They wanted to know what would happen if people had super fast Internet. All the big players made a show of getting onboard. Experiment success, and they got out... Actually operating as an Internet provider wasn't something they wanted to be part of their core business- they have enough anti-monopoly mumbling associated with their name as it is.
As for the experiment... I guess the answer was not much? More high definition streaming, some few companies attempting the streaming of games. It certainly hasn't been the panacea of innovation, but it is also still early days I suppose.
IIRC, they bought a company that uses wireless APs to deliver the signals within municipalities/cities. The bureaucracy and cost was too prohibitive for physical fiber. At least that was my understanding of the situation last I had checked.
Webpass, I believe. How do I know? I’m using it right now!
A good internet provider, though living in a snowy city, the signal can deteriorate a bit when you get heavy snowfall. Still usable, but slow in those cases. The symmetrical gigabit is damn nice 99% of the time.
That's the weird thing with Google isn't it?
They have the money to do so many things. But also have a reputation for closing up so many things a few years after launch.
It is now at the point where you can't commit to a new google thing and would rather use the competitor instead because you know they will likely outlast Googles corporate attention span...
They had a hard time with doing whatever was necessary to get their cabling on poles and finding sites for equipment.
They also found that when you light a fire under the butts of incumbent telcos, they can deploy modern infrastructure really quickly. And the telcos already know how to get lines on poles and how to site equipment boxes.
They are alive, and they use no opt-in for their marketing emails. I know that because my old gmail account has been getting those mails for over a year already. They keep trying to sell me fiber, but unless they also sell me an address is in the US, it’s not very useful.
(Yes, I could unsubscribe. But I prefer to report every opt-out mail like that as spam and also look at what kinds of opt-out spam I get. Some are even more interesting, unsubscribing requires logging into an account I don’t have access to.)
