How do you figure that Google isn't competing on price?
If Google is in the market, a cable operator that doesn't have to make additional investments can drop the price without losing money.
These incumbent players aren't interested in competing on price. Why? Because they don't have to. They have monopoly or duopoly control in many of their areas and are under no pressure, from well, anyone, to actually compete.
That's kind of the point. If Google isn't in a market, it doesn't present a threat. If it does go into a market and the current cable operator wants to stay there, it will need to offer a better price for what it offers.
Re: Re: Google can have the market and spend the money
Last I read to rewire the cities in the US, just the cities, is 70 billion. So for 1/10th the cost of the Bank Bailout, every city in America could have fiber.
I've long been in favor of improving infrastructure as a way to put people to work and lift us out of recession. Congress doesn't like government spending, however, unless the money goes to the "right" industries.
In many respects this entire post confuses me because if Google wants to get into this in a big way, isn't it GOOD for Google that Time Warner doesn't think there is demand for Google fiber? Sneak up on them, right? Why bother to point it out to them?
Selling jewelry or appliances wasn't Amazon's core business, either.
If Google decides to pump a lot of money into rewiring the country, so be it, but some people are skeptical that this will happen. I'm not sure Google yet knows whether it will happen.
For some companies this might be ideal because it might remove Google's attention/resources from some industries to focus on this. If you want Google out of your playing field, then having Google go into a different playing field in a big way can reduce its threat to you.
Where do people get the idea that just because their internet connection is 1Gbps that everything else that was ever made in their network would automatically be that fast?
If they are doing all of the Internet browsing on devices using wifi there's no need for them to get the extra speed right now. They don't see the benefit. However, cheaper prices for the same service is a different matter. And a company that isn't laying new fiber can win the price war for lower speeds because all it has to do is drop its prices rather than increase investment.
Until and if Google actually expands across most of the country, cable operators really don't need to respond.
And the big question is whether Google really plans to do this on a grand scale. A lot of people think not, both because of the expense and because it isn't its core business.
As Google continues to expand its service in KC, we'll start to see a trend of Tech companies moving/starting up there because of the draw it will have for their workers.
This might also draw telecommuters to KC as well.
Do you think that will actually happen? Silicon Valley/the Bay area is an expensive place to set up a business and yet companies continue to do so.
Re: Re: Google can have the market and spend the money
They don't want to provide the service themselves. If someone else does, they'll either lose customers to the new service or have to provide a comparable service. It's easier just to prevent that problem from ever happening in the first place.
If the capacity is already there and it's just a matter of turning it on, then yes having Google come in might encourage the current cable provider to do more.
But if it is a matter of the current cable provider having to spend more, then opening up the market to Google won't necessary attract other companies to spend the investment to rewire cities. Who other than Google is currently clamoring to rewire entire cities?
Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
This really nails it.
How to Fix Your Soul - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review: "Imagine that I pioneer a wondrous nanomaterials startup that offers everyone a blindingly awesome new technology. What's likely to happen, without institutional innovation — without better building blocks for markets, corporations, and economies, in this case?
"Well, the first thing that's likely to happen is...nothing. Wall St and Sand Hill Rd probably won't bat an eyelid at my startup, choosing, instead, to do what they've been doing for the last decade or so: allocating capital to Groupon, Zynga, Facebook, and their ilk. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that by some miracle of virtue, that they do invest in my amazing nanomaterials startup. What happens next? Well, without political innovation, I'll get rich, and my backers will get rich — but the middle class is likely to continue its long, slow slide into oblivion. The benefits of technological innovation, in other words, without institutional innovation, are likely to remain hyperconcentrated at the top — with all the attendant problems that stem therefrom: regulatory capture, political gridlock, mega-lobbying, middle class implosion, planetary destruction, and finally, more of the same: real economic stagnation."
Rewiring the country is an expensive proposition. Not that many companies want to do it.
If Google wants to, I don't think many companies are going to fight them for that business. And this can be viewed as very sensible. The ROI may not be good enough for most companies to get into that business.
Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
Here. This is an example of what I want to see. The article mentions "scale up." That's what I think is wrong with much of Silicon Valley thinking. It is still based on "scaling up," where entrepreneurs want to build companies that will scale up and investors want to invest in companies that will scale up. But with that scaling up comes concentration of market share and power and I think companies of a certain size then begin to reconfigure laws and economics to keep themselves in business. I support movements that run counter to that. That's why I hope 3D printing (and the maker movement that builds up around it) becomes VERY disruptive, proving we no longer need huge multinationals.
Re: Re: Re: Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
I'm afraid you may be correct in that once they enter the corporate system they're prone to the same problems and mistakes as previous companies when they face something disruptive, but until a new system truly emerges it will be interesting to see how they deal with it when the time comes.
If natural disasters and water shortages become as frequent as some predict, we might have relatively little time to make a transition to something that works better. I think we're in the middle of a global economic shift as profound as the Industrial Revolution and it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Re: Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
The only thing is how they deal with said disruption. Will they whine and scream like petulant children because their cash cow is disappearing, begging governments for protection? Or will they realise that this is an inevitable part of progress and change their businesses to suit the new reality?
I think they will whine and scream. I'm hard on big tech companies because I already see signs of them behaving and justifying their behavior in a manner similar to big companies of the past. I think corporations use their money and power to stay in business.
Among tech companies, Apple is an easy target because they will use patents to suppress the competition.
But there are stories about Google sending lawyers after some little company for using the name Doogle, about Google lobbying, about Google sheltering its money oversees to avoid taxes (and in some cases transferring IP ownership overseas to do so).
Disrupting companies which then become big companies do what they have to do to block other disrupting companies. The disruptors become the establishment and fight to stay that way.
I think the whole system of starting a company, using an IPO as an exit strategy, and then becoming beholden to Wall Street fosters a certain behavior. Therefore, I am looking at entirely new economic models. I bring them up here a lot because I think the conversations here aren't nearly disruptive enough.
The fact that we can replace so many objects with a smart phone allows us to view consumption and ownership differently, which is quite revolutionary. And if we don't need to own as much, we don't need to spend as much, we don't need big houses to hold the stuff, and we can be much more mobile.
Some members of Occupy Wall Street were mocked for having smart phones, but those smart phones are one of the reasons Occupy Wall Street could exist. If your office fits into your pocket, you can operate on the streets.
Telcos will price the ones and zeroes as high as they can until someone like Google comes along and shows everyone that bandwidth is a commodity just like electricity, gas and water.
And I think they will let Google do it if Google wants to.
If I were a cable operator, I'd let Google have whatever market it wanted
I'm not sure the economics justify putting a lot of money into rewiring everything.
So if Google wanted to come into a town and my company was already there, I'd probably drop the price on the broadband my company already had in place and let Google rewire for faster speeds.
I don't think there are a lot of companies dying to get into this business or even wanting to hang on to this business if there's a lot of upfront investment that they have to pay for.
You can't stream HD video over wireless. And if you could, you'd probably blow you're entire monthly limit on a single movie. The same goes for games and the sometimes ridiculously large patches too, or anything that requires large downloads.
That's the case now. But if you are investing billions into a hardware solution, you might want to be looking pretty far down the road. If you think much of the online world is shifting to mobile, you might want to avoid sinking lots of money into a system which becomes outdated. In developing countries, they aren't wiring homes, so if they start dictating what goes online to accommodate their systems, you may find that the world of content shifts to a wireless world.
I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
Every business that is benefiting from current disruptions will, I believe, also be disrupted down the road.
I think some of the Internet companies that generate or hope to generate most of their income from advertising will see their revenue decline as people buy less goods and services and therefore become less response to advertising.
I am hoping that 3D printing is a major disruptor, too. I'm hoping economic systems flatten to such an extent that there is no economic value in large companies, and decentralization occurs on a mass level. It will be a very networked world, but not one where wealth and property are concentrated within a small group.
Just read this today.
BBC News - Viewpoint: Manuel Castells on the rise of alternative economic cultures: "What I refer to is about the observation of one of my latest studies on people who have decided not to wait for the revolution - to start living differently - meaning the expansion of what I call in a technical term 'non-capitalist practices'.
"They are economic practices but they don't have a for-profit motivation - such as barter networks; such as social currencies; co-operatives; self-management; agricultural networks; helping each other simply in terms of wanting to be together; networks of providing services for free to others in the expectation that someone will also provide to you. All this exists and it's expanding throughout the world."
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: My question is...
I am assuming that would be part of the deal. If everything you do is run through Google, Google collects a lot of data on you.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re: Re: Re: Actually...
If Google is in the market, a cable operator that doesn't have to make additional investments can drop the price without losing money.
These incumbent players aren't interested in competing on price. Why? Because they don't have to. They have monopoly or duopoly control in many of their areas and are under no pressure, from well, anyone, to actually compete.
That's kind of the point. If Google isn't in a market, it doesn't present a threat. If it does go into a market and the current cable operator wants to stay there, it will need to offer a better price for what it offers.
Cable operators can wait it out market by market.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re: Google can have the market and spend the money
I've long been in favor of improving infrastructure as a way to put people to work and lift us out of recession. Congress doesn't like government spending, however, unless the money goes to the "right" industries.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re: Re: Right now Google is a limited threat
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re: Right now Google is a limited threat
If Google decides to pump a lot of money into rewiring the country, so be it, but some people are skeptical that this will happen. I'm not sure Google yet knows whether it will happen.
For some companies this might be ideal because it might remove Google's attention/resources from some industries to focus on this. If you want Google out of your playing field, then having Google go into a different playing field in a big way can reduce its threat to you.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re:
If they are doing all of the Internet browsing on devices using wifi there's no need for them to get the extra speed right now. They don't see the benefit. However, cheaper prices for the same service is a different matter. And a company that isn't laying new fiber can win the price war for lower speeds because all it has to do is drop its prices rather than increase investment.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Right now Google is a limited threat
And the big question is whether Google really plans to do this on a grand scale. A lot of people think not, both because of the expense and because it isn't its core business.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Prediction
This might also draw telecommuters to KC as well.
Do you think that will actually happen? Silicon Valley/the Bay area is an expensive place to set up a business and yet companies continue to do so.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Re: Re: Google can have the market and spend the money
If the capacity is already there and it's just a matter of turning it on, then yes having Google come in might encourage the current cable provider to do more.
But if it is a matter of the current cable provider having to spend more, then opening up the market to Google won't necessary attract other companies to spend the investment to rewire cities. Who other than Google is currently clamoring to rewire entire cities?
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
How to Fix Your Soul - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review: "Imagine that I pioneer a wondrous nanomaterials startup that offers everyone a blindingly awesome new technology. What's likely to happen, without institutional innovation — without better building blocks for markets, corporations, and economies, in this case?
"Well, the first thing that's likely to happen is...nothing. Wall St and Sand Hill Rd probably won't bat an eyelid at my startup, choosing, instead, to do what they've been doing for the last decade or so: allocating capital to Groupon, Zynga, Facebook, and their ilk. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that by some miracle of virtue, that they do invest in my amazing nanomaterials startup. What happens next? Well, without political innovation, I'll get rich, and my backers will get rich — but the middle class is likely to continue its long, slow slide into oblivion. The benefits of technological innovation, in other words, without institutional innovation, are likely to remain hyperconcentrated at the top — with all the attendant problems that stem therefrom: regulatory capture, political gridlock, mega-lobbying, middle class implosion, planetary destruction, and finally, more of the same: real economic stagnation."
On the post: Time Warner Cable Doesn't Think There's Demand For Google Fiber
Google can have the market and spend the money
If Google wants to, I don't think many companies are going to fight them for that business. And this can be viewed as very sensible. The ROI may not be good enough for most companies to get into that business.
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
Nanobrewing: How tiny beer-making operations are changing the industry. - Slate Magazine
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
Re: Re: Re: Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
If natural disasters and water shortages become as frequent as some predict, we might have relatively little time to make a transition to something that works better. I think we're in the middle of a global economic shift as profound as the Industrial Revolution and it's going to be a bumpy ride.
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
Re: Re: I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
I think they will whine and scream. I'm hard on big tech companies because I already see signs of them behaving and justifying their behavior in a manner similar to big companies of the past. I think corporations use their money and power to stay in business.
Among tech companies, Apple is an easy target because they will use patents to suppress the competition.
But there are stories about Google sending lawyers after some little company for using the name Doogle, about Google lobbying, about Google sheltering its money oversees to avoid taxes (and in some cases transferring IP ownership overseas to do so).
Disrupting companies which then become big companies do what they have to do to block other disrupting companies. The disruptors become the establishment and fight to stay that way.
I think the whole system of starting a company, using an IPO as an exit strategy, and then becoming beholden to Wall Street fosters a certain behavior. Therefore, I am looking at entirely new economic models. I bring them up here a lot because I think the conversations here aren't nearly disruptive enough.
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
Re: Re: Patently absurd
Some members of Occupy Wall Street were mocked for having smart phones, but those smart phones are one of the reasons Occupy Wall Street could exist. If your office fits into your pocket, you can operate on the streets.
On the post: Yes, It Would Be Prohibitively Costly For Google To Offer Google Fiber Everywhere, But It Shouldn't Have To
Re: Just use the cellphone business model!
And I think they will let Google do it if Google wants to.
On the post: Yes, It Would Be Prohibitively Costly For Google To Offer Google Fiber Everywhere, But It Shouldn't Have To
If I were a cable operator, I'd let Google have whatever market it wanted
So if Google wanted to come into a town and my company was already there, I'd probably drop the price on the broadband my company already had in place and let Google rewire for faster speeds.
I don't think there are a lot of companies dying to get into this business or even wanting to hang on to this business if there's a lot of upfront investment that they have to pay for.
On the post: Yes, It Would Be Prohibitively Costly For Google To Offer Google Fiber Everywhere, But It Shouldn't Have To
Re: Re: But what about mobile?
That's the case now. But if you are investing billions into a hardware solution, you might want to be looking pretty far down the road. If you think much of the online world is shifting to mobile, you might want to avoid sinking lots of money into a system which becomes outdated. In developing countries, they aren't wiring homes, so if they start dictating what goes online to accommodate their systems, you may find that the world of content shifts to a wireless world.
On the post: Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else
I assume every business in existence will be disrupted
I think some of the Internet companies that generate or hope to generate most of their income from advertising will see their revenue decline as people buy less goods and services and therefore become less response to advertising.
I am hoping that 3D printing is a major disruptor, too. I'm hoping economic systems flatten to such an extent that there is no economic value in large companies, and decentralization occurs on a mass level. It will be a very networked world, but not one where wealth and property are concentrated within a small group.
Just read this today.
BBC News - Viewpoint: Manuel Castells on the rise of alternative economic cultures: "What I refer to is about the observation of one of my latest studies on people who have decided not to wait for the revolution - to start living differently - meaning the expansion of what I call in a technical term 'non-capitalist practices'.
"They are economic practices but they don't have a for-profit motivation - such as barter networks; such as social currencies; co-operatives; self-management; agricultural networks; helping each other simply in terms of wanting to be together; networks of providing services for free to others in the expectation that someone will also provide to you. All this exists and it's expanding throughout the world."
On the post: Yes, It Would Be Prohibitively Costly For Google To Offer Google Fiber Everywhere, But It Shouldn't Have To
But what about mobile?
If the action is mobile, does any company want to sink a lot of money into wiring houses?
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