@fibresystemsmag | www.fibre-systems.com


ANALYSIS GOOGLE FIBER


soon, at least not in most urban geographies. Tere are promising technologies ahead, but they’re far from mature yet. Google’s acquisition of Webpass is interesting,


however. Few journalists took the time to try and understand what Webpass does, but it uses wireless solutions for urban aggregation, not access. In other words, it doesn’t connect homes wirelessly, it connects multi-tenant buildings wirelessly and uses existing in-building wiring to


Google probably didn’t underperform by industry norms, but fell short of their own ambitions


connect the homes to the rooſtop antenna. It’s a clever approach that solves two fundamental deployment issues. First, it eliminates the need to string fibre from


street poles or bury ducts in the pavement to pull fibre along the streets, which are both costly and time consuming; and second, it eliminates the need to deploy fibre inside the homes, which is also expensive and time-consuming, by reusing the existing wiring. However, this approach does not seem to me


to be so universal as to be usable in any deployment scenario. Tere are a number of potential issues with it. First, you need to target multi-tenant


buildings to make the economics work. I suspect (again, not knowing the exact costs of their solution) that the equipment necessary to install this on single homes would make the price point too high. Furthermore, you need line of sight between rooſtops, which is comparatively easy when people live in high downtown apartment blocks, but not so easy when they live in detached homes. Second, you need to be able to reuse the


existing cabling in the house. I haven’t had time to look into the regulatory aspects of this (and particularly to see if this varies from state to state or county to county in the US) but my bet is that you can’t always count on being able to reuse the cabling, especially if it’s been deployed by an incumbent or a cable operator. I may be wrong, and I will be doing my homework on this, but I’m flagging it as a risk. Tis doesn’t mean that Webpass doesn’t open up opportunities. I don’t think the service would


be as good and stable as you’d get with FTTH, but you might get a service that’s good enough for most customers’ needs. Would it be good enough to compete with AT&T’s broadband service based on fibre to the cabinet? Most likely. Would it be good enough to compete with cable’s DOCSIS 3.1 technology as it gets deployed? Less likely. So, what should Google do about it? Here are


several, non-mutually-exclusive, scenarios that I think would be beneficial to the US and to US customers as well as to Google. Keep in mind that I see a lot more value in the ‘catalyst for change’ goal outlined earlier than in the ‘Google as another broadband operator’ goal. On the deployment side, the equation has


changed from Google Fiber’s early days. Because Google made very targeted deployments and phased them over time, it’s now easy for AT&T and cable operators to respond in kind locally, with a combination of price lowering and infrastructure deployment (or at least announcements) in the markets that Google targets publicly. Te only way around that would be for Google to announce and undertake deployment in, say, 30 markets at the same time. It’s now clear that they don’t have the stomach for that. Assuming they still want to play the long


game, Google could de-stabilise the incumbents by announcing a broad Webpass-type deployment scenario: target and quickly deploy in 30 markets, with a Webpass-like approach and the promise that if the demand is there, fibre may be installed down the line. Tis positions wireless broadband as a quick-to-market acquisition tool. It also forces AT&T to respond everywhere at the same time, something which


(I suspect) they are incapable of and unwilling to do. Tis could be part of the catalyst, forcing AT&T and cable operators to really up their infrastructure game or (failing that) look at structural solutions to respond (assuming the Time Warner/AT&T merger goes forward, the scenario of AT&T spinning off telecom infrastructure altogether is not so unlikely anymore.)


Open up the experiment Beyond that, I think the best bet to achieve the original goal – wanting to change the market by pushing existing players to deliver significantly better service – is to open up the Google Fiber experiment. Instead of keeping everything close to the vest, go public with it and tell everyone out there: ‘Tis is how we’ve done it, these are the challenges we have faced, this is how we’ve overcome them’. In other words, ‘here is the blueprint’. Google could even be the one to coordinate an open discussion about this, to organise and sponsor workshops to enable the sharing of experience for companies and municipalities looking to deploy decent infrastructure in many places in America. Tey could even build a consulting team to help these projects get in shape. I think this would have two major impacts on


the market. First, it would unleash private and municipal initiatives: many cities are on the fence about this, many private players are struggling with funding. Tey all want to do something about the state of broadband in their communities, but they’re afraid of doing it wrong, of biting off more than they can chew. Having a clear set of ‘instructions’, for lack of a better word, a clearer understanding of the ecosystem of


A steerable bore head helps create the path to run optical fibre underground


Issue 14 • Winter 2017 FIBRE SYSTEMS 27


Google


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40