in place over miles and miles going everywhere. Not that cable or phone line isn't, but there are these little things called infrastructure, and economy of scale, and cost-benefit, and population density, and customers. Oh, and who can forget years and years of being in place, tax breaks, monopolies, federal incentives and regulation.
But for example on prices, in shorter distances for some types, the price of fiber optical network cable it's not outrageous. For example, duplex LC to LC Multimode 50/125 10 Gigabit fiber with male to male connectors that's 50 feet long runs about $16 at retail prices if you go around and look for some. (Of course, you could also buy some from Monster at Best Buy and pay $80, so be careful when you compare costs at wholesale as well.)
The takeaway big-picture is that, unless you can provide service to paying customers along the way, usually nobody is just going to run fiber networks over a few miles to get to a few people in some other area. Let's say if A---------------------------Z is 20 miles and costs $1,000,000,000 to do, there'd better be a bunch of people between B and Y, unless you're just doing an experiment and have a lot of R&D money. Or advertising budget, what have you. Like looking to push some competition, provide proof of concept, do something for some name recognition, or hey, why the hell not, it'll be fun.
But let's forget about most of the details of most of all that. It's quite simply very boring darling.
So if you were one of the few to be involved, what would your part be when it comes to Google Fiber?
Why, if you were in one of the cities where it was planned, you'd work for it. That is, you'd champion Google Fiber in your neighborhood, that is, be a vocal adherent, organizing groups, and contacting households. Friends, enemies, strangers. So as many people as possible in this what they're calling Fiberhood would sign up, to make it worthwhile. Worthwhile for Google Fiber to use you as part of the buzz in the entire thing.
The plan here is to sell gigabit fiber (as opposed to megabit cable or gigabit copper) access at speeds up to a gigabit and television programming for $120 a month. Or just the high-speed Internet connection for $70 a month. Or even for $300 ($25 a month for a year) free Internet at speeds akin to DSL or cable Internet.
For those stuck paying more than $25 a month for far longer than a year for far slower speeds, the last is part of the deal that should help convince most anyone using Internet in a neighborhood to jump on the deal. Unless they don't believe it will be free and forever and with speeds near current ones. Or nobody tells them in a championshiping kind of way.
Even more important than that though? Even if some large chunks of a neighborhood that is dense enough with people are signed up for somewhere between $120 and essentially free, to at least cover the costs of putting in the initial lines and equipment. Providing some shared streams -- let's say 3 megabits shared from 1000 megabits -- that's around 300 people, as long as everyone's capped at 3 Mbps tops. Which at $300 each for the free, is $90,000. Maybe (probably) not enough to cover all the costs, but something, and then there's the $70 to $120 a month. What else is there.....
Why, even if large chunks of enough people are 'hoodin' together, that assumes they're right next to another such group, who at first will all have to be around some starting point. Wherever that starting point is, probably would be oh, centered around the business people, politicians, schools, universities, donors, and such that helped get it off the ground. Tax breaks? Incentives? Unless there's a few really dense areas teaming with people who are going to pay $120 a month, then there might be multiple areas.
Maybe we don't have to guess though. That's later.....
No comments:
Post a Comment