Google's Sinister(?) Plans

puppetman writes "This week, Robert X. Cringely makes some interesting observations as to what Google's up to next. He theorizes that Google is looking to create a bandwidth shortage that will drive ISP/cable/telephone customers into it's open arms (often with the blessing of the ISP/cable/telephone company). The evidence: leasing massive amounts of network capacity, and huge data centers in rural areas (close to power-generation facilities). The shortage will only occur if the average bandwidth consumption by individual consumers skyrockets; think mainstream BitTorrent, streaming moves from NetFlix, tv episodes from iTunes, video games on demand, etc, etc. Spooky and sinister, or sublime and smart?"

Google?

Come now, Google don't do evil.

Re:Google?

In the past decade, a lot of big firms with serious computing needs have been building huge off-site compute centers. Cheap power (a nearby power plant) and cheap cooling (a nearby river) tend to be the driving factors. Now and then you find a great site (mainly because the power plant will commit to providing lots of off-peak power,) and when you do, you often find a "facility" (think 100 ft underground, huge water-cooling system built) available for lease or sale nearby. Go figure, people have been doing this for a long time!

Plotting for the inevitable?

Anybody who has ever planned a large network (meaning .0000000000001% of Slashdotters) already knows that getting users to hog MORE bandwidth doesn't require an evil plot. All it requires is a network and attached computers.

If you build it, they will come. If you offer something for users to use, they will use it.

It's simple reality, no evil plot required.

Re:Plotting for the inevitable?

<pedantic>

(meaning .0000000000001% of Slashdotters)

I know you are trying to make a point but that % of all people alive on earth today is about 1/15,000th of a person.

</pedantic>

Re:What, and miss out on a chance...

oooh I can't wait to see it come out in beta!

Re:Google?

Come now, Google don't do evil.

You'll start seeing a new search results paging icon:

Eviiiiiiiiil
     

Re:Google?

I think it has something with Plato's philosophy. The only thing you can do is to "do no evil". If you want to do good, you'll end doing something evil, even if you intended good. So it is better to try and avoid doing evil, than proactively trying to do good.

Re:Here's a column for you, Cringe...

We have S E X.

No no. Mac users have iSex.

What? Me worry?

Maybe Google will run fiber to my home out here in sunny Ridgecrest, CA. Verizon sure isn't going to any time soon.

Re:What? Me worry?

Quit your whining; at least your roads are paved.

I've been waiting for something faster than dial-up for ten years!

Dial-up? I would vote for (odious) to get dial-up!

I have to snail-mail cassettes from my Vic-20 just to get posted on /.
Do you believe that?

Re:No kidding...

Google is tarnishing their image with the "buy your domain through us" thing. Check out the google boards and read the many responses from people with problems.

I bought a domain for a friend as an Xmas present. I wanted to forward it to a blog (blogspot, which is owned by google). No go. Can't get an answer out of google, it's automated. I just want to cancel it and re-register the domain with another company. Google used GoDaddy for registration, and GoDaddy said they can't help me because the domain I bought is owned by Google. Sheesh.

It drove me up a wall and I'll end up letting the domain sit blank for a year and then expire and die.

$10 for the domain and 1 hour 15 minutes on the phone being bounced around GoDaddy. When Google really decides to go evil, we're all doomed. Doomed, I tells ya'. Doomed.

Re:No kidding...

It might also have something to do with the fact that Godaddy (as well as quite a few other merchants who started accepting payments via google checkout *cough* ritz camera *cough*) don't know their head from their ass on a good day, toss in the usual bit of substandard customer service by people who don't speak English and a new payment system and everything goes to hell.
I know the google checkout thing is sort of secondary, but goes to show how badly companies can fuck up.

How about google.net ?

That would be easy to do without creating any bandwidths shortages.

Re:How about google.net ?

And if someone wanted to create a successful 'unofficial' TLD google would be the people to do it. Unless a website is indexed by google it effectively doesn't exist (unless it's big/well known already). If google started returning .ggl sites I'd be adding their root servers the next day.

Re:Is it

You're comparing him to Dvorak?
That's harsh. What did he ever do to you?

Re:Is it

I take exception to that remark because Cringely is just a tool whereas most people recognize Art Bell as a serious investigator of the paranormal, a professional respected by collegues in his field. Art Bell has uncovered and revealed many dark secrets about google on his show, including their plans to harvest energy from the unborn. A caller to the show who only identified himself as "Mr. X" claimed to have been part of a team that designed the amorphous bio-pod that the unborn would be stored in, in a semi-concious state of dreaming stasis whereby quantum energy guides would capture excess xeon particles for current generation. I'm sorry if you missed it because the truth about google's plans will blow the lid off of civilization once it's known.

Or how about...

Cringley's an idiot, and we're all dumber for having been exposed to this. Sinister? Creating a bandwidth shortage? How about anyone can see bandwidth usage is going up, and will likely do so further into the future. I don't really see how this can be considered anything other than gambling on a developing market. Sinister implies something evil. That can't be right, Google's credo is Do No Evil after all. To sum it up: Cringley=bad, Google=business.

Re:Or how about...

Sorry, I have acutally work on the Net Backbone in several locations: New York, San Jose and Illinois. With respect to them causing a shortage; not likely. The Incumbant LEC's control most of the fiber with some others being run by small companies. If there is an issue; people can lay more fiber or go through various competing CLEC for bandwidth.

Also, I have worked in the same datacener with Google; they have over 30 GigE feeds over dark fiber. As of a couple years ago; they had something like 60 strands per data center. Well, 60 for the larger data centers. As for tapping SBC (my current region) not likley. As for Chicago; downtown? They might give it some trouble; the city and the county have told SBC to maximize their fiber usage. The City and the County (cook) basically spanked SBC for putting too much in? How can you put in too much? Simple they put small end electronics on it; something like a chincy OC-12 or an OC-3 ring; instead of a OC-48 which is using (TTL's) Tight Transmission Lasers; ofcouse with those TTL's being sent over a DWDM system. If true; downtown is screwed; but not the state.

Now that my NDA has expired; I feel like saying:
1) Google in their data centers and beyond use Gig-Ethernet; and my suspicions is that it goes back to the Googleplex in California. Currently; they use your standard "Wester Digital HD" with Gigabyte MOBO's; using Penitum III IV proc's. Their network is done by Force 10. Each rack has between 20 and 40 servers; depending on MOBO. Each rack is seperated by an HP switch. Their core switch used to Juniper M20's and they have upgraded to T320's.
2) funny clip of the telecom industry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1Mtv9cD0I [youtube.com] they forgot Pacific Telesis in the video.

Cringely Didn't Say That

Cringely didn't call it sinister or even imply that it was. He just suggested that google was positioning itself to take advantage of the coming bandwidth shortage. The only passage that even suggests sinisterness was his aside that maybe gathering up leasing deals should trigger government scrutiny and that seemed to be only a remark on policy not google's plan.

It's only the tinfoil hat slashdoters that added the word sinister.

bandwidth shortage?

How exactly does one "create" a bandwidth shortage?

Re:bandwidth shortage?

I'm sure google could afford to lease the dark fiber in an area... the stuff is all over the place and plentiful supply normally -- cheap.

Well, if astrophysicists are to be believed, only 4% of all communications is visible fiber, 22% is dark fiber, and the remaining 74% is a strange and exotic substance called "dark light." Personally, I think they're on crack.

"Sinister"? wtf?

At least the blurb makes it sound like the author of the article thinks actually USING your bandwidth is a BAD thing. I think that if google (or anyone else, even microsoft or apple) gave people reason to use more of their bandwidth (like more streaming content, more stuff to download that appeals to joe sixpack without taking even as much effort as going to the pirate bay or another site to try and find a torrent) is a GREAT thing. At first it may cause the internet to have some pains (if its a sudden surge, most likely it'll be a slow acceleration), it'll be only temporarily before the ISPs upgrade their network's capacity (which several are already doing anyways), which would mean EVERYONE would end up with higher speeds much quicker.

How exactly would that be a bad thing (or did my not reading the article mean I completely missed the point? If so, I'm sure many a slashdotter will be correcting me)

TFA got this as backwards as possible

Google only buys/own fiberoptic backbone. They have bought this beause it has been for sale really cheap, because there is a *huge* surplus of it.

Also, Google needs this for its long term strategy of delivering search functionality to the world without beeing controlled other fiber providers.

The bandwidht limitation is largely artifical and created by ISPs, as a revenue generating business model.

ISPs could open up the valve on all DSL lines, and not need any more fiber to support it. Maybe some cheap equipment upgrades here and there.

Example: A fiber cable may consists of a few hundred fibers delivering from 10Gb to 10TB for a total of 1-100Tb. A city like San Jose, CA, with 100k households, this gives 10Mb-10Gb per household. (And there are actually more than 1 fiber cable)

Econ 101 Anybody?

This is just plain good business. Of course, there are many nutjobs (rhymes with star-heft-miberals) that will always look at big business with shifty eyes. And, Google certainly is as big-business as they come. But good strategery like this is just common sense. They are most certainly not out to create a artificial (or whatever he is implying) shortage.

And, Google builds data centers in rural areas (and gosh, everywhere else) near powerplants for economic reasons as well. Heck, look at the economics of building that new data center in SC that they announced today. Average salary is shy of $50,000 for some few hundred jobs. Compare to placing that data center in suburban Chicago or San Jose or in Manhatten. I mean, this is just math. Makes for a pretty good conspiracy theory, though.

This Cringely article comes off very tin-foil hattish. Look at all the disclaimers and suppositions and "theories." Gosh, so shocking that a big company is "secret" about their overall strategy. He wants to know Google's "secrets" (strategry) just like an analyst of the oil industry wants to know BP's strategy. Any huge corporation is not going to let that out. Google is no more "secret" than anyone else. It's just that more people are asking Google.

Re:Econ 101 Anybody?

Of course, there are many nutjobs (rhymes with star-heft-miberals) that will always look at big business with shifty eyes.

And apparently there will always be a nutjob that rhymes with moehoward who will insert random attacks on his preferred group to hate so that when he does actually make a good point, reasonable people will wonder if he really is insightful or just lucky in the same way that a broken watch still tells the correct time twice a day.

I'll believe it when it happens

Frankly, I'm sick of commentators and "analysts" proposing outlandish theories with no hard evidence to back them up. Someone should create a website that tracks the accuracy of such predictions...

Re:I'll believe it when it happens

For serious. I've seen more credible conjecture come from 13 year olds arguing over who would win in a streetfight between Batman and Wolverine.

Re:I'll believe it when it happens

Batman.

Re:I'll believe it when it happens

Nah Aunt May beat the Hulk too, so that's not a very good unit of fighting abilty.

Aunt May did not defeat the Hulk in a fight. That's ridiculous.

Re:I'll believe it when it happens

I'll make a prediction: you didn't read the article. Also, Cringely tracks his own predictions, and every year he gives a summary of how he did. He tends to hover around 70-80% accuracy.

But don't let things like facts and background reading stop you from being angry. Grrr! That darned Cringely! Grrr!

Re:In case network neutrality breaks down...

Remember that the big beneficieries of the end of net neutrality will be the "last mile" owners, the ISP's. But yes, if Google has many data centers around the country, they could just provide free wireless for everyone, or at least threaten to if the ISP's don't play ball. They've done it in San Francisco, even got some city money for it. Since they wouldn't have to pay bandwith costs (they own the network), hardware fix-it and installation guys (it's wireless), and billing/customer support staff (it's free), they might keep their costs low enough to really make it worth their while to give it away. In any case, it's smart of them to be buying "real" property while there's still money to go around.

What is he smoking?

Did he ever think that maybe they need TONS of bandwidth to replicate thier data between the thousands of servers in thier giant backend? Did he ever think that power costs are significant enough that not moving near cheap power is a significant business disadvantage? I work on a team dealing with exactly the same datacenter issues and I highly doubt any sinister plans on googles part (even though I don't personally trust them for completely different reasons).

The answer is easy, Google is just trying to keep up with the monster they have created.

Re:What is he smoking?

Did he ever think. . .?

No.

KFG

Seriously?

C'mon, people! Think about this for just a sec... Cringley's claiming that Google has been buying rights to data lines (future bandwidth) - secretly - for some time now. Cringley hypothesises that Google's motivation for this is their corporate insight concerning the future of a more bandwidth-intensive public. Assuming that this hypothesis is correct (it's reasonable), how is it sinister? Google sees that users are using more bandwidth, they see that they can position themselves in such a way as to capitalize it in the future. It's good business sense. Their stock probably is undervalued.

Financial hedging and commoditization of bandwidth

Who here remembers Williams Communications and their bandwidth exchange, back during the height of the bouble? This is simply an extension of commodity hedging in the absence of a liquid market. The only way you can achieve such commoditization in the current environment is to invest in the related infrastructure. Much as any company hedges against the cost of key input commodities, critical to thheir business -think airlines investing in oil futures- Google anticipates increasesing commodity costs. There's absolutely nothing sinister about about this. It does however, seem to tip Google's hand with regard to their expectations of Net Neutrality. Vint has probably realized that his quest for net neutrality legislation will fail, and Google will face significant changes in network monetization through a vastly expanded peering fee structure. Where previously, peering fees were (and are typically now) paid by smaller network providers, to larger providers for the right to connect to their networks, in the future, such fees will be structured not based on network size but relative volume of traffic sorted by type. Google wants to minimize the impact of such peering fees (passed from colo provider to colo clients such as Google) by leasing as much network infrastructure as they can acquire. The simple point here is the fewer connections to foreign networks, the smaller the overall cost of peering under any model, regardless of the outcome of the net neutrality debate, but especially if it gets shot down. The point is, there's nothing sinister here. It's simple corporate risk management. Google would be negligent if they didn't do this.

-- CTH

Pretty Wrong Conclusion

After RTFA, here's a summary:
- Google owns (leases) tons of fiber, they control the bandwidth market.
- Google plans to build a lot of large data centers in rural areas.
- Google anticipates a massive growth in bandwidth usage due to p2p, youtube, etc.
- ISPs will be faced with buying tons of new bandwidth OR contracting with Google to use / connent to the nearby data center directly.

No sir. Google needs a lot of servers for their services. Sure they profit from their local data centers as edge proxies the same way Akamai does, but the whole theory about controlling ISPs, targeting contracts with your local ISP etc. is BS. These data centers are used for their CPU / memory power and then to minimize latency.

Credit where credit is due

Google has created its business on a single rock-solid concept: integrity.

Google will not route weird advertising to you just because they get paid for it. They will do their level best to allow you to run your own searches, and find whatever it may be that you seek. Any advertising is strictly ignorable in the right column.

Granting Google the possibility of ethical and honest conduct, I can think of a more likely possibility.

AT&T, the *Mother* of all telephone companies, wants to provide net services to all their customers. As part of their "services" they intend to randomly interrupt the flow of packets, effectively degrading the truly fearsome competitor to the phone company: Vonage.

Google, with power backups and significant broadband capability, can deliver what AT&T wants to disrupt: quality Vonage or other VOIP services.

After that, who needs MS? Google can be your phone company.

I sure trust them more than I do AT&T or Ed Whitacre.

Wrong

If you google those rural facilities, say 'Google Ann Arbor' a google jobs link is the first hit. When you click on the job descriptions you'll notice they are looking for people to scan books, an IT staff for infrastructure needs, and HR for staffing.

I bet the bandwidth they're leasing is for hosting this among many of their other possibly unannounced projects. Which will have their own facility. Now imagine if they had some sort of cache synchronization routine between these facilities. And each one were devoted to cataloging the web servers hosted by that and neighboring ISPs, you think that might improve the performace of their search engine? Sorry, while I doubt all of Google's motivations are benign, they are supposed to make money after all, I seriously doubt they are planning to create a bandwidth shortage.

Story submitter bias

People, please RTFA article first before confusing the biased story summary with what Cringely actually said. It is a very interesting column, and of course quite speculative. I didn't get the impression that Bob was suggesting anything sinister on Google's part, certainly I don't think he was suggesting that they would create a bandwidth shortage. What nonsense.

Google

I'm sorry, but I think Google is one of the best businesses I have ever seen. From everything I hear, their work environment is awesome. They have honestly good products (buggy, fine, but much less buggy than M$FT products, so don't complain about the annual bug in Gmail). Google doesn't force things upon users. Google doesn't make secret agreements with other companies to have exclusive control over an aspect of their sales (M$FT does). Google wins by having a good product, not by handwaving and using legalese to trap customers. Google caters to average users as well as advanced users. Google supports the open source community. Google funds a lot of cool projects. Google's projects support and promote the idea of free information and knowledge, and making information more accessible.

What more could you ask for?

And why would Google want or care for a shortage of bandwidth? Shortages of bandwidth are not likely to happen any time soon. While processors are starting to see speed limits before we turn to physicists for help, communication lines are nowhere near the bit rate limits that are possible with current technology. Moore's law will still hold for the coming years in terms of bandwidth, at least.

Trying to get Around MS's monopoly

The simple answer is that Google is trying to end-run MS and destroy their monopoly. Anybody who takes MS head-on, loses. So they are increasing the value of the net to the end user. I suspect that by 2008, we will see a free Google OS. It will be Linux. At this time, I do not fear Google or the ppl that currently run it. Problem is that they will not be in charge all the time. In addition, as they say, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If nothing else, look at MS. 25 years ago, BG was a good guy. Now, he is the epitomy of absolute evil (except for the foundation which was designed to get ppl to think that he is a good guy).

Re:I've been saying for a while now

If microsoft was pulling some of the stuff that google had done in the past, people would be up in arms. Instead, simply because they're not microsoft, they get the public's and the IT's blessing.

We know with almost 100% certainty that if Microsoft where doing something like this, there is no possible way it would benifit the consumer. With Google, that's not such a sure thing. Maybe it's bad, maybe it's not. But with Microsoft, it's sure to be bad.