What’s the incumbent response to Google Fiber? What’s our response?
No need to wonder what the incumbents will do. We, who have been pushing for municipal and community owned broadband, open networks, line-sharing and alternatives to the monopoly/duopoly, know all too well that cable and incumbent telecom operators will oppose Google’s attempts to bring more competition into the “middle mile” and the last mile.
This article on AnnArbor.com cites me and others like Steve Pierce, co-founder of Wireless Ypsilanti, expressing our belief that the incumbents will spend millions of dollars, as they always have, to block Google fiber.
I must add a few comments to the article, which is very short, and does not tell the whole story.
Many of us still think (unconsciously) of Google as this scrappy little startup who needs all the help it can get to go up against the Big Guys. But it isn’t. Google has become a large, highly profitable company; it has money and an army of lobbyists to fight the cable/DSL guys.
In the end, here we are again, with a critical piece of infrastructure completely owned by one company – a private enterprise beholden only to its shareholders. Does it make you sleep more peacefully knowing that the fiber backhaul your ISP uses is owned and controlled by a company that also happens to control the search market? Sure, Google will stick it to the hated cable/DSL duopoly, but what happens when things start turning ugly for Google in its key market (search)? What happens when Google starts feeling the heat of competition? Google is already the subject of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission.
Haven’t we learned any lessons from the past? If you allow one company – a cable operator, telco, Internet search engine – to control access to communications, in the middle or last mile, it will not give up so easily and it will do everything in its power to stop competitors. It will use the political process – buying elected officials – to do its bidding.
Do you think Google, a highly profitable enterprise, will be much nicer? What controls should we be putting on companies like Google that will end up owning such an important piece of infrastructure?
Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy to see Google come in and give the incumbents the thrashing they deserve. But we have to move beyond our emotions and our tendency to view Google=good/incumbents=bad. We have to reject the mainstream media’s obsession with sensationalizing everything and turning complex matters such as this into a Grand Wrestling Match.
Before we respond to the Google Fiber Plan, we must sit down, think carefully, debate, and finally instruct our civil servants (yes, it’s hard to write out that phrase because it seems so quaint in these days when government is controlled by big corporations) to negotiate with Google and make laws that benefit us – the people – in the long term. That means we must not replicate the odious Cable Franchise Model, this time on fiber or wireless networks.
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Esme,
You are absolutely right in your assessment.
And for the record, I am not one of those that is bashing Comcast and AT&T. We use both providers and they have both been great to work with.
I know people love to bash Comcast about unreliable service in their community. I don’t doubt there are problems. All I can say is move to Ypsilanti, Michigan. Comcast and AT&T U-Verse work great here and both are very reliable and fast.
Comcast and AT&T are partners in our own success and we need them.
That said, Comcast and AT&T will react like any incumbent and fight any way legally possible to stop entry by another business. That is just the reality of the situation.
Any municipality that is courting Google needs to understand, even if you win Google’s approval, AT&T and Comcast may get a say in what actually happens.
Look at what Comcast did to restrict muni-WiFi in Pennsylvania. Comcast got the State Legislature to allow WiFi in Philadelphia but then ban any other municipality in the state from installing a municipal WiFi system.
The take away is this. Look at all the community’s clamoring for an opportunity and competing for Google’s offering. That should be a clear message to state and federal regulators that current telecommunication policies are not working.
Competition is a good thing.
Computers are more powerful, smaller and cheaper because of competition. We need competition when it comes to broadband and we need to end the policy of licensed monopolies for telecommunication services.
AT&T argues they need restrictions because competition will cherry pick cities and not provide service to rural areas. I don’t know of a rural area anywhere in the country that has adequate broadband service provided by Comcast and AT&T.
AT&T and Comcast aren’t in the rural markets providing broadband services. Therefore, we should eliminate the legislative protections both companies enjoy in the urban areas.
It is time to remove the shackles over the urban communities and let the market and fair competition decide who can best provide broadband services.
Today, in the communities where Comcast and AT&T have direct competition from companies like Verizon FiOS and Wow Cable and Internet, those communities have lower priced services, more choices and faster service.
It is my hope that the Google fiber initiative will open up the doors to more competition.
Competition and choice is a good thing. Telecommunication monopolies, not so much.
Cheers!
Steve Pierce
Ypsilanti, Michigan
from the amen corner:..”what he said” only would add we must have a level playing field…in terms on the “BROADBAND SPEND” by local govt,s here in nyc that amount is substantial…it says here competition is great..however more can be done with what is already available..we need the Googles of the world to push innovation otherwise govt both local and federal will continue the path of not supporting anything “new” that the incumbents object too..
DDPUSA
Maybe Google is pointing the way not for large telecoms, but for communities.
If Google is motivated to bring gigabit fiber links to the home in order to open the way to more revenue from state of the art services, why couldn’t communities themselves look for the same revenues?
Find a third party provider of backhaul, or float a bond to build out a fiber/wireless infrastructure. Support it with hyperlocal advertising and ecommerce enablement, revenue from local government for police, fire, ambulance, education, health and municipal services as the anchor tenant.
Make these networks community intranets, with local content running off local servers so that education, health, and local business/community information came across at wire speed.
Every year, the networking gear, the devices, get faster, better, cheaper, while the price of bandwidth decreases. Why not community intranets?
Needless to say, the big boys would fight this tooth and nail in the courts. But if the investment in infrastructure is worth it to them, why not to the community itself, which in terms of content, advertising, and local commerce is really in a much better to ‘own the local’ and realize the revenues from that?
Maybe that’s the lesson from Google, especially to the many who lose the contest: Do it yourself. The telcos and Google have proven there’s revenue to support these build outs and it’s your town after all.
Esme,
I don’t think Google is out to own the fiber infrastructure – I think they’re doing exactly what you’re doing here: “stirring the pot”!
Which is great, because we don’t seem to be getting much in the way of a National Broadband Plan. Certainly we need something more visionary than 100Mbps. I hope I’m wrong on that, and that the interest that Google has stirred up here will allow all of us who are agitating for a new vision to gain some traction.
Thanks for stirring the pot!
Kevin
Esme…
Great wrap-up of this issue. I would treat Google as yet another commercial company that may want to compete on the same level as Comcast and ATT as they have the same ROI and bottom-line incentives as any other company. Typically ROI for a company is much shorter term than an ROI for a government deployment. Government also has other incentives such as growth, tax-base, etc. that could be a direct result of a government deployment. Also, if structured right, there can be more insight into a government deployment.
If Google gets into the game as a middle or last mile provider, I still see the need for a muni-owned and operated deployment in order to insure equal access and to help break the cartel-like pricing of the limited number of last mile providers.
Google would be smart to get into middle mile / last mile service, so long as their local ISP/WISP partners were aboard with providing a Google oriented solution.
Does Google really want to be in the ISP business given the labor involved in building the networks, and the amount of people you’d need for customer service, for billing?
It is not their core business. So long as the WISP/ISP is promoting Google Docs, Chrome, Android, Google Voice, etc Google should just let them do the labor intensive stuff.
I spoke to a former CEO of a major cable company the day the news broke. He said that Google had no experience, no boots on the ground here. He’s right. But they don’t need that. Just find local partners. Let them have the low margin stuff while they chug along with search, local ads, while their margins stay high and their stock continues to climb.
As for ROI on muni deployments — I think we need to redefine ROI to include all the indirect/intangible benefits of having a public infratructure. Better education, health services, better public safety, better communities. Hard to put a dollar figure on all that, but its all part of the greater good.