Google Fiber Partially Reverses Server Ban 169
Lirodon writes "After being called out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for banning the loosely-defined use of "servers" on its Fiber service, Google appears to have changed its tune, and now allows 'personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security.'"
i got a question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:server ban? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe so, but Comcast cut off my friend for running a low-volume mail server. The definition of "server" is intentionally left vague in the TOS. That allows the ISPs to single out users for any reason they want, without having to be specific or consistent.
Re:server ban? (Score:5, Interesting)
It still contrasts the "bit are bits" argument, but my pragmatic side is willing to accept that we may need an artificial tier in there to keep prices low for non-business users.
I don't. Google's wholesale cost for ip transit is probably around $6 per terabyte - wholesale cost was about $12 a year ago and its been falling by 50% for the last 4-5 years.
If they are worried about losing money, then set a threshold like 5TB/month and then start charging wholesale plus minimum necessary mark-up for anything over that.
Re:server ban? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:server ban? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you have reliable sources for that number?
No he doesn't, because there are no reliable sources. Any time you go out to purchase bandwidth you sit down and talk to a sales rep from the company who you're looking to buy from, you tell them what you're looking for, when, and where, and they prepare a quote for you.
The actual cost of the bandwidth varies a LOT, based on a wide variety of factors. What's the physical distance between endpoints? Are you buying dark fiber? An ethernet circuit? A wave circuit? Do you want protection? What kind of uptime/SLA do you require? Perhaps you're buying more than one circuit, if so maybe you're asking for each to have a diverse path. Are you picking these up at co-location facilities, or do you need them run all the way out to a data center? Are you adding to an existing bundle, or is this all completely new? How long of a contract term do you want?
The sales rep takes all that, looks at how much bandwidth they have to sell, looks at their upcoming plans for adding their own capacity, looks at competition, and gives you a number.
I've seen a single copper T1 go for twice what an OC-192 sold for, due to differences in SLA, geography, distance, and contract length. Anybody who tries to just tell you that fiber costs "$X" is either bullshitting you or simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
no, 100 Mbit at a time , but not all the time (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a matter of 100 Mbps or 25 Mbps.
You can download something at 100 Mbps and in ten seconds you'll be done. Your neighbor can then use that SAME 100 Mbps of capacity for a few seconds. So you, your neighbor, and 98 other people all get 100 Mbps when you want it. At 100 Mbps, it takes you a lot longer to read a web page than it does to load it, and a lot longer to listen to a song than to download it. You use zero Mbps when you're sleeping, at work, running errands, cooking dinner - overall you use the bandwidth about 1% of the time.
Compare that to if eBay connected their servers to Google fiber connections. Servers would be using the bandwidth all the time. It couldn't be shared with neighbors, so Google would need to add dedicated capacity just for those servers. That costs alot more to have it all to yourself versus sharing with 99 other people.