Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless

Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by shmerl on Thursday February 07, 2019 @07:42PM (#19110200)

And most ISPs were sitting doing nothing, until Google Fiber introduced gigabit to the masses. Major execs said on record that "no one needs Gigabit", only to deploy it not long after, because they got scared of GF.

Too bad GF sizzled out, but it had a good positive effect to disrupt slumbering monopolists.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by rayiner on Thursday February 07, 2019 @08:12PM (#19110416)

That’s a complete fever dream. FiOS and U-verse fiber launched in 2005 and 2006. In 2002 Comcast’s top speed tier was 3 mbps. In 2009, it was 20, a 7x increase in 7 years. Google Fiber launched in 2010. From 2009 to 2016, Comcast went from 20 to 150, about the same factor of increase as before Google Fiber. Verizon and Comcast announced gigabit upgrades ... after Google Fiber stopped expansion in 2016.

Yeah, Verizon jumped to gigabit to match Google’s marketing. It was a non-event. (After about 100 mbps the shittiness of the modern web stack makes further upgrades pointless unless you’re a huge downloader. I’ve got gigabit FiOS load-balanced with 2-gigabit Comcast fiber at my house. I literally cannot tell the difference from the 150 mbps FiOS I had before, except in speed tests.)

Google Fiber really has nothing to do with these increases. That’s total make believe. There is an upgrade treadmill for DOCSIS that the industry follows, just like for CPU fabrication. And like improvements in fabrication technology, staying on the treadmill requires massive continual investment (faster versions of DOCSIS only work if you keep building fiber closer to the house and decreasing the amount of coax and the degree of fan-out). ISPs were spending that money before Google Fiber, and continue to spend that money now Google Fiber is on life support.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by shmerl on Thursday February 07, 2019 @08:35PM (#19110578)

> That’s total make believe.

You sound like McAdam. First, he conceitedly claimed that no one needs or will need gigabit so customers can get lost expecting it. And then he "magically" changed his tune. Which is totally the indirect effect of Google Fiber, which affected Comcast and AT&T which affected Verizon. McAdam had to swallow his conceit, shut up and deploy gigabit.

All this "no one needs" bunk falls apart very quickly even at the slightest sight of looming competition. Imagine what could have been if there was real one around.

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