Final yr Google Fiber introduced it was type of coming again to life. For years, the service—which had Google roll right into a city, lay down miles of fiber-optic cable, and begin competing with the native ISP monopoly—had “paused” additional enlargement. Now, for no matter motive, Fiber is again, and the corporate is providing a brand new excessive of 5 gigabits per second.
In fact the draw back to Google Fiber is all the time the very restricted rollout space. Google says 5 Gig service is coming to “Kansas Metropolis, West Des Moines, and all our Utah cities,” and that is it. Google Fiber introduced plans final yr to roll out to 5 new states ultimately however has no plans to ever attain a large rollout.
For those who reside in one of many blessed Fiber cities, the service sounds nice, although. That is 5Gbps symmetrical, so 5Gbps obtain and add speeds, which is a large enchancment over one thing like Comcast and its ~35MB add speeds. For those who’re a content material creator, developer, or, particularly, somebody who commonly generates 4K video, regular ISP add speeds will be crippling. Google’s 5Gbps service is $125 a month, which features a professionally put in 10 Gig fiber modem and “a Wi-Fi 6 router and two mesh extenders.”
Usually Google Fiber’s gear is Google’s personal Nest WiFi package deal. The corporate notes you’ll be able to deliver your personal gear as a substitute, and also you most likely ought to, since all fashions of Nest WiFi solely have a 1 gigabit Ethernet port for the modem hookup, which will likely be a serious bottleneck in a 5 gigabit Web setup. Accurately feeding 5Gbps right into a Wi-Fi setup—and even a wired setup—means you are going to need to be actually choosy about your gear.
The ten Gig modem is an indication of Google’s plans to push Google Fiber even additional. The corporate says “8 Gig is on the horizon”—a reference to a beforehand introduced plan to launch a $150 service tier in “early 2023.” The corporate publicly examined 20Gbps and says it is now on a “journey to 100 Gig symmetrical Web.”
