Provo gets Google fiber

[SavaUte]

As much as I hate provo, it is a very good thing for a city so near to get in on this. Hopefully there is some spill over of some sort into SLC, either way, its very good for the area.

I would say this announcement qualifies as "epic"

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/17/provo-utah-is-the-third-city-google-fiber/#comments

[DU Ute]

Provo, Spain?

[LA Ute]

It'll be great for Provo as more Utah grads flood into the area to fill the jobs that will be created.

[Diehard Ute]

I don't really think it's as epic as some.

The speed would be nice...but how many people are going to spend $70 a month for it?

The "free" plan that you can purchase for either a $300 one time fee or $25 a month for a year is 5 Mbit/s (and that deal can end after 7 years)

Of course the other details is Provo still has $40,000,000 to pay off on the iProvo system Google bought, as they purchased it for $1 and free low speed service for 7 years)

It'll be a nice option, but the epic part is still the millions spent by the city of Provo in my estimation.

[Scratch]

Out of curiosity, what is it that makes Fiber so fast? What makes it so special?

[Diehard Ute]

Out of curiosity, what is it that makes Fiber so fast? What makes it so special?

Because it transmits light instead of electrical current it can transmit larger amounts of data at higher quality.

[SavaUte]

I don't really think it's as epic as some.

The speed would be nice...but how many people are going to spend $70 a month for it?

The "free" plan that you can purchase for either a $300 one time fee or $25 a month for a year is 5 Mbit/s (and that deal can end after 7 years)

Of course the other details is Provo still has $40,000,000 to pay off on the iProvo system Google bought, as they purchased it for $1 and free low speed service for 7 years)

It'll be a nice option, but the epic part is still the millions spent by the city of Provo in my estimation.

There are plenty who will pay it, people pay that much for something like 70mb from comcast now. It will help all the tech businesses in the area and draw more in. I believe there are streaming TV options as well.

Provo has just become the envy of millions and millions in America, I think that means they get to call it epic

[Diehard Ute]

There are plenty who will pay it, people pay that much for something like 70mb from comcast now. It will help all the tech businesses in the area and draw more in. I believe there are streaming TV options as well.

Provo has just become the envy of millions and millions in America, I think that means they get to call it epic

I believe it's limited to small businesses, so I don't think it will have much impact on the business side.

The TV option is $120 a month for 200 channels.

Given how much those residents of Provo have paid for this epic deal, I'll pass :)

[SavaUte]

I believe it's limited to small businesses, so I don't think it will have much impact on the business side.

The TV option is $120 a month for 200 channels.

Given how much those residents of Provo have paid for this epic deal, I'll pass :)

The 120 is bundled with gigabit internet. From what I remember people talking about on ufn is pretty close to what people already pay for that bundle. Sure that sounds excessive, but as these speeds become more "normal" they will become necessary for content on the internet. I don't pay for TV, so I have no idea.Just think about a few years ago when 3mb was excessive, now if you do any kind of streaming or anything, it isn't enough.

I remember my dad bringing home an Iomega Jaz drive and thinking "woah, a gigabyte? Who would ever fill that thing up? Same thing a few years later when I learned what a terrabyte is. Bill Gates couldn't find a reason for 640k RAM. Modern technology and innovation has shown that people will use excess resources for things nobody had thought of when the resources became available.

And sure, they aren't going to let Adobe feed their entire company internet for $70, but I guarantee that Adobe/Novell/Intel/Anyone else who comes will have close if not top industry leading connectivity out of provo because of this.

Anyone who doesn't see what a huge boon to the future this will be I think is either 1) not looking very hard or 2)trying to not see it in order to maintain themselves "above" provo.

And how much have the residents of Provo paid? Thats a valid point if you're talking about the failed iProvo stuff? The fact that they have the fiber alredy in the ground no doubt helped a ton in swaying google to pick provo

[DU Ute]

Those are three names I enjoy; Google, Fiber, and Provo.

[Rocker Ute]

Probability that decision makers in Provo thinking that Google Fiber was some sort of newfangled Metamucil substitute: 90%

Actually, this is big. Affordable high speed Internet is a huge factor in determining where we locate our business, and so I'm sure it will be for them. A lot of startups at least will now consider Provo (although I'd pick Austin over any of these places).

[U-Ute]

Out of curiosity, what is it that makes Fiber so fast? What makes it so special?

Here's a nice primer (http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/10/21/3044463.htm).



"In both cases you're detecting changes in energy, and that's how you encode data.


"With copper wires you're looking at changes in the electromagnetic field, the intensity of that field and perhaps the phase of the wave being sent down a wire.


"With fibre optics, a transmitter converts electronic information into pulses of light — a pulse equates to a one, while no pulse is zero. When the signal reaches the other end, an optical receiver converts the light signal back into electronic information," explains Malaney.
The throughput of the data is determined by the frequency range that a cable will carry — the higher the frequency range, the greater the bandwidth and the more data that can be put through per unit time.


And this is the key difference — fibre optic cables have much higher bandwidths than copper cables.


"Optical fibre can carry much higher frequency ranges — note that light is a very high frequency signal — while copper wire attenuates or loses signal strength at higher frequencies," says Malaney.


Also, fibre optic technology is far less susceptible to noise and electromagnetic interference than electricity along a copper wire.
"You can send the signal for over 200 kilometres without any real loss of quality while a copper cable signal suffers a lot of degradation over that distance," says Malaney.