Keep Broadband Options Open, Google Fiber’s Medin Tells Local Officials

"We're not trying to say our way is the only way or even the best way,” said Google’s Milo Medin, vice president-access services, in a keynote: “But we think it works and hopefully there are lessons here applicable to others.” He praised fiber, saying people wouldn’t build any other network these days, as well as gigabit speeds as a new baseline. “Incumbents don’t have the financial incentives to build a network like this, so we decided to.”

Google, which is building a fiber network in the Kansas City area, played a big role at the conference, which included a tour and happy hour at the Google Fiber offices. Google Fiber announced expansions into the city’s surrounding municipalities as well as to Austin and Provo, Utah, earlier this year.

"We expect to make money doing this,” Medin said. “It’s a great business to be in.” Medin described the model at work in the Kansas City area, both in offering a gigabit and in the free model, which he said will help address the digital divide. Google Fiber users can pay an installation fee and receive slower Internet for free for years. “We don’t ask for special tax breaks and we don’t ask for funds,” he added. “Those would actually be pretty easy to get.” AT&T has called for equitable regulatory treatment, promising its own gigabit network in Austin if it receives the same terms as Google (CD April 10 p10). Google instead asks municipalities to resolve difficult processes and permitting and collocation problems, which is far more difficult, he said. Mayors and city officials can start working to make their cities more “gigabit friendly,” he said: “You can start doing that today.” These efforts create “real savings” when embarking on such major projects, he said.

"We feel like we've moved into a better era where we're not arguing anymore about whether fiber is a good thing,” NATOA President Joanne Hovis told us. “People are willing to have conversations they weren’t before.” NATOA was one of the partners responsible for the meeting, and Hovis attended. The meeting included a remarkable number of communities and interested parties looking at how they could serve the needs of their particular communities, she said. There’s now “a certain relief” over having ended the debate over the need for better broadband, she said.

Google has been a helpful force in making gigabit speeds sexy, Hovis said, noting municipalities comprise the majority of gigabit-speed providers. “It helps to have a player as big as Google taking the same strategy,” she said. Medin spoke of a range of strategies required, which Hovis said was “very welcome” to state and local advocates. If the U.S. wants gigabit speeds everywhere, such a range of approaches, including municipal ownership as well as public-private partnerships and other private deployments, will be necessary, she said. State legislatures have debated the legality of municipalities building their own networks, including earlier this year in Georgia (CD March 11 p7).

"Some cities will choose to partner, others will do it themselves -- there’s not one model that works for everyone,” Medin said. “Don’t be satisfied with mediocrity. Don’t let your citizens be satisfied with it either.”

"We simply cannot allow a lack of bandwidth to jeopardize our leadership,” said Heather Gold, president of the Fiber to the Home Council Americas, of the U.S.’s global role, in her opening remarks. She pointed to communities with faster networks and a lack of federal efforts: “We're going to have to get it for ourselves.”

Google Fiber’s entry into Kansas City was akin to a “moon shot” in this push for faster networks, said Lev Gonick, vice president-information technology services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, in his keynote. He also emphasized the enormous shift in rhetoric and vision of the last several years. He outlined ways advanced networks can help communities and the search for purpose of such faster speeds. Diabetes has been a community challenge in Cleveland that videoconferencing aided, he said. He described how brain surgeons partnered with simulation experts who developed a concept for preparing surgeons for neurosurgery, leveraging advanced network speeds, he said. The higher education sector, transit, healthcare, the museum sector, government and other entities can all work together “to address the community’s priorities” with advanced speeds, he said. “A gig for what?” he said. “A gig to address our own communities, a strategy which we hope is informed in large measure by a commitment to allow communities to forge their own futures.”

"We do not offer a voice product,” Medin added of Google Fiber. “Voice can be a pain to implement and carries a substantial regulatory burden with it.” He mentioned the need to keep track of USF contributions and fees, which differ by state, and difficult billing issues. “For us, we couldn’t see how we could implement it in a way that would add a substantial amount of value for the user.” Google believes the price of voice “will continue to fall, eventually to zero,” he added, noting the tech company is building a business model for the next 10 years and not the past. “There’s no silver bullet,” Medin said. “This is a long-term process.”