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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you didn't touch? With technology? With tech
Speaker 1: Stuff from how stuff flix dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how Stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting acrossing me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: So have you? Uh is your and it's kind of
Speaker 1: a personal question. Is your internet sort of you know,
Speaker 1: clogged up? Could you use more fiber in your internet diet?
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could? And Google, if you're listening, I
Speaker 1: would like some Google Fiber. Ah terrible, terrible jokes aside um,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to avoid it, but I couldn't. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm weak. Uh yeah, we're we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: Google Fiber, which isn't a new breakfast supplement, is in
Speaker 1: fact really really fast internet, even for those parts of
Speaker 1: the world that have pretty darn fast internet. Um. You
Speaker 1: know this is this is really cutting edge. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of us here in the United States where Google
Speaker 1: Fiber is is operating, have uh even talking about broadband
Speaker 1: speeds usually less than five megabets per second. Uh. Certainly
Speaker 1: less than ten megabets per second, and that's reasonably fast
Speaker 1: for a lot of applications. Minds faster than that, or
Speaker 1: at least the advertised speed is faster than that. The
Speaker 1: actual speed versus the advertised speed is also an issue.
Speaker 1: But um, yes, there are certain areas where you can
Speaker 1: get faster, but we're talking way faster than even that. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean we we've we've talked about how South Korea
Speaker 1: and UH and Iceland among other places, have you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the easily double digits, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: or fifty megabets per second. But this is faster than that.
Speaker 1: This is talking about a gigabit per second. So a
Speaker 1: thousand megabits per second. Yeah, that's that's incredibly fast. Now
Speaker 1: to to really kind of get an idea about this,
Speaker 1: you have to go back a little bit. So well,
Speaker 1: I dusted it off, Yeah, yeah, we found it. I
Speaker 1: was wondering what that big lump was under the sheet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know. Guys left it in Uh.
Speaker 1: It was weird. I don't know what they were doing,
Speaker 1: but they were in apparently fourteenth century Scotland. There was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. I think they were shopping for Kilts.
Speaker 1: I could have told them that they needed to go
Speaker 1: to seventeenth century at the at the earliest, but anyway
Speaker 1: found it. Let's get in the way back machine. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just gonna set this to march here and
Speaker 1: push the button. Frank all right, now it's gonna open
Speaker 1: the door. You know, I don't remember that being so
Speaker 1: disorienting deafening, Wasn't it amazing? Yeah? For a minute there,
Speaker 1: all I would I could hear was bagpipe music. Well,
Speaker 1: that's still some after effects from the way back Machine.
Speaker 1: So Google announced in March that they were going to
Speaker 1: do this. They were going to run fiber out to
Speaker 1: some community in the United States and it would give
Speaker 1: speeds up to a gig of it per second, and
Speaker 1: uh and and the cities across the United States responded
Speaker 1: pretty enthusiastically, all wanting to um but all of them,
Speaker 1: many of them wanting to to court Google to come there. So, uh,
Speaker 1: let's see if let's see let me just let me
Speaker 1: just unroll this map here. Okay, so you see you
Speaker 1: see the state here, Um, that's it's a state, Kansas. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now you see this city here, Topeka. All right, you
Speaker 1: know what Topeka did in order to try and at
Speaker 1: Google to come there. Is that the city that renamed
Speaker 1: itself Google. Yes, they renamed themselves Google for a day, Kansas,
Speaker 1: Google Kansas. That's not a command. We're not asking you
Speaker 1: to go out and Google Kansas. That's what Kansas, Topeka,
Speaker 1: Kansas renamed itself in order to try and tempt Google
Speaker 1: to choose that city or the for the test run
Speaker 1: of Google Fiber. Yes. Yes, and that's actually not too
Speaker 1: far from when they actually from where they actually did
Speaker 1: decide to land. Actually, we should probably get back to
Speaker 1: present day to talk about that. All right, Hey, after this,
Speaker 1: you want to play some golf. I was thinking of
Speaker 1: getting some Scotch jaggs, you know, maybe some haggis, which
Speaker 1: is weird. All right, get back in alright, it's tight
Speaker 1: in here, all right, it's all the sheep, alright, press
Speaker 1: the button, alright, so let's get back to our normal
Speaker 1: spaces here. Um, yeah, it did. Actually Google did choose
Speaker 1: a city not incredibly far from Topeka. The city chosen
Speaker 1: was Kansas City. Actually two cities called Kansas City as well.
Speaker 1: As it happens, they're not exactly distant from one another.
Speaker 1: All right, So if you are not from the United States,
Speaker 1: or maybe you are from the United States, but you're
Speaker 1: not really familiar with Kansas and Missouri. There are cities
Speaker 1: that neighbor one another, both called Kansas City, and one
Speaker 1: is in Missouri and one is in Kansas and UH,
Speaker 1: the Kansas and Missouri rivers sort of defined the borders
Speaker 1: of these cities to some extent. Kansas City was what
Speaker 1: Google chose to extend the fiber to to use as
Speaker 1: the test run for Google Fiber, and both Kansas City,
Speaker 1: Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, where it will get the
Speaker 1: Google Fiber and this initial run UH, the specific neighborhoods
Speaker 1: within these cities will be determined by how passionately the
Speaker 1: the inhabitants want Google Fiber. They actually have to go
Speaker 1: in and register, put their ZIP code in UH to
Speaker 1: try and petition, essentially Google to run fiber out to
Speaker 1: that neighborhood because running this fiber is going to be expensive,
Speaker 1: so Google wants to make sure that they can get
Speaker 1: the most bang for the buck by running the fiber
Speaker 1: out to the neighborhoods where people are saying, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a subscriber, I want this service so so
Speaker 1: so what does Google call those groups of people? They
Speaker 1: call these areas fiber hoods. Okay, I think that's a
Speaker 1: name that has been met mostly with um, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That's the reaction I've heard from almost all of my
Speaker 1: tech journalism buddies. Actually, I imagine that most people go,
Speaker 1: that's really silly. But it's okay by me if Google
Speaker 1: will put one gig a bit internet in my house. Yeah, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to UH to talk about that.
Speaker 1: You think about that, Um, we're talking for for the
Speaker 1: purposes of this exercise, we're talking about sort of the
Speaker 1: days before every home, and I use every loosely UH
Speaker 1: is wired for telephone, and every home is wired for electricity.
Speaker 1: I mean that infrastructure is pretty robust now, but Google
Speaker 1: is starting from scratch in a lot of this case.
Speaker 1: I mean, UH, we talk about UH DSL for example,
Speaker 1: or cable. Um that that information that internet service is
Speaker 1: coming in over copper. In the case of UH cable,
Speaker 1: it's you know, copper cable or twisted pair copper in
Speaker 1: the case of phone based internet services. There's some fiber
Speaker 1: networks out there already, but they are they're the exception
Speaker 1: as opposed to the rule. Yeah, yeah, I mean fiber
Speaker 1: optics are play a very important role in our telecom communications,
Speaker 1: but they're more uh backbone if you will. Then they
Speaker 1: are individually wired neighborhood. There's there. There are very few
Speaker 1: true examples of fiber to the home. There are some,
Speaker 1: but it's not widespread. Yeah, I mean a Verizon FiOS
Speaker 1: up in the Northeastern United States primarily, um, but they
Speaker 1: don't reach speeds like this. Um so you know this
Speaker 1: is this is well actually this also sort of reminds
Speaker 1: me of thunderbolt um and tells technology which was initially
Speaker 1: going to be called something different light peak light peak,
Speaker 1: which uh uh you know, was going to use fiber
Speaker 1: optics signals transferring information by light rather than over as
Speaker 1: an electronic signal over copper. What's interesting is that first
Speaker 1: generation of light peak and Thunderbolt wires happens to use copper. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have not made that transition to fiber optics in
Speaker 1: that line of products as of yet. Um. So this
Speaker 1: is you know, not foreign, brand new technology, but it
Speaker 1: is cutting edge for the way they're using it. And
Speaker 1: they're having to do this all uh you know, not
Speaker 1: by hand, but I mean they're laying new networks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's expensive. It's a lot of work. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of construction that you have to worry about.
Speaker 1: You have to get permits for all the stuff, you
Speaker 1: have to schedule all this stuff so that you try
Speaker 1: and impact the neighborhoods as little as possible while you're
Speaker 1: trying to lay all this this fiber optic cable, try
Speaker 1: not to hit all the other all the other lines, gases, electricity,
Speaker 1: and yeah, there's there's just a lot of work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a huge project. And so what
Speaker 1: Google has done is it's asked people to um to
Speaker 1: essentially petition Google to bring the fiberhood, to make their
Speaker 1: neighborhood of fiberhood. And you have to hit a certain
Speaker 1: threshold before Google will consider your neighborhood. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different things that factor into that consideration.
Speaker 1: Where else Google will be building that network. So the
Speaker 1: easier the closer your neighborhood is to an existing fibrahood,
Speaker 1: the better your chances are because it's an extension of
Speaker 1: something that's already there. If you're if you are in
Speaker 1: an isolated neighborhood that really wants this, but all the
Speaker 1: surrounding neighborhoods around you don't really care. It makes it
Speaker 1: much more challenging for Google. Even if even if the
Speaker 1: passion is there within that one neighborhood, you have to
Speaker 1: figure out, well, we're gonna be running cable there somehow,
Speaker 1: So that's this is a problem. You have to know
Speaker 1: who are the people in your fiberhood, the people that
Speaker 1: you meet while you're walking down the street, the people
Speaker 1: that you meet each day it's a beautiful day in
Speaker 1: the fibrahood. If you if you can talk them into
Speaker 1: uh signing up with you, your your chances improved significantly. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: the it's it's not it's not a free service or anything. Now,
Speaker 1: this is for one thing. In order for you to
Speaker 1: be in on the ground floor of this. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a three or fee which you pay so that you
Speaker 1: that goes towards the construction fee that Google will have
Speaker 1: to pay. And then there's a monthly subscription fee if
Speaker 1: you want that gigabit per second Internet connection. Uh it's
Speaker 1: seventy dollars I believe, yes, seventy dollars if you want
Speaker 1: internet alone each month. Oh wait, did I say internet alone? Yes?
Speaker 1: Believe it or not? Uh. The this brand new service
Speaker 1: is like many others here in the United States, you
Speaker 1: can bundle it with another service and for Google, this
Speaker 1: this new services television. UM there if you if you
Speaker 1: decide you want the TV with it, um, you can
Speaker 1: add that to now TV and internet is a d
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a month, which is competitive with a lot
Speaker 1: of other services and a lot of other cities which
Speaker 1: I want to come back to later. Um, but this
Speaker 1: is this is sort of an interesting thing too. They
Speaker 1: are including a DVR with this with eight tuners, which
Speaker 1: means you can watch and or record eight shows at
Speaker 1: one time, which is kind of a lot if you
Speaker 1: have only one screen. But you know, um, I for
Speaker 1: every hour I watch, I record seven more. I will
Speaker 1: never have the time to watch all the TV I
Speaker 1: want to watch. It's kind of like YouTube, how you know,
Speaker 1: sixty two hours whatever is added every minute, So therefore
Speaker 1: there's way more video that has added every minute that
Speaker 1: you could ever possibly watch. Yes, exactly, UH it can
Speaker 1: record apparently these um, these new uh DVRs can record
Speaker 1: up to five hours of high definition TV. Now. It
Speaker 1: is important to note, um that one gig a bit
Speaker 1: of bandwidth can give you a whole lot of information.
Speaker 1: So high definition programming, UH, streaming audio and video via Internet.
Speaker 1: You should have no hiccups really with any of that.
Speaker 1: You should have clear signals as far as TV, as
Speaker 1: far as Internet goes. Of course, your mileage may vary, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, once the kids into practice. But those of
Speaker 1: us who use a UM an online service for what
Speaker 1: for example, UM, some of the the streaming movie services UM,
Speaker 1: you know, you might have hiccups depending on what kind
Speaker 1: of service you have, depending on the speed of your
Speaker 1: Internet UH, in some cases, depending on the weather, UM
Speaker 1: you know, those things. Those things factor into our services.
Speaker 1: And for Google Fiber it should be significantly less. So
Speaker 1: they're they're offering a a competitive product to the people
Speaker 1: of Kansas City. UM at that that offers them, I
Speaker 1: would say I would argue a premium product at a
Speaker 1: competitive price. They also have offered to UH to build
Speaker 1: free connections to a certain selection of public buildings in
Speaker 1: both Kansas cities. UM. The two cities got together and
Speaker 1: made up a list of public buildings that they thought
Speaker 1: should be connected to this and Google is going to
Speaker 1: connect them for free as part of as part of
Speaker 1: the whole deal of bringing this to the Kansas City area.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of cool too that this gigabit per
Speaker 1: second connection is going to be a public utility in
Speaker 1: certain instances like I would imagine, you know, if if
Speaker 1: it's connected to certain colleges or libraries that kind of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: that would be a huge benefit for anyone who uses
Speaker 1: those facilities. And as an added incent of the first
Speaker 1: subscribers are being offered a Google Nexus seven tablet. I
Speaker 1: I have used said tablet, actually have one in my
Speaker 1: bag right now. Um. Yeah, and that tablet can be
Speaker 1: used as even a controller for the TV I believe,
Speaker 1: so then you have a big tablet remote control. Yep, sou.
Speaker 1: So these are things that that make Google Fiber really
Speaker 1: compelling story and and for the first few days at
Speaker 1: least in the tech media, um, after they announced that
Speaker 1: they were going ahead and doing this and could please
Speaker 1: people in Kansas City please speak up if they were interested. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of coverage And since then I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of people saying, hey, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: it ain't that great, Um, the thing is grapes there.
Speaker 1: I E. Well, I think I think it's interesting to
Speaker 1: talk about the the benefits and detriments of it, or
Speaker 1: as one article I saw it put pros and cons
Speaker 1: um you know, it's not the kind of thing. It's
Speaker 1: true if you if you live in Seattle, Washington, which
Speaker 1: for those of you not um familiar with American geography,
Speaker 1: that's pretty darn far away from Kansas City. It's not
Speaker 1: next door, no no, uh so for them, Kansas City
Speaker 1: is not in their fiberhood. UM. So, the people who
Speaker 1: serve See to Washington with UH Internet service and TV
Speaker 1: service probably are not quaking in their boots at the
Speaker 1: prospect of Google walking in tomorrow and offering fiber service.
Speaker 1: But they should be cons thinking about it. I mean, Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: for example, has an option for if you are Internet
Speaker 1: subscribing in Chattanooga, you may qualify for their one gig
Speaker 1: a bit UH Internet service. Now there is a hefty
Speaker 1: feet that goes along with it. It's more expensive, or
Speaker 1: at least was last time I checked, than what Google
Speaker 1: is offering. Um. But that's being offered by a private company,
Speaker 1: and the people in Seattle are certainly not worried about
Speaker 1: them coming in tomorrow. But Google, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: has a bit more capital at its at its uh
Speaker 1: Google's pockets are deep, y'all. That's what I was going for. So, uh,
Speaker 1: this is a test for Google, and they have made
Speaker 1: it clear that it's a test. So the question is
Speaker 1: which fiberhood outside Kansas, the Kansas cities is going to
Speaker 1: be next? So what's going to happen? It's I mean,
Speaker 1: Google has definitely shown an interest in this sort of
Speaker 1: thing before, and in fact, when they announced it back
Speaker 1: in March, it was clear that this is kind of
Speaker 1: a pilot program and it could have been anywhere that
Speaker 1: really spoke up. And if it works, then we can
Speaker 1: expect it to eventually roll out to other cities. And
Speaker 1: you know, how Google chooses those cities is probably going
Speaker 1: to be a pretty complicated process, partly by how realistic
Speaker 1: is it to lay the infrastructure. Some cities it may
Speaker 1: be way more difficult than others. Um things like population
Speaker 1: density are going to matter because of course, if everyone's
Speaker 1: all spread out, then that's a lot more work for
Speaker 1: a certain number of customers that you might be able
Speaker 1: to you know, you might be able to find the
Speaker 1: same number in a much more condensed area in a
Speaker 1: different city, which could theoretically be easier to do if
Speaker 1: you don't have to lay as much cable or disru
Speaker 1: as much of the area. Geography will also play a part.
Speaker 1: Mountainous areas are are notoriously difficult to to lay cable in,
Speaker 1: which is why so many people in the mountains use
Speaker 1: satellite television. Yeah, it's there are a lot of factors
Speaker 1: that are going to go into play for this kind
Speaker 1: of decision making process. So um, even, and that's if
Speaker 1: this program is a success and if Google can actually
Speaker 1: see it generate revenue, because it may turn out that
Speaker 1: Google really takes a look at this and says, you know,
Speaker 1: we're charging a fair price as far as the market
Speaker 1: is concerned, but we're not getting enough return for this
Speaker 1: to be profitable. We're gonna lose money on it. Does
Speaker 1: it make sense for us to support it? If that's
Speaker 1: the case, we may not see the fiber rollout anywhere else. Yea,
Speaker 1: yea and uh well hey in uh inve we've already
Speaker 1: seen h Google shutter many projects that either duplicate other
Speaker 1: services even though they had some unique qualities to them
Speaker 1: or yeah, exactly, and so um, you know, Google is
Speaker 1: not as deep as its pockets are. Google is not
Speaker 1: going to just throw money at it. If it if
Speaker 1: it's never going to produce any kind of return. However,
Speaker 1: I think that this is going to make And this
Speaker 1: is one of the very first things I thought when
Speaker 1: I saw that the uh you know, the real plan
Speaker 1: for Google Fiber and the cost of what it was
Speaker 1: gonna be for a subscriber and all these things, I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, all these other companies, the big companies
Speaker 1: that offer internet access, telephone, and uh TV services to people,
Speaker 1: especially in the United States, because I can think of
Speaker 1: those companies off the top of my head, I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with them, They're going to have to reconsider what they offer.
Speaker 1: Because when when a company the size of Google decide
Speaker 1: it wants to get into something like this, and it's
Speaker 1: making this offer, and it's it's on the table for
Speaker 1: the people of Kansas City and well Kansas City, Um,
Speaker 1: the people who are are offering those services in Kansas
Speaker 1: City right now are going, how are we going to
Speaker 1: compete with this? And they're going to have to compete
Speaker 1: with that in other cities that that Google wants to
Speaker 1: to make that challenge in. So ultimately, this is going
Speaker 1: to bring a lower cost I hope, is going to
Speaker 1: bring a lower cost offering that offers better quality services
Speaker 1: for the rest of us. Competition is always a good thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: for the consumer at least. Well true competition always turns
Speaker 1: out to be good for the consumer. Now, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of industries out there where there appears to
Speaker 1: be competition but isn't. But there isn't really. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: more like collusion competition. But I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: into that. Um, you don't like price fixing only only
Speaker 1: at five star restaurants? Um. Yeah, it's uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: such an interesting project to me. I really, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I remember that I was is like when when the
Speaker 1: first announcement came out in March, I remember thinking, I
Speaker 1: hope at Lanta really really rallies to get this, because
Speaker 1: I would love to have the ability to tap into
Speaker 1: that kind of broadband speed. And uh, you know, of
Speaker 1: course that's not how it turned out. And I'm still
Speaker 1: hopeful that perhaps Atlanta would be on uh not too
Speaker 1: far down the list of potential cities should Google decide
Speaker 1: to roll this out to larger areas or areas beyond
Speaker 1: the Kansas City area. Um, and you know you think
Speaker 1: about that about how that would affect everything you do online.
Speaker 1: I mean you know, you potentially you would be able
Speaker 1: to download huge files at in in a heartbeat, but
Speaker 1: you'd also be able to do things like watch content
Speaker 1: streaming without too much difficulty. You could get in high
Speaker 1: definition without worrying about buffering problems things like that. There's
Speaker 1: one other thing that's curious about this what UM. We've
Speaker 1: talked about certain providers offering caps on bandwidth before, like
Speaker 1: especially for for UH smartphones. That's a that's a big
Speaker 1: deal for smartphones, especially because uh you use UH data
Speaker 1: over a network, any kind of network, and you're using
Speaker 1: up a portion of the traffic that that network can carry.
Speaker 1: UM for for mobile networks, that's pretty taxing. But you
Speaker 1: know they're off also having that same problem with cable
Speaker 1: and UH telephone networks that are using being used to
Speaker 1: deliver DSL and cable UM wireless internet networks UM y
Speaker 1: max for example. So uh So a lot of providers
Speaker 1: offer a cap you can download this amount of traffic
Speaker 1: per month, after which you will be cut off or
Speaker 1: you will be throttled so it's slower, or you'll have
Speaker 1: to pay extra. Google Fiber as of right now, maybe
Speaker 1: it's part of the test, but Google Fiber is not
Speaker 1: being capped. It's also interesting to me that there are
Speaker 1: essentially three different approaches to what you can do with
Speaker 1: Google Fiber. All right, so, UM, if you go there,
Speaker 1: actually have a free Internet select option, and this is
Speaker 1: if you pay the three construction fee, then you would
Speaker 1: get free internet access for at least seven years. But
Speaker 1: the speed would be five megabits per second, so five
Speaker 1: megabits per second download, one megabit per second upload. So
Speaker 1: you you are throttled in the sense that you aren't
Speaker 1: going to get that super fast UM connection that people
Speaker 1: who are paying the full subscription are getting, but you
Speaker 1: are if you're doing it for free once you pay
Speaker 1: that upfront cost of three so for seven years, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's pretty that's that's pretty incredible UM. And they will
Speaker 1: even Google even has it where they'll have a payment
Speaker 1: plan where you can do twenty five dollars a month
Speaker 1: for a year and then so you're paying twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars for five megabits per second download speeds UH for
Speaker 1: for one year, and then after that for the next
Speaker 1: six years you don't pay anything. That is a sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet deal for those of us who are used to
Speaker 1: those speeds but much higher prices. UM and then for
Speaker 1: the Internet and TV Internet deals, if you enter into
Speaker 1: a contract, they waived the three construction fee. So I
Speaker 1: believe with the Internet deal it's a one year contract
Speaker 1: at seventy dollars a month, and with the TV and
Speaker 1: Internet it's a two year contract at dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And in either of those, if you enter the contract,
Speaker 1: they waived that fee. Now you don't have to enter
Speaker 1: a contract from what I understand, and in that case
Speaker 1: you would pay the fee upfront plus the subscription. So
Speaker 1: if you you know, for those of us who might
Speaker 1: have the extra money to be able to pay that,
Speaker 1: we might think, well, let me go ahead. And you know,
Speaker 1: Google's got a reputation of occasionally starting things that just
Speaker 1: don't work out or the execution doesn't live up to
Speaker 1: the promise. Maybe I want to be more careful about
Speaker 1: this and not lock myself down into a contract that
Speaker 1: I might regret later. So that's a good option for
Speaker 1: people who have that extra cash up front where they
Speaker 1: can pay that three. Essentially, they're thinking, well, this is
Speaker 1: my get out of jail free. Uh card. It's not free,
Speaker 1: it's three hundred bucks, but but it lets me get
Speaker 1: out of this. If I think that it's not a
Speaker 1: great fit for what I need right now. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: interested to see where this goes, UM, and I hope
Speaker 1: that it's a successful trial, even if Google five or
Speaker 1: doesn't come here specifically, simply because I think it could.
Speaker 1: The business model, in addition to the the product offering
Speaker 1: itself could prove transformative for UH high speed Internet in
Speaker 1: the United States at least. But then again, this is
Speaker 1: Google as a company UH of a size and reach
Speaker 1: that could change the way Internet is used around the world,
Speaker 1: So it could it could very well have an effect
Speaker 1: over UH people on virtually every continent and the and
Speaker 1: the planet ye, possibly some other planets. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: we talked about Mars not long ago, that's true. We
Speaker 1: can cover Mars with fiber. It's nothing there, but you
Speaker 1: can get that are really quickly from one side of
Speaker 1: the planet to the other. Does the Curiosity rover have
Speaker 1: an uneata neat jack That would be a weird thing
Speaker 1: to include on that be funny but weird. Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I too, am really curious to see
Speaker 1: how this turns out, and I definitely think that there
Speaker 1: are going to be some ramifications UM that will go
Speaker 1: beyond this Kansas City area. Even if Google Fiber itself
Speaker 1: never extends beyond those neighborhoods, at least is getting some
Speaker 1: pretty entrenched industries rethinking their their approaches. So that could
Speaker 1: that could end up being great news for us down
Speaker 1: the line here in the United States. Definitely, and then
Speaker 1: maybe you know, who knows, if this becomes a wild success,
Speaker 1: then this could eventually extend to all different areas around
Speaker 1: the world, and Google could once more push itself further
Speaker 1: along the path to world domination. And then we will
Speaker 1: just await Google uh ultimate and inevitable renaming to Skynet. Alright,
Speaker 1: So do you have anything else to add about Google Fiber. No, No,
Speaker 1: not really, but it uh you know people who have
Speaker 1: been talking about how it is limited and include that
Speaker 1: includes uh, you know, some of the channels not they
Speaker 1: don't have all the networks and everything. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of content issues that they have to sort out.
Speaker 1: But it but it's early that this is a trial.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to work this kind of thing out, um,
Speaker 1: and I think that is very possible that that these
Speaker 1: things will get sorted out as time goes on. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's going to have a reach into other Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it will affect television, the way
Speaker 1: television is delivered, the way of phone is delivered. You know,
Speaker 1: as we switch over to more of a v o
Speaker 1: I P or Voice over Internet Protocol UM solution. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it will provide better quality voice calls even if
Speaker 1: we want to do that, or video calls. So um,
Speaker 1: you know there there's a lot of that. This will
Speaker 1: affect a lot of people. I think, a lot more
Speaker 1: than you might think just by it being limited to
Speaker 1: Kansas City. In Kansas City, Yeah, yeah, I agreed, So
Speaker 1: keep your eyes peeled, guys. And if hey, if we
Speaker 1: have any listeners in the Kansas City area that are
Speaker 1: actually going to be part of this, there are in
Speaker 1: a fiberhood and they're going to subscribe to this, let
Speaker 1: us know, send us a message, tell us what you think,
Speaker 1: tell us what the experience is like. So far. Uh,
Speaker 1: the first neighborhoods I think are getting hooked up in September,
Speaker 1: which might not be too long after this podcast actually
Speaker 1: goes live. We're recording it in early August, but of
Speaker 1: course the episodes are recorded well ahead of time. So
Speaker 1: if anyone out there is a Google Fiber customer, uh,
Speaker 1: and they would like to share their experience with what
Speaker 1: it's been like. Let us know, especially if you want
Speaker 1: to make us turn green within the and talk about
Speaker 1: how you wrote the response before we were able to
Speaker 1: ask the question, because that's just how past your Internet is.
Speaker 1: It's not easy being green. I guess not all right, guys.
Speaker 1: That wraps it up for this episode. If you have
Speaker 1: any topics you would like us to tackle in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, you can let us know in
Speaker 1: an email. Our address is tech Stuff at Discovery dot
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