Google Fiber fails to hit subscriber goal, will reportedly cut staff

Google Fiber is reportedly well short of goal to get 5 million subscribers.

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[Deleted member 192806]

Alphabet CEO ordered Google Fiber to downsize, report claims
Google Fiber is reportedly well short of goal to get 5 million subscribers.

Wow! But I thought everyone wanted faster broadband?

 

[Janeazy]

Atlanta just got google fiber, for some reason everything I know who wants it still can't get access for one reason or another. I'm living in a condo that has a long term contract with Hotwire (which is horrible), so I won't enjoy Google Fiber until 2018. Hope they stick around for that long

 

[nehinks]

Is this just an install base issue? Because I've been lucky enough to actually have cable with decent actually-what-they-claim speeds and service (Cox), and I'd still drop them in a flat second if Google Fiber showed up in my neighborhood.

 

[addicuss]

How are people not bailing from cable in droves.... I would dump comcast for anything remotely close to the same speed.

 

[BrerBear]

Missing from this writeup is theorizing about the reasons.

Is it just too much bandwidth for non-geek people to justify the cost?
Is it too expensive compared to lower speeds?
Did existing competition meet their pricing?

This is what I'm most curious about. Those numbers are dismal.

 

[johnwillo]

We NEED Google fiber here. Not just for itself (I'd sign up in a nanosecond), but for competition for our complacent, monopolistic local ISP.

 

[Abhi Beckert]

Doesn't make any sense – if you're over-staffed, why not use your staff to expand to other cities more quickly?

 

[TheMerricat]

addicuss[/url]":3d6urww2]How are people not bailing from cable in droves.... I would dump comcast for anything remotely close to the same speed.

Did you not read the article a month or so back about how much effort the incumbent telco's are putting in on preventing Google the necessary access to even install?

It's hard to jump ship when there isn't even any driftwood floating by to cling to.

 

[Dorkus-Malorkus]

The problem with google fiber in Austin is that they announced it in 2013 and I signed up to be notified when it became available, and that has never happened. There are still only a few small areas of town that have fiber actually available and they've been pushing back dates for availability for the rest of the city over and over again.

It's all lies.

 

[Deleted member 330960]

Long may it continue!! Project Fi in 2017?

https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrep ... fad7dc2dc2

 

[Marlor_AU]

Abhi Beckert[/url]":efgmzm3l]Doesn't make any sense – if you're over-staffed, why not use your staff to expand to other cities more quickly?

Getting cable in the ground (and then into buildings) is harder than it seems - there are all sorts of hurdles in order to get permission to do it. It's not a problem you can solve with sheer manpower.

 

[Balanza]

The GF problem as I see it is lack of existing pole rights compared to their competitors and lack of existing community relationships for permits compared to their competitors.

Example - CenturyLink has aerial cable in alleyways throughout Denver proper and throughout the surrounding suburbs. Massive amounts of copper cable strung up on strand. I worked for a contractor who engineered and build new fiber which simply spun up to the existing copper facilities. Nothing else was required. No new permits. No new anchors or guys or poles or anything.

GF needs to CREATE ROOM on poles before they can put their fiber up. Massive headache. As for buried that is closer to an even playing field. But the legacy companies have relationships in place to provide permits and whatever is needed to get the job done. GF doesn't.

 

[TheMerricat]

Abhi Beckert[/url]":3v1sq7ro]Doesn't make any sense – if you're over-staffed, why not use your staff to expand to other cities more quickly?

Because of things like this: "The Mythical Man-Month.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many bodies you have to throw at a problem, you still won't get it fixed any sooner if the 'solution' isn't one influenced by extra hands.

 

[vcsjones]

I wonder when or if Google will sell this to someone else, like Frontier.

 

[strohminator]

Turns out being an ISP is harder than Google thought.

 

[bthylafh]

Someone needs to put some Ritalin into Mountain View's water supply to help Google focus.

 

[athlon11]

If this affects the rollout in Raleigh, NC I will cut someone.

 

[thekaj]

nehinks[/url]":360u76k3]Is this just an install base issue? Because I've been lucky enough to actually have cable with decent actually-what-they-claim speeds and service (Cox), and I'd still drop them in a flat second if Google Fiber showed up in my neighborhood.

Yeah, I'd be interested if they just greatly overestimated big their service area would be in 5 years, or if it really is a matter of them building it, but not enough people signing up. That they're drastically cutting staff makes me think it might be more of the latter. If they weren't hitting their sales targets, but it's because they're not rolling out as fast as they thought, cutting staff that much would seem to be counterproductive.

 

[Deputy Cartman]

Can't say I'm surprised to hear that they're not reaching their goals, sadly. Deploying fiber is absurdly time-consuming and expensive and, if what I've read about Verizon FIOS here in New York City is accurate, to add to the joy of laying fiber, you then have to coordinate with each building to actually run it into said building, which is about as much fun as hammering nails into walls with your face. Then you get into the morass of how laws vary from state to state and most telcos will do everything in their power to stop you instead of offering better service and/or cheaper prices. It's impressive they've deployed it to the extent that they have.

 

[Deleted member 399863]

The utility industry is definitely an "old", "capital intense" business, and there isn't really an easy way to "disrupt" billions of miles of buried cable infrastructure. To get customers Google Fiber needs lots of fiber laid going to lots of residences, and there is simply no way to do that quickly or cheaply.

The established telcos have certainly fought Google tooth and nail, and even the complex union contracts governing some of these telcos even play a part in that (for example it may seem silly for AT&T not to let Google Fiber installers "slightly move" AT&T's facilities, but AT&T might have a union contract that forbids them allowing any non-union worker to touch their facility.)

What I've seen, is a lot of cities that are now "Google Fiber cities" really aren't, instead Google has a small roll out, focused on high density condominium buildings. There's just no easy way to get millions of subscribers if you aren't running fiber to millions of homes. Atlanta or Austin have hundreds of thousands of people in them but a lot of them don't live in downtown multi-unit buildings where it's easy to establish new fiber hook ups.

AT&T and Comcast largely have an advantage here--they've already made massive investments. AT&T already has "fiber to the node" (fiber to VRADs--these are metal telco boxes you'll find on concrete pads, telephone poles etc around the country) in many areas, and thus its new Gigapower product only involves running fiber from a VRAD to an individual residence, that's a lot easier than having to lay a whole new fiber infrastructure. Note that even with that being the case, AT&T's roll out of Gigapower certainly isn't aggressive. Verizon got aggressive and bet big on FiOS and fiber to the home in the 2000s, and while they installed tons of fiber, the reality is the costs involved were making it not all that profitable and that's why Verizon has largely stopped new FiOS build out (although they did announce plans to expand in Boston, it appears this is more of a one-off.)

The way countries that have had significant ultra high speed broadband deployment have achieved it is by making the core infrastructure public property, so that any company that feels like it can start running fiber from core trunks off to residences, which is way cheaper than having to build out an entire network, in some cases even the fiber all the way to the home is considered public infrastructure similar to the roads.

With major telcos controlling the infrastructure as a monopoly, they just don't have the motivation to get too aggressive with speed upgrades. While they certainly have no problem selling something people want, the actual % of America's population who wants gigabit connections compared to their 15-25mbps they get from their cable company for $45/mo is fairly low.

 

[omf]

Dorkus-Malorkus[/url]":2gxorwkp]The problem with google fiber in Austin is that they announced it in 2013 and I signed up to be notified when it became available, and that has never happened. There are still only a few small areas of town that have fiber actually available and they've been pushing back dates for availability for the rest of the city over and over again.

I wonder if this isn't the primary problem: even though it's "available" in several cities, actually getting installation to a particular home/business may still be very difficult.

 

[vassago]

BrerBear[/url]":3neiwxgx]Missing from this writeup is theorizing about the reasons.

Is it just too much bandwidth for non-geek people to justify the cost?
Is it too expensive compared to lower speeds?
Did existing competition meet their pricing?

This is what I'm most curious about. Those numbers are dismal.

I would think it would have to do with the actual deployment. Sure, they are in seven cities/metro areas, but how many people in those cities can actually subscribe? Maybe I'm just a nerd but I have a hard time seeing a lack of adoption considering the price if it's available. $80/month (more than Google Fiber's $70/month) would get me 150Mbps from my ISP and is the second lowest plan offered and has a super sweet 400GB cap...

 

[stopTDV]

The roll out is taking longer than expected here in Atlanta. They were marking gas lines near the beginning of the year in my neighborhood but have yet to run any fiber along my street.

The great majority of my neighbors are ready to sign up as soon as it's available (and Comcast & AT&T are inundating us with offers requiring long term contracts).

This seems to be issue with the growing pains of dealing with municipalities and installing fiber than a problem with the service they are offering.

 

[Deleted member 399863]

TheMerricat[/url]":1gdwb123]

Abhi Beckert[/url]":1gdwb123]Doesn't make any sense – if you're over-staffed, why not use your staff to expand to other cities more quickly?

Because of things like this: "The Mythical Man-Month.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many bodies you have to throw at a problem, you still won't get it fixed any sooner if the 'solution' isn't one influenced by extra hands.

The mythical man-month doesn't apply here, building out physical infrastructure, in fact, is precisely a problem where more workers makes the project go faster. It's considered mythical in the software world because as you add new engineers, existing engineers need to spend time bringing the new on up to speed on the project (because software projects are rarely generic, and require significant training even for experienced engineers to come on board and be productive) this decreases the productivity of the extant engineering team, and thus means you really cannot just throw people into the middle of a project and expect to finish it faster.

But if I'm running cable, adding more experienced cable pullers will definitely make the work go faster.

 

[gmenfan]

It would be nice to know exactly how many subscribers they have access to. I wouldn't be surprised to see that number well short of 5 million. I would sign up with them in a heartbeat if they would roll out fiber in my area.

Not trying to be critical. It is disappointing that it is so difficult to lay fiber in our cities and neighborhoods. But if Google was targeting 5 million subscribers, surely they had plans to have access to at least double that number, correct?

 

[Chemical Tribe]

Meanwhile, I'm less than a mile from att's central office (I assume). I'm offered 3mbps dsl.

And in areas in the middle of nowhere MN, century link laid fiber to deliver 25mbps. Better than the 1.5 from before I guess???

Nobody wants to deliver. And the ones that want to, are stopped at every turn. That last part gets me though.

 

[AutisticGramma]

The incumbents tactics are working.

Some follow through will build us a network. This bs just smears their name.

 

[ddarko]

TheMerricat[/url]":2xuc940c]

addicuss[/url]":2xuc940c]How are people not bailing from cable in droves.... I would dump comcast for anything remotely close to the same speed.

Did you not read the article a month or so back about how much effort the incumbent telco's are putting in on preventing Google the necessary access to even install?

It's hard to jump ship when there isn't even any driftwood floating by to cling to.

For sure, the incumbents are fighting Google tooth and nail but that can't account for the low penetration even in cities where Google has won a franchise. Part of this is due to the way Google has chosen to build its network when it enters a city. It isn't going in and blanketing an entire geographic region but only wiring areas where a certain percentage of households express interest. That may keep capital construction cost down for Google but it's inevitably going to dampen uptake. Imagine if you walked into a T-Mobile store to sign up for service but was told sorry, you can leave your name, contact info and a $10 preregistration deposit but we won't sign you up until 5-25% of your neighbors also wanted to get T-Mobile. When is that going to be? We can't say but we'll email you when it happens! Some people are going to be willing to wait but the vast majority are going to walk out and walk over to the Verizon/AT&T/Sprint store.

Google wants its cake and eat it too but telecom is capital intensive business. If it wants to compete, it's going to have to bite the bullet and invest in the upfront build out cost. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Google has accepted that reality - all this talk about their interest in a 5G wireless solution that isn't even close to widespread commercial deployment indicates they'd rather search for a magic bullet to solve their problems rather than do the hard work of digging.

BTW, the same thing is happening to Verizon FIOS. They made real inroads against cable companies when they started laying fiber but when their CEO whose background was old school Bell Atlantic/NYNEX and who understood what being in the telecom biz entailed retired and was replaced by a wireless guy, they froze the network with its patchwork of availability and FIOS is stagnant and dying (the shock and surprise that greeted their recent decision to go into Boston is the exception that proves the rule). And you hear the same pie-in-the-sky talk out of Verizon - we don't need to expand FIOS because 5G will revolutionize everything (undoubtedly for $200 a month with data caps)!

 

[siliconaddict]

Ostracus[/url]":2vp2xfaw]

Alphabet CEO ordered Google Fiber to downsize, report claims
Google Fiber is reportedly well short of goal to get 5 million subscribers.

Wow! But I thought everyone wanted faster broadband?

We do. But when you are in what? A half dozen different location? You aren't going to get to those kind of numbers. You bring this to places like Minneapolis. You will get a million people overnight.

 

[lewax00]

TheMerricat[/url]":22udxjo2]

Abhi Beckert[/url]":22udxjo2]Doesn't make any sense – if you're over-staffed, why not use your staff to expand to other cities more quickly?

Because of things like this: "The Mythical Man-Month.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many bodies you have to throw at a problem, you still won't get it fixed any sooner if the 'solution' isn't one influenced by extra hands.

The mythical man-month doesn't apply here, building out physical infrastructure, in fact, is precisely a problem where more workers makes the project go faster. It's considered mythical in the software world because as you add new engineers, existing engineers need to spend time bringing the new on up to speed on the project (because software projects are rarely generic, and require significant training even for experienced engineers to come on board and be productive) this decreases the productivity of the extant engineering team, and thus means you really cannot just throw people into the middle of a project and expect to finish it faster.

But if I'm running cable, adding more experienced cable pullers will definitely make the work go faster.

It's also the case higher up: you can have some of your team manage city A, some of them focused on city B, etc. That should actually make things easier, since they only need to focus on the laws, regulations, and politics of a smaller area.

On the surface at least, this seems like an easily divisible problem, which in turn makes throwing more staff at it a feasible solution.

 

[jandrese]

I think Google underestimated just how much red tape and how many logistical issues they would face with deploying Google fiber. Every locality has its own set of rules and it only takes a couple of intransigent incumbents here and there to throw a monkeywrench into the whole operation. And this is before you even consider dirty tricks from entrenched competitors.

 

[lewax00]

Ostracus[/url]"u939cm1]

Alphabet CEO ordered Google Fiber to downsize, report claims
Google Fiber is reportedly well short of goal to get 5 million subscribers.

Wow! But I thought everyone wanted faster broadband?

We do. But when you are in what? A half dozen different location? You aren't going to get to those kind of numbers. You bring this to places like Minneapolis. You will get a million people overnight.

Bring it to my neighborhood and I'll subscribe so fast it will make physicists seriously question if the speed of light is truly the maximum.

 

[marinejld]

Here is what just happened in a meeting yesterday with Google, ATT, Comcast and Nashville Mayor Berry:

Meeting in Nashville regarding pole access

This is why we can't have nice things...ATT & Comcast are doing everything they can to keep Google Fiber from touching their current customers. Nashville has lots of Google Fiber pipe laid in the ground at the moment but no quick way to get it from the ground to the poles and to the customers.

edit: Sorry - I HIGHLY recommend Ghostery and ABP to view the Tennessean site - it sucks without it.

 

[Buxaroo]

It's very simple on why Google isn't doing good in the subscriber department: They need to stop ONLY deploying to higher income apartment complexes and focus on lower income as well as residential (i.e. duplexes/houses). Not to mention the ONLY advertising I see (to get the run of the mill cable sub who isn't a tech nerd like most of us you need to do extensive advertising to get their attention) is from press releases with local politicians.

This is stupid. I have been waiting with baited breath for Google to put lines up in my Atlanta-area neighborhood, but it never happens. Every single place they are hooking up at is in higher income apartments (I pay $700 a month for a duplex...the average rent on the apartments that I see Google hooking up at is $1200 and higher...), and one of my coworkers is in one of those complexes and has been waiting for 4 months since they said that they were wiring it up there.

But guess who didn't have a problem hooking up fiber to my shitty duplex? AT&T.

ps, this is coming from a big Google fanboy.

 

[bodhibelly]

Dorkus-Malorkus[/url]":v1jq79pg]The problem with google fiber in Austin is that they announced it in 2013 and I signed up to be notified when it became available, and that has never happened. There are still only a few small areas of town that have fiber actually available and they've been pushing back dates for availability for the rest of the city over and over again.

It's all lies.

I live in Austin and I'd drop AT&T U-Verse in a heartbeat if it was available in my neighborhood. Their rollout is painfully slow and just not available where I live. They cover a very small portion of the city and are painfully slow in expanding coverage. I'd even pay a connection fee if that would speed things up!

 

[fishbait]

Ostracus[/url]":3lrfjfwj]

Alphabet CEO ordered Google Fiber to downsize, report claims
Google Fiber is reportedly well short of goal to get 5 million subscribers.

Wow! But I thought everyone wanted faster broadband?

everyone does but not everyone understands its faster and on top of this its fighting an uphill battle against incumbents who desperately want to avoid real competition. fortunately though the practice of denial is bringing to light the monopolistic natures of regional cable companies and prompting a response.


this is the beginning of the wake-up call heres hoping to a vastly better future 10 years from now

 

[MisterAlex]

Downsize Fiber? Oh, no you don't! Dallas is still just a gray dot on that map...

I've got relatively excellent service with TWC where I'm at now (consistently 235 Mbps down and 25 up, paying for 200/20), and there have only been two times I've had to call about billing shenanigans... but if Fiber showed up in my neighborhood, you can bet your last cent that I'd switch.

"It's believed that the company's TV subscriber sign-up totals have been even worse..."

Shoot, I'll sign up for it. I don't watch TV at all, but I'm sure my roommates would utilize the service.

 

[sugarbooger]

TheMerricat[/url]":19ga8zy2]

addicuss[/url]":19ga8zy2]How are people not bailing from cable in droves.... I would dump comcast for anything remotely close to the same speed.

Did you not read the article a month or so back about how much effort the incumbent telco's are putting in on preventing Google the necessary access to even install?

It's hard to jump ship when there isn't even any driftwood floating by to cling to.

I think addicus means "in the areas where Google Fiber has launched."

 

[Zak]

BrerBear[/url]":5yqrd00j]Missing from this writeup is theorizing about the reasons.

Is it just too much bandwidth for non-geek people to justify the cost?
Is it too expensive compared to lower speeds?
Did existing competition meet their pricing?

This is what I'm most curious about. Those numbers are dismal.

It's offered outside of large metro areas too.