urbanSTL

We didn't make the next round of considerations.

https://fiber.google.com/newcities/

I saw that. It's bullish-it. They could work with the Loop Media Hub on something for us.

Saying "34 cities in 9 metro areas" is rather misleading. It's 9 cities. Maybe 34 different townships, communities, and suburbs, but 9 cities.

I really can't get excited about Google fiber network for a couple of reasons.

1) I would like to see where Verizon fiber network & ATT U-verse compares on the above map. My bet is that Google is avoiding those two networks head to head. Why, because Google is going far beyond what most users need or what they will pay on. At end of day, Google can't subsidized huge bandwidths for everybody.

2) I really think St Louis and the state for that matter to get behind the serviced proposed to go with Loop Trolley construction and follow up with expanding that service with a Central Corridor streetcar line. In other words, St. Louis doesn't need Google to establish some very well placed fiber networks.

dredger wrote:I really can't get excited about Google fiber network for a couple of reasons.

1) I would like to see where Verizon fiber network & ATT U-verse compares on the above map. My bet is that Google is avoiding those two networks head to head. Why, because Google is going far beyond what most users need or what they will pay on. At end of day, Google can't subsidized huge bandwidths for everybody.

2) I really think St Louis and the state for that matter to get behind the serviced proposed to go with Loop Trolley construction and follow up with expanding that service with a Central Corridor streetcar line. In other words, St. Louis doesn't need Google to establish some very well placed fiber networks.

There is no Verizon fiber infrastructure here. AT&T does, but their service is woefully inadequate. Speaking as an IT guy, Google Fiber would be big in St. Louis.

That is my point, I'm not an IT guy like most customers and would have no problem with U-Verse or Verizon if the price point is cheaper. At the same time, still trying understanding what seems to be a slow roll out of U-verse

At same time, I can see a fiber network along Loop corridor as bid and some how see Wash U expanding it to their campus on one end and the medical center/Cortex on the other end. At same time, plan for a similiar fiber network along the central corridor route and now you tie in Downtown/SLU/Grand Center/Midtown & CWE/Cortex. To me that would be huge. However, if you wait on Google to come to town the region might miss out on a great opportunity to add some tremendous infrastructure.

There is a lot of fiber downtown and will not prohibit technology company expansion. Google Fiber in KC is not even offered to businesses and is only available to residence so it is not an inhibitor to business success in St. Louis.

tech840 wrote:There is a lot of fiber downtown and will not prohibit technology company expansion. Google Fiber in KC is not even offered to businesses and is only available to residence so it is not an inhibitor to business success in St. Louis.

Businesses can get real, symmetric bandwidth. I brought in extremely fast WAN from a distribution center off of Tucker via satellite to a friend's business on Locust. But as an individual, speeds aren't the best. In our loft, we don't even have Charter. 24 Mb/s is the fastest we can get via U-Verse.

innov8ion wrote:

dredger wrote:I really can't get excited about Google fiber network for a couple of reasons.

1) I would like to see where Verizon fiber network & ATT U-verse compares on the above map. My bet is that Google is avoiding those two networks head to head. Why, because Google is going far beyond what most users need or what they will pay on. At end of day, Google can't subsidized huge bandwidths for everybody.

2) I really think St Louis and the state for that matter to get behind the serviced proposed to go with Loop Trolley construction and follow up with expanding that service with a Central Corridor streetcar line. In other words, St. Louis doesn't need Google to establish some very well placed fiber networks.

There is no Verizon fiber infrastructure here. AT&T does, but their service is woefully inadequate. Speaking as an IT guy, Google Fiber would be big in St. Louis.

I assumed it was because of competition with Charter. They have been bumping up their speeds quite a bit. 30 mbps for $40 a month isn't bad at all. Higher speeds are available too I think. I figure they are going after cities that are under served.

I have Charter. Last night I downloaded a ~1.5GB episode of walking dead in less than 10 minutes and I don't even have the fastest speed. Is not having fiber really inhibiting IT growth?

moorlander wrote:I have Charter. Last night I downloaded a ~1.5GB episode of walking dead in less than 10 minutes and I don't even have the fastest speed. Is not having fiber really inhibiting IT growth?

Businesses with typical demands buy business class, not consumer which have different service levels and costs. Normally, line speeds are symmetric which means that download and upload speeds are equal. I believe both Charter and AT&T offer this but the speeds are not good. Businesses typically go elsewhere.

I don't even know if Google Fiber is geared toward business. Anyway, you're wrong about Google Fiber. It offers gigabit speeds which are orders of magnitude higher than either Charter or AT&T at competitive prices. They even offer free internet which is pretty awesome. Ref: https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/

I don't see what I'm wrong about. I asked a question.
Is 100mbps Charter speed so slow that it is inhibiting IT growth here? I guess what I'm asking is In how many businesses is gigabit service really necessary?

moorlander wrote:I don't see what I'm wrong about. I asked a question.
Is 100mbps Charter speed so slow that it is inhibiting IT growth here? I guess what I'm asking is In how many businesses is gigabit service really necessary?

As stated earlier, businesses that need any kind of uptime/service guarantee don't utilize consumer internet services. They use business-class.

And yes, businesses with distributed locations, many personnel, and/or those that host services locally likely need much higher speeds that require fiber or fiber speeds delivered via antenna in short distances. The latter is because fiber may be present, but not yet delivered to the building and it can be expensive to connect.

Anyway, these businesses meet their needs outside of Charter or AT&T. There are a variety of local companies you likely haven't heard of that that fill the void.

The whole point is that Google Fiber kicks the sh*t out of local consumer internet with gigabit speeds at comparable prices. Not to mention they offer free internet which is a strong positive for persons that are struggling economically.

To take this even further, if gigabit speeds were to appreciably penetrate the market, this enables startups and other businesses to create value-added services that are yet to be tapped. This would help grow the economy.

So yeah, competition is better for the market and the economy.

I do this for a living, so take it for what it's worth.

^^^Thank you for your answer, nice to see someone that knows responding. IT here as well, I also read someone a bit ago mention WashU to use some of the fiber. WashU is large enough that it already has its own private fiber access, as well as its own data centers with fiber directly to the campus as well as between campuses.

^ Thanks. It's on a smaller scale, but a local group is working with the Streetcar initiative to bring Google Fiber speeds to adjoining neighborhoods: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/02/19/ ... structure/

I presume that Google is finding their experiment to be a success, so it seems likely that they will get to us sooner or later. It'd probably be beneficial if Better Together or our county and city municipalities interact with Google to help spur it along.

Eventually Google will be all over the country.. Lets hope St.Louis isn't the last city to get expanded too..

^ I believe the company that would be a huge win and give CORTEX a big time national presence is Calico. I think a few posters have brought up the name. Not sure how much of a chance considering that they landed a big time professor/researcher from the Bay Area not to long ago. Can't recall name but remember reading about it in the San Fran biz journals. Once again, you get the executive syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)

I understand St Louis has a vibrant start up scene but its tough when it comes to jobs and filling commercial square footage. The jobs and the office square footage are where the big boys from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and so on decide to set up shops. I'm still at the believe that CORTEX really needs to land a large tech company or a big PHARMA from outside the region to take it to the next level.

"Google is looking for a city that is receptive and collaborative and will remove any and all barriers," said Sandel, president of Sandel & Associates, a gigabit consulting firm. "St. Louis hasn't been known as a region that does that."

http://m.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/b ... 020&r=full