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Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Aug 28, 2005 05:45 PM
from the they-came-from-above-we-had-no-chance dept.
from the they-came-from-above-we-had-no-chance dept.
KhanReaper writes "As reported on On the Media and Business 2.0, Google appears to be purchasing dark (unused) fiber optic cable across the United States with the intention of building its own alternative parallel internet that would presumably be called GoogleNet. Possessing such a thing could allow Google to offer internet access in the form of free wifi or other means and create a powerful captive marketing audience which Google could monopolize. Outside of these marketing opportunities, such a development in infrastructure could help reduce Google's long-term content delivery costs were it to take on more bandwidth-intensive activities in the future."
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Google Explains ISP Rumors 111 comments
WindozeSux writes to mention a Wired article explaining why Google bought all that dark fiber, the event that spurred rumors they were planning an ISP. From the article: "When asked by Wired News whether Google was buying up dark fiber, a company spokesman replied that 'Google has and will continue to invest in the equipment our company needs to give our users around the world the best and fastest search results.' Rumors of Google as an ISP were also fueled by the company being granted a large block of new IPv6 addresses last year." They plan to restrict their role as an ISP to the Mountain View and San Francisco areas.
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Or Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or Maybe (Score:5, Funny)
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Separate Internet Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason that Google is an important company is that it crawls through the publicly-accessible parts of the Internet in order to index its contents.
If Google is to retain its premier position in the search engine market, then it will very much so remain firmly connected to the existing Internet.
This is why I agree with the parent post: It is quite reasonable to believe that Google might require this bandwidth for its own purposes.
There is nothing at all wrong with this. The Internet, after all, is merely a network of networks. All this means is that behind Google's accessible IP addresses lurks a mammoth network of its own.
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Re:Separate Internet Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Separate Internet Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Or Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the bandwidth fees going from next door of your current ISP the to your house is sustantialy cheaper and probably faster then going from CA to Middletown ohio and fighting trafic of evereyone else involved in the process.
They would still have to transmit it from CA to Middletown but on thier own lines would be cheaper and more efficient. Who knows, it might be somethign for future VIOP offering too.
I'm not sure why some people see this as some evil act. The existing line aren't doing anything constructive as it sits. If at minimum, it reduces trafic or increases the internets ability ot handle the traffic, i'm all for that.
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If we want to go out on a limb. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it might not be particularly unrealistic to suspect that Google might be considering starting an ISP.
Right now the ISP market is kind of shrinking because last-mile issues are effectively preventing anyone from providing broadband service unless they already own a high-bandwidth wire going directly into your house. However if 802.16 and similar technology delivers on its promises, it could remove this obstacle-- meaning that you'd be able to break into the ISP market with little more than the kind of purchases Google is making right now.
This theory is most definitely a stretch! However, unlike Business 2.0's "make a second internet and provide free access for some reason!" theory, at least it isn't stupid.
Also, who's to say Google even has a plan as to what to do with this dark fiber? As even Business 2.0 notes, now is a really good time to buy this stuff; you can get it cheap. Anybody ever heard of buy low, sell high?
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How about this? (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is they're jumpstarting the migration to IPv6 with their own backbone. Offer free WiFi, but it'll be IPv6. Not only does everyone (possibly) get free WiFi, but they also get their own net block.
*scratches chin*
Now THAT would be something.
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GoogleNet? (Score:5, Funny)
Curious to see exactly what they have in mind..
Who read that as... (Score:4, Funny)
Just You (Score:5, Funny)
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You people are insane. (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly Google is writing the operating system to a super space robot that will be used to eradicate Microsoft!
Google buys a company that makes photo organizer software.
Clearly Google is doing this so that they can recreate iPhoto, as a preliminary step to creating competing products to iCal, iDisk, Apple Mail, and finally Mac OS X itself!
Google hires a janitor.
Clearly that janitor is secretly a superhero with super-strength which Google will use to eliminate all crime on earth!
Google buys up some disused fiber-optic cable.
Clearly Google is going to make their own internet!
Yea, and it will get married in white too. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't give it a month before it loses its virginity in the back seat of a Cisco router.
Steve Jobs once said ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This GoogleNet idea is an interesting one, but I expect such a proprietary internet would lack would be shunned by the hackers and outlaws that bring true innovation to the technology world.
That being said, Google is much more open to developers than the other monopoly we're familiar with. And they have been collecting money and PhDs at an alarming rate -- they have something big planned.
Clearly Google realizes (like Microsoft before them) that he who owns the platform wins. By building a "better" internet, GoogleNet could be the next Win32 API enabling Google to have an earth-shattering money machine. Perhaps Google's stock is not over-valued afterall.
Sam
In other news! (Score:4, Funny)
Coincidence? I think not. (Score:4, Funny)
Google (Score:4, Insightful)
May be at First. After they have consolidated required market share, charges will apply to anything you do. It is a corporation, you got to think of shareholders and their profits.
We are seeing another monopoly happening.
Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't be just that they need cheap conection between their computing nodes?
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Re:Occam's Razor (Score:4, Funny)
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Slashdot chages their minds... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is one thing I have noticed as of late, it is the fact that the Slashdot audience as a whole, especially those in charge of posting stories, have had a sudden swing in viewpoint about Google. Now all of the stories about Google have negative undertones, and there's always a hint of disdain in the way the story is worded.
The gradual making of a new evil entity, and new Slashdot scape goat is nearly complete! We're all being set up to hate Google now. Gotta love it, Google has not charged me for a single thing. They provide me with excellent free email, outstanding search, a nifty map site, and even a suitable chat client now. And how much have I paid them? Nothing. I for one still love Google, say what you want about them buying the world.
Re:Slashdot changes their minds... (Score:4, Funny)
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Google 'dominance' can evaporate (Score:5, Insightful)
The moment Google 'forks' the Internet, they lose value because less people can use their services. The fact is that Google is one of a handful of companies that knows that they NEED open protocols. They have a corporate culture document that says 'do no evil' because doing evil would detract from their bottom line, and top management wants everybody in the company to know it.
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Missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
When asked for a comment, a Google representative just shrugged and said, "Uhhh, dunno, but if I don't run I'm going to miss my free lunch."
Google, meet Motorola (Score:4, Insightful)
Yo, Eric Schmidt* [cnn.com], let me tell you about this little debacle called "Iridium", wherein a once proud US technology titan, name of "Motorola" [you might have heard of 'em - back in the day, they had this bitchin' little CPU called the 68000 series], thought they could dominate [maybe even monopolize] the US communications bidness, by launching a whole mess of satellites into geosynchrynous orbit; invested billions of dollars in the thing, which, at one point, was widely believed to have been the largest privately financed infrastructure expenditure in the history of mankind.
Care to venture a guess as to the return on their investment? A big fat goose egg, that's what. Actually even less than that, if you factor in the fees that the bankruptcy lawyers must have charged them.
*It's a real testament to Novell engineering that this moron didn't drive them into bankruptcy, as well...
Re:Google, meet Motorola (Score:5, Informative)
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Gentlemen, start your .GOO registration engines (Score:5, Funny)
1) Completely About Google
2) Mostly About Google
3) At Least Somewhat About Google
4) Funny, But Not At Google's Expense
5) Troogle
6) Undergoogled
7) Overgoogled (very rare - can there be too much Google?)
Dark Fiber (Score:4, Informative)
afaik, dark fiber refers to a rented optical fiber without any service attached to it, the customer must deal with light transmitters and receivers, as opposed to a fiber that is live with some IP/tunnel/data/whatever service. Dark fiber does not mean "unused".
Two Sides to that (Score:5, Funny)
Most Geeks will attest to their dislike of the Sun (not SUN MICRO), this will work better as public acceptance grows. No more will we have to waste money on Foreign oil to light our internets.
And most important of all, on a dark internet nobody knows your downloading porn.
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Thinking outside the box (Well sorta) (Score:5, Insightful)
Now with the amount of fibre they could be buying, why not put up free access points and come up with a good advertising delivery mechanism behind it. Could well be the targetted location based internet advertising that so many marketing companies have wanted to do for so long. "Buy a coffee at Joe's! Mention this ad an get a free donut!"
As well, could you imagine the communication costs that they are incurring as we speak? The amount of data that would be traversing their network at the moment would be out of control. Why not just buy some fibre now, setup another company to manage it and slash your comms costs? Especially if they are ordering in the hundreds of gigabits of data which I am guessing they probably are (Think about it for a second)..
Gmail going live, there's another few terabytes worth of data burnt each week having to store all that... All the extra internet content that gets loaded on each day, and they have to index it... Site redundancy.... The lists go on and on...
So what if they setup a second internet? Let them! If it encourages competition, why the hell not? MCI and AOL and everyone else isn't exactly going to sit on their hands and let their market dissapear in front of them are they?
In all honesty though, what are the chances of them making a change in business tactic from being a content search facility and marketers to being an internet service provider.. I don't think it fits in with their business model.
The only thing I think they could be doing is connecting datacentres and possibly (Not having seen WHERE they have bought fibre) they could quite easily be trying to get peering arangements with all the major ISPs to try to distribute the input load onto their network as it could quite well just be getting beyond the point of stupidity and manageability.
BTW, how much are they paying Akamai at the moment?
Change of tone (Score:5, Insightful)
What was Google guilty of? Raising salaries for software engineers (heaven forbid we should make money comparable to our corporate masters) and draining talent (which just means that people want to work there). Oh, and it's hard to get venture capital because venture capitalists want ideas that can compete with Google. I guess that I'll have to put off getting hired by some lame website that sells toe-nail clippers.
Get a clue. Seriously. Tell me what they are doing that is evil.
Re:Change of tone (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google wifi hot spots. (Score:5, Funny)
Google Internet Accelerator for all (Score:5, Insightful)
- Free/cheap WiFi for all
- All HTTP requests transparently proxied through Internet Accelerator
- Content cached, indexed, etc at each of these proxies
Suddenly the need for regular spidering has been quite dramatically reduced.
Google Grid: Epic (Score:5, Interesting)
Free internet. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Free internet. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Free internet. (Score:5, Funny)
You arrive on the island of naked women (with real nice tits). They hate outsiders, they have weapons. Your foot long woodpecker flees as soon as it gets wind of your impending doom.
As you take flight to the other side of the island, you come across an all-you-can-eat buffet. Composed entirely of decomposing meat and various species of wood.
Running past the line of dining condors and termites, you fall into a giant pit. There are lots of handholds out, however, there is lube all over them. Lots of lube.
You soon feel hungry (due to your obscenely active metabolism) and get very hungry.
Night falls, it is dark.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Google presumably decided it was cheaper to buy entire fiber links between datacenters in the long run than renting capacity from existing network providers. And who is to blame them? I'm sure that Microsoft own lots of fiber, I'm sure that lots of 'evil' and 'cuddly' companies own fiber, it doesn't mean they are making 'Intarwebnet Two' or whatever, and you don't get stories about it here.
It is just random speculation because Google are newsworthy.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't worry about Google being evil this time around, though. Those anti-trust laws that broke up Bell are still right in place, and Google apparently doesn't want to go it alone (trying to bring in other VoIP services).
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Well... (Not Internet just Connectivity) (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know where people got the idea that Google was creating InetDos...Om Malik's article talks about dark fiber and free WiFi hotspots, not internet backbone. He even goes so far as to mention the fact that Google has been working with Feeva, a company that provides free Wi-Fi hotspots and suggests that Google build a large broadband network. He never says replace the Internet.
"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise location? The gatekeeper of the world's information could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop." -Om Malik
If you think about it, replacing the Internet makes no sense for Google. Not only are they not an infrastructure company they aren't set up to service this kind of business. Have you ever tried to get customer service from Google?
Besides, Google's model works better the more open an environment is. More pages = more space in which to display their advertising inventory.
It seems to me that Google's real play is voice...advertising subsidized voice.
Think about it; you just signed up for GoogleTalk via SMS. Google now has your cellular number and knows everything you search for.
What would you say if they offered to subsidize your cellular calls in exchange for LISTENING to brief targeted messages served to your phone prior to placing a call? If the ads were relevant and the exchange was fair; say 10 minutes calling per ad served don't you think a few million minutes of calls would be delivered this way?
I wrote more about this here: http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/images/googCertainly it is obvious that Google has recognized the significance of the small screen to the future of search. They understand the value of connecting an advertiser to an interested customer and vice versa. They've created maps and mapping tools to help you locate what you want. It only makes sense that they take themselves off the PC and into the MOBILE in the most pervasive way the consumer that will allow. You watch; turn by turn directions over your cell phone to the location of your choice, all courtesy of GoogleNav is not far away.
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Only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
...They get it right.
In my opinion, what Microsoft seems to suffer from is getting things to market as fast as possible to remain (or at least appear to remain) competitive. The problem is, that once a product is in the wild, a lot of bugs and security flaws turn up which results in patching the software for the remainder of the time you own it.
The release and patch process is what the Mozilla Foundation seems to be falling into lately as well.
Google, on the other hand, seems to take a more "future use" approach to what they do, giving their products better longevity and as a result, a better experience to their users.
If they (Google) can "get it right" with a parallel network, they basically trump everyone in the market today who has laid claim to making the Internet better. If Google applies their anti-spam engine to network nodes, spam virtually faces extinction. And you know, if they watch what I surf and how I surf and it results in a better experience for me then I for one welcome our new Google overlords.
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Not that scary. (Score:5, Interesting)
So what if they do. Just because Googlenet shows up doesn't mean the old internet ceases to function. If it becomes a draconian mess, no one will use it, and it will slip into irrelevance like Gopher.
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Re:Wow, scary! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, how dare they obey the laws of a land they are opperating in. I suppose you also think Google is evil for complying with DMCA takedown notices in the USA or the anti-nazi laws in Germany or the competition in advertising laws in France?
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Re:Wow, scary! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google may also be more geek friendly with their TOSs too. They have a track record of not being dickheads, so you never know.
All I want is 3-5Mb/s down and 1-3Mb/s up...and an ISP where I can say what protocalls/ports get open or blocked and where I can run some basic servers (no, I do not want to run a website from an ADSL, but too damn many things fall under the "Non-permissible server" title as defined by most ISPs.)
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Re:Wow, scary! (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is a company. There is nothing wifi providers can do if suddenly GoogleWireless is free or cheap across the country. Google is hardly a monopoly, just a rich company, and if this expansion of services will lead to longer term benefits to the company (there will be a few duds, of course) then they should be doing this stuff.
What I'd do if I was a company is offer free wireless whereever you can, but rate limited to 5KB a second or so unless you are subscribed to the service. If you are poor yet somehow have a wifi enabled computer/PDA/phone/toaster, then you will still be able to get wireless access everywhere, which is the point of these free metropolitan networks.
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I don't know (Score:4, Funny)
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