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Animats

Don't forget that Google made similar claims for Google Fiber back in 2012.[1] And Google WiFi in 2006.[2]

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17081508

[2] https://gizmodo.com/mountain-view-is-installing-wi-fi-becaus...

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This seems not similar at all.

Yep, in those cases, it was almost always Google having to fight against local government and monopolies playing dirty. In this case, all 3 levels of government (city, province and country) are for this project. That's a huge difference.

Google got unprecedented concessions in Fiber markets: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-... (“Google received stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments, including free access to virtually everything the city owns or controls: rights of way, central office space, power, interconnections with anchor institutions, marketing and direct mail, and office space for Google employees. City officials also expedited the permitting process and assigned staff specifically to help Google. One county even offered to allow Google to hang its wires on parts of utility poles—for free—that are usually off-limits to communications companies.”).

Unlike how Verizon pocketed the Universal Service Fund subsidies and then only deployed FIOS for rich white people?

USF has nothing to do with FIOS. At the time FIOS was built out, you couldn’t even get USF funding for broadband.

Indeed, contrary to your parent's claims, Google had a red carpet rolled out for them everywhere they went with Fiber. Including governments trying to pass favorable laws granting them access to competitors' equipment. Their entire business model was based on using dark fiber governments gave them for free and getting laws passed to save them most of the expenses other ISPs have to pay. (Google refuses to allow itself to be classified as a telecom so it isn't regulated like AT&T and Comcast are.)

The three levels of government in Canada are Municipal, Provincial and Federal.

How exactly do you expect the Canadian government to 'fight dirty' against Google? What constitutes 'fighting dirty' against one of the most powerful corporations on the planet?

The (lack of an) Oxford comma strikes again! My reading of parent is "...it was almost always Google having to fight against local government, and monopolies playing dirty" - the local government was fighting, but only the monopolies were playing dirty (e.g. by lobbying States to make laws that prevent local governments from "interfering" with the said monopolies by cozying up to Google or providing municipal internet infrastructure)

As someone that was born and raised in Toronto, big city projects either take forever to finish, or get scrapped midway through. It sounds promising that Google's involved, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I don't see any claims made by Google in that first piece, every interviewee seem to be unrelated to them.

"Unite this region with a common thread", "Next big thing". Google ad for Kansas City fiber installation, 2011.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmSuNyOpsXU

This is loose at best. Right up there with “creates full voluminous hair, whitens teeth and strengthens enamel, and corn syrup is the same as sugar”

Oh man, Mountain View. I remember how the quality was already a joke in 2011. The network's completely gone today.

In fact, I think XKCD's "Wifi vs. Cellular" [1] strip summarizes the situation perfectly. Nowadays I frequently disable wifi on my phone in problematic areas of my house or work, because LTE works better. Makes me wish for a femtocell...

[1] https://xkcd.com/1865/

That said, I assume Google is bringing lessons learned with their Access infrastructure work along with WiFi optimization as showcased in their Home hub, and things will work better this time around.

I'm annoyed Chrome closed the alt-text before I finished reading it.

Try the mobile version (alternative way for alt text reading): https://m.xkcd.com/1865/

Anyone here who understands Wifi + mobile networks better than I do able to ELI5 why 3/4G is more reliable than 802.11 in so many situations?

Probably lot's of different reasons. WiFi networks have to share unlicensed bands with other WiFi networks and hundreds of other things. Cellular networks have dedicated spectrum. LTE also uses a more integrated and centralized set of protocols for connection setup ("attach") and traffic management. See: https://hpbn.co/mobile-networks (scroll down to "radio resource control"). For example, getting an IP address is part of the attach procedure. (I feel like DHCP is responsible for 99% of flaky WiFi). Also, the RRC controls each cellular radio to a much greater extent than the 802.11 base station controls each 802.11 device.

All good points.

Also as someone who's a software engineer working in the firmware space, I suspect LTE base stations are just plain more reliable than home WiFi routers...

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