The issue, at least domestically, is a lack of competition. A 2013 report by New America Foundation found that the places in the U.S. with the best Internet service were generally the ones where consumers had a variety of Internet service providers (ISPs) to pick from; however, most Americans have few, if any, choices.
The reason Comcast is the most hated company in America isn’t just because of its legendarily terrible customer service—it’s also because a large percentage of their customers don’t have any alternatives if they want high-speed Internet access. (...)
Sometime next year, the some residents of Austin, Texas, will get to experience the joy of having Google Fiber deliver piping hot Internet, undoubtedly boasting some of the fastest download speeds of anywhere on the planet, all over every last inch of their homes.
But not everyone in Austin will necessarily be able to sign up for Google Fiber, even if they are able to spare $70 a month for ridiculously fast Internet. When Google selects a city to deploy Fiber, it’s not guaranteed that every part of that city will be eligible for that service.
“[The way that cable companies historically operated,] there would often be franchise fees or build-out requirements that would make a company start building out in certain neighborhoods first or they couldn’t activate without a certain portion of the geography,” explained Brian Dietz, spokesperson for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. “Those rules were meant to avoid new providers entering the market from being able to cherry-pick the most profitable neighborhoods.” (...)
Google, on the other hand, uses a different model. Google slices up each city into hundreds of different “fiberhoods,” which can qualify for service if enough people within each one show interest through a process called a “rally.” In Kansas City, Google dispatched employees into each individual neighborhood and worked with local community groups, sometimes employing tactics like handing out free ice cream, to hit the requisite number of households in that area to justify deployment. (...)
In November, the company unveiled a new program in Austin called Unlocking the Connection that takes this community service aspect to the next level. In a partnership with the Texas capital’s public housing authority, Google agreed to give free broadband connections to the approximately 4,300 residents of all 18 city-owned public housing projects—as long as the buildings’ surrounding fiberhoods demonstrate enough interest to quality for service.
It’s this last move that shows why Google’s methods for selecting fiberhoods is simultaneously noble and problematic. Google is able to go back, expending money and time, to the communities who were left out, even to the point of giving some of them free connections, because Google can still make money from those people just by their being online. If Verizon or Time-Warner Cable were put in the same situation, they’d have little incentive to pursue further action. (...)
“I think this [rally model] is going to catch on and it worries me greatly,” insisted Christopher Mitchell of Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit group that advocates for the expansion of municipal broadband networks. “Google is popularizing the idea of building essential infrastructure with a market-driven approach. We don’t build roads like that—if we did, there’d be no roads in rural areas. We don’t build electricity like that—if we did, our economy could be far weaker. We recognize that those things are essential infrastructure.”
This demand-driven model is one that, even without Google, is starting to catch on nationally. With Google using Fiber as a publicity campaign for how the company would like to see high-speed broadband deployed across the board, it not only gives the company’s more traditional competitors greater incentive to discriminate based on socioeconomic geography, but it also pushes cities to let them do so.
by Aaron Sankin, The Kernel | Read more:
Image: J. Longo
It’s this last move that shows why Google’s methods for selecting fiberhoods is simultaneously noble and problematic. Google is able to go back, expending money and time, to the communities who were left out, even to the point of giving some of them free connections, because Google can still make money from those people just by their being online. If Verizon or Time-Warner Cable were put in the same situation, they’d have little incentive to pursue further action. (...)
“I think this [rally model] is going to catch on and it worries me greatly,” insisted Christopher Mitchell of Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit group that advocates for the expansion of municipal broadband networks. “Google is popularizing the idea of building essential infrastructure with a market-driven approach. We don’t build roads like that—if we did, there’d be no roads in rural areas. We don’t build electricity like that—if we did, our economy could be far weaker. We recognize that those things are essential infrastructure.”
This demand-driven model is one that, even without Google, is starting to catch on nationally. With Google using Fiber as a publicity campaign for how the company would like to see high-speed broadband deployed across the board, it not only gives the company’s more traditional competitors greater incentive to discriminate based on socioeconomic geography, but it also pushes cities to let them do so.
by Aaron Sankin, The Kernel | Read more:
Image: J. Longo
