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Kansas City Was First To Embrace Google Fiber, Now Its Broadband Future Is 'TBD' (vice.com) 178

Posted by BeauHD from the only-time-will-tell dept.
Five years after the opportunity arose in 2011 for Kansas City to become the first community to pilot Google Fiber, expansion of the gigabit per second service has come to a screeching halt. Kaleigh Rogers from Motherboard writes about how Kansas City's broadband future is "to be determined." From the report: Thousands of customers in KC who had pre-registered for guaranteed service when Fiber made it to their neighborhood were given their money back earlier this year, and told they may never get hooked up. Fiber cycled through two CEOs in the last 10 months, lost multiple executives, and has started laying off employees. Plans to expand Fiber to eight other American cities halted late last year, leaving the fate of the project up in the air. I recently asked Rachel Hack Merlo, the Community Manager for Google Fiber in Kansas City, about the future of the expanding the project service there, and she told me it was "TBD." Kansas City expected to become Google's glittering example of a futuristic gig-city: Half a decade later, there are examples of how Fiber benefitted KC, and stories about how it fell short. Thousands of customers will likely never get the chance to access the infrastructure they rallied behind, and many communities are still without any broadband access at all. Many are now left wondering: is that it?
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Kansas City Was First To Embrace Google Fiber, Now Its Broadband Future Is 'TBD' More

Kansas City Was First To Embrace Google Fiber, Now Its Broadband Future Is 'TBD'

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  • I learned that Google Fiber was simply taking advantage of existing huge federal government fiber optic infrastructure in KC and other cities where they offered it. Since there was already a substantial fiber optic hub serving that city, the Google Fiber addition would not impose a significant bandwidth burden to it. (I just made up that last part, but the government facility stuff appears to be true.)

    Perhaps recent changes in the Commander in Chief have resulted in changes to how these fiber optic assets a

    • Well, yeah - I thought it was pretty well known that all Google was doing was lighting up dark fiber which was already in place.

      Have they actually rolled out new fiber anywhere?

      • Re:This is due to gummint involvement (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:51PM (#55113471)

        Have they actually rolled out new fiber anywhere?

        Who knows. They don't share any plans or thinking. They're as tight lipped as every other telecom.

        I recall getting shouted down because I said Google wasn't any better than the incumbents and that they'd cherry-pick the better neighborhoods and leave the rest in the dark. Some Google fanboi insisted they'd wire the ghettos and show everyone how it's done.

        The truth is that Google's incentives are as fouled up as the traditional providers. They all want the easy-to-reach customers that have lots of disposable income. Comcast et al. want to sell expensive bundles to a captive audience and Google wants lucrative data about people with money. None of these parties have any incentive to stretch their systems beyond dense, high income urban areas.

        Small, independent operators motivated to light as many properties as possible as cheaply as possible could solve this problem, but they have no hope getting through the regulatory mine field and the incumbent obstacles. So here we sit in our balkanized country with mountains of rules and regulations, fat government blessed monopolies and costly, limited pathetic Internet service, getting scrutinized with a digital microscope because we have only a handful monster operators, vertically integrated from your POP all they way up to the NSA and everything in between, to choose from.

        • why did you post this as AC good sir? it's intelligent and cogent, and precisely correct.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Altrag ( 195300 )

          Google's incentives are as fouled up

          I don't know that I'd call it fouled up. Google's incentives are pretty clear: Create the most profit possible. They're a company after all and that's kind of a company's whole gig.

          That's why leaving essential services to unregulated industries is a bad idea: Even when the companies are acting in good faith, their incentives are not aligned with the incentives of the populace. And now that broadband is close to being labeled and essential service (I believe it even already has that label in some jurisd

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rakarra ( 112805 )

            The companies keep taking the handouts, doing a fraction of what they claimed they were going to do with the money and pocketing the rest, and then turn around with their hands out again the next time the citizens complain about lack of connectivity in remote areas.

            Huh. Funny. Here in the US, we have a similar history. [irregulators.org] Companies were given billions to expand fiber optic connections, but there was no political will to enforce the agreements. AT&T deployed UVerse over old copper cables and said that as long as there was a "fiber node" without 1/2 mile of the location, that location was "fiber connected." Other companies sunk the money into cellular networks and said that cell phone services count as home broadband.

      • I don't know anybody who has dark fiber running to their house. Who would run fiber to a home and not light it up?

    • Re: This is due to gummint involvement (Score:4, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:18PM (#55113313)
      I doubt Trump has anything to do with it. Google Fibre foundered for years under the Obama administration and I doubt the Feds really care all that much regaerdless of who is charge. I'd look a the Governor or Mayor to see if that's where the holdup is at.

    • No. It was due to crony cable companies whining how unfair it is to have to compete with low prices and great service.

      Not because of socialism, but rather the lack of it where companies run how regulation works and weaker republican friendly goverments who want to the their best effort to make sure this does not change as that would be evil communism.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lucm ( 889690 )

      Perhaps recent changes in the Commander in Chief have resulted in changes to how these fiber optic assets are being used and accounted for?

      Or perhaps Google has no way to make money on this since citizens demand net neutrality as well as high speed and zero downtime, but instead of considering that you fall back on your default narrative, which is to blame Trump?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Altrag ( 195300 )

        .. seriously?

        - High speed: You think that providing high speed is an unreasonable demand of a business whose sole purpose is providing high speed? I'm sure McDonald's could be more profitable too if you buy a Happy Meal and they only give you the drink.

        - Zero downtime: Not quite as dumb as the previous, but its still pretty expected that any major service provider has minimal downtime, especially if they're providing to commercial customers.

        - Net neutrality: Well this is your only suggestion that isn't

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lucm ( 889690 )

          Dude, don't tell people to think before they post, especially if you're going to miss their point entirely.

          As it happens, the point here is that we're going to be stuck with terrible internet connections at vastly slower speed than they could because the companies that could make things better (like Google) are shackled by regulations that make the ISP business not enticing.

          Unless we open the door to having two speeds for data delivery over internet, we're stuck with the slow one.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dave420 ( 699308 )

            If you look at countries which have adopted true net neutrality, where national infrastructure is lawfully available to anyone wishing to use it, you will find better speeds and lower prices than the US. That seems to indicate your entire argument is not only wrong, but at odds with what you actually want out of this. Which is weird. I wonder what happened to you to make you support something by your own admission is against your interests? Ignorance is a tempting answer, but it can't be the only factor

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by lucm ( 889690 )

              The fact that there's better speeds and lower price can be explained by other considerations, such as having a much smaller area to cover and/or a higher population density. For instance, Texas alone is roughly twice the size of Japan but has 1/6 of its population. Montana is the same size as Germany, but its population is 80x smaller.

              Unless you have data about the speed and price of internet before and after net neutrality was implemented in those countries that you do not name, it's probably best to dial

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rakarra ( 112805 )

            As it happens, the point here is that we're going to be stuck with terrible internet connections at vastly slower speed than they could because the companies that could make things better (like Google) are shackled by regulations that make the ISP business not enticing.

            Then the ISP can get out of the last mile line business. As long as they own the pipes to the houses, they have a legal means of cutting off any sort of competition so they can put up with all sorts of "stifling" regulations.

            Or, if we're going to grant a defacto monopoly/duopoly, then that monopoly/duopoly should not be able to stick it to consumers because consumers have no choice.

    • If you have been paying attention - Google is a private company on paper - but actually has a mission statement written by a three letter agency. It has always been evil. Most slogans are the opposite ...

  • They completely underestimated how much of a pain in the ass and how costly it is to go up against established local incumbents (see: at&t). Google's hubris preceded them on this one.

    • It's funny because in San Antonio, Google is sending free shirts to advertise the incoming google ISP. Of course, it says the t-shirts are coming in 2-4 months and no eta on when the actual ISP is coming.

  • Infrastructure costs money. That's how politicians get greased, streets get paved and licensed monopolies come into being. Public good, improving service have nothing to do with that so they're all secondary to how much can they charge for it.

    Obviously, costs exceeded expected revenue in this case.

  • KC Resident here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wjcofkc ( 964165 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:21PM (#55113329)
    They hooked up every house in my subdivision... except mine. After much calling back and forth, it became clear how mismanaged this Google Fiber project was. Their left hand did not know what their right hand was doing. It was laughable to keep getting so much contradicting information about the status of my "install". Finally they called and canceled on us. Oh well, Google started falling out of favor with me years ago. I am probably lucky that I am not all the more tangled up with them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by X86BSD ( 689041 )
      I hear you, I had to wait over 2 years for an install. *Two years* in KC as well. I would call every six months and hear the same excuse. "Crushed conduit" waiting to be repaired. It was laughable. It does not take 2 years to replace a crushed conduit. Seriously as much as I hate cable companies if I had someone take a backhoe to fiber that my cable net connection was on it would NOT take them 2 years to fix it. At most a few days. So i feel your pain. I think google is a tire fire of a company. Their prod

      • Comcast and others have been bribing public officials to make sure repairs do not get completed or put up additional red tape so delays are inherent. I do not think Google was strong enough to stand up to these guys as yes repairing a crushed conduit does require a permit and who else happens to be in the same pipes under your sidewalk? You guessed it COMCAST and AT&T. You bet they can just say no to the city claiming they do not approve yada yada for many years and Google would need to hire some lawyer

        • This hand-waving that Google isnt "strong enough to stand up to these guys" is outright ridiculous and doesnt pass even a cursory smell test.

          Google could literally buy all of these incumbents with its spare change. Stop being a partisan fuck Google fanboy.
    • Quality telephone customer service is really *NOT* what google is known for.

    • Yeah, it was pretty painful waiting for Fiber. The deadline kept getting pushed. Eventually they did it and its awesome. I just wish all of KC could get it.

      Here's the thing that baffles me though. WHY DO THEY KEEP ADVERTISING IT!? Seriously. I see ads on facebook and on billboards begging for people to sign up for Google Fiber when they can't.

  • Is the business model just not there? FTTP services are shuttering a lot these days...what's the issue?

    • It's a lot more expensive then they thought so the ROI was too far off to make their money back in a reasonable amount of time. There you go in a nutshell

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Strider- ( 39683 )

        And this is why the last mile infrastructure should be a public utility. The PUD, or similar local authority, owns, installs, and maintains the last mile infrastructure. The residents then have the choice of picking any number of ISPs, Television providers, and phone providers that then run over that infrastructure.

        I've done a fair bit of work in both Douglas and Chelan counties. In both counties, their PUD provides FTTP to virtually every residential and business address in the county. The residents then h

        • As long as you're paying $50/mo to a private company to relay that $10/mo to the government to maintain the service, I think it's okay with conservatives.

          • Well its far superior to a payroll tax. It least with a "service fee" only those that choose to use the service are paying it.

    • The issue is: why provide better service for less money when you can just squeeze the customers out of more money with the same infrastructure because of your lovely cable monopoly? It's the same rut which caused the electric power companies in the US in the first half of the XXth century to have pitifully crap service until the US Government got tired of the situation and started the TVA and their ilk.

    • I think Google finally discovered what the real numbers were and its as simple as that. Running the infrastructure is only half the battle. If you run such a service you need customer support. You need people maintaining the infrastructures. You need people doing installs. You need a marketing department.

      Google has never been about maintaining existing customers. Its always been about getting new customers. In a rapidly expanding market its "good business" to do things this way. You can't run an ISP this

  • Success (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:22PM (#55113339) Homepage

    If it is Google Fiber specifically or from another company, the project was a total succeeds. In my neighborhood, access speeds went from being around 20-30mbps on the top end to Gigabit through CenturyLink. Countless other ISPs have all started offering gigabit class service due to the pressure that Google Fiber caused. Google brought competition, and the market was forced to react. (almost) everyone wins! Except those smucks still stuck in areas that have government restrictions on what can/cant be made available in their areas.

    • thanks crony state and local government.

    • If it is Google Fiber specifically or from another company, the project was a total succeeds. In my neighborhood, access speeds went from being around 20-30mbps on the top end to Gigabit through CenturyLink. Countless other ISPs have all started offering gigabit class service due to the pressure that Google Fiber caused. Google brought competition, and the market was forced to react. (almost) everyone wins! Except those smucks still stuck in areas that have government restrictions on what can/cant be made available in their areas.

      Uh, no dude. It wasn't.

      A small section of the country wins, and every other community in the nation loses, because the incumbents were able to push Google out of the market.

      It only goes to show that the carriers could give us all broadband, and would even probably make money from doing that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        The other communities lose doubly so, because with gigabit speeds becoming 'the norm' in some places, websites and downloads and streams will become increasingly difficult to use on slower speeds.

  • Squirrel! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Moof123 ( 1292134 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:32PM (#55113387)

    Google time and again hops into area with grand fanfare, claiming it will revolutionize an industry. The pattern however is that within a year or few when the fanfare dies down they lose interest and chase the next shiny object. Even if they come out with a new service I lust for, I would just be cynical and skeptical due to a long history of failing to follow through.

    • Google time and again hops into area with grand fanfare, claiming it will revolutionize an industry.

      As darkain said above [slashdot.org], Google did revolutionize this industry. Gigabit fiber to the home isn't ubiquitous by any means, but when Google Fiber kicked off it was nonexistent. Lots of areas in the country do now have access to it, and I don't think that would have happened without Google jumping in.

  • Seriously, Google used to be the best before. Now, it is being ran by MBAs, who are turning this into MS at best.
    Google is for all intents and purposes, dead and will go the same route as Yahoo.
    What is needed now, is for a new site to come up with better tech in a different arena, and while they have a great name, drift into Google's space.
    • MS is firing on all cylinders now that they have an engineer CEO.
      • Not even close. MS is ran by Satya Nadella who is just another MBA.
        • Try again. Engineer. "Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet[13] before attaining BE degree in Electrical Engineering[14] from Manipal Institute of Technology (then part of Mangalore University) in 1988.[15][16] Nadella subsequently traveled to the U.S. to study for a Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,[17] receiving his degree in 1990.[18] Later he received his MBA degree from University of Chicago [19][20]" Oh...wow....he has an MBA....
  • Seriously....they suck at executing and keeping product lines around.

    • Because everybody working there wants to be the person to come up with the next great idea. Nobody wants to spend time implementing somebody else's idea.

  • Yes, that's the word I read out internally to myself when I see 'TBD'.

    In a world plagued with three letter acronyms, I suggest that the more common ones should be converted into full fledged words by means of stuffing them with vowels as required to make them easy to pronounce. Are ya with me?

  • Google vs a toddler (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:50PM (#55113467) Homepage Journal

    What's the difference between Google and a toddler?

    A toddler doesn't get bored with its toys so quickly.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @05:54PM (#55113497)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Even the mighty Donald Trump couldn't get a plan for genuinely high speed internet build in America, not as long as the lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and other dinosaur ISPs are so powerful.

    • What makes you think it would be any better under government initiatives?

      Everywhere I have been in the world, the road networks have been oversubscribed and under maintained - in the US you have bridges collapsing because of poor maintenance and standards. In most cities, rush hour means gridlock. Pot holes and third parties digging up roads left, right and centre is a common issue.

      I don't see how putting the government in charge would really solve this.

      The best idea is what New Zealand currently do - we

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        Government does just fine for my water, sewer, electricity and gas. I have no problems with them whatsoever. What makes fiber to be so different? If you want the magic "competition" then just allow mandatory licensing of fiber to any commercial company that wants to use it.

        • Government does just fine for my water, sewer, electricity and gas.

          None of that is Federal.

          We are talking about a national fiber rollout here. Thats Federal. What does the Federal government do well? They are busy arguing over what your rights are while bombing the shit out of the middle east.

          If the Federal government managed your drinking water then eventually things like the Flint catastrophe would happen on a national scale, ad even if you saw it coming you wouldnt have a voice. A Flint catastrophe is averted every year somewhere in the country because people have

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by swb ( 14022 )

            I don't think you really need a "national" fiber rollout. Most of the problems residential fiber is trying to solve are last mile and very local in scope. That's too many details for any kind of national rollout to manage without an overwhelming project management bureaucracy.

            The best contribution would be a Federal law that defines a municipality's right to build local fiber networks to the home and the nature of the services they could provide. You'd eliminate some opposition by declaring that municipa

            • The local Cable franchises lobby the State governments to put limits on the Local government.

              They will also lobby the Federal government to put limits on the State governments. You can't win going down this road because this road is the wrong direction. Its backwards.

              The Local governments should be putting limits on the State governments, which should be putting limits on the Federal government. Going about it backwards disenfranchises the People. There is only one Federal election. Your Federal voice i

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by swb ( 14022 )

                My line of thinking is that it's relatively easy to get a state law passed pre-empting municipalities from building a network infrastructure and this has been the tactic the cable companies have used.

                However, if a national law was proposed *allowing* municipalities to build networks, it would override state level pre-emption laws and be much more visible and difficult for cable companies to block, especially if it contained built-in limitations on what those networks could do.

                The cable companies' main objec

        • Yup, Detroit seems to have done well with water...

          And wasn't there a massive issue with brownouts in California a few years back?

          And I hear you have ridiculous "ownership" laws in the US on water that has fallen from the sky in many locations, so you can't capture it for your own use?

          Sounds like you are doing swell with your government stuff there...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 )
            What brownouts in CA? Be specific, please.

            You can capture water for your own use in CA, but without a permit you can not build large artificial structures to hold it. And it has nothing to do with municipal water supply.

            So yep, government is doing just fine.
    • his current plan is to privatize it, e.g. hand it over to his buddies to profit from. He's not even shy about it, he's talked about it more than once saying that the way we'd pay for new infrastructure is to sell the existing stuff off.

      What I'm saying is don't count on Trump & Co to accomplish anything in regards to infrastructure. You won't get government funded infrastructure from him, he's already said he won't do it.

  • The problem here is that broadband (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @06:52PM (#55113757)
    is massively, massively overpriced. Comcast admitted in one of their SEC filings that their $70/mo package cost them just $9/mo net (e.g. that includes support). That means anyone that tries to compete at that $70 price point is already doomed because Comcast et al can just drop their pants until the competition dies out. Which as far as I can tell is exactly what they did here. That's not competition though. It's a temporary price cut until competition dies on the vine.

    TL;DR: Municipal broadband for the win. Anyone who complains about socialism gets shouted down. Enough already. It's too valuable for it not to be a public utility. It's right up there with water and electricity.

  • Do some ballot measures... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlueCoder ( 223005 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @07:41PM (#55113947)

    First pass a resolution to build out fibre in the rest of the city yourself with an appropriate bond measure.

    Create a special utility to manage it. During build out it will be it's own independent company and contractor but will later be turned into a public utility. It will have the power of the city to tear out streets in the middle of the night and to work 24 hours a day in certain circumstances. Use many subcontractors and don't require unions. Use your union guys to inspect the work and maybe work in difficult areas. Build it out one small section at a time per contractor. Let the contractors compete and use the appropriate contractor for each section.

    Last invite providers to install trunks into your faciliy at their cost and under your rules. Customers are required to buy their own city approved optical interface equipment per house and to pay a one time $500 hook up fee to have the equipment installed.

    The whole thing will be paid off in ten to fifteen years and the city can either keep the money coming in or reduce everyone's bill.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      Fuck yeah!! ^ This guy civics.

      Basically, all we need from the feds is to get out of the way, or use them as muscle if corrupt state government keeps cities from being able to legally do this. (And really, before we do that, we should just start voting in our state elections so that they don't have to be as corrupt anymore.)

  • Oh, look, Google got bored of something again and dumped it. /something grumble google reader

  • Fast Internet (Score:3)

    by Phasedshift ( 415064 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:13PM (#55114377)

    I find it interesting that many people here are complaining that Google and other telecoms are only focusing on high income "cherry picked" areas to provide Internet. It costs a ton of money to run fiber, what do they expect? If you want it run to everyone it really should be municipal...

    However, either way..

    Speaking from personal experience, even if you offer broadband internet access for a regular price of $19.95 to poorer apartment complexes you will only get a few subscribers. It is very counter-intuitive, since you would expect to get a large number of subscribers.

    I was involved in a local ISP that was doing exactly this over a long period of time marketed to a large number of different apartment complexes with residents across the economic spectrum. At first it was heavily marketed to lower income areas since the initial thought was that they were being ignored by the bigger companies. However, after an extremely low response, the only ones we got more than a few subscribers from were the ones with middle class or higher residents on average (and we got many, many subscribers from those higher income complexes.)

    After further research, many of hose poorer households either only had internet through their phones (I'm assuming for cost reasons) or, would just pay a much higher price to the cable company for internet access since they already had cable television. As a side note, many of the poorer households that had internet through the cable company were paying hundreds of dollars for their TV service, but, were struggling in other areas.

    Based on my experience, if google or anyone tried to roll out fiber to the home to everyone and focused on poorer neighborhoods they would fail before they started.

  • The Akamai State of the Internet Report 1Q2017 says that the US average Internet connection speed is 18.7 Mbps (hurrah, the US is now in the top 10 countries in the world, pushing out The Netherlands!). Speeds are up 22% year-on-year.

    What is the normal person going to do with Gbps to the home? No one has a TV they can actually see 4K resolution with, and 3-4 Mbps does a superb job of HD video. So the average American can have 4 great HD streams running at the same time into their home. The average Ameri

    • Until movies are encoded with voxels instead of pixels, I dont see any order-of-magnitude increase in bandwidth demand. Video resolutions and even frame-rate will increase over time, but we are already well into the diminishing returns of those multipliers.

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