Could Google Fiber Save Network Neutrality? 230
nmpost writes "Could Google Fiber, set to launch next week, be the savior of network neutrality? Some speculate that the program is Google's answer to attacks on network neutrality by the big internet providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. These companies complain about the price of upgrading and maintaining their network, and want to charge websites like Google extra money to allow customers fast access to its sites. This practice would violate the long held spirit of the internet, where all data traffic is treated equally. Google may be out to prove that fast networks can be built and maintained at reasonable prices."
Re:Last mile (Score:5, Informative)
I gather you don't know anything about the Google Fiber project. They pulled last mile fiber. That was the whole point of the project: that the existing last mile was ancient, unupgraded, substandard crap, raped and abused and ignored by cable companies and telcos for the last half century, in the certain knowledge that when people decided it needed to be better, they could go crying to the government, get a HUGE handout, and pay every last dime of it out to shareholders as dividends, leaving their cable plant in exactly the same miserable state. Wash, rinse, repeat.
How do we know this? Because they've already done it [newnetworks.com] successfully.
So Google did get to the front doors of all the people in Kansas City, and Charter and AT&T couldn't stop them, because the city agreed to it. Charter and AT&T's wires are still there, but they're going to lose 90% of their customers in a day. And they deserve to. Read that link. It will make you truly angry.
Re:Not likely (Score:3, Informative)
It's true that corporations are inherently sociopathic (and now in control of our elections thanks to SCOTUS) but don't think in Manichean terms, the world or something in it as purely good or evil,. because it's beneath you; you're smarter than that.
Not every corporation is compelled to interpret "maximizing shareholder value" in the crassest, most short sighted way and many don't. Google can easily make the case that net neutrality is in the long term best interests of the company. In fact, doing the morally right thing can always be cleverly framed as such, just as doing the wrong thing is currently framed as such.
Google (whom I do not work for) does seem to me to be a company apart. When people were trying to get corporations to divest from South Africa, it became apparent to them that some corporations were already doing the right thing. Reagan's "constructive engagement" from that time was just the opposite- an excuse to do the wrong thing. Corporations have the power to make moral choices in this world, don't let them kid you their hands are tied.
Google have pretty much lived up to the "don't be evil" slogan, a bout of WIFI panty-sniffing excepted .
Our job is not just to call them out when we see them but also to see them clearly as they really are. Comcast and Verizon and ATT are purely evil in that they want only money and the larger society can go fuck itself. They have no sense of civic duty nor do they care about the fate of this nation or its peoples , except as a PR move. I'd pay double what I pay now for broadband service from Google just to give them a healthy profit from which to expand. I'd treat it as a form of civic obligation and a kind charitable giving and investment in my own and everyone else's future.
Go Google go.
Re:What? (Score:1, Informative)
Well, we shouldn't overreact, but you need to keep an eye on Google. They are a publicly-traded company, and if revenues start to hiccup, there will be a change in management. Then, as far as Google's assets are concerned, *anything goes*.
The current management (Larry, Sergey and Eric) has a large majority of the votes in a shareholder election. They have a different class of stock, with 10 votes per share, then most investors. There is no way they could be forced to do anything, because the board that has the power to fire them is chosen by shareholder election.
You would know that if you had read notes from any shareholder meeting, or read a news article about one. Or looked up GOOG on yahoo finance. You have no idea what you are talking about, and clearly made no effort to learn before posting.