Google Fiber

[MiniDave]

It will be a brave new world here at the MiniDave household in a few days, they've already installed the fiber from the pole to the house, next they'll come and put in the modem and hook us up - I can't wait to see what 1 gig speeds are like - it won't make a lick of difference to my wireless laptop as it only has a 70mg card in it, but for the desktop and TV, not to mention all the other wireless stuff we have - it should work better...at least I hope and expect so.

My buddy Don (Red Vtec pickup) has had it for about 5 years now - that's how long it took them to make it to my suburb, less than 10 miles from his house - and he's had no issues with their service or the performance of the net. He also says the TV reception is fantastic.

The best part? Taking all Time Warner/Spectrum's shit down to the office and telling them to shove it where the sun don't shine!  71.gif

More as it happens......

[gr8kornholio]

And it's sad that in the major metro area of Dallas it's not available.  Lame!

[MiniDave]

KC was/is the first market they brought it to, now they've decided not to do any more cities with fiber, rather they're looking at WIFI instead, so you may yet see them in your 'hood.

[jedduh01]

 Here in Charlotte we have Google fiber = and quite simply = its Simple and its great 
         The whole account is EASILY managed online. Check a box on a web page for your services requsted. = no promo pricing = no package deals= no bundle deals = all that Spectrum / Time warner crap.  TV is Just the same service (just simple add on- all or nothing basically - 220 HD Channels)   Previously we had TW/spectrum  had 320MBS== it buffered alot.. bogged down (cable internet) at peak times.

We have been on GF for about 8 months now  only ONE 'short' time it went 'down' 
    Absolutely my hardware isnt up to FULLY using the 1gig speed but the access is there to use it if your computing power was enough. Its more than adequate.. We stream life = among 3 Ipads   TV PC + Phones...  since google fiber I forgot what buffering was....   Ive thought about going from full gig speed - to the less speed - but only 30$ per month change= why bother... Slower YUCK!   Their equipment is good too!  Strong WIFI + Router in ONE box...

They tore up the neighborhoods upon install = but now that's done.. long forgotton.
   AT&T also came thru with their fiber.. so now we have tru 3  competition for Fiber here locally.

Great fiber story =  few weeks ago = I was digging a french drain.. Called 811= marked all the lines = except 1... (oh we dont have data on a fiber line here) but the box was right on the side of the house... Well yes= =Snap = broke that fiber line EASILY!
    Quick call to Google Fiber customer service= = explained what happened. Manager said = we will get on it...

No lie = this was on a Sunday = Fiber Patch people were at the house in ONE HOUR...
   did a 'temp  fiber line repair  + and planned to come re route around our project the next day =  9AM Monday = they came and put in a whole new fiber line  street to house.

AMAZING customer service in every way.  Hard to think now = move from Charlotte and Loose the GOOGLE Fiber! !

[MiniDave]

Thanks Jedduh, we hear similar things from friends locally that have been on the service for a while - NO ONE wants to go back to TW/Spectrum or anything else!

We just got the appointment to do the final install - next Wed. at 1 pm.

Yay!   62.gif  4.gif  71.gif  77.gif

[Dmulder]

My sister lives in KCMO.  She got fiber several years ago when the only fee you paid was the install fee. If I remebr right she paid $250.00 and has free internet for as long as she owns the house. Wish we had it here in Michigan.

[MiniDave]

$300 install fee and free for 7 years IIRC.

I don't think they offer that any more......

[BruceK]

So, what is the cost?

[MiniDave]

$140/mo all in, taxes, fees included.....for TV and internet. bout $3/mo more than I'm currently paying TW/Spectrum for shitty service, pixilation, audio dropout, internet failures and slowdowns etc.

Don says it's so easy to get used to not having any of those issues.....streaming stuff off of Amazon or watching movies, listening to music, YouTube vids etc with no buffering or slowdowns.......I'm looking forward to it

[Dmulder]

minidave - you are correct.  they no longer offer that option.
I did read though that there are cheaper options.  It looks as if there is a 50$ option for areas that are low income or don't have the connectivity that higher income areas would have.  It also looks like there is a $70 and $100 a month plan that does not include tv.  Still cheaper than my comcast bill every month.

[MiniDave]

Of course, that's only in areas that they've already laid the fiber - "fiberhoods" they call them. But what I'm hearing is that they're going to stop (or may have already done so) laying fiber due to infrastructure costs and go straight to WIFI, something they could roll out fairly quickly in a lot of places and will be considerably more cost effective.

Our suburb was the last in KC to get fiber, and my part of Overland Park was the last of the neighborhoods to get service, literally all the surrounding areas have had it for years.

[Jims5543]

I would be lucky to see Google Fiber here in 10 years. Too small of a town for them to run it here.

I have considerable speed at my office since it is on a commercial corridor there are some nice options there, I was even offered T1 but declined, the speed we have is great, no lagging on page loads, no buffering videos etc. It aint broke.

At home we are severely limited, we have OK speed browsing internet, no lag (this is with a kid playing on PS4) and no buggering. We do not have TV so we stream everything and never have a problem.

I think I would like more speed but so far we are ok.  Once 4K starts streaming I might rethink that.

Consider yourself lucky you have those options. 

[MiniDave]

Yep, all of a sudden we have choices - Spectrum (TW) which since they fixed it for the 5th time this year has actually been working pretty well on the TV side, internet still sucks. We have AT&T fiber, Comcast, Direct and Dish satellites and another "no name" carrier.....all considered high speed internet. But Google with it's 1 gig has them all beat - unless AT&T decides to turn up the wick on their stuff - currently at 300 mg same as TW, which is probably more than enough.

I remember back when we first got cable, at a blazing 5K compared to dialup at 56, it was incredibly fast - someone told me then that it could go MUCH faster, all they had to do was "turn it up", and sure enough, once the other competitors started showing up we went from 5 to 30, to 70, to 100, to 300 in only a few years. Of course, the cost doubled too!

[MiniDave]

Today's the day! They sent plenty of help.....

[MiniDave]

And we're up and running!

Everything seems to work just as it should, time will tell.

[BruceK]

And we're up and running!

Everything seems to work just as it should, time will tell.

Good luck.   Any anecdotes about how fast it is?

[MiniDave]

Well, we are the limits there, for example, my laptop only has a 70 meg card, which means it will only do about 55meg in the real world. However, we do have a PC upstairs with a 1 gig card that is hard wired to the router, I have yet to use it but that's the one I'm counting on for the high speeds, as that's the one Rose works from when she's working remote and using the Voip. That has been a real problem for us....

The TV? The only thing I can say is it does seem to have a much better picture and the remote is very similar to the one from TW, I'll let you know about the other features once I set it up to record F1 and such.

[MiniDave]

One interesting result of being on Google Fiber.....

As soon as they had us up and running I gathered all my old Time Warner/Spectrum equipment up and took it straight to their office, our bill was due today and I didn't want to incur any more charges....when I did that they cancelled my account, and killed my email instantly.

So, I have a new Gmail account but no addresses for anyone I had in my contacts list.

So, here's mine, send me yours! (Use the PM on the forum)

MiniDaveC at gmail dot com

Oh, and the Bluetooth remote for the TV is da bomb!

[MPlayle]

PM sent.

[94touring]

Don't forget to change your email in your profile.

[MiniDave]

Oops, thanks!

[MiniDave]

Well, here we are 6 mos later and there have been no issues with the Google fu....it simply works. Rose was having terrible problems with the Voip, there were days when she couldn't work as it was so awful. since we got all googly, no issues at all - it just works.

We don't like the TV guide that google provides as much as what Spectrum did, and even thos there are 500 channels or so, sometimes its still hard to find anything good to watch. But we've started using the On Demand, and there are some good TV nuggets to be mined there yet.

F1 records perfectly, and the mount of storage is so vast that I never bother to delete anything we've already watched, at some point I will if needed, but I think it just records over the oldest stuff so I may not have to.

All in all, it's noteworthy because it just works seamlessly and with no drama......kinda like phones used to do back in the Bell days.

[94touring]

Good to hear it still works good as new.