Google said it will provide updates on which other cities will get Google Fiber before this year is over. The 34 cities being considered are Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tempe in Arizona; San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto in California; Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs, and Smyrna in Georgia; Nashville-Davidson in Tennessee; Charlotte, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, and Raleigh in North Carolina; Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, and Tigard in Oregon; San Antonio in Texas; and Salt Lake City in Utah.

The fiber service is 1 gigabit internet for $70 a month or 1 gigabit Internet and TV for $120 a month. Imagine, Google will have faster access to your Nest thermostat and smoke detectors!

I hope it doesn't go national any time soon -- too many privacy/ethical issues with Google controlling basically the entire Internet from search to backbones to the last mile. If this becomes widespread, time for an anti-trust action against Google and an AT&T style breakup (probably along the lines of service type, rather than regionally).

By ethical issues, I mean that Google will have the power to slow or block access to companies providing duplicative services AND make them invisible in searches. Same with them having a vested interest in discouraging people from hosting their own services vs drinking their kloud koolaid and using their infrastructure.

I canceled my TWC internet when I realized I can tether off my phone which is faster, cheaper more reliable and a hell of a lot more portable than anything the cable company offers. I'm not switching back to a separate at home phone bill until somebody brings fiber to my door be it Google or somebody else.

The cable ISPs are dinosaurs.

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Really? You can get 25+ mbps downlink speed reliably with tethering with:
(1) A reasonably stable IP addy
(2) Low latency
(3) Consistent quality of service

That has not been my experience with tethering, other than in very specific locations and circumstances. Also, tethering works well so long as everyone in a given area isn't doing it. Is coaxial to the premises perfect? Hell no. Is it better than a wireless link? For sure.

I'll get back to you when I'm done with this episode of House of Cards.

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Terrible upload speed, d/l speed at the lower border of what a good coax connection is capable of.

You can whine all you want, my phone is still faster, cheaper and far more reliable than what TWC was selling me. One of these days I might pickup an LTE phone once they get around to upgrading the cell phone towers around here to 20x20.

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Not whining -- your statements are just factually incorrect, especially as more people compete for over-the-air bandwidth from an LTE tower. A coax link isn't as limited by available spectrum as a wireless one.

A properly designed coaxial system will always support higher speeds than a good over the air system. That's just physics.

500 mbps over cable ... clicky:
UPC Netherlands ramps broadband to 500 Mbps

Great! When I move to the Netherlands I'll be sure to check that out. Maybe you should direct that information at TWC. They're the ones no longer collecting $46/mo from me (which was going up to $60/mo as of Jan had i stuck with it) for mediocre "up to 20Mbps" cable internet service with bonus throttled video streaming.

The fact remains that tethering off my phone is faster, cheaper and more reliable than TWC even with my outdated phone.

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BROADBAND DOWNLOAD
LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA Info 21 mbps
MOBILE

DOWNLOAD
9.1
Mbps
UPLOAD
3.7
Mbps

Barely connected here. New place has no DSL, no Cable, no 4G. I got a no contract 3G hot spot, best option for me at the location. Satellite was not even a consideration, total BS ripoff.

For what I am doing the hot spot is a good thing.

Didn't want a smart phone but I did like the idea of tethering. Might still happen eventually.

We are now milking our own goat. Coffee is something new again.

I hate traffic, hate sitting at red lights, hate breathing exhaust fumes. Happy move.

Consistent 20mips + via cable in Tenn close to the 'bama line.

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1985 300D 198K sold
1982 300D 202K
1989 300E 125K
1992 940T

"If you dont have time to do it safely, you dont have time to do it"

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

As gigabit connectivity becomes more widespread, it will change the landscape for the typical client-server computer model used in small and large businesses.

Currently one of the major reasons people keep file and database servers in-house is due to the performance that can only be obtained in house. Once that issue is removed, the majority will keep everything “in the cloud.” It will be devastating to groups such as Dell, HP Lenovo, or anyone who sells server platforms.

The broader implication is that it will also make it possible for vastly greater numbers of people to telecommute. Not only is typical computer data quickly accessible with enough bandwidth, but so is video conferencing. That will translate to fewer offices and buildings, and potentially a revolution where the idea of “going to work” for many will mean sitting in front of their home computer rather than commuting 20 miles 2x a day. Ultimately this kind of change can completely change culture as we know it.

BTW, Comcast started offering gigabit broadband a couple of years ago iirc and have been quietly adding to it since.

I'm not sure if I'd agree with that.
(1) Cloud has some major privacy issues, as well as data integrity issues, since you're relying on a 3rd party provider to maintain backups.

(2) Symmetrical gigabit Internet plus IPv6 would allow an internal server to be accessible from outside a company at the same speed as inside the office. One of the major advantages of the "cloud" today is that it's faster for mobile/roaming users -- with a sufficiently fast link, this disappears.

(3) Any sort of worthwhile cloud storage costs money, per month or per unit of data.

Assuming that we get to the point of having gigabit fiber be common, the future might well be composed of modular NAS systems. Think SpaceMonkey, except with the ability to replicate between four or five different devices vs distributing the backup between random SpaceMonkey devices.

Trying to guess what technology will be like, even in the near term, as infrastructure develops, is fraught with inaccuracies.