[sorry this got so long! I am an engineer, and it is very difficult to not say too much about such technical subjects...]

It is always difficult to translate the “marketing specs” we are given about any particular internet service to real-world results, be it DSL, cable, or fiber. So much depends on the total bandwidth the company has to keep up with its customers bandwidth demands, the way their main computer system operates, how the system shares its full bandwidth among all it’s users, and so forth. For example, I have cable, which is supposed to have bandwidth of 10mbps for residential customers. But I rarely get that bandwidth, while I often get less, because the total system bandwidth must be shared among neighborhood users who are connected to their local hub, which receives only a fraction of the full system bandwidth. So, if there are only a few of my neighbors using the internet, I may get almost the full bandwidth I was promised. However, if quite a few are on the internet, my bandwidth drops according how many others are using the internet, and the cable company cannot predict or perhaps even control my bandwidth because it depends on the random choices made by all customers. This is because the internet is handled like TV channels; the system was designed years ago to handle cable TV; it was heavily modified years later as demand for higher speeds grew. With cable, each customer gets only as much bandwidth as is allocated per neighborhood, minus that used by his neighbors. It is more complex than this, but too technical and lengthy to put here.

This situation is usually not a big problem, though there are times, usually prime time for watching streaming movies and such, when I and my neighbors compete so heavily for our “neighborhood bandwidth” that the computers can have trouble keeping their buffers full enough to produce error-free video for the movies. The video will either stop and wait until it receives more bandwidth, or, it will notify me that my bandwidth has gone down, and it is adjusting to deal with that. I assume that means it will give me a lower resolution picture within the bandwidth actually available, rather than have the picture stop and go as the neighborhood bandwidth fluctuates with my neighbors and I varying use of our shares of it.

This does not happen a lot, so I can deal with it most of the time, but it bothers me that I don’t get what I was told I would get. Of course, when I challenge the company about this, they reply with what amounts to verbal “fine print”, and there is not much I can do about that except cancel the service, or, accept what I get and quit complaining.

Google’s system could be different, though I have not seen technical details about it yet. Since it uses fiber rather than coax (like cable uses), it has much more potential bandwidth. If their system has enormous total system bandwidth which allows individuals to have the kind of bandwidth they are talking about, then I imagine they would be using a better system for internet access, since it would be dedicated to that as its primary business, rather than as an option to share with cable TV. It sounds “awesome”; I can’t wait to see it working!

I am sure my situation would change if I happened to live in an area where Google or someone else decided to offer higher bandwidth. Either Google would capture most of the business, or, competitors would upgrade their systems to compete with Google’s. So my opinion is that competition would probably be nothing but good in the ISP business. It always seems to motivate the players to try harder, since customers can simply drop a company that is doing a poor job, and choose a competitor, and the company knows that. So, they do much more for their customers to keep them from going to competitors; it is as simple as that. It is probably just a result of human nature, and is one of those “things” which seems to hold true for almost all situations, because human nature is generally self-serving, which isn’t all bad if you look at it broadly.

I’d drop my cable internet in a heartbeat if I could find an alternative that had higher bandwidth AT MY END, or as good as cable at a lower price. One concern I have about a fiber based system is: cost. Whatever Google has to spend to create the system, they must eventually recover through fees from their customers. It seems like the costs are not well known, along with the technical details of how to do it and what it will take, which may be why Google is starting with only a “trial run” of a limited number of customers, rather than simply begin building their system and selling to customers as it becomes available, as has been typically done by others in the past. A full fiber system, end to end, is rare in the U.S., I believe, so perhaps such an expensive system requires a gradual “ramp up” until more is known about costs and the technical aspects of it. After all, Google is a first class software company, more or less, not necessarily a construction company; it will take a while for them to master their new business.