incrediBILL - 4:44 am on Feb 11, 2010 (gmt 0)

So what's Google's edge compared to Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and the likes

Comcast is just now rolling out 100Mbps bandwidth, Google's talking 10x Comcast's latest and greatest efforts.

Now that I'm thinking more about it, the best way to retain net neutrality and make sure your product (Google's) has the fastest access possible is to simply build your own network.

Can you imagine how much money Google loses daily because of downtime around the country (world) from shoddy ISPs with shaky infrastructures?

Even providers the size of L3 have insufficient finances to keep critical expensive backup parts on hand for rapid response times in an emergency. For example, when I was a host operating out of So. Cal a part costing upwards of $50K died on L3s network. They had one spare sitting somewhere central in the state 3 hours away from where it was needed, a large chunk of So. Cal was simply offline and rerouted traffic clogged the alternative pipes. Not only did it take 3 hours to drive to get the part, it took 3 hours to drive back, they didn't have anyone where the part was that could courier it to LA!

I seriously doubt Google would design a network with such critical flaws.

Google's IT guys are second to none for sheer speed and ability to scale up massively so if anyone could pull off the fastest most scalable network on the planet as a model for others to follow, it's probably Google.