Hours After Google Announces Google Fiber In Austin, AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network There
from the so...-competition-works? dept
As you've probably heard, this morning Google confirmed the rumors that Austin, Texas would be the second city in which Google Fiber is rolled out. Google still appears to be treating this as an experiment, rolling it out in just a few areas, but it's still worth watching what happens. For example, within hours of Google making the announcement, AT&T rushed out a somewhat hilarious press release insisting that it, too, would build a 1 gigabit fiber network in Austin. No one actually believes this is true. What you're seeing is a bit of gamesmanship, but which reveals something interesting. First up, AT&T is clearly using this to complain about the deal terms by which Google got the rights of way in Austin. Google, famously, got Kansas City to kick in all sorts of concessions that made it extra favorable for Google to build its network there. No doubt, the city of Austin offered similar benefits to Google to be city number two. And, so, within AT&T's press release, there's this little tidbit:Today, AT&T announced that in conjunction with its previously announced Project VIP expansion of broadband access, it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second. AT&T's expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.In other words, sure, sure we'll build a 1 gigabit fiber network. Just give us the same favorable terms you gave Google. Basically, AT&T's announcement has little to do with actually offering a competing service, but much more about calling attention to the favorable terms that cities are giving Google to get Google Fiber. Now, this is something that deserves reasonable scrutiny. Some are quite understandably concerned that it's not right if Google gets extra-favorable terms. But, let's look at the real history here. Municipalities have been giving AT&T and other incumbents incredibly favorable deals for years, and AT&T has tended to return the favor by providing the bare minimum in quality of service to its broadband customers, while focusing most of its efforts on trying to block any hint of competition from showing up.
Google, on the other hand, seems to be using these incentives to offer a much higher level of service, and the early reviews from Kansas City have been fantastic. In short, both companies have been able to squeeze concessions and favorable deals out of the cities in question. One of them pocketed the cash and gave customers the bare minimum. The other focused on providing a truly impressive level of service.
The other oddity in all of this is just how much this press release makes AT&T look bad. Beyond the petty "hey, give us what Google got" statement, this press release more or less confirms exactly the message that AT&T has been trying to deny for years: that when there's real competition, then AT&T will invest in making a better service. Without the competition, AT&T is happy to provide crappy service. But within hours of real competition showing up, it suddenly claims it'll offer a better level of service? Is that really the message it wants to send? If I'm any city, state or federal government in the US at this point, I look at today's announcement and say, "well, AT&T just admitted that they'll offer better service if there's real competition, so how do we make sure there's real competition?" Given how hard AT&T has fought back against real competition in the broadband space for the past decade, it's not clear this is the message AT&T really should be spreading.
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Filed Under: austin, broadnbad, competition, fiber, rights of way, sweetheart deals, texas
Companies: at&t, google
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We are thrilled to announce we will extend the same terms to you that we have extended to Google immediately upon receipt of verification that you have completed upgrading all of your existing service to 1 gigabit.
City of Austin.
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Reminds me...
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Thank you TDirt
That makes you, Karl Bode and that's about it.
I'm forever amazed how journalists get paid for getting suckered by Corporate/Government PR.
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I'm putting down my bet for "never". And I'll be jumping ship as soon as *anyone* around here offers me a compelling alternative.
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Re: Thank you TDirt
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I'm a big proponent of muni-fiber. I mean you don't see the power companies trying this crap*, and they're government regulated. The problem is, the incumbents have put all sorts of roadblocks for municipal broadband, so Google had to step up and do it themselves. I wonder how Google would feel about a deal where they turn everything over to the city in 10 to 25 years.
* I live in an area with some of the cheapest electricity in the US, you're results may differ.
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And Comcast sucks too, as do all our major internet providers.
Less whining and more competition
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DSL
isn't AT&T DSL?
fiber optic only goes to their ugly switch boxes then it's DSL to the customer's house?
http://dependablecomputer.com/images/vrad.jpg
unless you can get gigabit all the way to the customer, it's just all smoke and mirror...
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If the telcos want to stop Google, they could, *gasp* roll out higher speeds before Google does it.
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We'll be more than happy to give you the same terms and conditions once you repay the money you've already been paid to deliver broadband internet service.
The Taxpayers
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Re: DSL
In Austin, it is generally between AT&T DSL or Time Warner Cable which both suck and are overpriced.
In some areas in Austin, you can get Grande Cable which is much, much better and cheaper.
Comparatively, I had grande at 50 down for $50 a month. I moved and had to get time warner which is $50 for 20 down.
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Re: DSL
But that is here nor there. Google is offering fiber to your door one would assume that ATT's "new" "offering" would be the same. Though you are correct currently ATT runs to your house over phone or, if your lucky, coax.
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Re: DSL
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I'd be pretty surprised if it ever reaches beyond four cities or so.
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same old lies, same old shitty service from the same old shitty company that should just do everyone a favor and go bankrupt.
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Is it Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Oregon?
Nobody seems to say! But everybody says "Austin, Texas" like they're assuming I'll assume it's Austin in some other state. There are so many to choose from!
I'm so confused!
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What I'm basically getting at is if Google offered a connection, even at my current speed, I'd jump on it.
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Re: DSL
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Seriously, that just tells me that they are sitting on the technology. I can't wait for Google Fiber to go nationwide to bring back ACTUAL competitive markets for these services.
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The first two.
https://fiber.google.com/cities/#header=check
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This is nothing new...
"So when is Americast rolling out service?"
[several awkward seconds of silence]
"Three months."
Americast was what is now WOW, unless they have changed hands and I haven't noticed. I had some incidents of being billed by them when I didn't even have service, and they wouldn't talk to me.
The point is that there is nothing new in service improving only when competitors exist. I went with Americast at the time because it was a better deal.
Some years later I cut the cord because logos had contaminated TV everywhere and TV service had ceased to have value.
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Worse, they'd have to plow money and effort into maintenance and upgrades, instead of dividends to shareholders and bonuses to BoD members.
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One company gets all the perks and give the finger to customers the other which is not so comfy get the perks and works hard to create a favorable environment this includes serving your actual customers.
One company can compete globally and trash the competition anywhere, the other can only do in their home turf with heavy protection from the government, who do we think will survive and prosper?
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Set it up in a way that it doesn't matter if they deliver or not.
Build the infra-structure and hold on to that, allowing everyone to come in and put their own fiber or rent it from others, let the market auto adjust and it will be fine.
Just don't ever do "exclusive" deals with basic infra-structure ever.
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Capitalism.
The same mechanism is in EVERY BUSINESS in every walk of life on planet Earth. It's one of the primary mechanisms that's destroying humankind, in fact.
So of course, if a competitor comes along that is large enough and threatening enough and with a compelling enough alternative, they'll change their tune - until such a time they can form an oligopoly with the new competitor so they then jointly jack up the costs and lower the quality again.
In a capitalism, monopolies and oligopolies are the inevitable end result in every field. The only reason this case is a bit different is that Google isn't a business built on providing Internet connectivity - they sell cloud services, so they can take a financial hit from this because having superfast broadband enables them to sell their services.
If Google were your typical ISP, they'd be oligopoly-ing along with the rest of them in short order.
Only someone truly stupid would think that AT&T doesn't work this way. The lack of competition is keeping quality hideously low, and they won't build better until somehow forced.
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Peak hours billing can tend to encourage people to do high-load but low-priority usage at better times. For instance, one of the popular tariffs in the UK was (is?) Economy 7, which allowed people to get cheaper electricity overnight - so it was a great time to run the washing machine or dishwasher, whilst freeing up 'daytime' power for more immediate needs.
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All AT&T has to do to survive is match what the competition offers and let build-out costs choke out attempts to undermine their monopoly.
The serious danger that google poses to AT&T is the positive externality they gain merely from the presence of fast networks. AT&T doesn't capture any such profit so google can undercut their price at a sufficiently large scale (tho to deploy at such a scale google might have to substantially raise prices and risk losing customer affection as a result).
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Re: Capitalism.
That's utter hogwash. Study some econ. In fields with low barriers to entry and substantial risk of failure neither monopoly nor oligarchy is the natural result. Indeed, in certain industries the natural result is many small competitors.
For instance in food service (restaurants) the risk of failure is quite high while the cost of entry is relatively small. As a result you tend to have many small independently owned (tho perhaps franchised) companies since aggregating many restaurants into one conglomerate would undermine the limitation on losses provided by bankruptcy while offering little advantage.
In contrast providing high speed internet requires a gigantic capital outlay and has a fairly small chance of failure (you know people are willing to buy your service and once you've made the initial capital outlay it would be unprofitable for any competitor to duplicate your expenditure since they would expect to receive no return on investment provided they don't have substantially lower marginal costs...and in the high speed internet business marginal costs are a few trucks out repairing outages).
High speed internet is a natural monopoly as a result and thus it makes sense for it to be provided as a municipal service as are roads and electricity.
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Austin is NOT the second city
1: Kansas City, Kansas - Announced March 30, 2011
2: Kansas City, Missouri - Announced April 16th, 2011
3: Olathe, Kansas - Announced March 19, 2013
4: Austin, Texas - Announced April 9, 2013
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Not in Kansas anymore
AT&T says they will offer a comparable service, if only they have the same deal as Google.
Well...
Austin City spokesman Doug Matthews said there were no "special incentives" for Google. "The negotiated agreement we had with Google, by state law we're obligated to provide to anybody else who wants to offer the same service," Matthews said.
Soooo, AT&T has had the same deal all along.
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Good Journalism
You probably won't see as many people calling out AT&T's BS; I've been locked out of my Facebook account due to one of their agents filing a complaint against me for pointing out exactly what you say in this blog. I'm seething mad now. AT&T gave us exactly 2.58Mbit/sec and not a tenth of a point more, when our "classic" DSL went straight to the nearest Uverse box with the rest of their customers. They're sabotaging legacy customers to goad them into converting. Now we have Time Warner, at 6x the speed and half the cost. TW also delivers what we are paying for.
A group of South siders, called "Dawson Fiberhood" are looking for media exposure for their drive to get Google to hook them up first. Contact details are at dawsonfiberhood blogspot com
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Nice post
houston used cars
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NSA
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