EU takes a dump on others. Net neutrality is law: no roaming charges

[archibaldcrane]

How does one find out if there is dark fiber installed near one's home? I live a mile from downtown Los Angeles, tons of population density, but Verizon FiOS is only available on the westside.

[archibaldcrane]

A friend of mine does a lot of work getting internet to rural communities (the Dakotas and the like) using frequencies freed up by the switch to digital tv broadcasting. I wonder how well versed she is in dark fiber.

[Rhinox]

Dark fiber

[hey]

I'm a noob with this, but I remember hearing back in the day with cable and DSL it used to go slower if lots of people in your area had it/used it a lot. Was that even true? Do other people not effect you now?

To go in more detail than gredival did, yes, it can, due to overselling. Basically, their network can only handle so much data at once. The reason usage caps are bullshit is that they can handle that much data non stop 24/7 forever, no problem. There's essentially no difference in cost whether 10 gb are transferred per second, or nothing at all.

The problem comes up when it's oversold. For example, if they have a neighborhood of 100 houses setup with a total capacity of 1 gbps, they might sell 30 mbps to each of them. If they all tried to max out their connection at once, they'd be using 3 gbps. Obviously the network can't handle that, so everyone's connection slows down. They do this because obviously not everyone will be maxing out their connection at the same time. Some terrible companies don't bother making sure they can handle peak loads though, and it does slow down when too many people in an area are using too much bandwidth at once.

Actually, on this note, i wonder why no isp offers options to get huge amounts of bandwidth for cheap only at night, when there's fewer people using it.

[archibaldcrane]

Late at night maybe, but residential internet use is highest from like 6-midnight I believe. Streaming video is a hell of a drug.

[hey]

Yeah, that's what i mean. I'd pay extra for faster 3 am downloading.

[Meresgi]

That was both interesting and informative.

I had never even heard of this dark fiber thing. So, how exactly does one go about leasing/buying dark fiber..?

Well shit, just looked this up and they lease it here where I live.

http://www.howardcountymd.gov/displa...?id=6442470150

[Gredival]

How does one find out if there is dark fiber installed near one's home? I live a mile from downtown Los Angeles, tons of population density, but Verizon FiOS is only available on the westside.

All depends on who owns the fiber in the area. As I mentioned some states and local governments/municipalities subsidized the installation of fiber or did it themselves. I know at least one flyover state spent millions connecting the entire state's footprint to fiber, but leases it pennies on the dollar to an ISP who runs it as a monopoly (I don't recall the exact policy reason why the state doesn't just run its own network through those lines)

To go in more detail than gredival did, yes, it can, due to overselling. Basically, their network can only handle so much data at once. The reason usage caps are bullshit is that they can handle that much data non stop 24/7 forever, no problem. There's essentially no difference in cost whether 10 gb are transferred per second, or nothing at all.

The problem comes up when it's oversold. For example, if they have a neighborhood of 100 houses setup with a total capacity of 1 gbps, they might sell 30 mbps to each of them. If they all tried to max out their connection at once, they'd be using 3 gbps. Obviously the network can't handle that, so everyone's connection slows down. They do this because obviously not everyone will be maxing out their connection at the same time. Some terrible companies don't bother making sure they can handle peak loads though, and it does slow down when too many people in an area are using too much bandwidth at once.

Yeah this is the precise process I meant by bottlenecking. The fiber cables can handle the data just fine, but the network can't process what's coming through the glass. So it's not really that bandwidth is a finite resource where that it costs them more to provide users with more speed, it's that they are assigning you speed caps as a prediction of how much of their network they can allocate to you at any one time. In some cases this will be scaled down because too many people are on the network. In most cases though, their network could probably give you 10x the speed without it being an issue.

Like take Google Fiber with it's gigabit speed promise. That's not cause Google has access to some magical glass they put in their fiber cables. It's because their network equipment is high quality.

[Pirian]

Because it is relevant:

http://bgr.com/2014/02/13/google-fiber-speed-increase/

Google looking to boost Google Fiber speeds up to ridiculous 10Gbps

Even as Time Warner Cable keeps arguing that people really don’t want super-fast Internet, Google is plowing ahead with plans to make its Google Fiber network even more of a beast. USA Today reports that Google CFO Patrick Pichette told the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference this week that Google is working on technology that will boost Fiber speeds up to 10Gbps, or around 10 times what they already deliver. In what reads like a veiled barb against other American ISPs, Pichette pointedly said that there was no reason to wait when it comes to deploying the fastest Internet technology available.

“That’s where the world is going, it’s going to happen,” Pichette told the Goldman conference. “Why wouldn’t we make it available in three years? That’s what we’re working on. There’s no need to wait.”

Google Fiber is already by far the fastest broadband service in the United States although its reach is limited because Google is only offering it in three marks so far: Kansas City, Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah. Pichette unfortunately didn’t give any specifics on whether Google Fiber would be expanding to more markets in the near future and only told everyone to “stay tuned” about expansion announcements.

Google is boosting their current limit from 1gbps to 10gbps, among other reasons, as a big FUCK YOU to other ISP's.

[Cliron]

Because it is relevant:

http://bgr.com/2014/02/13/google-fiber-speed-increase/




Google is boosting their current limit from 1gbps to 10gbps, among other reasons, as a big FUCK YOU to other ISP's.

While I applaud Google for their striving ways...I cant help but feel that as they don't have limitless resources that their efforts would and should be better placed on expanding their current 1gb service to more of the US/the world.

Sincere question: what is stopping google from opening up their internet in more cities? The fact that it isn't available in San Fran; Washington; New York boggles my mind.

[Gredival]

Sincere question: what is stopping google from opening up their internet in more cities? The fact that it isn't available in San Fran; Washington; New York boggles my mind.

I've actually talked to some of the team running Google Fiber. The feeling I get is that Google isn't really investing in Google Fiber with the intent to overtake Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. to become the gracious overlord ruler ISP (that we all want them to be) - at least right not right away. It's more about Google thinking "We should have X" and seeing that it doesn't exist yet, then doing it themselves. Gradually they might expand nationwide, but I think they are also interested in just changing the industry standard.

I mean there are very good reasons why the pilot site was Kansas, not NYC

[notorious bum]

I look at it like a lesser form of corporate charity, great PR and looks good on the resume. They could definitely do much more, but they don't need to.

[Pirian]

While I applaud Google for their striving ways...I cant help but feel that as they don't have limitless resources that their efforts would and should be better placed on expanding their current 1gb service to more of the US/the world.

They aren't really upgrading their networks. From what I understand, the 1gbps that they offered before was perfectly capable of producing the 10gbps that they are now offering. As others have pointed out in explaining, they simply limited it to what they thought people would use. Now that they've been up and running for a long while, they are upgrading what they offer because there is no reason their equipment can't handle it. In other words, they're doing what current ISP's do, except with much faster speeds because they didn't skimp on the equipment, and now that they see that they can offer more, they are.

[Serra]

While I applaud Google for their striving ways...I cant help but feel that as they don't have limitless resources that their efforts would and should be better placed on expanding their current 1gb service to more of the US/the world.

Sincere question: what is stopping google from opening up their internet in more cities? The fact that it isn't available in San Fran; Washington; New York boggles my mind.

Exactly what you said, they don't have limitless resources. I see KC as the test bed, Austin as the test whether they can expand it to a larger city, and Utah as.. I have no idea why they're building it in Utah actually..

[Pirian]

They saw Book of Mormon and said "we really should bring the internet to these people"

[Byrthnoth]

Yeah, just tempting the Mormons with instant porn.

[kuronosan]

Exactly what you said, they don't have limitless resources. I see KC as the test bed, Austin as the test whether they can expand it to a larger city, and Utah as.. I have no idea why they're building it in Utah actually..

They brought it here because internet sucks horribly in the midwest and because Kansas in general is large fields full of dial-up internet. Broadband is only available in the major cities.

What better way to expand than outward from the center of the country?

[chazzyphizzle]

yeah i pay 70 bucks a month for 20 down and 1.5 up in IN, it's pretty awesome

[hey]

They brought it here because internet sucks horribly in the midwest and because Kansas in general is large fields full of dial-up internet. Broadband is only available in the major cities.

What better way to expand than outward from the center of the country?

I would imagine the best way would be to start where almost everyone in the country lives (the coasts), rather than where no one lives.

I'm not really sure what the point of 10 gbps would be. How much does a 10 gbps router even cost? Or network cards? Do they even make consumer level hardware that supports > 1 gbps?

[kuronosan]

Having it available is a must in Kansas, considering schools and businesses of course. It's not really for residents at those speeds.