from the non-soluble-fiber-is-good-for-digestion dept.
Fluffeh writes:
"Google has officially invited 34 cities in nine metro areas to become the next batch of the Google Fiber rollout.
Google said it 'genuinely would like to build in all of these cities,' but that the complexities of deploying networks may not allow it. 'During this process, we will work with each city to map out in detail what it would look like to build a new fiber-optic network there,' Google said. 'The most important part of this teamwork will be identifying what obstacles might pop up during network construction — and then working together to find the smoothest path around those obstacles. Some might be easy, some might take some creative thinking or a few months to iron out, and in some cases there might be such local complexities that we decide it's not the right time to build Google Fiber there.'"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DarkMorph on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:30AM
More broadly, however, is the need for competition, especially with that ominous potential merge with Comcast wanting to absorb TWC on the horizon...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by neiras on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:40AM
The geek in me applauds Google for spreading high-speed access in spite of the big incumbent providers down there in the States, but the tin-foil hatter me yells NO MORE GOOGLE PLEASE.
I mean, they make browsers, have full root access on your Android phones, track your location, know your personal idiosyncracies and who your contacts are, host your email, DNS, spawn glassholes and robot cars... It's mind boggling.
I want to cheerlead this, and I'm happy for the folks who will get fiber access, but yeesh. Google.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:29AM
Just bump that $70/month figure to $75/month, and get a VPN.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by geb on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:14PM
No matter who your ISP is, it's already fairly worrying how much you have to trust them. There's only a single, rather shaky, layer of defense against man-in-the-middle by an ISP.
On balance, I'd be marginally more inclined to trust google than one of our local ISPs.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:59AM
Looks like Google is more interested in kicking incumbent ISPs into action. Look how AT&T responded to Google's plans in Austin by developing their own fiber network. I think the grand plan of GFiber is that they can threaten to move into any area that doesn't have sufficient competition, and they can use this to get incumbent ISPs to develop more on their own, since they have no motivation to otherwise.
But Fios already offers about 75/35 for $70/month, and I don't think bumping that 10x-100x is enough to allure customers to Google Fiber at this time; perhaps it will change in a few years when even those speeds are starting to look slow. But right now, it looks for now that they're targeting areas where services are one provider charging the same price for 3Mbps.
That said, what's more worrying about Verizon is their gate-keeper mentality, that they should be allowed to choose what passes over the pipes that we pay them for. I don't think this will change until we start seeing more services like Netflix which offer high bandwidth streaming of content which replaces traditional TV (not just your regular Youtube-type channels, in their current state at least). Perhaps Google will start providing services like that next....
(Score: 5, Interesting) by akinliat on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:37AM
As someone who lives in one of the cities on the list(Durham), I have to say that I'm tickled pink that I might be able to get fiber. I've already received an email from Google to let me know that they might be bringing Google Fiber here, only a few hours after the article showed up in the local paper's website. They said to tell all my neighbors, and I've started planning on how best to mobilize the neighborhood so that we can qualify.
It may seem odd, but just this morning I was talking to my ISP about how I was paying $120/mo for a 3Mbit DSL connection (and a POTS phone line). They were telling me how they could knock $20 off the price and maybe someday upgrade me to 7Mbits, if I was lucky (that's what I'm paying for, but they haven't yet upgraded the CO).
If Google can get me a gigabit connection, then I, for one, welcome our new fiber overlords!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:49AM
Be sure to read what you will be forbidden [google.com]. /. on the base of being threated as "audience" (rather than contributor) - isn't taking Google fiber a bit similar [theguardian.com] with going back on /.?
I mean, I assume you did move over from
(I might be wrong in my assumption. If I am, please don't take it as an insult, but explain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by akinliat on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:51AM
In a word, no. And I say this as someone who owns a hosting business, and would love nothing more than to move out of the (expensive) datacenter and into nice, cheap Google Fiber-powered digs. But, as someone who makes a living managing bandwidth, I can understand why they might not want to underwrite my business, especially as they're not throttling or otherwise limiting bandwidth based on usage. As for the rest of the AUP, it looks a lot like mine (no spam, no viruses or bots, etc).
It might be good to mention here the difference between a "no-server" policy and a "no-commercial-server" policy. They're perfectly willing to let you host your personal blog, or host an online game for you and your friends. What they don't want is someone like me using their uber-cheap bandwidth to make money.
Fair enough.
As far as being a contributor -- well, I never did feel like I was a contributor to my current ISP, or even an audience. I always sort of thought I was a customer. A customer-is-always-right customer, maybe, but still a customer. I really can't see any parallel to the /. Beta debacle. At /., we provided most, if not all, of the value to the site, and so felt we had a stake in it, whereas Google is providing a service, and a damn good one at that.
Google's not taking away anything from me -- my servers are in a datacenter because there's no way you can run a hosting business over a 768Kbit DSL uplink. In fact, they're giving something I've never had before -- a choice of providers. I have my current ISP (Frontier), because Verizon sold me to them like cattle. I could go to Time Warner, but I've had cable from them for years, and I know I won't be treated any better there. They've both also been sponsoring bills at the state legislature to ban municpal broadband (which several local cities have implemented).
As far as I'm concerned, if the only thing I get out of this is the chance to thumb my nose at the whole crooked lot of them, then I'll be more than happy.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:02AM
Why not? If they'd want to prevent "reselling your bandwidth", I'd have no qualms. But why would they want to prevent you to make money by using their transport?
Car analogy: to my mind, it's like a road builder that want to prevent people using their roads to make money by transporting goods the road builder did contribute nothing to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by akinliat on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:00AM
A more precise analogy might be a road builder not allowing tractor-trailer trucks on his private road. And even on our public roads, we make trucks pay extra, based on weight, or ban them altogether if they weigh too much. Why? Because roads aren't free, and big trucks put a lot of wear on any road.
Bottom line, I don't see why Google should be obligated to provide business accounts just because they're willing to provide residential accounts, and the two are not at all the same.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:47AM
No, a much more precise analogy would be a road builder not allowing people to drive to their employer in their sedans because unlike a trip to the grocery story, they are profiting by going to work. Or, an even more precise analogy would be selective enforcement, allowing people to drive to work in their sedans, because the private road owner would get laughed out of town for trying to preclude people driving their sedan to work, but selectively enforcing against pizza delivery drivers who are profiting from their sedan deliveries to other households because they want to get a 10% cut of the pizza delivery driver's profits. And if there is someone making 10 times the amount of money driven per sedan/mile on the road because they are making more profit-efficient use of the same sedan-mile wear and tear on the road, the road builder wanting 10 times as much (because that would be the same 10% tax), or perhaps even 20 times as much because they know the sedan-driving independent businessman is so successful they can afford it, and have no other road to choose from. Or if they do have precisely one or two other roads to choose from, they find that magically and coincidentally, all 3 private road owners are charging the same 20% tax for such highly profit-efficient businesses.
I mean, if you want a more precise analogy.
There is a difference between tiers of service that a majority of businesses need (but not *all* businesses) and businesses that can still get by with the same lowest tier of service. In fact, if you look at a section 1 sherman antitrust violation criteria as I've mentioned 2 or 3 other places in this article's comments, you'll see that it is simply not legal in the U.S. to make (1)agreements that (2)unreasonably restrain (3)interstate commerce. If I can use a commercial server at my residence with no more uptime or bandwidth or customer support requirements than my neighbor using Skype and Ebay to profit with interstate digital traffic between my server and clients, that is just plain AFAICT against the law in the U.S.
(Score: 1) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:37PM
It's not like an absolute either/or. I could understand a statement akin: "No loads over 4 tonnes/axle allowed", but there's quite a distance from banning trailer tractors to saying "Private cars allowed, but you are banned to use the same family car as a taxi".
I never said google should be obligated to provide business accounts, I only wondered why would they want to ban blanket-ban commercial use on residential accounts? It's technically possible, it does incur extra responsibility/cost from google as long as there's no excessive traffic (a situation that can be dealt with/worded specifically in ToS), so... what's the point?
Look... as an example... say you'd be a telecommuter: technically, using your residential connection for work would be a breach to ToS. Running a small programming business from home and run your own git repo with https access... breach. Provide paid-for support/consultations for open-source projects and run demo setups of some servers... breach of ToS.
Are the above likely to create "road tear" into google's road? Mate, I'm doing all the above on a 20 Mbps connection, with a 50Gb capped traffic/month - never managed to consume more than 65% of my quota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by akinliat on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:32PM
Except that both you and dmc are outliers. Most people who run servers aren't commercial software developers who make their source available via git (hey, wait a minute ...) or able to run a new hosting paradigm that can be done with only 768Kbit upstream (see dmc's post). It's people like me, or worse, who are the problem, because we're, well, common. There are a lot of folks like me. If you don't believe me, pop over to WebHosting Talk [webhostingtalk.com] sometime. It's as busy as the (sigh) pre-Beta /. And we'll suck down bandwidth like a two-dollar whore.
I'm not saying that I'm happy about Google's choice here (neither are some folks at Google), but I don't think it's either arbitrary or unreasonable. They've identified a potential problem (excessive bandwidth use by folks like me) and formulated a policy to deal with it. Is it the least restrictive policy possible? Well no ... but it's not crazy either.
Since dmc mentioned antitrust, there's also one other factor that may be playing into this -- I don't think Google really wants to start competing with the datacenter industry.
Just think, datacenter bandwidth currently runs anywhere from $1-$250/Mbit. The low end prices some of the bandwidth into the cabinet costs, and they also cut other corners. Google would be offering bandwidth at $0.07/Mbit (not counting the free service). Google already has a huge influence on web traffic, and with Android, they also have a strong presence at the network endpoint. Now they're providing network access to a whole 'nother set of endpoints. Getting a foothold on the content sources (servers) could be awfully sketchy from an antitrust viewpoint.
BTW, I think telecommuting would be allowed -- as long as you weren't running a server from your house.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Monday February 24 2014, @09:57PM
It's not crazy- it's calculated. Google wants as much control as possible. People who might be able to succeed comercially utilizing low bandwidth servers hosted at residences are a threat to Google's bottom $$ line. Sure, they may be outliers, but so were Page and Brin when they were starting out. Being able to make overly broad restrictions in the ferengi print, and then selectively enforce, or worse yet- cripple the ability of innovators to get investment capital for great ideas because of the murky legality of the ferengi print is cold-blooded calculation on their part. You are right, there is nothing crazy about it. Just criminal, since it satisfies the three criteria of a section 1 Sherman Antitrust violation.
The very, very simple honest solution is for GoogleFiber and other ISPs to stop the *fraudulent* advertising claims about bandwidth, and actually charge reasonably based on bandwidth used. (fixed costs, plus variable costs for the bandwidth). This always scared people because they thought "ooh, now my netflix usage will be more expensive". Hopefully the fallout of the demise of Net Neutrality and the extra money that Netflix is now paying to Comcast, and it's no doubt ultimate eventual being passed onto consumers will make people realize that that argument against reasonable data-usage charging was a bad argument.
I'm not looking to peg bandwidth 24/7. There is _a lot that can be done_ with low bandwidth, as long as you are free (in the Net Neutrality way that I argued and which US Navy Information Warfare Officer Dave Schroeder agreed with) to do so.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:10AM
"
In a word, no.
"
You are entitled to your opinion. And I'll be happy to elaborate on my counter-opinion.
"
And I say this as someone who owns a hosting business, and would love nothing more than to move out of the (expensive) datacenter and into nice, cheap Google Fiber-powered digs. But, as someone who makes a living managing bandwidth, I can understand why they might not want to underwrite my business,
"
I don't understand how being allowed to run a commercial server, using the same bandwidth as my neighbors non-commercial server, can be considered having Google "underwrite your business". Yes, I know some of your immediate counterarguments already, I'll get to those.
"
especially as they're not throttling or otherwise limiting bandwidth based on usage.
"
But they effectively are, in precisely one, important way. They are saying that, for hypothetical example, if there are 2 customers of "internet service", call them A and B, have servers with precisely the same bandwidth requirements, they will block B if B is making a profit from that bandwidth, but they will not block A so long as A makes no profit from that bandwidth.
"
As for the rest of the AUP, it looks a lot like mine (no spam, no viruses or bots, etc).
It might be good to mention here the difference between a "no-server" policy and a "no-commercial-server" policy. They're perfectly willing to let you host your personal blog, or host an online game for you and your friends.
"
They were *only* willing to go this far, within 48 hours of pictures of small children holding protest signs in Utah appeared on the internet. But that is water under the bridge, accepted.
"
What they don't want is someone like me using their uber-cheap bandwidth to make money.
Fair enough.
"
No, it's really not fair enough. If a grocery store sells a pound of sugar, it is *none of their business* whether or not that pound of sugar goes into the customers stomach generating no profit, or whether that pound of sugar is used to bake a creative cake that is sold for profit by the customer. Trying to get more money for the same product being sold, based _solely_ on the profit the customer is able to make from it, is not only wrong, but based on my reading today, a section 1 sherman act violation (if the cake could be sold by mail to another state).
"
As far as being a contributor -- well, I never did feel like I was a contributor to my current ISP, or even an audience. I always sort of thought I was a customer.
"
+1
" /. Beta debacle. At /., we provided most, if not all, of the value to the site, and so felt we had a stake in it, whereas Google is providing a service, and a damn good one at that.
A customer-is-always-right customer, maybe, but still a customer. I really can't see any parallel to the
"
I would consider it good if I were free to use it without arbitrary restrictions that I considered tantamount to taxation.
"
Google's not taking away anything from me -- my servers are in a datacenter because there's no way you can run a hosting business over a 768Kbit DSL uplink.
"
Here is where you've struck my nerve. You are right- there is no way _you_ could run _your_ hosting business. This is because your hosting business is based around a very specific set of requirements. I am arguing that I see potential innovative hosting businesses that I could run myself that have no requirements beyond what my neighbor hosting their non-commercial blog, and using youtube and netflix are getting from their "non-commercial" internet connection.
Now- you may be right, my hosting business may fail. But I'm pretty upset if I'm not even allowed to _try_ (again, in such a way as I am using no more resources than my neighbor's non-commercial usage).
"
In fact, they're giving something I've never had before -- a choice of providers. I have my current ISP (Frontier), because Verizon sold me to them like cattle. I could go to Time Warner, but I've had cable from them for years, and I know I won't be treated any better there. They've both also been sponsoring bills at the state legislature to ban municpal broadband (which several local cities have implemented).
"
no disagreement with any of that. In other words, no, I'm not saying every aspect of Google is evil. There are some business practices they engage in that I find beneficial and valuable as you do. I'm merely discussing a very, very narrow subset of their business practices. I believe that is in the best spirit of our society.
"
As far as I'm concerned, if the only thing I get out of this is the chance to thumb my nose at the whole crooked lot of them, then I'll be more than happy.
"
Yes, it is possible that even with particular restriction I find objectionable, I may agree with you that the endeavor as a whole is a net positive thing. But this does not negate my right to pursue my specific legal (well, perhaps before the verizon ruling and until the FCC's 'retry' of NN) complaint.
(Score: 1) by charlesnw on Friday February 21 2014, @07:04PM
Um. No.
You've clearly not read the AUP/TOS. It specifically forbids servers and business services.
From the old country:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/13/2148245/ef f-slams-google-fiber-for-banning-servers-on-its-ne twork [slashdot.org]
http://www.tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/15/121823 0/google-fiber-partially-reverses-server-ban [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3106555&cid=41 288357 [slashdot.org]
So sorry, but you're business venture would gain zero benefit from having google fiber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:22AM
Good grief, $120 per month for 3mbps? I live a Third World country in South-East Asia and I can get a 5mbps connection for something like the equivalent of $30 or so, and an optional POTS for $10 extra which they won't force on you (I got it, because mobile signal reception isn't what it could be in a house built of reinforced concrete). 7 Mbps shouldn't set you back more than $50, if only the place where I lived could have it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:39AM
Translation: like for /. Beta (is this becoming the new Godwin?), the subscribers are not contributors to the Internet, just consumers.
I'm not saying a bit of competition among the Internet carriers would hurt, but... Google won't ever be just a carrier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:44AM
Obligatory link spam from my "Right To Serve" crusade that the FCC somehow completely ignored (thus far??)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-ne utrality/ [wired.com]r -continues-awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers [eff.org]r aft-2k121024.pdf [cloudsession.com]l es-call-for-open-internet.html [mcclatchydc.com]g le_fiber_to_allow_personal_servers/ [theregister.co.uk]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fibe
http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-d
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/01/198327/goog
http://crossies.com/IMAG0778.jpg [crossies.com]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/10/15/goo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Ac t [wikipedia.org]
"
1. An agreement
2. which unreasonably restrains competition
3. and which affects interstate commerce
"
(Score: 1) by Fluffeh on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:52AM
I thought they back-pedalled on a lot of the "server" stuff when a number of people EFF included combed through the TOS and nit-picked. At that point, didn't they say something along the lines of "servers are okay, as long as they aren't basically a business" type thing?
(Score: 5, Informative) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:10AM
"
I thought they back-pedalled on a lot of the "server" stuff when a number of people EFF included combed through the TOS and nit-picked. At that point, didn't they say something along the lines of "servers are okay, as long as they aren't basically a business" type thing?
"
Yes, they backpedaled within 48 hours of this photograph appearing on the internet-
(small children holding picket signs in Google saying "Google's Not Net Neutral" and "I Want A Server")
http://crossies.com/IMAG0778.jpg [crossies.com]
I am the one who led the crusade the prior year documented in my manifesto-
http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-dr aft-2k121024.pdf [cloudsession.com]
And today I've started to wonder if the backpedaled stance isn't vulnerable to a section 1 Sherman Antitrust lawsuit given the ToS against commercial servers seem in my mind to satisfy these 3 criteria-
1. An agreement
2. which unreasonably restrains competition
3. and which affects interstate commerce
(Score: 1) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:19AM
s/in Google/in Utah/
(Score: 1, Informative) by hankwang on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:22AM
Hey dmc, there is the blockquote quasi-html tag! Quotation marks on a line by themselves look weird to me.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 0, Redundant) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:34AM
hmmm ok I'll
test a
and now I even see the nice documentation below which perhaps could have educated me as to the somewhat more inconveniently long tag.
Thanks.
(Score: 1) by evilviper on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:56AM
When I'm mobile, I use regular quotes, too. Typing </blockquote> on a smart phone using Swype, into a large text box that doesn't nearly fit on the tiny screen, is a particularly tedious and painful exercise.
If there were JS buttons above/below the text input box that inserted those tags, they'd save obscene amounts of time.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:53AM
I'm not aware of what they said or didn't say, enough that their ToS says: no servers for commercial purposes but Ok for any personal ones.
Except... isn't this an example/instance of an obstacle for individual entrepreneurship?
Put together with others of the same, wouldn't be an explanation for the middle class crisis [google.com] in America?
How one can expect the Americans to be self reliant if everybody tells them: yep, do everything you want for personal purposes, but if you want it for business, well... cough your money and two pints of blood with it... you are meant to be no more than consumer (or, in DICE's terms, an "audience". As captive as possible).
Now, think a bit: what's the purpose of those incubators and hackatlons and what not? Why can't those activities take place at home, especially if one is unemployed and have 1Gbps link? Why should they be able to start something on their own, grow it from their server at home and move it somewhere else only if it worths it? 1Gbps is absolutely plenty for a startup, it may be absolutely more than enough for no matter how long even for a small eshop that sells 1000 penny blossoms/day (if you get my drift).
Tell ye, let 5-10 years to pass and the thought of starting soylentnews will be so strange for the mind of newer generation, they'll never be able to think it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02AM
To make this comparison fair, don't many other ISPs offer similar terms?
The minor difference here being that Google doesn't offer a business class service that would replace that, but perhaps those plans are in the future. Not that these sorts of terms worrisome anyways...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:15AM
"
To make this comparison fair, don't many other ISPs offer similar terms?
"
This is true, and Google used it in their compelled by the FCC defense of my Network Neutrality complaint against them. Unfortunately I've found the FCC to be impossible to pin down to an enforceable opinion when it comes to NN.
The core of my view that this falls under NN is the following from paragraph 13 of FCC-10-201/NN
(bold emphasis mine, note it does not say "anyone with a 'business class' connection, it says just _anyone_'. And no weasel words about 'via a third party like a cloud hosting provider')
"
Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet's openness enables *anyone* connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy through e-commerce(17)
"
(Score: 1) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22AM
Well... good luck with that.
(I like your positive attitude... no, seriously, I like it.
I'm a bit more pessimistic: without pressure, Google won't change anything... it's not in their business interest to do it. Yes, grabbing good slice of market because they afford to invest does make good business sense. However, allowing more liberty to that market slice... nope, is doesn't make sense)
Here, downunder, all ISP-es that I used until now allow you to do anything that is legal with your connection (this includes running your server). Yes, I might pay a bit more (like I'm paying now for a dedicated IP address), but I'm still a home user and can run my own Web and stmp server.
My (limited) experience with Europe shows the same in this regard.
Why wouldn't US market want the same... it's not like being impossible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:55AM
Idiotic typo on my part... I meant to say, "Not that these terms AREN'T worrisome" and definitely agree, they won't change their position until made to do so. These terms are likely a CYA so they can, in the future, choose to shut you down for something that they don't like. And then they may perhaps even steal your idea. Very worrisome indeed.
The fact is, many of those internet startups (Google itself included, perhaps) were probably borne from a home server in someone's basement. When people talk about how Net Neutrality will preserve the innovation of the internet, they fail to point out how it applies to clauses like these as well. Sure, you can get a VPS on the cheap somewhere, but there's just something cool about having your own hardware, being able to upgrade it and tailor it to your needs in a way that a virtual machine somewhere thousands of miles away never could.... This of course, the buearocrats will never understand or care about. Sad.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:19AM
"
The fact is, many of those internet startups (Google itself included, perhaps) were probably borne from a home server in someone's basement. When people talk about how Net Neutrality will preserve the innovation of the internet, they fail to point out how it applies to clauses like these as well. Sure, you can get a VPS on the cheap somewhere, but there's just something cool about having your own hardware, being able to upgrade it and tailor it to your needs in a way that a virtual machine somewhere thousands of miles away never could.... This of course, the buearocrats will never understand or care about. Sad.
"
You may find this post from an AC on slashdot interesting-1 288357 [slashdot.org] (quoted entirely here-)
"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3106555&cid=4
Re:EVIL: No Server Hosting Allowed (Score:5, Interesting)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10, 2012 @10:46AM (#41288357)
Posting anonymously for reasons that will be obvious.
Larry Page is really annoyed by the "no servers" clause. In an internal weekly all-hands meeting he repeatedly needled Patrick Pichette about the limitation, and pointedly reminded him that the only reason Google was able to get off the ground was because Page and Brin could use Stanford's high-speed Internet connection for free. Page wants to see great garage startups being enabled by cheap access to truly high-speed Internet. Pichette defended it saying they had no intention of trying to enforce it in general, but that it had to be there in case of serious abuse, like someone setting up a large-scale data center.
I don't think anyone really has to worry about running servers on their residential Google Fiber, as long as they're not doing anything crazy. Then again it's always possible that Page will change his mind or that the lawyers will take over the company, and the ToS is what it is. If I had Google Fiber I'd run my home server just as I do on my Comcast connection, but I'd also be prepared to look for other options if my provider complained.
"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:43AM
...the news that Google was bringing fiber to my city (which they are) would have gotten me pretty excited.
But Google has since turned evil in so many ways, and I wouldn't even think to trust them with any data of any consequence -- let alone my entire bitstream.
I also would have been excited that, perhaps, this would have meant that their competitors would feel compelled to offer fiber as well. Maybe that'll happen, but somehow I'm not all that optimistic any more.
<sigh />
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by chebucto on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:46AM
Indeed. And the problem isn't limited to the question of privacy, there's the issue of net neutrality as well.
Privacy has been eroding for years; just by the nature of its business, Google knows far too much about nearly all web users. Letting Google become your ISP as well means turning over more data. And since Google's business model depends on building advertising profiles, they have even more incentive than your ISP to parse your personal data in ways which are open to abuse.
Then there is the question of net neutrality; it strains credulity to believe that Google would act like a common carrier, given the huge conflict of interest that arises from its investment in web apps (mail, office) and tv (youtube). If the Google ISP is given fast connections to their data centers, then they don't even need to give their services preferential treatment by QOS; their services will just be faster by virtue of how the network is setup.
(Score: 2, Informative) by regift_of_the_gods on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02AM
I'd write that check for $300 today.
(Score: 1) by bryan on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:47AM
My neighborhood was one of the first to get AT&T U-verse (was SBC then, as San Antonio was the previous headquarters)
My bill is currently $58.79/month for Internet only. A little over $10 more for gigabit? Sign me up.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:31AM
This is nothing but pandering and astroturfing for Google. This is disgusting.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:13AM
Pandering? ..?
How about: A good opportunity to discuss google's plans to knee existing isps in the fork
How is it astroturfing?
More? Was there a first definitive Soyvertisement?
So far as I can see this is News
(Score: 1) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:56AM
(I mean, isn't it obvious from a site that doesn't run advertisments?
Or... do you have a bit of nostalgia and decided to mime feeding the trolls, just for the sake of experiencing the feeling of the good old days?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:28PM
oh come on, is it really real unless you get into an argument with a troll :-)
Until this popped up I was concerned that we may have lost the culture, the true essence that was the slashdot of old, good and bad.
Now, shush, let the troll rant :P
(Score: 1) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:52AM
Until there isn't a sprinkle of good (very bad.. that is) trolls in the mixture, the dish doesn't have quite the same taste like the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Winterbottom on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:32AM
Personally, I'm still waiting for Google TiSP. I'm disappointed that Google have not followed through with this movement, I firmly believe that such a project would not go to waste.
(Score: 4, Informative) by internetguy on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:41AM
In Kansas City Google decided to install the fiber downtown and mid-town. Most of the population lives in the suburbs and does not have fiber. To say Kansas City has fiber is a bit of a stretch. It bothers me when Google says it's moving on to other cities when they didn't even finish KC. Just look at the Google map and see for yourself: https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/ [google.com]
Sig: I must be new here.
(Score: 3, Funny) by crutchy on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:52AM
"Google has officially invited 34 cities in nine metro areas to become the next batch of the Google acquisitions."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:34AM
All this really does is make it more expensive to bribe^H^H^H^H^H donate to your local representative. Between Google, Comcast, AT&T, etc, can you raise enough money for "your" govt. to listen to you?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:44AM
Fixed that for you. Ewww google. (stock ticker symbol: nsa)