Google Fiber Expanding Faster, Further -- And Making Comcast Very Nervous

from the blow-up-the-status-quo dept

Tue, Feb 23rd 2016 3:21am — Karl Bode

While Google Fiber was originally seen as an adorable little experiment primarily designed to bring PR attention to a lack of broadband competition, over the last six months Wall Street has woken up to the fact that Google Fiber isn't playing around. While the number of customers that can actually sign up for Google Fiber remains in the several hundred thousand range, Google's announcements to tackle sprawling areas like Atlanta, San Antonio, Chicago, and Los Angeles has many Wall Street analysts changing their tune.

In 2012 or so, Wall Street analysts proclaimed it would just be too expensive to deploy Google Fiber at any scale. Fast forward to 2016, and you'll notice that a very different tune is being sung:

Although Google’s announcement is just that, could lead to nothing, and requires minimum capital commitment by Alphabet at this stage, it increases on the margin the likelihood that Google Fiber will pass a large number of locations within five years. Correspondingly, it increases the chances that we will see Alphabet’s capex in the non-core businesses, or what the company has referred to as “Other Bets,” increase significantly. Indeed, if Google Fiber were to build out in Chicago and/or Los Angeles and their surroundings, it could precipitate increased interest from other major metro areas, making it easier for Fiber to scale up. Our high end estimate of 20-25 million homes passed by Google Fiber may prove less aggressive than we thought.

Google Fiber has learned some hard lessons in trying to build a broadband network from scratch, so it has started leaning more heavily on existing builds (or plans to build). This week for example Google Fiber announced in a blog post it would be riding on a planned open access municipal broadband network being built by the city of Huntsville, Alabama. This comes on the heels of the company's announcement it's also riding on existing apartment fiber builds in Atlanta to speed up availability there:

To date, we’ve built the majority of our Google Fiber networks from scratch. But over the past five years, we’ve repeatedly seen that every city is unique. So in order to bring Fiber to more people, we’ve taken different approaches in different places. In Provo, Utah, our Google Fiber service is being delivered over a network we purchased from the city. In Atlanta, Georgia, we’re both constructing our own network, and using existing fiber to provide Google Fiber to some apartment buildings. And now, due to the leadership of the Mayor and Huntsville Utilities CEO Jay Stowe, we’ll be working with a muni-owned network to bring our high speed service to Huntsville.

There's every indication that Huntsville's network will be open to any other ISP competitors, an idea Google Fiber originally trumpeted then backed off from. So, yes, while Google Fiber still has a small footprint now as it labors to dig fiber trenches (Austin, Kansas City, Provo), the sheer number of builds in progress or close to finalization is starting to become mammoth (Louisville, Salt Lake City, Portland, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Charlotte, Nashville...). In other words, by 2020 or so things should start to look notably different:

Broadband ISPs, much like Wall Street, generally thought Google Fiber would never be big enough to seriously impact their bottom line. But as Google Fiber pushes into Comcast territories like Atlanta, flyers being handed out by the cable giant make it abundantly clear it's getting nervous about having to face real competition:

Unfortunately for Comcast, Atlanta is one of the many markets where Comcast is engaged in usage cap and overage fee "trials," which oddly is omitted in the company's attempt to deflate Google Fiber "hype." Most of Comcast's flyer claims are either misleading (WiFi is as fast as the router you buy) or just not very interesting (wow, video on demand?). Few if any of Comcast's claimed advantages are going to be much help against a patient company actually willing to compete on price.

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Filed Under: broadband, competition, expansion, google fiber
Companies: comcast, google

53 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 1:35am

A notable omission
I notice the flier left out the one that's most important to most people.

'My bill this month is what?!'
[X] xfinity []Google Fiber
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Ninja (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 3:59am

Omissions
Worst customer service in america?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Caps that are incompatible with the speed?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Sneaky fees and overpriced services?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Generally obnoxious behavior against consumers?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Giant middle finger at the citizens by effectively buying laws that benefit themselves?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Litigious behavior when faced with competition?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

Worst company in America for years?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber

I could go on.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:00am

Re: Omissions
Thinking about it it doesn't matter if the caps are incompatible. So change that for:

Meaningless usage caps?
[X] xfinity [ ]Google Fiber
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charliebrown (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:45am

Free TV?
On the flyer in bold it says: "9X more FREE TV shows and movies On Demand".

On the flyer in the fine print it says: "TV: On Demand selections subject to charge indicated at time of purchase."

So which one is it? And by capitalising the O and D in "On Demand" makes it sound like a name, so I am surprised there is no TM next to it!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:45am

And on the subject of voice-controlled remotes
If you can't work your ordinary remote control, then you shouldn't be watching TV. Read a book.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
charliebrown (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:47am

Re: Free TV?
Oh, silly me, they probably mean "free" as in "exempt from your data cap"!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Shmerl, 23 Feb 2016 @ 5:07am

Are Alphabet going to buy FiOS from Verizon?
Is that the reason they avoided deploying Google Fiber in any of the current FiOS areas?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 5:14am

"Wi-Fi is as fast as the router you buy"

This article is clearly written by a Google sympathizer. We said it's the fastest in-home Wi-Fi. As a forward-thinking company we realize that once this whole "cloud" fad dies down people are going to want to be able to transfer files and stream videos over their home network and we provide the best Wi-Fi for that purpose. After all, once we start cracking down on data usage the in-home network segment will be far more important than your Internet connection if you want to maximize the Comcastic Value (TM) of your services!
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TechDescartes (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 6:06am

Something Old, Something New
This is just another case of “fiber to the press release”. Except Google is deploying the fiber and Comcast is responding with the press release.
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jim, 23 Feb 2016 @ 6:34am

Re:
Love google fiber. Just wish they would pick up more channels that i would like. Come on amc, please. Or let us have online access to it. Good solid picture, but all i have are on 1080p, had rr before, and only one set would ren high def, the others would have to be downgraded, i'm at the end of a line, in a poor neighborhood, and had latency problems, no more. Now a bad day means, shut off my printer, eats signal strength.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 6:40am

Re: Re: Free TV?
No, they mean, 'free', as in, 'free of truth'.
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John Fenderson (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 6:43am

Don't fall for the hype, indeed
I love that flier. Not a single bullet point in there makes a persuasive point, given the end users can cheaply and easily get all the same benefits regardless of who their ISP is.

But it's the "fastest Wifi" that made me laugh the loudest.
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DavidMxx (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 6:55am

Fiber is good for your health
I remember just a few years ago when there were people actually moving to be in Verizon's fios deployment. Of course, in relatively short order, Verizon abandoned that buildout for most of the nation.

Here's hoping that Google will eventually cover the majority of the population and (finally) bring true competition to wired internet access.

As an aside, I wonder how long it will take for Google to get into the wireless access arena?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:05am

Re: Don't fall for the hype, indeed
Holy crap a voice-activated remote?! Forget superior service, sign me up for Comcrap!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:13am

It's disingenuous to say that Austin has Google Fiber. Their roll out has covered a teensy tiny part of the city to date. Speaking as an Austin resident, in a central part of the city, who has been waiting for Google Fiber for years now ... it's available in VERY VERY few neighborhoods. Still seems like vaporware to me.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:18am

The major telcoms screwing over customers, lack of decent customer service, and general arrogance would be enough were Google to come to town, to ensure I would swap just to teach the present telcos a lesson by hitting them in the wallet.

Comcast is especially known for it's lack of care in the customer service department. It has earned much of the disdain that its customers have reserved for it. Every thing from troubles in terminating service to extra charges in the bill.

Comcast is scared be it is going to reap what it has sown.
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R.H. (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:45am

Re: Fiber is good for your health
Google is already an MVNO with their Project Fi cellular service. If I ever lose my unlimited data, I'll probably switch.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:08am

But only terrorists use fiber!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:18am

Re:
Yes because no matter how fast your in-home speed is once you leave the house and have to deal with the "high speed" (not anywhere as fast as advertised) network. So it costs the company nothing to lease a fast router as opposed to actually improving their peering connections or network speeds.

What a joke comcast is.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:24am

Re: Re:
Yes because no matter how fast your in-home speed is once you leave the house and have to deal with the "high speed" (not anywhere as fast as advertised) network your connection speed will slow down. So it costs the company nothing to lease a fast router as opposed to actually improving their peering connections or network speeds.

No different than putting in the fastest processor possible into a computer but then purposely only putting in a few megs of ram. Sure you can crunch numbers fast but good luck on the retrieving of new info from the hard drive.

What a joke comcast is.
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John Nemesh, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:35am

Re: And on the subject of voice-controlled remotes
I have no love for Comcast or Xfinity...but the voice control is genuinely useful. It saves a LOT of effort in typing in search queries.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:42am

Re: Re: And on the subject of voice-controlled remotes
With what the FBI is trying to get Apple to do, you will let a microphone controlled by somebody else into your house?
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Indy, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:50am

At Google's current pace
They'll have 200 THOUSAND customers by 2022!

They'll have 400,000 (OMG) customers by 2032!

Let's not ignore that there are people still using dial-up, comcast, Centurylink, small ISPs, nor that 5G wireless is coming, and that Comcast is planning 2 Gbps service in select markets.

Google will not enter a market where it will lose money, and there are zero guarantees that just because they offer a service, people will eat it up.

What am I positive about? Increased competition. What do I find ridiculous? Google's growth in markets is piddly so far, and over a long time, very unimpressive. And the press eating it up is just silly.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 8:50am

SlingBox
Setting up Slingbox at relative's house, and then dropping Cox cable. (I'll keep it if they let me get only the local channels for, say $5 month.) I can't get any HD signals, so I'm stuck one way or the other.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 9:00am

Re: Re: Fiber is good for your health
I'm making the switch right now. I'm nervous, but a good kind of nervous. At the very least though, if I decide to bail on Fi, it'll be easy enough to cancel and get another provider. Looking forward to it all the same.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 10:13am

Re: Don't fall for the hype, indeed
While it's laughable as a selling point, home wifi speed is actually relevant. If you're using an old wireless G or early wireless N router, odds are pretty good you'll get fairly crappy speeds no matter how fast you're internet is supposed to be.

I say this as someone who recently needed to update their home network with a modern wireless AP, and turn off the ancient, crappy wireless on the ISP provided router.

Still, it's fairly ridiculous as a selling point seeing as it's fairly trivial to upgrade the wifi, and you very rapidly hit speeds where further speed on the wifi is irrelevant given the poor speed of the internet connection.
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Alex, 23 Feb 2016 @ 10:21am

Has a monopoly in Atlanta and prevents consumers from having a choice due to contractual agreement? [x] Comcast.

All of the stuff they sent out is true because they technically are the only ISP for those customers who received them.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 10:25am

Why do cable companies screw existing customers? Because they can
I just cancelled my cable and turned the box in, but kept internet from the same company. While doing so I was informed that if I brought in my "old" modem that wasn't receiving the full speed, that I was paying $12.00 a month for, they would give me a new high speed modem for $5.00 a month, both lowering my bill and increasing my speed.

I asked how long my "old" modem had been obsolete and was told 14 months. At NO time while paying more than double the current rate was I ever informed that I could receive increased performance and lower cost by upgrading my existing hardware.

If I had any other option for high speed internet, I would have switched that as well, but the only options are cable, DSL (which is 20 times slower than cable), or wireless (which is 5 times more expensive than cable).
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nasch (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 10:56am

Re: And on the subject of voice-controlled remotes
If you can't work your ordinary remote control, then you shouldn't be watching TV. Read a book.

Yeah fuck those disabled people. They should not be allowed to watch TV without help.
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nasch (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:19am

Re: At Google's current pace
Comcast is planning 2 Gbps service in select markets.

Let me guess which markets...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jjmcubed (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:24am

Wife switched to Fi about four months ago. We used two sim cards for a couple weeks to make sure she liked it, and had comparable service. She loves it. Only uses about 300mb a month, so her bill is around $24-$25. Data is $10 per gb, but if you don't use the whole gb, you get refunded what you didn't use. Have had zero problems.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:41am

Re: Re:
Jim, you can get AMC over the internet with SlingTV.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:52am

Re:
Nice!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 12:29pm

Dear google fiber,

I will give you money every month if you come to my town.

please....

please......

please....
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ChipH, 23 Feb 2016 @ 1:03pm

Re: Fiber is good for your health
They already have. Google Project Fi. My bill this month was $28. fi.google.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cl9, 23 Feb 2016 @ 2:36pm

Re: A notable omission
To be honest, the prices aren't bad. I just looked now and it's $70pm for gigabit speeds. I live in the UK and I pay about that for 200mbps download and 20mbps upload, it's actually a really good deal considering.
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Jordan Lund, 23 Feb 2016 @ 3:39pm

XFinity vs. Google Fiber.
Fastest in-home WiFi - I don't depend on Comcast for my WiFi. I have my own, thanks.

9x more FREE TV shows - that I'll never watch.

DVR recordings to go - that I won't watch.

X1 voice remote - I can already do all that with my Xbox One. I mean, I don't, but I could.
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Paul (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:24pm

Comcast Gouging
Good to know that Comcast is getting nervous. Competion is a good thing for everyone concerned. Maybe this will improve their CS as well. I left their "services" years ago, never to look back. Now they'll know what getting screwed without lube feels like. Karma is a good thing.
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Vadim, 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:32pm

Re: Are Alphabet going to buy FiOS from Verizon?
Is there a reason that Comcast would block progress by Google Fiber in such cities and states (FiOS areas) by lobbying local/state governments?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 4:48pm

Re: Comcast Gouging
Competion is a good thing for everyone concerned.

Might not be so good for Comcast.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:50pm

Re:
So little supplied, yet ComCrap are polishing their glittered turd & Wall Street have noticed that their investments could soon be traveling round the S-Bend.

I can imagine the CEO's talking to God on the big white telephone right now & not knowing which end to point towards the bowl!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:56pm

Re: Re: At Google's current pace
"Planning" being the operative word, not "doing" of course.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2016 @ 7:58pm

Re: Comcast Gouging
Beach sand lube is what Dr. Google has ordered for ComCast.
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Arthur Moore (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:25pm

Re: Don't fall for the hype, indeed
But it's the "fastest Wifi" that made me laugh the loudest.

It made you laugh, it made me ask when the FTC is going to get their act together and sue Comcast for deceptive advertising.

I doubt it will actually happen though, they've been able to get away with their claims of "Up To" speeds so far.
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Glenn, 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:33pm

As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. Why, if they decided to build Rome today, I'm sure it would be impossibly expensive and take forever if it could be done at all (which is why you don't look at it like it's simply a business opportunity).

Yeah, I'm sure Google Fiber will go FARTHER and FARTHER (distance-wise, that is) as they encroach further into Comcast's business model. Competition--ain't it a bitch.
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Eldakka (profile), 23 Feb 2016 @ 11:41pm

Re: Free TV?
No, the sentence can be restructured as follows in a couple different ways:

1) 9X more ((FREE TV shows) and (movies On Demand)). or
2) (9X more Free TV shows) and (movies on demand).

But in neither case is it:
9X more free (TV shows and movies on demand).

They want people to read it and believe it is the latter, but that is not the meaning.
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John Fenderson (profile), 24 Feb 2016 @ 6:37am

Re: Re: Comcast Gouging
That's called "just desserts".
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2016 @ 11:27am

Techcrunch shilling for a spyware advertising company again. What a surprise.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2016 @ 11:28am

Re:
*Techdirt
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Brad Slack, 24 Feb 2016 @ 3:22pm

Try the New Google Cell Phone Service
Goodby AT&T! 21 YEAR long customer just flipped over to Google Cell Phone Service (Fi). LOVE it. The service is just as good - pure Android phone from the Google factory - First in line for software updates. And the price?? $20 a month unlimited and $10 a GIG (prorated - only use half? $5).

UNBELIEVEABLE. I was paying $180 for AT&T and the thanks I got was a rate increase and a demand for $35 a month for a new phone.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2016 @ 3:28pm

ISP affected by NSA's spying?
[X] xfinity [X] Google Fiber
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Thang Thai, 9 Aug 2016 @ 11:35am

even if google is half the speed and twice the price, i'll still go with google
my area have just comcast, so when I called them about anything, I just got told to cancel my service and use another provider if i am not happy with Comcast straight out (knowing there is only comcast). So yeah, even if google fiber is only 10 megabit, i'll still take it over whatever sweet deal comcast throw at me (even if it is 10 bucks for infinite download/upload speed) because I am fed up and also know too well that good deal only last for as long as the competition is still here, so i will support the competition
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Sandra Brown, 7 Nov 2017 @ 9:33am

Re: please come to Fl
Over 6,000,000 Seniors living in Fl. They are either going without tv, Internet & land lines because they can't afford the rising prices they face every time they turn around. These cable companies won't work with anyone. $$$$$$ are the only thing they care about. They have a captive audience. Also you can't get a straight forward answer, if you are not tech savvy your lost. WE NEED HELP. Thank you
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