New Google venture plans neighborhood "built from the Internet up."

In 2016, Google Fiber began reconnoitering away from its plan to overbuild legacy incumbent telephone and cable company infrastructure with fiber to the premise telecom infrastructure in select metro areas of the United States. Taking on incumbents in existing parts of these metros proved too slow and costly and Google Fiber had no overwhelming technological or marketing advantage relative to them.

Another Google venture takes a different tack. Rather than overlaying fiber optic telecom infrastructure on an existing neighborhood, it would build an entirely new “smart” neighborhood where there are no incumbent providers. One that’s “built from the Internet up… merging the physical and digital realms,” according to a description of the project – dubbed Sidewalk Labs – in this Slate article. A pilot to roll out the concept in an undeveloped portion of Toronto, Canada Eastern Waterfront kicked off in late 2017. (Click here for news release).

Soros gets it wrong: Telecom infrastructure is a monopoly, not Facebook and Google

Soros slams Facebook and Google as 'menace' to society, 'obstacles to innovation' - Business Insider: Facebook and Google effectively control over half of all internet advertising revenue. To maintain their dominance, they need to expand their networks and increase their share of users' attention. Currently, they do this by providing users with a convenient platform. The more time users spend on the platform, the more valuable they become to the companies. Content providers also contribute to the profitability of social-media companies because they cannot avoid using the platforms and they have to accept whatever terms they are offered.

The exceptional profitability of these companies is largely a function of their avoiding responsibility for — and avoiding paying for — the content on their platforms. They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access.

Soros's position here is misguided. Facebook's and Google's online platforms are not natural monopolies like landline telecommunications infrastructure that delivers them to end users in their homes, businesses and institutions. Most people can choose between one and maybe two providers: a legacy telephone or cable company. These are truly public utilities since they are hardwired infrastructure unlike online social media platforms. They require fair and open universal access called for by Soros.

Facebook's and Google's online platforms are clearly hugely successful. But there's no guarantee they'll be around for decades like the telecom infrastructure that delivers them. Consumer preferences change and innovators create new services. It's a lot easier to do that with programming code and bits and bytes compared to relatively permanent telecom infrastructure as shown by the ongoing problem of service gaps that leave many premises unserved by landline infrastructure.

FCC's repeal of Open Internet regulation sets stage for mega versions of 1990s era AOL, CompuServe walled gardens

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has restored the regulatory framework that treats Internet protocol-based communications as an information service. The move reverses the commission’s 2015 Open Internet rulemaking classifying IP as a common carrier telecommunications utility under Title II of the Communications Act. So instead of an open Internet, the United States is turning back the clock to the closed, proprietary walled gardens that existed prior to the advent of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s.

It’s even a greater back to the future policy move than appears at first glance. It sets the stage for media producers to consolidate with the companies that own the “pipes” – cable and telephone companies that serve more than three quarters of American homes, businesses and schools. After all, if those pipes are to be regulated as information services rather than telecommunications, companies that create information take on an integral role in this vertically integrated business model.

Consequently, the future could bring more combinations like Comcast’s acquisition of NBC or Verizon’s takeover of AOL and its pending deal for Yahoo! Under the new regulatory policy, it’s not inconceivable a big cable company or a telco could similarly make a play for Netflix.

Even Amazon, clearly in the information service business with its original offer of books and now its own production video content, could be a potential merger partner for one of the big pipe players. An Amazon-Verizon walled garden, for example, would provide this information content along with socks, towels and any other imaginable consumer commodity with both companies taking a nick of the revenues. Prime members might be eligible for a discounted monthly rate for Verizon connectivity.

The result would be a supersized version of the original big online information services: CompuServe and AOL. Both provided electronic mail along with content prior to the debut of the Netscape World Wide Web browser in the mid-1990s that swung open the garden gates to a vast digital universe. CompuServe even charged its subscribers by the minute to read “premium” content -- not unlike telephone long distance service. Such a billing scheme might well make a return under the FCC’s latest regulatory framework.

Last year Google abandoned its vision of building proprietary fiber to the home infrastructure to make its content more widely available. It could follow the adage, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em," and concede its effort to outshine legacy incumbent telcos and cablecos and their outdated metallic telephone and cable TV networks by merging with one of them to create a colossal proprietary information service.

Failure of Google's "Homes with Tails" concept correlates to dearth of consumer telecom coops

Britain mulling broadband speed disclosure for every home - AlphaBeatic: The idea is reminiscent of “Homes with Tails,” a paper published back in 2008 by Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu and Google public policy manager Derek Slater. In the paper, the duo envisioned a future where consumers owned the fibre connections to their homes, obviating the need to go through an ISP to connect to the internet. Such fibre connections would lower the cost of internet service and raise the value of the homes. A typical home with a fibre connection was worth $4,000 (U.S.) more than one without, the duo argued.

Home ownership of fibre was attempted in Ottawa several years ago, but the idea never got off the ground. Bill St. Arnaud, the project’s founder, attributed the problems to central exchange providers, who were unwilling to open up their networks to allow competition for the likes of Bell and Rogers. There was also the issue of trying to convince home owners to spring for building the fibre connections, which can run thousands of dollars. Consumers are accustomed to effectively renting their internet connections, rather than owning them, so it may have been an idea ahead of its time.

This also explains why consumer telecom cooperatives have not sprung up in the United States to build and own fiber infrastructure serving member premises. People have been conditioned to see telecommunications as a consumer commodity purchased from a centralized corporate provider. Even though these monopolistic providers have no incentive to avoid redlining neighborhoods they don't want to serve and have a lousy customer service ethic, people would rather bitch about shitty service options when renting their telecommunications circuit than pony up a few thousand dollars to own it and set their own terms of service. Even when that investment would raise the value of their property by amount of the investment as research has shown. Brings to mind the old adage that one gets what one pays -- or not -- for a product or service.

Google's wireless service leaves bandwidth rationed business model undisturbed

Google's soft launch today of its Project Fi mobile wireless offering won't be a game changer for homes and small businesses unfortunate enough to be located outside the limited footprints of landline Internet service providers (or not in a Google Fiber "fiberhood") and reliant on wireless premise Internet service such as Verizon's 4G Installed service offering.

While Project Fi does allow the creation of wireless hot spots at a customer premise, it retains the metered pricing schemes of existing wireless providers wherein end users must purchase monthly bandwidth allowance levels, referred to as "bandwidth by the bucket."

That makes the service a poor value for premises service. It's easy to blow through the bandwidth allowances and end up with a large bill via software updates and video streaming. Parents in homes with teenage children who stream video such as Netflix have been shocked by jaw dropping bills. Or who do class work online, which has been spotlighted by Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as a key issue in America's Internet access disparities.

The Project Fi Plan and Pricing FAQ states:

Do you offer an unlimited data plan?

No, we do not offer an unlimited data plan. We believe you should only pay for the data you use.

 And you'll pay for it, all right.

If Google truly wishes to disrupt the existing wireless business model, it should build out fiber closer to neighborhoods and homes lacking fiber to the premise service and use it to backhaul really robust and not bandwidth rationed wireless service. This would be an interim step in a longer term effort to deploy fiber to the premise connections in these areas.

The medium is the message: Google Fiber is primarily an advertising platform

Lest anyone forget that notwithstanding Google's construction of proprietary closed access fiber to the premise networks in a few metro areas of the United States, Google's core business is and remains advertising. FTTP is simply a better way to put ads on more screens and in front of more eyeballs, albeit an expensive one -- hence the limited deployment of Google Fiber.

And what better way than the leading advertising medium: high (and super high) definition TV. Over the next few weeks, Google Fiber will test targeted TV ads over its Kansas City build. The ads will run during existing ad breaks, along with national ads, on live TV and DVR-recorded programs and will be matched to the viewer based on geography, the type of program being shown or viewing history, according to a March 20 post by Google Fiber. Subscribers will be able to opt out of seeing ads based on viewing history, according to the post.

In addition to generating advertising revenue, the TV ads will also help offset operating costs, particularly the rising costs of TV programming. Google recently increased the monthly price of its TV and Internet bundle to $130 a month, according to a report in the Kansas City Star.

Advertising on large screen devices is critical to Google's business according to this analysis which notes online stores that advertise via Google are not optimized for small smartphone displays.

Electric power transmission towers and poles provide existing fiber to the premise infrastructure

Nearly two decades ago, investor-owned electric power provider Pacific Gas and Electric Co. considered installing fiber optic telecommunications cable on its poles and towers and leasing it to cooperatives, telephone and Internet service providers. In 2006, PG&E was in discussions with a startup, Current Communications, hoping to roll out new technology to deliver Internet over electrical lines known as Broadband over Power Lines (BPL).

The talks shorted out over money and BPL ultimately proved technologically unfeasible. Interestingly, one of the investors in Current Communications along with General Electric and EarthLink was Google.

Nearly a decade later, Google is building its own fiber to the premise network in two metro areas of the United States and is considering several others although recently put its expansion plans on hold, most likely until the U.S. Federal Communications Commission decides this year whether to regulate Internet service as a common carrier telecommunications utility. Should the FCC do so under Title II of the Communications Act, Google in a December 30, 2014 letter urged the FCC to enforce compliance with Section 224 of the statute requiring utilities such as PG&E to provide access to its poles, conduits and rights of way on reasonable terms and conditions.

controls poles, ducts, conduits, or rights-of-way used, - See more at: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/47/5/II/I/224#sthash.YCBB6J1R.dpuf

In the meantime, Google Fiber and PG&E might consider exploring a joint venture that would give Google access to PG&E’s transmission towers and poles that provide existing infrastructure serving millions of premises to speed the deployment of its fiber network. PG&E itself should look not only at Google Fiber but also consider forming a subsidiary that would build an open access wholesale fiber to the premise network. It could then lease access to Google Fiber and other ISPs. (I'll even host the discussions -- off the record, of course --- and some fine Cabernet at an undisclosed winery location if the companies are interested).

Consumers Need Greater Internet Access and Faster Broadband Speeds

Consumers Need Greater Internet Access and Faster Broadband Speeds: Washington, D.C. – The Internet Association submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today calling on the agency to implement pro-consumer policies to bring faster and better broadband service to all Americans, promote competition and choice in the broadband market, and protect an open Internet.

“The Internet is an indispensable tool that is necessary to stay competitive globally, and the Commission has a mandate to ensure the deployment of advanced broadband services nationwide,” said Michael Beckerman, President and CEO of The Internet Association. “Access to high speed Internet service is not a luxury in today’s economy. It is a necessity. Policymakers must encourage broadband abundance and ensure high speed Internet service is deployed everywhere.”

Of course there is little competition at the network edge controlled by incumbent legacy telephone and cable companies because the microeconomics make it a natural monopoly or duopoly with little incentive to invest in upgrades and expansions.

If the Internet Association wants to see the edge upgraded and expanded to fiber to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure needed to create the abundance it wants, it will have to build that infrastructure as its member company Google is doing with its Google Fiber unit.

But as an open access network. The incumbent telephone and cable companies would be hard pressed to respond. But they too could win in the end with open access FTTP since they could offer services to customers over it.

Two sharply divergent alternative business models for Internet infrastructure play out in Utah

For the past decade, much of the United States has been plagued by telecommunications infrastructure market failure. Many residences and small businesses need fast, reliable landline premise Internet connections but are unable to obtain them because legacy telephone and cable companies have opted not to upgrade and build out their networks to reach them. Alternative business models are thus urgently needed to ensure they don’t remain isolated from the Internet grid and effectively cut off from the many services it provides.

In Utah, two alternatives to construct and operate fiber to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure -- which is also being referred to as “gigabit broadband” in reference to fiber’s substantial carrying capacity that eliminates sluggishness and latency -- are playing out in close proximity.

One model is quasi-public, the other private. The first is the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA), of which 6 of 11 member municipalities are moving forward with diligence on a partnership to bring in private investment capital. (Story here) UTOPIA’s model treats its fiber infrastructure as a public asset similar to roads and highways. 

By contrast in nearby Provo, Google’s Google Fiber unit is utilizing the subscription-based business model used by legacy telephone and cable companies to sign up residential (but not business) customers living in selected “fiberhoods.” Google Fiber is open only to Google whereas the UTOPIA model allows Internet Service Providers access to the network on a wholesale basis.

Since Google Fiber sells subscriptions like a magazine, it has to sell enough subscriptions to be economically viable. Being part of online advertising giant Google means Google Fiber is also motivated to get as many subscribers as possible in order to maximize eyeballs on Google-delivered content and ads. With the bill and keep subscription model, teaser and special rates are utilized to goose subscriptions such as Google Fiber’s announcement it is cutting its $300 flat rate, low cost subscription rate to only $30 for a limited time in Provo fiberhoods – similar to limited time magazine offers for new subscribers. (See this item from Google Fiber blog)

Of these two models, the UTOPIA model despite initial resistance to a modest public utility fee is best able to scale quickly enough to address America’s significant telecommunications infrastructure gaps short of a massive federal infrastructure program on the scale of the Federal Highway Act of 1956. The public-private partnership model being utilized by UTOPIA relieves network operators of the risk burden and uncertainly associated with having to sell subscriptions and avoid customer churn. It can also more easily attract the many billions of dollars necessary to build out fiber to nearly all Americans regardless of where they make their homes and businesses.

How Google Fiber is revolutionary -- and how it's not

Google Fiber is revolutionary with the medium of its infrastructure: fiber all the way to the customer premise and the enormous headroom it offers to accommodate future bandwidth growth and new, high bandwidth services. This will allow Google Fiber to leap past the big incumbent national telephone and cable companies bogged down by their existing investment in wire cable infrastructure designed for a pre-Internet era. As Marshall McLuhan put it, the medium is the message. And the medium is fiber to the premise.

Google Fiber also has a revolutionary business model that lessens the pressure to get customer premises to subscribe in order to make the network economics pencil out. It allows customers to sign up for a low cost, multi-year, flat rate connection designed to cover the cost of connecting the premise. The big telcos and cablecos, by comparison, typically charge many thousands of dollars to connect a premise lacking access to a connection, with cablecos charging about $65,000 per mile.

Where Google Fiber's business model is not revolutionary is that like the big legacy incumbents, it is a closed "walled garden" that seeks to own the customer rather than an open access network that sells access to customer premises on a wholesale basis to those wanting to market services over it. This imposes major marketing costs to acquire subscribers one at at time, limiting Google Fiber to those areas where it can get a good return for its marketing and infrastructure investment.

Critics of this business model such as Michael Elling (featured in this video) contend it degrades the value of the network by limiting its ability to scale, invoking Metcalfe's Law -- that implies a network is only as valuable as the number of subscribers on it. Since fewer subscribers can connect to a limited, closed network, it becomes less lucrative in the larger scheme for those at the core providing Internet delivered services such as Netflix, Amazon and ironically, Google itself.

Getting to a gig: How CenturyLink is building out its network and why. — Tech News and Analysis

Getting to a gig: How CenturyLink is building out its network and why. — Tech News and Analysis: “But because of densities and scale economics, we as a country are potentially creating regional digital divides that our economy will struggle to tolerate. What’s always been a key enabler for us is that we have always had a fairly broad equal opportunity infrastructure as we did with the highway system, and we as a country must place a high value on the ability to communicate seamlessly. I don’t think we want to place ourselves in the position that we might miss out on the next Google simply because we as a country didn’t want to have a conversation about access and cost. We are going to have to figure that out and no private company can do that.”

So said Matt Beal, the CTO of CenturyLink, an an interview with GigaOM.  And he's right. Either private providers have to find business models that significantly reduce the cost of labor to deploy fiber to the premise and/or do so with some form of government subsidy or tax incentive. As I've blogged in recent months, even companies with pockets and fiber to the premise ambitions as deep as Google's aren't up to the challenge facing the United States.

Satellite broadband: can it light up the UK's broadband blackspots? | News | TechRadar

Satellite broadband: can it light up the UK's broadband blackspots? | News | TechRadar: Due to the distance the signal travels, latencies never dropped below 700ms and hovered around the 800ms mark. Even with predictive caching that makes web browsing speedy, there's always that near-second delay traversing pages. It's not annoying enough to stop you browsing, but it just doesn't feel as snappy as a landline internet connection.

Despite new sooper dooper "Surfbeam" technology, latency remains sub par as this story shows and bandwidth is costly and rationed. This item appeared the same day as this ridiculous story on Google's O3b satellite venture that will supposedly provide 1 gigabit speeds via medium orbit satellites. And at latencies of less than 150 milliseconds, according to this IDG News Service account.

I'm not buying it. Satellite Internet sucks, period. It cannot support reliable voice or real time video connections or provide a high quality Internet connectivity user experience. Google should scuttle this misadventure and instead partner with community fiber projects instead of perpetuating this substandard Internet connection scheme to as a poor substitute to badly needed fiber to the premise infrastructure. 

The 2 key inaction risks facing community fiber projects

Creative risk taking is essential to success in any goal where the stakes are high. Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.

  -- Gary Ryan Blair 

Communities contemplating fiber Internet infrastructure projects should keep in mind that there are risks -- negative impacts -- associated both with taking action as well as not taking action.  The latter risk -- termed inaction risk -- is perhaps one of the most threatening and pervasive risks.  For some regions and communities, that risk is being left permanently off the modern Internet grid and unable to realize the benefits it offers for government, public safety, health and education, economic development and transportation demand mitigation. 

Milo Medin, Google's vice president of access services, laid out two major underlying rationales explaining why communities needlessly run the risk of inaction in his address to the 2013 Broadband Communities Summit. 

1.  The unswerving belief despite more than a decade of market failure that incumbent legacy telephone and cable companies will upgrade and build out their infrastructures to serve all premises.  Here's what Medin had to say on that point:

Part of the reason the U.S. is falling behind is that most cities haven’t been intentional about their broadband infrastructure. Cities know they have to make sure the water system works and scales to support growth, the roads are maintained and built, garbage is collected properly. But often, they think broadband is something that the phone company or the cable company will take care of for them and they can ignore it, or that the FCC will make sure the appropriate incentives are put into place to drive competition and upgrades. Depending on those processes is how we got into the situation we’re in today.

2. The misguided belief that wireless services have obsoleted fiber networks. Medin explains:

Some argue that fiber networks are not really needed because of wireless network growth. As an engineer, quite honestly, this kind of talk makes my brain hurt. Wireless network growth is driven by fiber. All those base stations that smartphones connect to are increasingly connected by fiber because, as speeds go up, fiber is required to carry that kind of traffic. Copper just won’t do for modern wireless networks.

Cisco and others expect wireless data to grow by a factor of 50 in the next few years, and you’re not going to be able to solve that kind of growth by throwing more spectrum at it. You’re going to have to reduce the size of the cells, shrinking them, reducing the number of users that are being served by a given base station. And that means a lot more cell sites and a lot more fiber to feed those cell sites. In the limit, the future of mobile is going to look a lot like Wi-Fi: tons of small cell sites connected by a wireline network, connected by fiber – and that’s just physics, folks.

The full Broadband Communities article excerpting Medin's speech can be viewed here and here (pdf). 

Google's Project Loon no cure for the common Internet not spot

Google's experimental Project Loon unveiled this week that envisions a fleet of high altitude balloons providing Internet connectivity is likely to benefit only the most remote and undeveloped areas of the globe.  Fittingly, remote New Zealand was the site of the first experimental deployment of these 'loons, mate.

The technology won't be a panacea for more populated parts of the globe in developed nations plagued by incomplete wireline Internet infrastructure that serves only some residences and businesses while others adjacent are left off the Internet grid.

Nor can it provide sufficient throughput to support the rapid growth in bandwidth demand driven by video and the use of multiple devices common nowadays in many households.  According to Google, the high altitude digital dirigibles will provide connectivity at speeds comparable to 3G, the legacy mobile wireless service now being superseded by higher bandwidth 4G mobile wireless.

Light Reading - Google Fiber's Future Looks Limited

Light Reading - Google Fiber's Future Looks Limited: Google is destined to remain a small player in the broadband service market, unable to dislodge cable companies such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., according to analyst Dexter Thillien of IHS iSuppli.

Outside of a few select metro areas, the costs and risks get too high for Google Fiber's 1Gbit/s broadband service, Thillien writes in a report issued Tuesday.

IHS is not the first to warn against expecting Google to light up fiber across the nation. Last month, analysts at Alliance Bernstein said in a report that they remained "skeptical that Google will find a scalable and economically feasible model to extend its build out to a large portion of the U.S., as costs would be substantial, regulatory and competitive barriers material, and in the end the effort would have limited impact on the global trajectory of the business."

These analyses affirm recent posts on this blog casting doubt on the irrational exuberance of some who believe Google is going to overbuild metal wire-based incumbent telephone and cable company footprints with fiber.  It might make sense on the surface as somnolent incumbents have placed their wireline plant into "harvest" mode (in the case of the cablecos) and runoff mode (telcos).

But as deep as its pockets are, Google simply can't afford anything other than one off, opportunistic builds. And the incumbents can't undertake massive fiber infrastructure CAPex using grandma's shareholder dividend.  As I've been saying for several years, that leaves it up to communities to build their own municipal or cooperatively owned fiber networks.

AT&T CEO: We'll piggyback on Google's Fiber rollout plans | Mobile - CNET News

AT&T CEO: We'll piggyback on Google's Fiber rollout plans | Mobile - CNET News

More mutually assured diminished returns threatened by AT&T.  Ma Bell is basically saying she will overbuild Google to obtain a slice of picked over cherry pie, leaving each competitor serving 15 percent of the premises passed at best.

This should put to rest the hopeful, magical thinking of some who claim Google is somehow going to goad legacy telcos to undertake a broad-based upgrade of their obsolete last mile copper plant to fiber.  Not in this lifetime and not with grandma's shareholder dividend.

Google Project May Spur Broadband Competition - NYTimes.com

Google Project May Spur Broadband Competition - NYTimes.com

The take away from this story is it's highly unlikely incumbent telephone and cable companies will upgrade and build out their infrastructures to provide better Internet connectivity and serve more premises.  It makes more business sense for them to preserve the status quo and harvest whatever profits can be had from their existing cable plants. Particularly given the fact that the legacy incumbents pay fat dividends to their shareholders. Google pays none.

The NY Times piece postulates it will take an third party like Google to break the inertia.  But Google thus far is pursuing fiber builds in only a few metro areas of the United States including Kansas City and Austin and lacks a strategy to serve the nearly 20 million Americans forced to live off the Internet grid because the incumbent telcos and cablecos won't serve their homes.  These areas will have to rely on good old fashioned American self help and build fiber to the premises infrastructure operated by local governments and consumer cooperatives as was done in much of the nation in the 1930s and 1940s for electricity and telephone service.

There's also the sheer enormity of the financial challenge that would test the resources of even the deepest pocketed players like Google.  In 2009, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission projected it would cost $350 billion to universally deliver 100 Mbps or faster Internet connections to all American homes and businesses.  That's more than the sum of Google's 2012 revenues.

FTTN: An alternative Google fiber model to build out Internet infrastructure

Google has been getting a lot of attention lately over its current and planned fiber to the premise (FTTP) builds in Kansas City, Austin, Texas and potentially Provo, Utah. But Google is unlikely to expand that model to the outer suburban, exurban and rural areas of the United States anytime soon for the same reason the incumbent telephone and cable companies have declined to do so: too few potential subscribers to justify the business case for the sizeable investment.
 

However, Google may be able to make the numbers pencil better with a fiber to the node (FTTN) network in these unserved and underserved areas, mixing in aerial fiber cable plant where the cost of burying fiber conduit is overly expensive. Using the FTTN model described in this November 2008 white paper, Google would bring Internet “trunk” connections to neighborhood nodes.  Property owners could join together in a telecom cooperative – compared to a condominium in the paper -- to build the final fiber segment to bridge the gap from their premises to the neighborhood nodes.  The cost of the construction for those projects in rural areas can be financed by low cost, long term loan funding offered by the federal Rural Utilities Service.

The paper notes the property owners would economically benefit given research showing adding a fiber “tail” to a residential property increases its marketability, thereby allowing property owners to recoup and potentially profit from any upfront investment they would have to make to fund the cooperative and get wired up.

It’s worth noting that although disclaiming official representation of Google, the white paper titled Homes with Tails: What if you could own your Internet connection? is co-authored by Derek Slater, a Google policy analyst. Back when Slater wrote the paper, Google wasn’t in the fiber infrastructure business. Now that it is, Google management would be well advised to dust off Slater’s paper and give it another look.

Look Out Google Fiber, $35-A-Month Gigabit Internet Comes to Vermont - Digits - WSJ

Look Out Google Fiber, $35-A-Month Gigabit Internet Comes to Vermont - Digits - WSJ: VTel’s Chief Executive Michel Guite says he’s made it a personal mission to upgrade the company’s legacy phone network, which dates back to 1890, with fiber for the broadband age. The company was able to afford the upgrades largely by winning federal stimulus awards set aside for broadband. Using $94 million in stimulus money, VTel has invested in stringing 1,200 miles of fiber across a number of rural Vermont counties over the past year. Mr. Guite says the gigabit service should be available across VTel’s footprint in coming months.

VTel joins an increasing number of rural telephone companies who, having lost DSL share to cable Internet over the years, are reinvesting in fiber-to-the-home networks.

As Google targets large metro areas of the United States for fiber rollouts, small incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) like this one are upgrading their outmoded copper cable infrastructure with fiber to the premise (FTTP). Nevertheless, significant gaps will remain, particularly in areas of the U.S. served by top tier telcos like AT&T and Verizon that have essentially put their copper networks into runoff mode with no plans to upgrade them with fiber plant as they concentrate their CAPex on mobile wireless services.  Due to their smaller populations, these areas are also unlikely to attract Google fiber and will have to build their own community-based FTTP networks.

Google chooses Provo, Utah, as next city to receive search giant's ultra-fast Internet service | Fox News

Google chooses Provo, Utah, as next city to receive search giant's ultra-fast Internet service | Fox News: The rollout is an expensive undertaking and gamble for Google, which hopes it will drive innovation and pressure phone and cable companies to improve their networks. Google benefits when people spend more time online.

The "pressure phone and cable companies to improve their networks" rationale is  repeatedly made in media accounts to explain Google's fiber to the premise (FTTP) builds in some metro areas of the United States.  But is it really true, notwithstanding AT&T's pyrrhic posturing in Austin, Texas?  It implies the incumbent cable providers and telcos are somehow reluctant to improve their networks.  But upgrading their networks is how they can capture more customers and sell more services.  If doing so generated sufficient revenues and profits, they would do it without hesitation, Google or no.  The issue is their business models don't have sufficient funding for large scale capital expenditures on new plant and equipment.  And no one has yet devised a way to more cheaply deploy fiber to the premise Internet infrastructure -- of which an estimated 70 percent of the cost is labor.

Another major issue overlooked in media accounts of the Google FTTP builds is they don't address the large gaps in Internet access that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 2012 estimated leave about 19 million Americans offline.  The reason they don't is Google shares the same limitations of the investor-owned business model as the incumbent cablecos and telcos that cannot profitably serve areas that remain disconnected and still accessing the Internet via obsolete, circa 1993 dialup connections and satellite Internet.