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Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Aug 28, 2005 06:45 PM
from the they-came-from-above-we-had-no-chance dept.
from the they-came-from-above-we-had-no-chance dept.
KhanReaper writes "As reported on On the Media and Business 2.0, Google appears to be purchasing dark (unused) fiber optic cable across the United States with the intention of building its own alternative parallel internet that would presumably be called GoogleNet. Possessing such a thing could allow Google to offer internet access in the form of free wifi or other means and create a powerful captive marketing audience which Google could monopolize. Outside of these marketing opportunities, such a development in infrastructure could help reduce Google's long-term content delivery costs were it to take on more bandwidth-intensive activities in the future."
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Google Explains ISP Rumors 111 comments
WindozeSux writes to mention a Wired article explaining why Google bought all that dark fiber, the event that spurred rumors they were planning an ISP. From the article: "When asked by Wired News whether Google was buying up dark fiber, a company spokesman replied that 'Google has and will continue to invest in the equipment our company needs to give our users around the world the best and fastest search results.' Rumors of Google as an ISP were also fueled by the company being granted a large block of new IPv6 addresses last year." They plan to restrict their role as an ISP to the Mountain View and San Francisco areas.
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Or Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or Maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Separate Internet Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason that Google is an important company is that it crawls through the publicly-accessible parts of the Internet in order to index its contents.
If Google is to retain its premier position in the search engine market, then it will very much so remain firmly connected to the existing Internet.
This is why I agree with the parent post: It is quite reasonable to believe that Google might require this bandwidth for its own purposes.
There is nothing at all wrong with this. The Internet, after all, is merely a network of networks. All this means is that behind Google's accessible IP addresses lurks a mammoth network of its own.
Re:Separate Internet Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the bandwidth fees going from next door of your current ISP the to your house is sustantialy cheaper and probably faster then going from CA to Middletown ohio and fighting trafic of evereyone else involved in the process.
They would still have to transmit it from CA to Middletown but on thier own lines would be cheaper and more efficient. Who knows, it might be somethign for future VIOP offering too.
I'm not sure why some people see this as some evil act. The existing line aren't doing anything constructive as it sits. If at minimum, it reduces trafic or increases the internets ability ot handle the traffic, i'm all for that.
If we want to go out on a limb. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it might not be particularly unrealistic to suspect that Google might be considering starting an ISP.
Right now the ISP market is kind of shrinking because last-mile issues are effectively preventing anyone from providing broadband service unless they already own a high-bandwidth wire going directly into your house. However if 802.16 and similar technology delivers on its promises, it could remove this obstacle-- meaning that you'd be able to break into the ISP market with little more than the kind of purchases Google is making right now.
This theory is most definitely a stretch! However, unlike Business 2.0's "make a second internet and provide free access for some reason!" theory, at least it isn't stupid.
Also, who's to say Google even has a plan as to what to do with this dark fiber? As even Business 2.0 notes, now is a really good time to buy this stuff; you can get it cheap. Anybody ever heard of buy low, sell high?
GoogleNet? (Score:5, Funny)
Curious to see exactly what they have in mind..
You people are insane. (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly Google is writing the operating system to a super space robot that will be used to eradicate Microsoft!
Google buys a company that makes photo organizer software.
Clearly Google is doing this so that they can recreate iPhoto, as a preliminary step to creating competing products to iCal, iDisk, Apple Mail, and finally Mac OS X itself!
Google hires a janitor.
Clearly that janitor is secretly a superhero with super-strength which Google will use to eliminate all crime on earth!
Google buys up some disused fiber-optic cable.
Clearly Google is going to make their own internet!
Yea, and it will get married in white too. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't give it a month before it loses its virginity in the back seat of a Cisco router.
Steve Jobs once said ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This GoogleNet idea is an interesting one, but I expect such a proprietary internet would lack would be shunned by the hackers and outlaws that bring true innovation to the technology world.
That being said, Google is much more open to developers than the other monopoly we're familiar with. And they have been collecting money and PhDs at an alarming rate -- they have something big planned.
Clearly Google realizes (like Microsoft before them) that he who owns the platform wins. By building a "better" internet, GoogleNet could be the next Win32 API enabling Google to have an earth-shattering money machine. Perhaps Google's stock is not over-valued afterall.
Sam
Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't be just that they need cheap conection between their computing nodes?
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Slashdot chages their minds... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is one thing I have noticed as of late, it is the fact that the Slashdot audience as a whole, especially those in charge of posting stories, have had a sudden swing in viewpoint about Google. Now all of the stories about Google have negative undertones, and there's always a hint of disdain in the way the story is worded.
The gradual making of a new evil entity, and new Slashdot scape goat is nearly complete! We're all being set up to hate Google now. Gotta love it, Google has not charged me for a single thing. They provide me with excellent free email, outstanding search, a nifty map site, and even a suitable chat client now. And how much have I paid them? Nothing. I for one still love Google, say what you want about them buying the world.
Missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Gentlemen, start your .GOO registration engines (Score:5, Funny)
1) Completely About Google
2) Mostly About Google
3) At Least Somewhat About Google
4) Funny, But Not At Google's Expense
5) Troogle
6) Undergoogled
7) Overgoogled (very rare - can there be too much Google?)
Thinking outside the box (Well sorta) (Score:5, Insightful)
Now with the amount of fibre they could be buying, why not put up free access points and come up with a good advertising delivery mechanism behind it. Could well be the targetted location based internet advertising that so many marketing companies have wanted to do for so long. "Buy a coffee at Joe's! Mention this ad an get a free donut!"
As well, could you imagine the communication costs that they are incurring as we speak? The amount of data that would be traversing their network at the moment would be out of control. Why not just buy some fibre now, setup another company to manage it and slash your comms costs? Especially if they are ordering in the hundreds of gigabits of data which I am guessing they probably are (Think about it for a second)..
Gmail going live, there's another few terabytes worth of data burnt each week having to store all that... All the extra internet content that gets loaded on each day, and they have to index it... Site redundancy.... The lists go on and on...
So what if they setup a second internet? Let them! If it encourages competition, why the hell not? MCI and AOL and everyone else isn't exactly going to sit on their hands and let their market dissapear in front of them are they?
In all honesty though, what are the chances of them making a change in business tactic from being a content search facility and marketers to being an internet service provider.. I don't think it fits in with their business model.
The only thing I think they could be doing is connecting datacentres and possibly (Not having seen WHERE they have bought fibre) they could quite easily be trying to get peering arangements with all the major ISPs to try to distribute the input load onto their network as it could quite well just be getting beyond the point of stupidity and manageability.
BTW, how much are they paying Akamai at the moment?
Change of tone (Score:5, Insightful)
What was Google guilty of? Raising salaries for software engineers (heaven forbid we should make money comparable to our corporate masters) and draining talent (which just means that people want to work there). Oh, and it's hard to get venture capital because venture capitalists want ideas that can compete with Google. I guess that I'll have to put off getting hired by some lame website that sells toe-nail clippers.
Get a clue. Seriously. Tell me what they are doing that is evil.
Free internet. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Google presumably decided it was cheaper to buy entire fiber links between datacenters in the long run than renting capacity from existing network providers. And who is to blame them? I'm sure that Microsoft own lots of fiber, I'm sure that lots of 'evil' and 'cuddly' companies own fiber, it doesn't mean they are making 'Intarwebnet Two' or whatever, and you don't get stories about it here.
It is just random speculation because Google are newsworthy.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't worry about Google being evil this time around, though. Those anti-trust laws that broke up Bell are still right in place, and Google apparently doesn't want to go it alone (trying to bring in other VoIP services).
Only if... (Score:5, Interesting)
...They get it right.
In my opinion, what Microsoft seems to suffer from is getting things to market as fast as possible to remain (or at least appear to remain) competitive. The problem is, that once a product is in the wild, a lot of bugs and security flaws turn up which results in patching the software for the remainder of the time you own it.
The release and patch process is what the Mozilla Foundation seems to be falling into lately as well.
Google, on the other hand, seems to take a more "future use" approach to what they do, giving their products better longevity and as a result, a better experience to their users.
If they (Google) can "get it right" with a parallel network, they basically trump everyone in the market today who has laid claim to making the Internet better. If Google applies their anti-spam engine to network nodes, spam virtually faces extinction. And you know, if they watch what I surf and how I surf and it results in a better experience for me then I for one welcome our new Google overlords.
Not that scary. (Score:5, Interesting)
So what if they do. Just because Googlenet shows up doesn't mean the old internet ceases to function. If it becomes a draconian mess, no one will use it, and it will slip into irrelevance like Gopher.
Re:Wow, scary! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google may also be more geek friendly with their TOSs too. They have a track record of not being dickheads, so you never know.
All I want is 3-5Mb/s down and 1-3Mb/s up...and an ISP where I can say what protocalls/ports get open or blocked and where I can run some basic servers (no, I do not want to run a website from an ADSL, but too damn many things fall under the "Non-permissible server" title as defined by most ISPs.)
Just You (Score:5, Funny)
Two Sides to that (Score:5, Funny)
Most Geeks will attest to their dislike of the Sun (not SUN MICRO), this will work better as public acceptance grows. No more will we have to waste money on Foreign oil to light our internets.
And most important of all, on a dark internet nobody knows your downloading porn.