I think it’s a real shame that people (especially those in local governments) don’t see Google’s ploy for what it is and that people aren’t speaking out to take a more rational approach to the Google Gigabit Fiber announcement. It’s a marketing campaign, typically people / companies have to pay for a marketing campaign but not Google because of their marketing brilliance! I can’t believe how “excited” people are at the opportunity for “Gigabit fiber” to their houses. Would any other business making promises they may or may not fulfill get in trouble for this type of hype? Can we please look at this Google hype logically and sensibly?
1 – Google’s doing what a Walmart might do at the checkout when they’re looking to place a new store: “Can I have your zip code”. This is an attempt at Google to see where they can get the most bang for the buck, where the MOST customers might be. The old model was to build it and they will come. I suppose Google is smart about this approach, I bet one of their PHD’s came up with the idea!
2 – Customers, Google is not doing a service to the community, make no mistake about it. They’re looking to jump into the Cable TV business, the phone business (in part they already have), and anything else they can serve over Internet Protocol. You know, to take advantage of ANY connectivity you need a device, do poor and under served people have the devices to access digital data Google provides? I would suggest they don’t and they’ll always lag behind so no matter what Google says unless they have Section 8 computers and cell phones it won’t really help that class of population!
3 – Google would love to have their own network, that way they don’t have to be beholden to their competitors beefs, currently Google relies on external networks which are fastly becoming DIRECT COMPETITORS, ATT, NBC, ABC, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Charter, etc, etc, etc (some are direct already!). It’s only in Google’s best interest, NOT the community, for Google to get a fast and furious foot hold – to gain and take market share away from entrenched vendors. Is this bad? Probably not, competition is good but I think we need to know the real reasons for Googles Gigabit Hype, it’s mostly good for them not you even though you might see benefit in the end!
4 – Google’s marketing campaign, isn’t it a shame how we act like sheep? All Google has to do is drop an idea and right away millions of us are ready to fill out a survey and submit applications but for what? So you can get fast Internet to your house? So you can get viruses, spyware, filter through junk email and waste even more time updating your Google Buzz status? So you can download Avatar in 5 minutes instead of 55 minutes? How will this actually help anyone? It seems like more hype the more I think about it.
5 – Economic impact, I wonder how much real economic impact this will make on a community? Certainly you should already be seeing shifts in your local community because of companies like NetFlix. I bet there’s a local video store that’s recently closed in your local neighborhood because of slumping sales thanks to NetFlix or Block Buster online! It’s not that Google would be creating jobs, they’d merely be shifting them or they might in fact be importing them because the local community doesn’t have the skill or talent to support Google’s technology. I’m sure there are many communities who’ve experienced that, their talent pool isn’t Google qualified!
6 – Why would you want to be part of an experimental network? I can imagine anything that’s experimental would be buggy, it’s EXPERIMENTAL. They’ll be using you as the guinea pig or a lab rat. I wonder if users who suffer outages or poor performance will see their excitement wane? Maybe users will switch back to the more reliable providers they once vilified?
7 – If I think of anymore I’ll update the post!
What’s utterly shameful in my opinion (and not surprising) how most have give in to the herd mentality, we’re sheep, everyone jumping on the Google Gigabit bandwagon. Can someone with a voice louder than mine start bringing sense into the Google Gigabit conversation, it’s maddening how the public can’t see what’s truly happening! You’re being manipulated at Gigabit speeds!
Rafael Wolf
Director for The Center of My Own Opinion