CenturyLink gets gigabit fever … in Omaha
Guess who’s getting a gigabit network now? Residents of Omaha, Neb. woke this morning to news they are getting a fiber-to-the-home network. From CenturyLink. Read more »
Vermont gets a gigabit network. And it only costs residents $35 a month
Residents of rural Vermont are getting gigabit networks that will cost $35 a month. No, not from Google, but from their incumbent telco provider. Read more »
Time Warner Cable sees the Google Fiber threat and offers Austin free Wi-Fi
Not only does Austin eventually get Google Fiber, but as of last night, Time Warner Cable customers in the area will get free Wi-Fi around the city. Ain’t competition grand? Read more »
How many people have a gigabit connection? Fewer than you think.
It’s tough to count how many homes have a gigabit connection, but we can try to get some numbers to give a sense of how prevalent such connectivity is. The answer is not very. Read more »
Provo, Utah is the next stop for Google Fiber
The city of Provo, Utah is the next home for Google Fiber. The news comes a little over a week after Google announced its intentions to build a fiber network in Austin, Texas. Read more »
What it means to get a gig: Austin sees more productivity and better Netflix
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
How does Austin feel about getting Google Fiber? I asked several entrepreneurs around town to find out what they thought. Here’s what they said. Read more »
AT&T and Google’s plans to give Austin a gigabit is an experiment. Is it a good one?
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
With both AT&T and Google planning a fiber-to-the-home, gigabit network in Austin the stage is set for a test of broadband deployment models that could determine how fiber is rolled out elsewhere. Read more »
Texas Fiber: Google brings gigabit internet to Austin (roundup)
Here’s a roundup of all our coverage from Google’s decision to bring its Google Fiber project to Austin, Texas. Read more »
Live blog: Google Fiber comes to Austin, Texas
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
I’m live-blogging the Google Fiber announcement in Austin, Texas, starting at 9am PT today. Austin’s getting gigabit broadband, y’all! Read more »
The downsides of a gig: what other towns have learned after getting a gig
As Austin readies for the announcement of Google Fiber, it’s worth thinking about what responsibilities and new demands come with a gigabit network. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Read more »
A quick look at Google Fiber pricing v. the incumbents
As Google Fiber heads to Austin, Texas, a quick look at the pricing reveals that GooFi may be harder to sell to happy AT&T customers, but is way cheaper than Time Warner Cable. Read more »
As Austin readies for Google Fiber, here’s why you need a gig: even if you don’t think you do
Google Fiber will come to Austin, Texas, making it the second city to get the search giant’s gigabit network. Here’s why you should be as excited as I am. Read more »
Google and the City of Austin are hosting a shindig. Could Austin be getting a gigabit network?
Google and the City of Austin are planning an event next Tuesday to show business leaders, “something new” that’s coming to the city. Could it be a Google Fiber gigabit network? Read more »
Who knew? Fiber is also good for a telco’s health
the number of homes that have access to fiber-to-the-home connections increased by 20 percent year over year, but at 9.7 million North American homes, the population that has FTTH still relatively small. Read more »
Netflix launches global ISP speed index website
Google Fiber is the world’s fastest ISP… for Netflix viewing, anyway: Netflix is now aggregating all of its ISP speed data on one website. Read more »
State of the Internet: The broadband future is faster, but still unevenly distributed
photo: Akamai
Akamai, the content delivery network, has once again issued its assessment of web traffic based on the requests hitting its servers. The resulting survey shows the world’s broadband getting faster. Read more »
Seattle is the latest city to go around ISPs to get a gigabit network
Seattle will join Chicago, Kansas City, Bruistol, Tenn. and other cities with its very own gigabit broadband network. The proposed plan would see a mix of fiber-to-the-home, mobile broadband and gigabit point-to-point wireless services. The city will partner with Gigabit Squared to make it happen. Read more »
Gotta get a gig: KC startups are buying homes to get Google Fiber
photo: Leap2
Google Fiber offers a gigabit to Kansas City residents for $70, but the key word is residents. Businesses aren’t getting service. So a few startups have banded together to rent and buy homes slated to get fiber so they can experience the joys of a gigabit. Read more »
Google Fiber is coming to 90% of eligible Kansas City neighborhoods
Google has signed up 180 out of 202 neighborhoods in a pre-registration drive for its fiber-to-the-home service. That’s an amazing take-up rate, although it’s not clear what percentage of homes have signed up. But the incumbent ISPs, AT&T and Time Warner Cable, must be worried. Read more »
With 2 days left, Google Fiber has signed up 21,000
Google has convinced 10 percent of the people living in areas where it can deploy fiber to pre-register for the service with two days left before the Sept. 9 deadline. That’s a good start, but it might not be enough to get the service to profitability. Read more »
I’ll take a gigabit to go. Hold the wires.
While Google grabs all the gigabit glory and headlines in Kansas City for its fiber project, a local company that participated in the drive that brought Google to town is already delivering a gig service – wirelessly! Wait, is that really possible? Apparently so. Read more »
Garbage in garbage out: Google Fiber edition
Google’s getting aggressive trying to get sign ups for its $70-a-month gigabit broadband service it’s building on top of a fiber-to-the-home network in Kansas City. It has adjusted the numbers of homes in certain areas to make it easier for those neighborhoods to get Google Fiber. Read more »
Why Time Warner Cable’s NYC fiber rollout is nothing like Google’s
Time Warner Cable is shelling out $25 million to lay fiber to select NYC buildings, but comparing the cable company’s network to Google’s fiber-to-the-home network in Kansas City is silly. The end customer, the money spent, the rationale for the investment and the scope are different. Read more »
Pay TV should be “afraid, very afraid” of Google Fiber, SNL Kagan says
The research group notes that even with $45 billion in cash on hand, Google probably doesn’t have the money to blanket the nation in its fiber. But it can cover enough ground to severely disrupt the pay TV business with a superior ISP/video solution. Read more at paidContent »
Google Fiber and the community broadband ripple
Community-owned broadband gets a significant boost with the Google fiber announcement, even though Kansas City doesn’t own the network. The trick is understanding which Google tactics can be replicated by community projects and how to use gigabit envy to get municipal networks built. Read more »
Google Fiber: Check out the in-home set up and equipment
Thinking about signing up for Google Fiber? Curious about those sleek black boxes Google is showing off? Here’s what each box does and what it looks like — the Network Box, a Storage box and optionally a TV Box if someone gets the TV service. Read more »
Google Fiber in the real world: Here’s what’s good and what needs work
Our reporter visited a vegan bakery in Kansas City that was one of the first places to get Google Fiber. He offers speed tests via wired, Wi-Fi and a sense of the problems that Google Fiber will have to overcome to sign up customers. Read more »
3 disappointments from the Google Fiber launch
Google’s launch of its gigabit fiber to the home network on Thursday had many positive elements, including free broadband at lower speeds for residents. But there were some things about the proposed network that will disappoint people in the industry and may worry privacy groups. Read more »
The economics of Google Fiber and what it means for U.S. broadband
Google’s fiber-to-the-home network may look like a loss leader for the search engine company, but its executive teams says it’s profitable. Here are the three ways Google has managed to cut the costs of building out a network and beat ISPs at their own game. Read more »
Google Fiber: Here’s what you need to know
Google Fiber just launched today to offer faster access to consumers with a TV product, a terabyte of free storage in G Drive and more. The search giant will even offer free access at what it deems “average” Internet speeds of 5Mbps down. Read more »
Ahead of Google Fiber launch, here’s what another gig city has already learned
Google plans to launch a fiber network in Kansas City with the goal of seeing what people there can do with a gigabit connection. But as one city that already has a gigabit network can tell you, the answer so far may be, “Not much.” Read more »
Google Fiber to launch next week
Google today sent out invitations to a “special event” on July 26 which is undoubtedly the launch of its much anticipated fiber-to-the-home network. The invite reads, “We would like to invite you to a special announcement about Google Fiber and the next chapter of the Internet.” Read more »
Did Google Fiber just get its own Google TV set-top box?
Google is gearing up to bring fiber-fast broadband to Kansas City, and a device that could be key to these efforts just popped up the FCC’s website. The set-top box GFHD100 comes with a Google fiber logo – and looks very much like a Google TV device. Read more »
Meet the startup that wants to speed up U.S. broadband
Gigabit Squared broke onto the scene on Wednesday, announcing it would spend $200 million to bring gigabit broadband to six college towns in conjunction with the Gig.U program. But the startup aims higher: It wants to change the economics of delivering fiber to the home everywhere. Read more »
Google eyeing fiber network for Europe
A Google executive said the company is pondering a fiber network in Europe according to published reports. Google’s dedication to infrastructure is essential to the success of many of its lines of business, and it wants to understand what people will do with more bandwidth. Read more »
What is gigabit broadband good for?
When it comes to broadband, gigabit per second speeds are all the rage. Large broadband providers in the US have started showing off their gigabit efforts But what is this speed good for? Kevin Lo, Google’s fiber access program chief says “new things.” Read more »
Congress doesn’t get Google, and it doesn’t get Congress
Is Google evil? Members of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights tried to decide that today in a hearing on Google’s market power. The end result was the Senators requested Google make voluntary changes to its search ranking. Read more »
Is broadband the gateway drug for the web or the drug itself?
Is broadband one step in the economic value chain or the only step? ISPs have decided it’s the only value and want to charge based on usage. A better model might recognize it is just one element and rethink how it’s offered. Read more »
Google Fiber and Creating the Next Generation ISP
With its plans to bring gigabit broadband to Kansas City, Google is changing the fate of that city, but it’s also setting out to build a next generation ISP, one designed for the type of world where connectivity is an irrefutable aspect of our lives. Read more »
Let’s Keep the Community in Community Broadband
A handful of telco and cable companies and their allies are advancing what some consider the sugarcoated destruction of free-market dynamics and the democratic process by attacking North Carolina’s community broadband networks. This runs counter to the National Broadband Plan and democracy. Read more »
