Google Fiber is certainly one of Google’s more audacious experiments and it’s now becoming clearer what the company’s long-term strategy is with its high-speed fiber Internet and television service. Barron’s points us to a new research note from Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena, who just got back from seeing Google Fiber in action in Kansas City and who says that Google’s long-term goal with the service is to make television more of a web-based experience. More →
Google is on a mission to bring high-speed data service to American homes at the lowest possible cost to the consumer. Why? Logic dictates that faster data means more Internet usage, and more Internet usage means more Google services (and ads). The real explanation might not be that simple, however, and Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet has a theory: Google Fiber is actually a ploy to drive down the cost of cable TV service. More →
Google Fiber is seen by many as a regional experiment that will push current Internet service providers to offer faster speeds at more affordable speeds. Google Fiber head Milo Medin countered that perception at an event on Wednesday, however. Speaking at a Fiber-to-the-Home Council meeting, the executive explained that the company’s fiber-optic broadband network isn’t just an expensive research project but a great and profitable business for Google, CNET reported.
Although the idea of Google Fiber rolling into your neighborhood and obliterating incumbent cable providers may be a pipe dream in the short term, at least one analyst thinks that Google’s fiber-to-the-home network will pose serious challenges for both the cable and telecom industries in the long run. Per MarketWatch, Bernstein analyst Carlos Kirjner has issued a new research note explaining why Google Fiber is “an attractive risk-return profile, with very limited downside and potential for material economic upside” that could disrupt the American Internet service provider landscape. More →
Google Fiber has taken the United States, and the world, by storm. Google is looking to shake things up with extremely fast Internet speeds available at reasonable prices, while at the same time pressuring traditional industry players to adapt. But millions of Americans will be forced to settle with the mediocre speeds provided by their current Internet service providers, unfortunately. A recent report from market research firm IHS iSuppli suggests that Google is unlikely to deploy Fiber on a nationwide level. The firm believes the cost of building a national Fiber infrastructure will be too high for Google and the company is expected to remain a minor player in the U.S. broadband market. More →
Major Internet service providers in the United States have long taken a beating in customer satisfaction surveys, but the latest survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index has the grimmest news yet for American ISPs: They now have the lowest customer satisfaction ranking of any industry in America, worse than even airlines, health insurance companies and gas stations. The survey shows that American consumers are particularly unhappy with ISPs’ call center service, with the variety of Internet plans they offer and with their quality of online video streaming. More →
The early reviews of Google Fiber are in from Kansas City and one of the most attractive features of the service seems to be how it makes Netflix irresistible. The buffering annoyances that consumers take for granted vanish as Google Fiber feeds movies and shows instantly to eager Silicon Prairie dwellers. What’s more, the recently launched Google Fiber TV app offers video on demand for iPad. This direction is fascinating because of the hottest trend in US consumer behavior: broadcast television audience collapse. More →
As someone who pays Time Warner Cable more than $50 each month for Internet service that promises 30Mbps down and just 5Mbps up, I would welcome Google Fiber’s $70 gigabit Internet service with open arms. Forgetting for a moment that TWC doesn’t even provide me with service that reaches the speeds it promises, I’m just tired of paying the company so much and getting so little in return. But in a world where cable companies are allowed to build mini-monopolies in cities and towns across America, I have no choice — I can either keep paying for bad service from Time Warner, or I can pay almost as much for even worse service from a DSL provider. More →
There’s little doubt that Google Fiber is forcing rivals to be more competitive, and another instance of Google’s Internet service forcing rival ISP’s hand has emerged. Now that Time Warner Cable is realizing that criticizing Google’s revolutionary Internet service won’t make it go away, the New York-based ISP admitted in a recent blog post that it is being forced — sorry, “encouraged” — to change its plans in Austin, Texas as a result of the coming competition from Google Fiber. More →
Google’s ultra-high-speed Google Fiber Internet service won’t be accessible to most Americans for quite some time, but the revolutionary service’s impact is already being felt even by those who don’t subscribe to the service. As noted by MIT’s Technology Review blog, Akamai’s annual state of the Internet report was released recently and it does a great job of highlighting Google Fiber’s ripple effect. More →
Remember how Time Warner Cable executives tried to claim that American consumers don’t actually want 1Gbps broadband connections? Well, InfoWorld’s Paul Venezia isn’t having any of it and says that ISPs who deny the challenge that Google Fiber represents are whistling past their own graveyards. In particular, Venezia says that he’s surprised that ISPs have kept insisting that ”customers don’t want gigabit Internet,” which he likens to “a lead paint salesman pooh-poohing latex paint because ‘customers don’t want their health.’” More →
Cable companies have long dismissed gigabit Internet speeds as a luxury that most consumers don’t really want but venture capitalist Hunter Walk thinks that consumer expectations for broadband service will change once they experience Google’s high-speed Google Fiber service for themselves. Walk, a former Google executive who left the company earlier this year to start his own VC firm, recently travelled to Kansas City to experience Google Fiber first hand and came away very impressed. More →
