[olug] Google Fiber home Internet sevice RFI

[Sam Tetherow]

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
>
>