[olug] Google Fiber home Internet sevice RFI

Charles Bird cbird.omaha at gmail.com
Thu Feb 18 16:40:49 UTC 2010


I have some buddies in Sweden that have had 100Mb and even 1GbE at their
house.
back in 2005 they were running some services on their network, some with up
to 10,000 users connected concurrently on DCPP protocol, and looking at
their MRTG, one could see about 145Mbps outbound traffic on one single box.
They were limited by processing power at that time.

It was really quality connectivity internationally too for the prices they
were paying. I think it was equivilant to 60 USD per month for 100Mb and
about 180 USD for the 1GbE. I was hitting them via Level3 from USA @ about
165-190ms depending on what that box and connection was doing.

Before anyone asks, on the linux box itself they had to change ulimit -n
from default of 1024 to unlimited or something above 10,000 to get that many
connections. :)


In Romania they have 100Mb all over, BUT their peering really sucks baaaaad.
In Bucharest you can get 100Mb really cheap, and the bandwidth between other
users on the city's network is really nice for sharing files and what not,
but try to get a file transfer between RO and USA, your lucky to get 256Kb.
But peering to other nations close by like Hungary is nice.

I'm concerned that this is going to be the same way...people on the same
switch can talk great, but when it comes to getting content from somewhere
else, then it'll be slower than molasses.

This may allow for certain groups to become organized however, like for
example a homeowners association purchasing transit for its hood, or a
nerdier group like OLUG arranging multiple 10Gb transit accounts for x
amount of members @ x amount per month.

BTW, transport from Omaha(Farnam) to Chicago(Cermak) for 10GbE is only about
12,000, about the same for Denver's exchange. Most likley cheaper under
certain conditions.

OK, Coffee kicked in, I better do something even if its wrong...








On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:42 AM, Charles Bird <cbird.omaha at gmail.com> wrote:

> Google intends on providing the transport, we will have the option of
> transit at an exchange points/carrier hotel.
>
> Like others have stated, this is very similar to how its done now.
> One thing I dont like how its done now is that there are "territories",
> like here is "Qwest" territory. So if I I had Cox fiber in my house, and
> wanted it just for backhaul so I could pickup GBLX at Farnam, it would be
> illegal. Another instance of the Govt stepping in to prevent the REAL
> business to be done, why cant we weed out the weak that cant survive in
> competition?
>
> If any company owns fiber, they should be able to do anything with it IMO.
> I think thats pretty cool that google is doing this in this regard.
>
> So much to this equation....I'm gonna be the guy that bitches about not
> having 10GbE..
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 3:25 AM, Sam Tetherow <tetherow at shwisp.net> wrote:
>
>> Dan Linder wrote:
>>
>>> I'd push for everyone to look at the RFI (Request For Information)
>>> page Google has put up:
>>>
>>> http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi
>>>
>>> From their page:
>>>     We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more
>>>     trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver
>>> Internet
>>>     speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have
>>>     access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home
>>> connections.
>>>     We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and
>>> potentially
>>>     up to 500,000 people.
>>>
>>> If this interests you, I'd like to ask everyone to register your
>>> support for this.  I think having a true competitor to the TeleCom and
>>> Cable companies would be a good thing.  Maybe we'd get our Internet
>>> access up to what other parts of the world already have.
>>>
>>> Some of their goals intrigue me, especially this one:
>>>     We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of
>>> multiple
>>>     service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we'll
>>> manage our
>>>     network in an open, non-discriminatory, and transparent way.
>>>
>>> To me that implies that you won't get shut down for sharing your WiFi
>>> with friends and neighbors, or hosting a web/mail server in your home.
>>>  Imagine if the radio companies of the 20's had clamped down on
>>> homebrew experimentation?  Imagine what a smart high-school kid with a
>>> bit of electrical and programming prowess could do if he wanted to
>>> setup a wireless network with his friend a few blocks away.  Today his
>>> parents would be afraid he'd get them black-listed from their ISP.
>>> With a truly open access network, not only could he experiment like
>>> this, but he might just invent something useful.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> The reason that ISPs shut you down for sharing your internet connection is
>> because that is how they make money, selling internet connections.   The
>> problem is someone decided that the all-you-can-eat rate plan with a
>> bandwidth cap was how to market internet connections to the consumer so the
>> ISP has to figure out how to sell you something for $40/mo that costs them
>> $800/mo.  They do that be oversubscribing customers because the average
>> customer does not download their maximum bitrate 24x7.  When a customer
>> hooks up their neighbors with free internet off their connection it would be
>> like going to an all you can eat buffet paying for one ticket and now
>> letting your neighbors come eat off your plate.
>>
>> The problem is how the accounts are sold, if you want expect your ISP to
>> provide you your maximum bitrate 24x7 then they will either have to cut you
>> off, change your billing to be usage based or go out of business, you cannot
>> sell something that costs $800 for $40 and expect to stay in business.
>>
>>
>>
>>  And with Gigabit speeds, we'd finally start to realize true InternetTV
>>> and services such as NetFlix could offer very high-quality on-demand
>>> shows.  It would also open up the TeleCo promise (made 50+ years ago)
>>> of a true VideoPhone technology.  No more pixelated and jerky video
>>> when the neighbors kid starts viewing a video from YouTube.
>>>
>>> A side-effect I'm hoping to see out of this is that Google will apply
>>> the same level of thought into managing their network and publish some
>>> true, real-world numbers and how they cope with consumers using these
>>> speeds.  If they could work out a non-Carnivore way of traffic shaping
>>> without the knee-jerk "rate-limit BitTorrent and block e-mail", then
>>> the rest of the TeleCo providers would loose their rate-limiting
>>> defense.
>>>
>>>
>> As long as access is sold on an unlimited usage basis there will have to
>> be traffic shaping, there is only so much bandwidth that can be pushed down
>> a pipe and without traffic shaping that pipe will always be full.  If you
>> have a gigabit to the home via fiber people will just start torrenting
>> blueray disks instead of avi files.  If it doesn't cost me anything extra to
>> leave my torrent client up and running why would I shut it off.
>>
>>  Just my two cents.  Anyone else?
>>>
>>> DanL
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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>
>



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