Gotta Love Google

Google Fiber went live in Kansas City the other day where residents have the option of getting 5Mbps/1Mbps Internet service from Google for free. If you’ve got a few bucks you can get fibered up to a 1Gbps link (up and down), roughly 100 times faster than what most Americans have, plus a terabyte to play with on Google Drive, for $70 a month.

Or if you lay down $120 a month you can have yourself that link plus Google Fiber TV service including a 2TB DVR that can record eight channels simultaneously. No, those aren’t a bunch of Youtube channels, that’s are real HD television as you know it (except for HBO – ouch).

A terabyte on Google Drive ain’t so bad when you’ve got just a gigabit link separating your Chromebook from it. And for your remote control? They include a Nexus 7. Yes, they ask you not to run a server without permission, don’t resell their service (run your own ISP using your link to Google Fiber) and they ask you to make an effort to lay off the piracy. Not a lot of fine print for something this amazing.

Wiring up a home (or a city) with fiber ain’t cheap. Though right now you can get Google Fiber only in Kansas, my impression is that Google thought this out and is confident that offering Internet at prices you’d call competitive even if the speeds weren’t completely ludicrous is going to be good for business and that they will continue to slowly spread this service around the country, otherwise they would have killed it by now, no?

Watch this and try to tell me you don’t want it:

In addition to building the network, Google needs to build trust whether it’s to hook you up with a gigabit link, hosting your business’s email or driving your car for you. But when you take into account that senators have begged Google to wire them up and Topeka Kansas changed their name to Google, Florida renaming an island to Google Island, to implore Google to wire them up, you might agree with me that they’ve secured that trust already.

Doug Simmons