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Comment by scarmig | Hacker News Reader

My totally non-professional opinion is this: the problems of there not being good ISPs in the USA isn't a technical or infrastructure problem, where Google excels. They are instead political and organizational problems. Existing ISPs give as little as they can legally get away with while extracting as much money as possible from customers, by hook or by crook. If Google enters a market to provide a better service, Comcast et al. can easily pretty much flip a switch in that market to start providing a better service to hold onto their disgruntled customers, depriving Google of much of the market it needed to make Fiber profitable.

So Google ends up spending a bunch of money while not being able to capitalize on it.

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> If Google enters a market to provide a better service, Comcast et al. can easily pretty much flip a switch in that market to start providing a better service to hold onto their disgruntled customers, depriving Google of much of the market it needed to make Fiber profitable.

This is why the pure libertarian ideas about a completely free market just don't work for some services. It is a complete waste of human and material capital to run more than two last-mile networks (the second for redundancy and you could argue that is also a waste). When you've got more than 4-5 you simply can't ever make a return on investment.

The physical last mile should be separated from the rest of the business and managed by a public benefit or non-profit. It works just fine for electricity choice in states like Texas. We already know the physical fiber can carry 100GB, probably a lot more. The infrastructure would be suitable for at least the next 100 years.

Leave ONT and central office equipment up to individual vendors who want to offer service, which gives them the maximum ability to compete on provisioning, backhaul, customer service, and features.

If you want to object that it is government regulation ruining the free market... well I have news for you: a completely free market has never existed. Ever. In the history of the world. People use social connections, money, and power to stifle competitors. They've been finding creative ways to do that for thousands of years. To pretend that a limited and weak government will be able to exert any control over huge multinational corporations is laughable. Even Uber and AirBnB had to use social pressure to force through changes.

>This is why the pure libertarian ideas about a completely free market just don't work for some services. It is a complete waste of human and material capital to run more than two last-mile networks (the second for redundancy and you could argue that is also a waste). When you've got more than 4-5 you simply can't ever make a return on investment.

If the current environment is preventing any and all business from flourishing, in this specific case Google Fiber, this is arguably even more wasteful. There is nothing getting done instead of something getting done. The political & regulatory maneuvering probably costs nearly as much for Google Fiber would as building out more redundant infrastructure. Plus, their business model may have required a large amount of users to really make the business worthwhile, so they wind up in this situation where they can't expand fast enough.

To me, the ideal setup is a single entity, whether govt, coop, or nonprofit, to run the 'last mile' to the homes as a utility (gpon or something similar). then let ISP's, telcos, etc run their fiber to the CO, and provide internet, TV, and voice. A bill gets split up, and the utility gets a small percentage for maintenance, repairs, on-site troubleshooting, and upgrades. ISP's no longer need a fleet of techs, and just need to worry about core infrastructure. Competition thrives, as you note just need to connect to a CO to start competing, etc. Actually very similar to how many rural power co-op's with now. Since the utility is small and local, you can actually talk to them about concerns, etc.

Google Fiber was never in my city, but can those with Google Fiber in their area weigh in on the above? When Fiber came to town, what happened with the existing ISPs in the area? If you called to cancel and explained moving to Fiber, did they give you an offer you couldn't refuse to stay with their services, and if so, did you take it?

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/22/comcast-hopes-you-d...

That doesn't prove anything, but their prices certainly are eerily competitive with Google's in any market that Google entered, while they're... terrible everywhere else.

This is standard competition. When VZW was laying fiber in various places, as soon as they turned it on where a friend of mine was living Comcast proactively lowered his bill.

Here in Provo, Comcast was astonishingly effective at preserving market share. As soon as Google Fiber was announced (and long before the first hookups took place), Comcast started dropping all kinds of deals in our laps -- things like 250 Mbps download speeds for the price you were currently paying for 20 Mbps. But they were all contingent upon your signing a new 3-year service agreement.

Most people don't appreciate how long a Google Fiber roll-out takes. I waited nine months to be connected and I was lucky. My parents had to wait two years. Google offered very little visibility into when the install would take place. (We've been waiting two years now for a hookup at my small business, with no end in sight and no way to get an estimate from Google.)

These realities gave Comcast a giant head start to perform customer retention jujitsu. It basically took a steely determination (or an implacable hatred of Comcast) to resist the deals being offered in all the calls, letters, and emails. You could accept their deal -- and be enjoying 12x faster internet within a week -- or hold out for Google Fiber at some undetermined future point.

So many folks were taking the bait that Comcast brought a great many contractors in from out of state to handle the volume of upgrade service calls. For months, nearly every room at a Residence Inn near my home was occupied by out-of-town Comcast crews. Every space in the parking lot was filled with a Comcast van at night (hilariously, each van had its orange cone deployed in front as per company requirements).

When I finally was able to contact Comcast to cancel after our Google installation, the rep had a special script for Provo customers. It centered around questions of whether we were actually achieving gigabit speeds in real-world situations. Though I still proceeded to cancel their service, it was a pretty devastating critique as no one connecting over wifi (which was almost everyone) could even achieve the 250 Mbps speeds Comcast was offering, to say nothing of the gigabit speeds Google had sold you.

I'm happy with Google Fiber overall and I certainly don't miss Comcast, but they wound up being a more capable competitor than I'd ever have suspected possible.

That's exactly what happened in Austin. As soon as Google Fiber was announced Time Warner increased speeds by 5x for the same price and AT&T announced gigabit fiber for the same price as Google (and I think they are installing it much faster). They probably just increased prices in other cities to make up for lower profits from Austin.

Kansas City here. We recently moved to a new neighborhood where Google Fiber is still two streets away from us (our house was very recently finished and there are lots of vacant lots on our street still). We'd had Google Fiber before.

We signed up for Time Warner and the rep expressed surprise that we wanted them just for Internet, since Google Fiber is a thing, until we explained the situation. That should give you some idea of how it affected them.

Prices have dropped for other providers, and speeds have gone up, though they're still worse than Google Fiber. It's been great. I'm really bummed that this may mean they won't ever hook our street up, or at least that it'll be delayed until someone else takes over their infrastructure and starts expanding again.

The point of Google's Access businesses is that they win either way. If they go in and compete successfully, they get all the customers and make a profit. If they go in and Comcast et al raise their speeds to match, they've made the Internet faster and they profit off of increased search revenue and more YouTube playthroughs.

The only way they can lose is if they're forbidden from entering the market at all, which unfortunately is what happened with Fiber. They're still betting big on the space with Loon, Fi, and Webpass, though.

"Existing ISPs give as little as they can legally"

I would add legally and illegally. Also, 'get away with' means everything from strong arming, being sneaky, flat out lies, bribing, etc.

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