Google Getting Into The ISP Business

[engine]

Google Getting Into The ISP Business [googleblog.blogspot.com]

We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

[dertyfern]

What's next with Google? Change your muffler?

[J_RaD]

yea we'll see how this goes, google thinks they can do everything.

what happend to free wifi in every city?

are they going to start putting up cell towers and start their own wireless carrier?

[gouri]

I think providing access to the internet at that speed is going to attract some customers.

[lammert]

100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second

Most web servers have lower bandwidth allowance than this.

I have a 1 gigabit internal network at home and it only gets saturated during backups. What kind of service is Google thinking of by offering this type of bandwidth? Would be nice to offer some kind of P2P service from your personal computer though, sharing real-time music and movies to a number of clients simultaneously.

Or maybe Google will soon release a new version of their toolbar with an integrated Googlebot crawler. Saves them bandwidth at their own data centers.

[BradleyT]

I love the idea of 1GB connections, I loathe the idea of Google have ALL the data on the web.

[J_RaD]

Most web servers have lower bandwidth allowance than this.

right when you are faster then the webservers your speed doesn't matter.

What kind of service is Google thinking of by offering this type of bandwidth?

probably thinking about their cloud OS and services.

Or maybe Google will soon release a new version of their toolbar

they'll no longer need a toolbar to log your web traffic. Im also wondering if their service would be sort of a walled garden only allowing you to access google as a search engine. Which would be humorous because they so rabbidly defend net neutrality.


up next google cranking up to kick sand at ISPs now.


it also seems they are ramping up for a future "googleweb" where you have an goognet operating under googles rules for speed/content/rules and the rest of the internet that google turns its back on because its not "certified google"

Think of something like AOL back in the 90s except its cut off from the rest of the internet and only serves google certified content and instead of using AOL's dial up client and big front end, you use google ISP, google OS, google chat, google e-mail, google social, google phone, google docs etc etc etc with access to anything not google removed.

sound to far fetched? im sure this is drawn on a whiteboard in mountian view.

[edited by: J_RaD at 6:32 pm (utc) on Feb 10, 2010]

[rollinj]

What's next with Google? Change your muffler?

I wouldn't be surprised. 20 years ago you couldn't get your car serviced at a walmart either. Now look at them.

[Silvery]

Seems like Google's not only in line to become an ISP, but also a phone company.

[JS_Harris]

1 Gig per second at comparable costs to current DSL service? Heck yeah!

It never made sense to me to get notices of increased fees to pay for "fiber optic infrastructure" only to still see 48 mbs average (when they promised 10x that for my money). Lets hope Google's 1 gig really is 1 gig, i'd hit it.

[albo]

Will parental filtering be provided by NSA?

[StoutFiles]

I love the idea of 1GB connections

It's actually 125 MB / second, Gigabytes are different than Gigabits.

Still faster than other ISP's though. Google is in position with their massive amounts of servers to pull this off and make a killing...either way you choose to go for your ISP in the future it should lower the cost of internet service for everyone. Hurray for competition!

[incrediBILL]

There's only one reason I can think of where you need that kind of speed, other than downloading a bluray movie or a complete software install in 4 minutes or less, and that's for network applications where the bulk of the code and data resides on the central server and downloads as needed on demand.

When you look at Android and Chrome OS, that's where it appears to be heading.

[J_RaD]

what good would 1GBbps do you when they are pushing wireless netbooks for the platform for Chrome OS.

you need a cable to use the full amount.

[Leosghost]

Ooooh Gooody ..Skynet

[hutcheson]

This one makes sense. Well, even ignoring the well-known Google approach to development (if the Googletechs are motivated to develop something, it gets developed; otherwise, it gets abandoned.)

Google isn't in the search engine business, or the advertising business. They've always been in the VERY-large-webserver business. At first, the only database big enough to NEED Google webserver farms was ... a search engine. And a lot of their projects have been simple answers to the question, "now that we can host anything so efficiently, what is it that we should host?" high-volume email, U.S. patents, global maps/pictures, books, Usenet archives, personal document archives, P2P videos ... and so on.

But why shouldn't that efficient hosting service be a direct "profit center not a cost center" (in MBA terms, and pardon me while I wash my mouth out with soap).

This is just Google going retail with its core technology.

[Digmen1]

Yes I was going to agree with everyone else and ask if they would offer fries with their broadband !

But Hutcheson - You make a very good point.

I read a book on Google last year and very early on while they were still at varsity one of them was working on network computers together with their own OS to have enough power to do the searches. So you may be right.

Buy I still think it is wrong and silly for a company to get into too many different areas.

[golocal]

I may be showing my age. But, I can recall the my first 386 pc. I remember looking at my buddy when we first turned it on and wow, our hair was blown back. Compared to our 286 machines.
Alright now that is fast and why would we need anything faster than that. LOL
Always look forward 5 to 10 years and make your business plan flexible enough to scrap it and start all over every six months.

[DonMateo]

There's only one reason I can think of where you need that kind of speed...

How about multitasking?

How about Dad connected to cloud apps while mum surfs the web and kids watch high definition streaming video?

[mattglet]

The combination of hutcheson & golocal's posts make the most sense to me. Too many people are stuck thinking Google is "just a search engine". This has never been true, even in the beginning.

They want all the world's information. Plain and simple. They are going to create the pipes to allow the information to travel -- and in turn they will advertise and organize -- and millions of people are going to climb on board. It's really that easy (for them).

[wheel]

The combination of hutcheson & golocal's posts make the most sense to me. Too many people are stuck thinking Google is "just a search engine". This has never been true, even in the beginning.

They want all the world's information. Plain and simple. They are going to create the pipes to allow the information to travel -- and in turn they will advertise and organize -- and millions of people are going to climb on board. It's really that easy (for them).

That's absolutely false.

I understand that's what you think. It's actually what *Google* thinks. What you're missing - and what Google's missing - and what's wrong with this - is that they are in fact a publicly traded advertising agency. 97% of their income comes from advertising on search and adsense.

All this nonsense is fun and games until somebody loses an eye. They can throw their money around like this with complete disregard for anything other than dreams of candybars and rainbows. But all that will stop fast if their advertising revenue ever declines - and maybe even if it just stabilizes. You think the stockholders (everyone's forgetting about them, aren't they?) are going to hold still while Google execs spend money on yet another fruitless project, while ever increasing amounts of money are going out the door.

One of these days, under the pressure of stable or declining revenue, the public is going to get presented with a long list of 'things google does that cost a lot but never make money'. And then all this nonsense goes away.

For me, if I was an ISP, I'd be making some serious inroads into developing a relationship with my clients. Starting with recommending a new search engine.

[walkman]

So what's Google's edge compared to Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and the likes? Make zero sense to me

[sdani]

This will probably just give Microsoft more options to create partnerships. Google will keep competing with their partners and Microsoft will keep making new resllers and partners (MS is good at making sure their resellers and partners *also* make money).

[J_RaD]

every move google makes now isn't really good for the internet and its just a move to suck more from the free and open net and make it google net.

the cloud OS is dead, you missed it by 30 years..but it would have worked back then when hardware was expensive and CPU and RAM was limited. Even if they wanted to deploy a "cloud os" they are screwing it up again..a what? a browser? we've been sending full OS desktops to thin clients HOW LONG? They are drunk on cash flow and can't see straight.

[J_RaD]

This will probably just give Microsoft more options to create partnerships. Google will keep competing with their partners and Microsoft will keep making new resllers and partners (MS is good at making sure their resellers and partners *also* make money).

exactly, google goes at someone elses throat and that just puts them in line with the rest of the people...they all look at each other and are now finally banding a group going after goog. heck apple is even working with MS now! anyone that hates google is a friend of ours, c'mon in we've got plans for you!

[IanKelley]

Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.

I think it's fantastic that any company is trying to force the US' archaic net infrastructure to evolve.

A few possible uses for 100+ megs/second:

- Streaming of real HD without significant compression (sorry blu ray).
- Streaming of the much higher resolutions that will follow HD.
- Whole families making full use of the internet at the same time without lag.
- Wireless access points capable of handling a large number of users from any home or business connection.
- File sharing.
- Low latency web surfing. Even if you don't max out your bandwidth you still benefit from low transit times on small amounts of data.
- High resolution video/voice communication.
- Host your own web server, one that can handle a significant amount of traffic. Assuming of course there is a comparable jump in upload bandwidth to go along with download.

And don't forget that this will bring down the price of bandwidth at all providers.

[incrediBILL]

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.

[zett]

Couple of comments.

1) Google = Antitrust lawsuit in the making. Someone will not allow to have yet another industry destroyed by the Gorg. Clearly, they can take their cash and subsidize a highspeed network, but someone will bark. Look forward to that moment.

2) 1 Gbps is -as far as I know- for private use is still very much a concept with just early prototypes available. These speeds are commercially available for backbones, and the technology is being used there successfully, but consumer use is still hampered by the availability of affordable network terminators [sic!] for your home.

3) To achieve this speed you need fiber optics in the house (FTTH), not just to the building (FTTB) or the curb (FTTC). In other words: unless Google digs up your street and puts in their own fiber, you won't see 1 Gbps. In FTTB/FTTC cases expect speeds to drop, and to be shared with others. This will still be sufficient in most cases, but you will not get 1 Gbps.

4) The possibilities of 1 Gbps seem to be endless, and yes, I love the idea of having such a fast connection. But let's face it - TODAY only very few services can fill up that bandwidth. Video comes to mind, online backup solutions, file sharing, online editing of files (e.g. remote Photoshop). But then? What else?

[shri]

>> Gbps is -as far as I know- for private use is still very much a concept with just early prototypes available.


We've had 1000Mbps FTTH / FTTOffice for a while here in HK and other parts of Asia. ( 2006 in Hong Kong - [hkbn.net...] )

Causes very unique load balancing and throttling problems on servers hosted locally if you get a swarm of high speed users get on your server.

Since YouTube and other critical Google datacenters are all in the US, they do not see the effects of these users hitting their servers (global connections get severely throttled...).

I can see why they need a test lab of 50-500K users on 1Gbps links - specially for apps like YouTube, Maps and the rest of their ajaxy application infrastructure.

[walkman]

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

To 10 people maybe. Let's be honest here, Comcast and AT&T can match and surpass what Google does. Google cannot afford to get into this in mass scale, see how much debt telcos were forced to take to expand [finance.yahoo.com...] , google will choke and their stock crashed if they do the same. Maybe they can build a backbone and sell access to the big telcos but not retail. You can't just dig anywhere on the street, many have a monopoly by law (in my area you get ONE cable and one phone company and that's it)

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.

To design it on paper maybe :). If it was satellite based, I could believe it because it involves a lot less ground work.

What Google loses on downtime is negligible to the cost of running their own network. Maybe they should design good PCs too (windows crashes you know) and power plants just in case?

Finally, as others have pointed out, for a long while 100mb/s will be way more than we need since there are some bottlenecks.