Google’s plans to offer fiber-to-home Internet connections to as much as 500,000 people probably has ISPs in the US on edge, but the company is trying to show them that it is not the enemy. In fact, it’s welcoming anyone to use the infrastructure once it is deployed and offer Internet services on Google’s fiber.
“We definitely inviting the Comcasts, the AT&T service providers to work with us on our network, and to provide their service offering on top of our pipe – we’re definitely planning on doing that,” Minnie Ingersoll, product manager and co-lead for alternative access at Google, told BroadbandBreakfast.com.
“We’re looking for other service providers to be able to come in and offer their service on top of our network so that residents have a choice when they open up their accounts,” she added. “They get the connection from us, and then they have a choice as to who they subscribe to.”
That sounds great on paper, but it is a very disingenuous way of putting ISPs on the spot for their existing practices. Traditional providers value their infrastructure above anything else. Not for their investment in it necessarily, most ISPs and telcos want to keep that to a minimum, but for the strategic advantage it offers.
Costumers rarely have actual alternatives, you get the Internet that is available at your location and that’s that. At best, you may have a choice between two viable options, but there is usually no choice. And since ISPs are careful no to tread on each other’s turf too much, the status quo is very much against open access and actual competition.
Now, Google is not only showing that super-fast broadband connections are feasible from an infrastructure point of view, something that most telcos complain about, but also that you can even do it while enabling anyone to compete using your own fiber. That is the point that Google is trying to make with its Gigabit fiber optics network plan, ISPs need to start competing on actual services not just the territory, if there is going to be a real market for Internet access.
The problem is, ISPs are happy with the way things are and, if it wasn’t for Google providing the ‘incentives,’ nothing would change in the foreseeable future. But maybe the country that invented the Internet is satisfied with constantly being an ‘also ran’ in all worldwide broadband availability and speed studies.
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