Google challenges US ISPs with 100Gbps fiber broadband

Google is planning to offer much faster broadband speeds in the US areas where it operates its fiber networks, all the way to 100Gbps. Google Fiber, part of the Access division of the search giant's parent company, Alphabet, currently provides a 1Gbps service, and began upgrading its speed in 2021 with the introduction of a …

[Mike 137]

"what could go wrong?"

Most obviously, as soon as multi-gig speeds are available retail, web designers will immediately add so much bloat that anyone without these speeds will be left utterly stranded. It's starting to happen already, despite large swathes of the internet connected world still being limited to sub-100Mb.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: "what could go wrong?"

I have an old IBM Thinkpad X32 with a single 2GHz processor. When I bought it, twelve (?) years ago, it could do anything I wanted. Now it struggles to cope with any but the most basic of websites.

[Anonymous Coward]

Failed the 1st time.

How many states still have the plain old 1gbit through them?... 3? Back about 8 years or so I knew of 4 players on Xbox Live that had it. It was always dropping out and was never reliable but, even if it was none of them could use it because they pulled out years ago. It will fail again but, the one advantage they have now is that it sounds like many have forgotten Google has been in the "ISP" business for over a decade, so at least they can pretend it's a fresh start.

The only thing that Google has that is truly successful is search, nothing else spies quite like search. At a purely technical level, everyone does everything else better than Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fool me once

Here we see Google once again taking up it's toolbelt and dreaming of a future where it controls the consumer Internet. Same promise as before, blazing speeds at rock bottom pricing. With the same strings attached?

Google suddenly got cold feet when people started to dig into their "Privacy Fee" up on capitol hill. When the FCC got involved it was clear Google would rather shut down operations if it couldn't legally spy on all of your traffic, or charge you more per month than the average cost of the service of their most popular competitor.

Then during the Idjit Pai and Trump corruption express, it was clear the administration was fine with carriers and ISPs logging and selling user traffic data(as long at they didn't touch content, and sometimes even then when the allowed Verison to literally MITM TLS/SSL connections.)

So as the FCC hasn't grown a pair, and Styrofoam Joe isn't paying it much attention, their testing the waters to be ready in the event $$$$ from the rural broadband initiative will pay for their infrastructure build out. Likely after they collect subsidies and funds, they will buy high bandwidth dark fiber into those areas, never get around to hooking more than a Potempkin village or two up. Then they will cancel the project, keep the fiber they bought on our dime, and shift it to their internal and commercial networks.

Or maybe I'm just a cynic.

[Matt Wa]

Re: Fool me once

Google fiber to executive's houses. The other 99.9999% of us get nada from them. Why give them free publicity for doing useless things?

[Sgt_Oddball]

The other thing is...

It's a Google project. Not being ones for hyperbole or dropping services it's a certainty that this will be a huuuuge success, run for decades and serve us all utopian wet dream of Internet speeds*.

* terms and conditions apply, Alphabet reserves the right to change it's mind quicker than a squirrel on crack, store all of your searches/downloads/uploads until 7 years after the heat death of the universe and transmit your actual soul to an offshore data center somewhere near the core of the earth... Alphabet is not responsible for purchase and maintenance of networking equipment capable of 100Gbps, nor provide access to external networks capable of such speeds.

[chivo243]

Pssst....

Hey Buddy, I hear you have google internet services, I'll come by for 20 quatloos and a pizza and set up your PI-Hole! You'll thank me!

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Pssst....

I feel like a pi-hole won't work on Google Fiber.

Think about why it wouldn't work before giving a thumb down.

[Scene it all]

I have trouble thinking what my computers, with their comm jacks clearly labeled "1000 Mb/s", are going to do with a 100 Gb/s service.

Remember when you could set your browser not to load images at all until you requested them?

[Ian Johnston]

I have just discovered that for an extra £2 per month I could upgrade my A&A FTTP deal from 80/20 to 115/20 and it would only cost double what I pay now (ie £75) for 1000/115. But what's the point? I'm getting 56Mbps to my desk over a powerline adaptor as it is, and bandwidth is never an issue for anything I do.

[LybsterRoy]

One question I never see is "what do I need all this speed for?" so naturally I never see the answer.

Like you I have powerline adapters, if I need to transfer 40GB I just wander off, have a cup of coffee or let it gen on with it in the background whilst I get on with something else in the foreground.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Wyy, more speed for more ads, more faster! MOAR ADDDSSSS!!! They can load you up with their entire ad listings 10 times over, making major bank for sending the ads, never mind whether you actually see them.

Silly rabbit, thinking Google was concerned about YOUR needs.

[Ian Johnston]

Same here. It's not as if I am averse to speed when it's useful - I went 14.4k -> 28k -> 56k -> ISDN (two channel bonded if necessary) -> ADSL (started at 2M, went to 18M) -> FTTP - but at the moment there is simply nothing O or we need to do which requires more. During lockdown there were regularly three of us on separate Zoom or Teams meetings simultaneously. Never a bandwidth issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called VPN, problem solved. We were in Google Fiber's trial area for a while and it was very fast and reliable.

[An_Old_Dog]

"our first trusted tester"

So, are we expected to believe this person's comments on Google's Internet service will be 100% accurate and unbiased?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still better than Spectrum

Around here, they promise "up to" 200 Mbps. (Note that 10 Mbps would satisfy that!) Combined with deceptive pricing (first year is $x/month, but they won't tell you the regular price even if you ask, and there's 50% "taxes and fees" on top of the quoted price). I'm on T-Mobile - $50/month is both the quote and actually what I pay, and not an introductory rate, and speed is technically broadband. Google Fiber would be rather nice. Particularly when combined with a VPN.

I really wish the law required ISPs to deliver an average of at least 80% of the quoted speed, as well as require advertising the FINAL price ("taxes and fees" included) rather than just the "base" price.

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: Still better than Spectrum

An interesting dichotomy at the end of the tale:

2005 - Moved to an apartment in Michigan, got AT&T local line (no long distance - I had my Motorola flip phone) w/ DSL. Plenty of taxes and fees on top.

2006 - Bought a house; cut the AT&T in favor of coax-cable Comcast TV & Internet; still taxes & fees plus a one-year "intro" rate.

2008 - Dumped Comcast for AT&T U-verse TV & Internet; still the same. (No "intro" rate, but AT&T did increase it almost yearly at their pleasure.)

2019 - Moved and took the AT&T with; had some billing issues but worked it out, but still all those add-ons.

2022 - Finally told AT&T to stick their useless U-verse DVRs somewhere else. Now I'm Internet-only ("VHDSL") and I pay ZERO taxes or fees on top of my rate.

However, as I've said before, I'm still on copper and wish for FTTP. I probably could get better with Comcast/Xfinity, but I don't want their gimmicks or lousy support.

[jlturriff]

100Gbps, available on a spotty basis hardly anywhere

When Google announced that Kansas City would be the pilot city for their first iteration, everyone was very enthusiastic. After a year, it became clear that the service would not be available in low-income areas of the city, nor in apartment or condominium buildings. As far as I know, there has been little if any improvement in coverage in greater KC, and until now, Google has been very quiet about the state of their experiment.