$120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to other service providers.
I pay $120/mo in New York and get high speed internet, and cable TV with HBO (conspicuously missing from Google's offering) and ESPN. Don't get me wrong, I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, but I don't actually think that $120 price point is much of a slap in the face to existing providers.
EDIT: and this is just in Kansas City. Given the existing variations in price across the country, I'll be very surprised if we are all paying $120 when (if?) it rolls out nationally.
Yes, although there are rumblings about other locations. I can tell you that if it does 'decimate' the entrenched carriers they will go thermonuclear as well (so Google ends up opening another front in the legal wars) You can already see some of the tactics where cable companies have convinced legislatures to make it illegal to allow either public funds to be spent on infrastructure or to allow non-contracted third parties into a region.
No way to know. This is a pilot program. Running fiber to the home cost effectively is as much a political challenge as anything else. They're hoping to blow the doors of in KC to then help make things go more smoothly in other cities.
Because most customers don't care about gigabit. I'm a tech geek and I don't care about it- my existing speed (around 10mpbs, I think) has rarely posed problems for me.
In any case, $120 in Kansas City is not ever going to translate to $120 in New York City.
This is incorrect. It is why places like T-Mobile run commercials about caps and why there are tons of articles and blogs and Twitter comments about data caps. A lot of people care.
That's all mobile, though (and also wasn't what I was commenting about). My provider (Time Warner Cable) doesn't have any data caps- I know others do, of course.
In Orlando I'm paying $240 a month to get 40Mbps down / 5 up with a full channel lineup, plus Showtime and NHL Center Ice. So THIS would be a huge deal to people in my area where only one cable option exists in a lot of Central Florida.
I wonder how much money Google can make from a single household that is using Google products on the internet? As long as Google makes more money over time than the internet connection costs them, then it could be a very profitable for Google to increase the number of people using Google products and gain great product PR and brand loyalty from these people who get free internet.
"Record up to eight programs simultaneously, just because you can. And with an unprecedented two terabytes of storage, you will never have to worry about having enough space to record your favorite shows."
This is very disruptive on both ends, free and $120 per month. Hits the cable providers, telcom providers, and even apple, Netflix, Hulu, and roku where it hurts. Nice work google!
They are still missing a few key channels - CNN, Disney, and espn - all of which my household can't live without (I know, first-world problems). And I think those are some of the harder, more valuable properties to acquire. Anyone know whether google will be able to get those channels?
I had the same feeling, but maybe the Netherlands are just cheap. You can get phone/internet/tv combinations here from €40-70. Although the fastest internet connection you get there is usually 'only' 120Mbit.
I probably should have clarified that it's competitive to those packages offered in the USA. We're used to getting gouged by our telcos here in the Land of the Free :D
But $0 internet is very amazing.
On top of that, $120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to other service providers.