Google Fiber's Austin, Texas Rollout Confirmed 128
skade88 writes "As earlier rumors suggested, Google Fiber will indeed roll out in Austin, Texas, with the first homes receiving service in mid-2014. The delay is due to the need for a whole new fiber network to be deployed for the service. It will only be deployed within the Austin City limits. Google says in early 2014 they will allow people in Austin register their address for service. They plan to deploy to the neighborhoods with the most interest."
I like the speed (Score:4, Insightful)
but I don't like:
- Google already has access to galaxies worth of data from ads, web beacons, etc.
- Now they will have all that, plus your DNS queries
- They will have your actual name, address, phone number, etc.
- Will they allow you to switch DNS providers?
- Will they allow backdoor boxes in their data centers?
- To whom are they accountable?
Questions, questions...
SXSW (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the possible candidates in the U.S., Google chooses to roll Google Fiber out to the city that hosts South By Southwest every year, where countless thousands of media, music & technology movers, shakers and influencers congregate along with the journalists covering them.
Google will recoup the est. $50m rollout costs for Austin in just 1-2 festivals from word of mouth and countless thousands of mentions by journalists in national & international articles. Fifty million, you say? They'll get $200m worth of free advertising back in 2 years, when the "OMFG it's SO FAST" comments start bleeding into every story you see out of South by.
Re:Why not Houston? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not Houston? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Owning their own electric utility.
2. I am guessing there is already a pretty good amount of fiber in the city already....
3. High levels of actual city official interest. Meaning they are will to actually make the difficult choices happen to make this happen.
4. High visibility when South by Southwest rolls through every year.
5. Tons of apartments and properties that will go out of their way to install this stuff to lure the kids in. I used to live in apartment in Austin that was one of the first in the nation to install high speed wireless internet. This is a huge renters market.
6. Its a much smaller town than the gigantic blob cities like Dallas or Houston.
Re:AT&T announces gigabit network in Austin (Score:5, Insightful)