back to article Google will build 1Gbps fiber networks to the home

After building its own browser, its own operating system, its own mobile OS, its own smartphone, its own DNS service, and what amounts to its own private internet, Google is now building its own ultra-high-speed fiber networks to American homes. With a blog post Wednesday morning, the search giant/world power announced it will …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Just imagine...

    if Google did a Phorm....

    wait - that can't happen... "Do no evil"

  2. Ammaross Danan
    Welcome

    Offer up our First Born?

    I can think of many people that would probably offer up their First Born to Google just to get a 1Gbps fiber to their doorstep. Myself not included, but pretty close! So Google wants to do Deep Packet Inspection and index/datamine all of my Reg comments and figure out what I like to look up on Amazon.com, let them. As long as they only charge a nominal fee for their service. Having a massive datapipe to the home would open up a ton of opportunities for close-to-DVD quality video streaming or the like. This of course would put ENORMOUS strains on content providers, which would be obligated to buy more bandwidth, which will most likely be punted by none other than Google...see the loop?

    I, for one, welcome our new Google illuminated dark fiber overlords. I'd trust them with my data more than the Gov't any day.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "close-to-DVD quality video streaming"

      You already have that today with the likes of youtube and a half decent ADSL2+ connection. If I had 1Gpbs pipe I would be expecting a lot more than that! 1Gpbs should be enough to stream super-HD 3D for all the family (all wathcing different things) with bandwidth left over for some tele-presence and something else we can't imagine yet...

    2. Gulfie
      Pirate

      Misplaced trust

      Just because they're not the government, doesn't mean you should trust them any more.

      Google as network provider, browser provider, OS provider and content provider. No, that's not at all scary, is it?

      Make no mistake. If Google is able to add a significant ISP presence to its business model, there are very few companies who will be able to compete on anything like a level playing field. Most companies 'dominate' in one area. Google is dominating, or attempting to have an influencing presence, in all the important areas of the internet: advertising, search, email, content, mobile devices, operating systems and browsers, the internet backbone and now the connection into the home.

      A company that operates across all areas and uses revenues from one to strongarm its way into a dominant position in others - there's a name for that. Ask Microsoft.

      Time for action, folks.

    3. Steven Knox
      Boffin

      close-to-DVD quality?

      I already get some full HD quality content from NetFlix with my Roku over my existing (~3-5Mbps) cable connection -- while playing online games while my wife is browsing the web.

      True 1Gbps should allow 3-dimensional* HD at least.

      * and I mean fully 3-dimensional, not that bogus stereoscopic crap. 1080**x1080x1080 is what we're talking here.

      ** yes, I know 2D HD (HD2D?) is 1920x1080, but full 3-D should be cubic, don't you think? Plus if you do the math, 1920x1080x1080 wouldn't work without a major improvement in compression (even 1080x1080x1080 would require some compression improvements -- but I think that's in the realm of possibility because a good part of the additional space will be unused.)***

      *** okay, enough with the footnotes already.

  3. Sean Bailey

    access to data?

    They already have plenty of information about me, my browsing habits, what my favourite donkey porn site is etc, etc.

    If they were to offer me 1gb connection with some restraints of what data they suck out of it at a very low price I too would worship at the dark (fibre) altar of Google

  4. tardigrade
    Big Brother

    Obvious.

    I wrote a science fiction short story, not so long ago. I set the story in a future where there was no longer an Internet as such. Every electronic device, appliance, communication medium or media product was connected to the "Googlenet". The combination of this interactivity and the emergence of media / communication "devices" of many different form factors that ran as hardware as an application, made traditional PC's and the Internet redundant.

    iPhone, Google phone, Google DNS, iPad, Buzz and now the proper roll out of the Googlenet.

    God I'm a fecking prophet!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Terminator

      yep

      Just what I was thinking. Once anything you want is accessible through a seamless conduit of Google systems, why bother with the rest of the Internet?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You don't have the whole picture

      But The Onion does:

      http://www.theonion.com/content/video/google_opt_out_feature_lets_users

  5. Roger Barrett
    Big Brother

    bit like Phorm or possibly Sky?

    So, in theory Google could provide the content (Via Google.com), provide the browser and provide the adverts and of course you can't run NoScript or AdBlock on their browser so suddenly guaranteed eyes on all the adverts!

    Perhaps even worse than Sky who "only" provide the news, sport, movies and the distribution network.

    It all sounds a bit creepy to me, but of course people will no doubt pay the nominal fee just to get the incredible fast pipe into their house.

    At what price freedom? well...not a price, but the speed freedom is given away is about 1Gbps

    1. Sampler
      Thumb Down

      AdBlock

      Yes, yes you can. Please if you're going to bash at least keep up to speed with developments - it's been out over a month.

      1. Roger Barrett
        Pint

        Apologies

        Sorry, my mistake, I've not used Chrome for so long, does NoScript work now as well?

    2. Rod MacLean

      RE: bit like Phorm or possibly Sky?

      "Perhaps even worse than Sky who "only" provide the news, sport, movies and the distribution network."

      You mean they don't provide you with about 15 tonnes of spam mailouts every year?

      The entire block of flats I live in are on cable TV but Sky regularly send out mailshots directly to us (so they know our names and addresses) and also somehow manage to get in the locked stairwell to deliver spam right to our doors.

    3. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Stop

      Oh no!

      Not so much Sky my friend, more like SkyNet!

      Better get the Connor's on the phone while we still can , we might be needing their help soon.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    "offering access directly to end users"

    That's about it. Google will offer direct access to "its" end-users, for a fee. That's its business model, anyway.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Oi? Google?

    <lifts skirt provocatively>

    Has the google never heard of the UK?

    Wassaup doodicus?

    </lifts skirt provocatively>

    The only other area google could and should get in to would seem to be the International Bank of google but then I suppose there are always the utilities too?

    Paris: because I am sure she too knows the importance of lifting a skirt provocatively?

    1. Martin 49

      "THE" Google

      "Has the google never heard of the UK?"

      "THE Google" - similar to "THE Borg" ?

      I *like* it

    2. Slappy
      Go

      Yeah

      Hello, Google give the UK some of that fibre lovin'

      To the door no less, none of this "Mother of all broadband, fibreoptic internets. Oh wait we lied it only goes to the green box around the corner, but thats OK" bollocks.

      FFS, cmon VM I can see the box from my front window!

  8. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Alert

    The Bean Counters...

    ...made the telcos shoot themselves in the foot. Here's Google offering a solution that would save at least half for every carrier's infrastructure by sharing cells, and give local governments virtually free public safety carriage..

    It was a slap in the face to Google, so they are turning the other cheek and offering to let the both the big carriers and little Mom and Pop ISP's like me share the fiber they will lay to the end user's water heater and 4G picocell on the roof.

    Google can afford to give you that Gig free^H^H^H^advertiser supported. Except for diehard freetards that need to fill hard drive after hard drive with trivia, faster connections dont result in more transfers, though the ability to watch HD at 18MHz quality levels will sure fill the pipes. Unless the carriers have engaged in a program of ripping up conduit and old oil pipelines, the cross country fiber capacity is darn near unlimited. After the Internet bubble burst, the upstrat fiber companies were bought up to artifically support bandwidth prices, today's 10 cents per gig is probably 100 times too much.

    Google has the brains and money to bring this off. Watch the carriers pull every trick they know of to stop it.

  9. Peter D'Hoye
    Dead Vulture

    El Reg making up stories again...

    So where does Google say they are going to do deep packet inspection of internet traffic? Nowhere.

    On the other hand, there are several big providers that have such systems in place right now, but they can get away with it because they are not called Google. *sigh*

    I's about time somebody offers good internet connection speeds at a good price. I'm sure that the offer Google is preparing will cause the other ISPs to change their offerings too. Can only be a good thing....

    Where do I sign in for affordable high speed internet?

    1. jake Silver badge

      Peter D'Hoye

      "So where does Google say they are going to do deep packet inspection of internet traffic? Nowhere."

      So where does google say they are not going to do so-called "deep packet inspection" of internet traffic? Nowhere.

      Quite frankly, I don't trust human nature. If google can do it, and make a buck out of it, eventually google will do it. Especially seeing as their current business model isn't sustainable.

      google needs to be shunned ... they are a slow-motion accident in progress.

    2. The BigYin

      FFS

      It's not that Google will or will not do DPI.

      It's not that it is even Google per se.

      It's because ONE ENTITY (Google in this case) is content aggregator, content provider (to an extent), device provider, DNS provider, hosting provider, connection provider etc. this gives them the POTENTIAL to engage in massive invasions of privacy on a scale never before known.

      ANY entity given that kind of power needs very careful observation.

      Even my government own doesn't have that kind of power over me!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      Well, if Google does it...

      ...they have all the other parts of the puzzle.

      No more need for TIA.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    1 Gbps is way better than DVD quality

    At 1 Gbps you could download an entire DVD 75 seconds. You could have a house full of 3-D HD streams and still not use 1 Gbps. Maybe if you have a really popular website like el Reg you could use that much bandwidth.

  11. jake Silver badge

    Privacy & security issues.

    "What's more, if Google controls the net connection, it would have access to data well beyond what gets pumped through its own web services."

    Which is why this will never fly. Not even the .fed is likely to look past the obvious privacy and national security issues of a "SuperPhorm" (to coin a phrase). I hope ...

  12. Colin_L
    Heart

    about that "15th in the world"

    The United States has very low prices for fixed and mobile broadband relative to Europe.

    Europe has advantages in speed mostly because of population density and geographic size. It wouldn't surprise me if all of Sweden were on one sonet ring, and obviously it takes a lot more infrastructure to cover the US coast to coast. Especially all those annoyingly low-population areas in the middle.

    But sure, sign me up for 1Gbps. I currently use 6mbit DSL because I see no need to go faster, at the cost of $20-40 more a month.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      15th is 15th

      "The United States has very low prices for fixed and mobile broadband relative to Europe."

      The 15th place for broadband adoption stat comes from the OECD. If you look at the rest of the report you'll see that the average US price for a broadband connection is higher than that of the Western European countries, ranking the US 14th (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/44/39575002.xls) and that the average US price per Mbit is also higher than that of the Western European countries, ranking the US 15th (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/45/39575011.xls). Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true.

      Oh and Sweden has a lower population density than the US. As does Iceland, FInland, Norway, Canada...

  13. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    OK, soo...

    how many webservers (besides those in Google-land, MS-world, and the Amazon universe) have a 1-gig Internet connection? So how is this going to help the average Internet user if their pipe is 10+ times fatter than the pipe of the website they're downloading their pr0n from? It was bad enough when home users moved from 56k dialup to 1meg+ broadband. Moving to 1gig is going to be a major PITA to a lot of providers when their users start complaining about how slow the site is.

    I only see this as being really useful to two types of users: those users who completely buy-in to Google's universe and spend all day in Google-Docs, Youtube, and the like where they can actually take advantage of the ridiculous speed by staying "inside" Google's network. And the P2P users. Imagine how badly RIAA/MPAssA will stain their pants when they realize an entire 2-hour DVD can be transported over gnutella in a matter of seconds.

    1. Il Midga di Macaroni
      WTF?

      Which really means...

      So what you're saying is, most people will get no difference in service and some will get a buckletload of improvement?

      Sounds like a good deal to me. Especially with HTML5 in the pipeline (no pun intended).

      1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
        Pirate

        not saying that so much as

        if my home users got this Google connection, they'll bitch unendingly about how they hate connecting to our webservers and email because we only have a 100-meg pipe on our end and it's so slow.

        SLAs mean little to home users, but cost us a (comparative) fortune...

        1. Disco-Legend-Zeke

          Great HD Video...

          ...consumes 18G at Default AVCHD compression. Reducing this bandwidth is more or less like moving the quality slider on a JPG, you would need a side by side to really see a difference between 18 or 12. If you have 3 TVs, you only need 60 meg. Netflix does a great job at 3Megs

          You do not have a 100 meg pipe if you have 100baseT ethernet, ethernet overhead bites big bunches, 30-70%. We throttle our servers at a meg or so per user, but then i serve mostly photos, and rendering takes longer than the download.

          Google will certainly cache, so unless you set nocache flag, the website will be available at hard drive or ram speeds depending on how long it's been since last hit.

    2. Chris Miller
      Boffin

      Ah, but they can

      I agree that for most users a 1Gbps Internet connection is like putting a 5 litre engine into an antique car and expecting it to perform like a Ferrari. Standard browsing is limited (mostly) by the speed of the final link to the server and the latency (Round Trip Time), and the ultimate limit to the latter is the speed of light.

      But Google could fix this (for reading, writing is more complicated) by 'merely' replicating all the popular sites (Wikipedia, pr0n, ElReg, ...) in a data centre near to you, Akamai already do this but impose a significant cost on the server owner. All the hops would be under Google control and the round trip is to a server down the road (-ish) instead of the other side of the continent.

      I still think 1Gbps would be overkill for most of the uses we currently make, but perhaps it would make new uses possible.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Internet 1 is dead

    Long live Internet 2

  15. wgae
    Paris Hilton

    Won't happen anytime soon

    This is another PR stunt by the folks in MV.

    Let's face it: to get 1 Gbps to your home they need to dig up the street and get the fiber directly to your house (and, if living in an appartment complex, to your appartment). ONLY THEN you will get 1 Gbps.

    The investment required to do this for a big number of users will exceed even the financial capabilities of Google. (Guess why none of the existing providers has tried this, despite having been in the business for ages?)

    But even if they manage to get 1 Gbps to your home, do not expect the services out there to be able to deliver/support that kind of bandwidth. And while we are at it - which services do need that speed anyway? High-res video can be done with 100 Mbps which is commercially available already in certain markets. How about online backup, file sharing, online editing of files? Only few users will actually want to do this.

    Anyway, now even the dumbest ISPs in the world will recognize that Google IS evil. Expect a lot of resistance.

    Paris, because "they told me that they have to dig up my lawn to get me the highspeed internet".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: Won't happen anytime soon

      "Anyway, now even the dumbest ISPs in the world will recognize that Google IS evil. Expect a lot of resistance."

      ...errrr... either that or the other ISPs will desperately try to implement their own higher-speed internet - they won't offer any resistance, they'll just offer an alternative provider.

      Isn't that how things are supposed to work in the USA? (except where the govt interferes ofc)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Or ...

        "Anyway, now even the dumbest ISPs in the world will recognize that Google IS evil. Expect a lot of resistance."

        ...errrr... either that or the other ISPs will desperately try to implement their own higher-speed internet - they won't offer any resistance, they'll just offer an alternative provider.

        ====

        Or maybe ISP's will roll-over, cuddle up to Google and say thank you very muchly for taking over the cabling infrastructure, here, have some money.

        Exactly like Virgin Media are currently doing in passing all email services over to Google.

    2. Andy ORourke
      Unhappy

      You said it

      Even Google, with all it's megabucks could not possibly afford to roll out fibre to the home for a majority of net users. Simple economics is why this hasnt been done here (as a matter of course), it costs the debt ridden telco's too much.

      I can't see BT offering fibre to the home this decade, it will be a miracle if the have fibre to the street cabinet in every area by then!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Digging up streets

      Most PCs have Gigabit ethernet and it doesn't require fibre.

      You need Fibre to the kerb (FTTK) not Fibre to the Home (FTTH) to deliver this sort of speed into the home.

      You will need to dig up pavements, getting fibre to the kerb may indeed need some digging (or erecting along with electricity cables).

      1. wgae
        FAIL

        To get 1 Gbps

        My PC has a gigabit interface, but still I am limited to 6 Mbps downstream by my ISP. Shall I now return the PC to the dealer?

        Unfortunately, you DO need FTTH if you don't wanna share it with someone else, and that's the big deal, right? Having 1 Gbps for you alone.

        If you share the connection with your neighbors (i.e. fiber-to-the-building, or FTTB) in the same appartment complex, then you won't get 1 Gbps. You'll get a share of the bandwidth. Expect congestions in the evenings. (Simple calculation: 20 families in your complex, and you get 1 Gbps/20 = 50 Mbps when all the folks are online.)

        And with fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) things get even slower because you still have copper between the curb and the house.

        Truth is - if you want to have 1 Gbps in your home, you need to have all-fiber infrastructure from the core to your home. Good luck with getting that anytime soon (without digging up the garden). Get over it. It is a PR stunt.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Dreaming

          If you live on a road with 50 houses, and 20% of those take this up, that't 10 houses at 1Gbps. That exceeds STM-64.

          You are NEVER going to get 1Gbps from your house to the interweb. Perhaps to your ISP but even then bandwidth will be shared between the street cabinets to the exchange and there will be further sharing along the path.

          Dream on. Fibre to the Kerb - where each house migh get a 1Gbps ethernet connection (to a switch in the kerb cabinet that's served by fibre) is the most likely option.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Creditability Event Horizon

    The exploits of John Law in France and also the South Sea Bubble come to mind. Google are soon going to hit the Creditability Event Horizon.

  17. Christian Berger

    Probably a sane idea

    Now the next thing would be to implement a "Please Cache" header in IPv6 which tells routers to please try to cache the connection, if they can.

    Then, If I was Google, I would design and build lots of small routers with built-in harddisks which then simply cache every http request which has the "Please Cache" header in it's packets. The router would then have wireless and wired interfaces. Maybe Google would even pay you a bit of money for the traffic you route and the traffic you cache to motivate you to connect your router.

    This would mean a lot lower traffic and power costs for google as much of the content distribution would then be done in the network itself. And if done right, the whole net could profit from that.

  18. noroimusha
    Welcome

    Come to the UK

    BT is planning to open up the possibility for others to lay down cables in their ducts, hopefully google will take the oppurtunity to drag this country out of the middle agews regarding Internet speed/quality!

    I welcome our cable laying internet providing geek overlords

    1. Robert E A Harvey
      Welcome

      planning? BT?

      shirley knot?

      Anyway my reading is that BT has been threatened that it will have to open up their ducts.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Back Breakers

    Having created high super-high-speed demand, would this effectively force most high bandwidth applications to host with Google?

    Would those that can work it out please comment on things like backbones, clouds and SSDs.

    1. wgae
      Thumb Down

      Some insights

      Backbones are typically connected by DWDM technology. This allows links of 10, 40, and soon 100 Gbps to be transmitted over a single fiber between network nodes. For traditional networks (i.e. for those with traditional DSL speeds for the subscriber), the bandwidth offered by a single 40 Gbps card is sufficient for 2500 users downloading 16 Mbps each.

      And this is were the problem begins when we think about having 1 Gbps to each home. Suddenly, that same 40 Gbps card will only be good to support 40 subscribers (at peak time when all subscribers are online). Even the new, expensive 100 Gbps equipment will just support 100 subscribers (again, not considering that there will be some slack because not everyone is online at the same time and maxing out the connection). That 100 Gbps card would be able to serve 6250 subscribers at 16 Mbps.

      In other words: the investment to get that traffic from and to the subscriber will be tremendous, also in the backend.

      Apart from the practicalities of this (like digging up the road and your garden), the financial investment for the network infrastructure will be massive. I think it could easily exceed Google's abilities.

  20. james dobson
    Happy

    re: near DVD over 1Gbps

    I hate to point this out but 1Gbps = 1024 Mbps, a blue ray is rated at 36.55 Mbps, you can stream quite a few full HD streams down a 1 Gbps link i.e. 1024 / 36 = 28... Obviously getting 1Gbps is the *real* problem as must gigabit links I know of max out at around 55-60 MB/s or ~480 Mbps.

    I still want one!!!!

    JD

  21. Il Midga di Macaroni
    Go

    Vertical Separation

    If Google are big and ugly enough to end the cosy duopoly (or triopoly, or whatever it happens to be in your personal corner of the planet, dear reader) between major telcos and bring us the kind of network connection that can be built by putting geeks instead of beancounters in charge - good luck to them.

    The only thing I'm cautious about is letting other ISPs use their infrastructure. No matter how you slice and dice it, that sort of arrangement never works. Vertical separation is the only way - if you provide infrastructure for use by a third party service provider, you don't provide the service yourself. It's too easy to give yourself an unfair advantage over the third party operators - in fact it's practically impossible to tell whether you're doing it or not. The only alternative is to be completely vertically integrated, and not to let any other ISPs in.

    Oh, another thing. Hello Google, this is Australia, a Mr Kevin Rudd would like to talk to you. He promised to build fibre to the home for 95% of Australians just before the last election. He wanted it to create a level playing field for telecomms but the partially government owned telco wanted to use it to maintain their monopoly so he's turned it into a "non-core promise". Why don't you come in and swipe the contract from under their noses? And refuse to censor the net while you're at it. Yes, he's here, hold the line please.

  22. Paul Wilzbach
    Black Helicopters

    @won't happen anytime soon

    Tell that to the asshole telco that put a fiber box on our easement without regard to our ingress/egress.

    But bless the evil bastard Google for trying to nudge broadband in the US. Maybe they should have promised to no good.

  23. Adam T
    Paris Hilton

    But will it have >1Mbps upload??

    =p

    1. wgae
      Coat

      Yeah, plenty of bandwidth

      The technology Google will probably be using is called NGOA (Next Generation Optical Access). This is a FTTH technology that will provide 1 Gbps dedicated to each subscriber.

      Mine's the one with the gigabit interface in the pocket.

  24. petur

    @jake

    Sure, but where do you see articles about other ISPs doing deep packet inspection at El Reg? Except for that one exception of course...

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is this real gigabit?...

    ...or the 250mbit-in-practice gigabit I see day in day out?

  26. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    Google vs Cable

    Well by my rough calculations that level of service from our local cable provider (COX) would cost me about $46,000,000 per month.

  27. SynnerCal
    Big Brother

    This is hilarious

    Hmm, let me see - here's Google threatening 1Gbps, meanwhile us in the UK have got BT rolling out 20Mbps, with Vermin at 50Mpbs and trialling 200Mbps. Big deal

    My response would be "never mind the US - that's easy - how about coming to the digital 3rd world?" Let's be honest, the farce over Phorm have proved that uk.gov are a big push over, so DLM and his cohorts in the Dept of BERR are likely to smile on whatever Google want to do - carte blanche.

    Okay, a cynic would be very, very afraid that Google seem to be taking more and more of the 'net - surely there's few areas that they're not involved with these days - Google brand switches, routers etc can't be that far away.

    That said, if they can do 100Mbps for UKP25pm then I'll sign in a heartbeat - heck, 50Mbps for UKP30 would have me reaching for a pen!

    1. wgae
      Paris Hilton

      Don't worry

      This is mostly a PR stunt (maybe because the messed up the Buzz launch?). The investment to realize this network is HUUUUGE.

      Paris - where has all my money gone?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do not.....

    attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. .....

    ....and we will control all that you see and hear.

    Still no "google good" and "google evil" icons - not that we need the first one.

  29. thefutureboy
    Unhappy

    And then...

    All your base are belong to Google.

  30. Neil 6
    Grenade

    It will be fun and games...

    ...until the network becomes self aware, than what?

    I'm heading for the hills.

  31. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Big Brother

    And ultimately ....

    When Google control 'everything' and 'everywhere', then what ?

    I can foresee the laughable "Do no evil" sign being taken down now to a soundtrack of cackling, maniacal laughter.

    I have to congratulate Google though; in striving towards what they want they've suckered the public into believing it's what they want, and are largely being left to steamroller over the world with hardly a word of complaint, caution or concern. It is a most impressive blitzkrieg.

    Presumably those who feel so compelled to support Google in all they do would have little reservation about a Google Army established to protect the precious infrastructure you all have come to rely upon ? After all, what's good for Google is good for you, and vice-versa. Where does it all end ?

    Those sitting in the Googleplex are probably wondering how they are managing to get away with it all. World domination never seemed to be this easy before.

    It is said, in various forms, "all that is needed for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing". No matter how many good men there may be, they are against the masses who would cheer evil ever onwards. Google, by design or good fortune, have got themselves a very good strategy.

    Be very afraid.

    1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Boffin

      Interesting times ahead.

      Same old story though isn't it? Give something first offer everyone something they all "think" they need, while slowly building a cage around them.

      So as I said a few months back, Google is intent on building it's own private internet, which will allow access to the older public one for a price. That price is yet to be fixed, ad revenue, a cash sum or something else?

      Interesting times ahead for sure.

    2. MarmiteToast
      Happy

      @Jason Bloomberg

      I for one welcome our new Google Overlords.

      Sorry, can't post on slashdot.org at work....

    3. Mike Gravgaard
      Grenade

      RE: And ultimately ....

      I don't disagree with you but I think Google are trying to force the ISPs to act; the likes of BT running out when 100mbps is available or when Virgin is trialing 200mbps is a bit rubbish and in some parts of the US broadband isn't practical so this is a solution.

      I have an issue with using Google services for everything under the sun and they've not made this yet; they are just talking about it. If they did make it; they would class it as Beta.

      I don't really understand though what I've do with 1Gbps - I'd be pushing it hard to use 100mbps.

      Thanks

      Mike

  32. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Dead Vulture

    So Google are doing a field trial

    This is research, I don't blame them for it, it's not like the ISP's give a shit about improving speeds!

    1. wgae
      Stop

      And the result will be...

      ...that it will cost them too much to build a high-speed Internet. Maybe in MV, so that Larry and Sergej can enjoy a faster Internet at home, but that's it. They can not afford it. Virtually no company can. Only governments could (but even they shy away from the massive investments needed.)

  33. Robert Ramsay
    Grenade

    These comments...

    ...are getting dangerously close to "would you suck a dick for a million pounds?"

  34. lukewarmdog
    Badgers

    cost to Google

    Wasn't there an Obama incentive package to improve the networks?

    Sure there was, nobody wanted it because they were all happy little ISPs with no need to upset the status quo.

    Maybe Google has it's single fiery eye on that pot.

    As long as it's looking there tho, it wont notice our trepid adventurer sticking a token ring adapter into Mount Dooms central distributed processing control centre and saving middle Earth.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Piped and Fresh

    Imagine, a 1gbps stream of adware, link spam and unsolicited marketing junk piped straight into your home!

    <sarcasm>

    i for one welcome our new "whiter than white teeth" and "how i got a really large pipe in just 3 weeks" peddling overlords!

    </sarcasm>

  36. MinionZero
    Big Brother

    Don't ever trust Google...

    @Jason Bloomberg, I totally agree with everything you said.

    As for Ammaross Danan post, not least of which this comment, "I'd trust them with my data more than the Gov't any day" ... In that case, frankly you are an overly trusting fool who should wake up!

    You and people like you should be asking yourselves why is the government *allowing* Google to do all of this, because all governments are very focused on power and they know they are handing Google incredible power to profile the population. Therefore why are they allowing Google such power? What deals have been made in secret behind the scenes, that have *allowed* Google to be granted such incredible power.

    Here's a hint, some ex-government people from government spy master organizations are some of the people on the board of directors and working for Google. (Plus just how ex-government are they really, in fact just how ex-government could they ever really become with their friends and contacts in very powerful places).

    Google are also fast becoming the most Orwellian company in world history, therefore they *must* have very powerful friends in very high places, because if they didn't, these same powerful people would then be powerful enemies and powerful competitors who would move to shut down Google's business plan very fast, by changing the law to outlaw Google's chess moves. But the amazing speed Google is being *allowed* to move at and the overwhelming sense of Government silence at each new Google move, shows the Government is most definitely on Google's side.

    You don't get such a powerful company being allowed to grow, without it attracting the attention of a lot of very powerful people. Once you have the potential to build a powerful company, you either work with the powerful people, or they shut you done. Thats simply the way power games are played and have been played for centuries.

    Power inherently creates an asymmetric society resulting in the vast majority of people being constantly held down by the people in power. (That is the nature of power!). The only way out of the crowd is to work with the people in power or they will throw you back down again, so you end up back where you started.

    Therefore Google are most definitely working with very powerful people behind the scenes. Publicly Google can never admit such connections, because they know it would risk generating considerable public concern and even public anger against them, which would act against them.

    So make absolutely no mistake, very powerful people are behind Google in the same way they are behind everything that is powerful including Governments. You either work with the powerful people or they shut you down. That is the nature of power. Its been that way throughout history.

    Now imagine giving such powerful people the power of Google to profile a population like never before and then just wait and see just how far they will be able to distort society into an ever more asymmetric society in their favor. Then imagine each year that asymmetry getting ever worse. That is the danger and that is our future! ... Welcome to our future!

    Power always results in an asymmetric society because that is the nature of power.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      in-competence

      > governments are very focused on power and they know they are handing Google incredible power to profile the population

      Actually speaking from the UK I think this idea unfairly credits the Government with the notion of them being competent. This has not been my experience of public sector bodies.

      My guess is largely those in politics remain largely ignorant of the potential cyber-stasi like capabilities being developed by megalomaniac monopolistic info-tech corporations.

      It will only perhaps be later when a truely dangerous ideologically motivated group (George W 3rd) seize control that the full implications of the failure to act now will become apparent.

      The free software movement (ie software that protects your freedoms) needs to work harder to popularise use of superior de-centralised programmes that can be run by individuals thus removing the need for large centralised silos of data and communications mediated by adware corporations.

      1. MinionZero
        Big Brother

        You fail to see the game they are playing...

        Steve 116: "I think this idea unfairly credits the Government with the notion of them being competent"

        I don't credit them with anything like competent. Thats your assumption. So you are using a straw man argument to argue against something I'm not talking about. Government is far more like a slime mold and a slime mold finds food with the minimum of anything even close to basic intelligence. A Government and a society are both like slime molds. They seek their goals with very little *need* for anything even close to intelligence or competence. All clambering over each other to get to the goal. The people in society who seek power over others will flock towards sources of power like Google. Its as simple as that. That doesn't require much thought.

        We already have hundreds of examples of power hungry people each pursuing their own isolated power grabs, that are starting to consolidate into larger power grabs. Over time they will consolidate far more, that is inevitable and one of the most powerful focal points will be to consolidate around Google, as they are already a dominate force in data mining people.

        Steve 116: "My guess is largely those in politics remain largely ignorant of the potential cyber-stasi like capabilities being developed by megalomaniac monopolistic info-tech corporations."

        I don't care if say 90% of them are ignorant, its the 10% that are the danger and the fact is spying is an extremely old profession, so some in power in every generation are very conscious of their desire to spy on others, to give them an upper hand over others. People in power throughout history have used spying to bias more power their way and to consolidate their power over others. You fail to recognize this fact.

        I could write pages, but whats the point. Anyone who still fails to understand the shear scale of problems we are getting into, has proven they fail to learn from the lessons of history. They don't want to read up on history, they don't want to see documentaries like The Corporation, they don't and can't imagine the shear ruthless attitudes of Narcissists and how driven they are, they fail to connect up just how bad its all becoming. So all I can say to these kinds of people is that there have always been very good reasons why throughout history, people all around the world have tried very hard to protect their privacy, liberty and freedom from state interference. Fail to learn from history and we walk right back into the same problems again, only this time, with the power of Google its going to become far worse. But don't worry they will keep you distracted from what is really happening, so you won't see if you don't try to see, at least long enough for them to get incredibly powerful, whilst they seek to move into positions to subjugate everyone else.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    It's just...

    ... a matter of time before Google own the internet and all of the internet's users. Some people may not see this as a problem, and, I might agree to a point if it wasn't for one thing: Governments. If (when) Google do become a large global ISP providing internet access to everyone, it would make it very easy for the government to just step in and slap down some legislation to effectively give them full control of the internets.

    Eric Shmidt is a member of Barack Obama's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Hmm, is that fish I smell?

    1. scrubber
      Big Brother

      Govt. vs Google

      The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have free speech rights like individuals and so can fund politicians for their election campaigns.

      When your information is provided by google and your elected officials' campaigns are funded by google, how can anyone fight back.

      Government of the people, by the google, for the google.

  38. Jess--

    Google please come here

    even a 10mb connection would be wonderful where I live (2mb max with 1mb being the norm)

    Fibre to the box? a box would be a good start, currently its all on overhead cables attached to poles leaning at around 45 degrees

    even tried setting up a second adsl connection (on a seperate line) only to be told that the dslam at the exchange is full and there are no plans to increase capacity

    if there were to be a 1gb connection provided I would gladly share that connection with neighbours (I'm not greedy)

  39. Chimpofdoom!
    Welcome

    Seriously...

    Forget the over bloated market that is America.. Britain is the new land of opportunity!

    Bring your high speed internets here... where do I sign my soul away for some 1Gbps broadband...

    I for one welcome our google overlords and their nexus phone..

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