Just read a very interesting article from Wordstream explaining Google’s motive for running their fiber optic experiment in Kansas City.
For those that don’t know, fiber optic internet is a new way of making the internet faster and Google has set up their own ISP (internet service provider) setup in Kansas City before branching out across the country.
On an earnings call, Larry Page and Patrick Pichette discussed what the purpose of Google Fiber is. In a nutshell, they said they’re not happy with the loading times people have while using the internet and blame other ISP’s like AT&T, Time Warner and others for this.
Currently right now, Google is dependent on other ISP’s to deliver its products. But the longer something takes to load, the more likely the user gives up on what they’re doing and Google loses money. So they want to cut out the ISP’s and offer their own ISP service to make sure people have the fastest times on the internet possible to ensure they make more money.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m all about faster internet. But on the other hand, if Google started offering faster internet speeds than the other ISP’s at a lower price (because Google cares more about making money off ads than making money off the ISP service itself), Google would be pretty close to a monopoly in controlling the most important parts of the internet.
AT&T and other ISP’s also sell cable and satellite TV service too and with them potentially losing that due to cord cutting, losing the ISP business would be devastating. So I’m fairly confident they’ll spend every last penny to protect that business and fend off Google.
But what if they can’t? Hmmm …..