Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Some additional comments on Google Fiber

A few more comments on Google Fiber:

  • The big deal here are the services Google is going to provide.  1TBytes of storage for data and a 2TByte DVR.   These are values.  However, are they really long-term discriminators against current services?.  Traditional DVR storage can be expanded easily, units can be upgraded to record more at a time, and Cloud storage services (already part of at least some providers services) can also be expanded.  Competition is good.
  • The $120/month looks good (for a two year contract that waives the $300 install fee), but is not that much different that current service deals from Verizon for FiOS.  Current two year pricing with a multi-room DVR and 75Mbps of Internet and 285 channels with 75 in HD is $130/month.  Since FiOS is GPON-based, providing "1Gbps" of access service to the Internet is possible.  This now descends into feature and marketing games.  Again, competition is good. 
  • Content is the key.  Much of the cost of cable service is the content, not getting the wire to the house. Just look at the jockeying between content owners and cable and satellite providers.  For a compelling offer, Google has to deal with this issue.
  • Apparently, Google has designed their own equipment.  It is not clear if this is true for the optical transport equipment or the home video termination equipment.  It is also not clear if the optical equipment is a clean-sheet design or a derivative of existing technology (e.g. GPON or ActiveEthernet).
  • People are focusing on the 1Gbps access rate which certainly is not needed for the eight simultaneous DVR sessions which even in 3D HD  is around 10Mbps x 2 x 8 = 160Mbps (are these done on the home unit or in the Google Cloud?, if in the Cloud what does the bandwidth to the home matter?)

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