Google to offer fiber to end users

Wed Feb 10 22:18:34 UTC 2010

On Feb 10, 2010, at 4:57 PM, Charles N Wyble wrote:

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> Jared Mauch wrote:
>> I think it's great!
>> 
>> I've been preparing to float a similar idea locally.
>> 
>> If this is how they use their market cap, I would love for them to do it in my local market, which does seem to hold a near-and-dear place in the heart of some google C* types.
>> 
>> - Jared
>> 
>> * Local details/breakdown: http://puck.nether.net/~jared/blog/?p=84
> 
> Awesome write up.
> 
> Has anyone in the NANOG community been approached by google? I mean
> presumably this would require a massive coordination effort with
> existing exchange points etc. Or is google going to simply build an
> entire long haul network as well? Perhaps combine this with the containers?

Thanks.  I want to codify it to something more (average) human-readable before I socialize it in the local community.

This sort of investment could have some immediate payback, esp if you have local utility (water, power) buy-in.  The challenge I see is having the political will to undertake the project.  If you adjust rates up over the first few years until the principal is paid off, the payoff could happen in short-order and remain competitive.  

Deploying microcell/picocell technology would be easy and could save people like AT&T Mobility/Cingular part of their billions they look to pay for network upgrades.  A large scale project here could possibly be done (on-poles) for as low as $44m, and possibly lower as economies of scale come in to play.

I'm hoping someone here reading from GOOG will suggest to any local Ann Arbor Alum (eg: Larry Page) that this would be a chump-change investment that would revolutionize telecommunication in the US.

I scaled my model up to Michigan-size (for fun) and came up with a cost somewhere around 1 Billion to run fiber down every public roadway.  Taking the GOOG market cap of ~170Bln, and if I consider Michigan average (don't know, but please stick with me), this could be done for a small part of their market cap, and ROI could be at a reasonable speed.  GE and 10GE optics that can do 70km are cheap, sometimes lower cost than that HDTV you just bought, this would make life very interesting...

- Jared