Pre-registration for Google Fiber closed last week, with about 90% of Kansas City's eligible "fiber-hoods" rallying enough support for Google to build its infrastructure: it's on.
Pre-registrants get seven years of slower broadband internet free (following a $300 construction fee). Or, with a 2-year contract for gigabit internet (1000 Mb/s) or Google's TV service bundle - both of which are priced competitively with rival plans - Google promised to waive the fee. And fully funded fiber-hoods get free gigabit internet at schools, hospitals and other public buildings.
With stellar speed, dreamy prices and no sneaky equipment-rental fees, our initial report on Google Fiber was part glowing recommendation and part distilled envy.
Alas, that ostensible absence of hidden fees is superficial. The service will still be priced as advertised, but the full cost of Google's fiber network won't be covered by billing and Google's capital investments alone.
Kansas City taxpayers are helping Google develop its fiber network whether their neighborhoods will have access to it or not.
The truth is, Kansas City promised numerous regulatory concessions and substantial subsidies in its bid to be Google Fiber's first home. Kansas City taxpayers (on both sides of the state line) are helping Google develop its fiber network whether their neighborhoods will have access to it or not.
The development agreement between Google and Kansas City stipulates that "Google will bear all costs for the [Fiber] project." Yet it goes on to guarantee the company:
- Free power
- Free office space for Google employees
- Expedited permits and inspections (with fees waived)
- Free marketing, including direct mail
- Free right-of-way easements (i.e. Google can build anywhere they want without compensating the city for noise or increased traffic)
- The right to approve or reject any public statements the city makes about Fiber
Now, those weren't preconditions for the agreement; Google may not have even suggested all of them. But the company did reject proposals from over a thousand other communities with more restrictive policies.
Kansas City may not be footing the bill for Google's infrastructure outright, but they've suspended regulations and waived fees for Google and no one else. Did we mention that the city has never offered another ISP any of these incentives? How about that Google's exempt from standard open access regulations that would let competitors lease the city's only fiber network to offer competing services?
Don't misunderstand: I'd gladly swap Comcast's stranglehold on my neighborhood for the benevolent monopoly Google is looking to build. Google's answer to the public interest concerns brought up by the Fiber program is that what it's offering is just better than everything else available. And that's pretty persuasive: Gigabit internet plus a free network box from Google would cost less than I pay now for 20Mb/s with a monthly usage cap.
And, really, it's worth asking whether any city in the US will ever get better broadband without monopoly-enabling concessions much like Kansas City's. It's prohibitively expensive and risky for any ISP to make such huge infrastructure improvements - especially for an upstart with no existing customer base. Corporate favoritism may be backward, but it's ushering in Kansas City's cheap fiber internet future.
Still, it's hard to see how crippling other ISPs' chances to compete, in service of a particular for-profit company, is even legal - let alone good for consumers. Google Fiber just isn't a free market success story, even if FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai (among others) seems to think so. There are lots of more accurate names for exceptional government treatment of corporate interests. None of them is very nice.
Are Kansas City's concessions a dangerous precedent or the cost of doing business? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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