So if Google is looking to spend a billion dollars, they can make several times as high a return putting that into their software and services operations than into building fiber. But ultimately, Internet companies are reliant on the physical infrastructure to provide their service. That puts them in an odd situation: they need someone to build those pipes, but they'd rather not do it themselves because that's not an efficient use of their capital.
So has it occurred to you that nobody wants to step in and compete, not because of the regulatory hurdles,[1] but because no investor wants to pour billions of dollars into an industry that's about as good at making money as airlines?
[1] After all, investors pour tons of money into highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, because the return on investment justifies it.
That's an interesting line of argument, but Google IS investing in the field and IS being tripped up by regulatory, rather than technical or capital hurdles.
Just because the cable cos piss away the money at various layers of the organization does not mean that they're providing service at a reasonable rate.
Whether it goes to CEO salaries, midlevel salaries, overstaffing and organizational fiefdoms, or to lawyers suing competitors.. at the end of the day they charge a huge amount of money to deliver lousy service. Saying "Hey, we're so incompetent that we're not even that profitable!" at the end does not make me more sympathetic.
Where is Google being tripped by by regulatory hurdles? Google's whole M-O with Google fiber is to demand waiver of regulatory requirements that everyone else has to comply with, in particular build-out requirements.[1]
This story is actually a great example of how Google is not being held back by regulatory hurdles. Google apparently got the municipality here to pass a "fast-track" ordinance that let's it move AT&T's equipment on AT&T's utility poles often without even notifying AT&T. The federal pole attachment regulation here is totally reasonable: utilities must provide non-discriminatory access to poles, but telecommunications providers must follow procedures for requesting access and providing notice.
[1] I happen to think build-out requirements are a dumb idea, but they're a policy choice to cross-subsidize internet service for poor neighborhoods, not a "regulatory hurdle."
I only read the article, not the brief, but it sounds like they're objecting to Google touching the pole at all (AT&T's property) without working with AT&T.. if it were a matter of moving around AT&T's actual equipment, I'd be with you, if it's a matter of touching the pole, and AT&T has some long dragged out process of 'notification and consent', I can see why Google wants that ability.
RE: Build out requirements, funny story since I was at the table for one of these contracts once. We took it as granted that we'd keep the buildout requirement intact but if I analyze the politics of it.. tell someone they can't have cable and you have a guaranteed vote against you, but give EVERYONE a $5 higher bill and nobody will know to blame you.
AT&T is challenging the municipal ordinance. That ordinance allows a new attacher (Google) to "relocate or alter the attachments or facilities of any Pre-Existing Third Party User as may be necessary to accommodate Attacher's Attachment[.]" The new attacher must only provide 30-days notice if it determines that the work will cause or reasonably be expected to cause an outage.
The existing process is prescribed by federal law. 47 C.F.R. 1.1420. Under that process, when an attachment is requested by a new attacher, the utility pole owner (usually the power company), must give everyone else using the pole notice of the new attachment and specify a date for competing the necessary make-ready work that is within 60 days of the notice. That gives the existing attacher the opportunity to modify its attachment to accommodate the new one so that the utility or the new attacher does not need to move its equipment.
Under the federal regulations, for the poles AT&T doesn't own, they don't even need to consent. They're just given the opportunity to move their equipment before someone else handles it.
Most of the cost of laying fiber is passing a neighborhood. Fiber provides live and die by their uptake rate--the percentage of the houses they pass that actually subscribe. Build out requirements tank your uptake rate, because in most cities large segments of the population simply cannot afford to subscribe. If the provider is forced to build into those neighborhoods anyway, they have to raise prices everywhere else, which further reduces their uptake rate.
So think about that from a prospective competitor. Maybe 20% of the neighborhoods in say Baltimore would be willing to pay enough for fiber service for it to be worthwhile challenging Comcast in those areas. But if I'm forced to build out everywhere--in a city where a quarter of the population is below the poverty line--there's no chance it makes economic sense for me to do so. I'd have to raise prices so much in profitable neighborhoods that I'd never be able to compete with Comcast.
This is, by the way, why Baltimore city doesn't have FiOS despite being in the heart of Verizon's FiOS area. And it's also why nobody else will build fiber here either, despite the city desperately courting providers.
Averages probably aren't so useful there, though. Like Canada - the average population per square mile is insanely low, but actually the vast majority of the population live clustered close to the US border.
It seems to me that the median number of people per km excluding all the 0 kms would be most useful, but difficult to work out (hint hint if you are really clever and know where this is hint hint kissy kissy?)
That must be why the US tax payer paid $2000 each to have the telecoms industry lay fibre optic to every home but they just kept it and didn't lay the cable.
Nobody in the conventional telecom industry with conventional capital and operating cost structures thinks it's profitable. Just as nobody using Sun servers and Oracle could have built the Google search engine. Evidently Google has learned how to turn communications infrastructure into a cheap commodity platform. Starting with leaving out the deep packet inspection crap, perhaps.
Nowhere in this story is the number "billions" used.
Second, google's strategy is not to invest billions, but seek subsidies or exceptions to municipal access fees by specifically targeting communities that decide to change rules that have existed for decades.
Finally, never forget that the new competitor's main monetization tactic is harvesting your usage data & selling your data.
I am all for increased competition, but fuck Google. They are the devil.
For what it's worth, it's not hyperbole. I truly find their sanctimony around "privacy" and encrypting everything as a serendipitous complement to a business plan that is abhorrent. >> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
I'd say all of the things I've said face to face. It isn't gratuitous. Maybe not everyone agrees with my position, but I value companies where there isn't a need to distinguish between users and customers.
I could have avoided a profanity. I could have kid gloved it by saying people are entering into a faustian deal. I'm not perturbed that I didn't.
"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."
We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads."
The ads that they present to you are based on the data they collect about your behavior. They generate revenue on those ads.
This is a Pedantic distinction that exists only if you think an ad revenue model is compatible with your values.
It is like google employees who still argue that their harvesting of wifi mac addresses (w/o permission) was ok because they were just out there for anybody to collect.
There will be people who agree with you, but there are people like me who find this position abhorrent and exploitative. You are in the same community of businesses as payday loans.
> The ads that they present to you are based on the data they collect about your behavior. They generate revenue on those ads.
Thing that has nothing to do with your claim
> This is a Pedantic distinction that exists only if you think an ad revenue model is compatible with your values.
No, the distinction is crucial. Is totally different selling data than selling ad space
> It is like google employees who still argue that their harvesting of wifi mac addresses (w/o permission) was ok because they were just out there for anybody to collect.
Google employees didn't argued that because the harvesting of MAC addresses has been done by every company that does geolocation with wifi and has nothing to do with the real problem with Google Street View data collection
> There will be people who agree with you, but there are people like me who find this position abhorrent and exploitative. You are in the same community of businesses as payday loans.
What I think about ads as a business has nothing to do with your wrong claim about Google selling the data so you can stop trying to look in a higher moral ground.
So if Google is looking to spend a billion dollars, they can make several times as high a return putting that into their software and services operations than into building fiber. But ultimately, Internet companies are reliant on the physical infrastructure to provide their service. That puts them in an odd situation: they need someone to build those pipes, but they'd rather not do it themselves because that's not an efficient use of their capital.
So has it occurred to you that nobody wants to step in and compete, not because of the regulatory hurdles,[1] but because no investor wants to pour billions of dollars into an industry that's about as good at making money as airlines?
[1] After all, investors pour tons of money into highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, because the return on investment justifies it.