My town (Cary, NC) was among those recently selected by Google as part of their expansion of Google Fiber to four new metro areas (Raleigh-Durham, NC, Charlotte NC, Nashville and Atlanta). They have not yet announced deployment schedule details, but I'm guessing that it might be a couple of years before the fiber actually reaches my neighborhood, based on their rollout pace in the three existing Google Fiber markets (Kansas City, Austin and Provo, UT). Nevertheless, I look forward to being able to ditch Time-Warner Cable eventually, so I want to be prepared.
Google Fiber offers television service in addition to (gigabit!) internet connectivity. What they do NOT offer is telephone service; instead, they suggest that customers who want land-line service get it through a VoIP provider or through a traditional ILEC -
Currently, we have a landline through TWC as part of our internet/TV/phone bundle, and we've actually been pleased with that phone service. Because it is offered by the network provider, it is not merely VoIP (Voice over IP), but what one contributor to the Digest has dubbed "Voice *using* IP". I.e., TWC controls the network, so they can segregate a certain amount of bandwidth for exclusive use by the phone service, thus guaranteeing a good Quality of Service for voice traffic. Voice quality is great, and I can even fax successfully.
Third-party VoIP provider packets, in contrast, are intermixed with (and competing against) other general internet traffic and are thus more vulnerable to QoS problems. I'd like to hear from any current customers who receive phone service over Google Fiber. What VoIP providers do you recommend? Is your QoS good enough to support faxing? Is the fiber service fast enough that QoS issues are basically moot anyway? (I realize that 1 Gb/s is a tremendous amount of bandwidth, but QoS depends more on latency.) All feedback on your experience with telephone service over Google Fiber is most welcome.
Separately, another valued contributor to the Digest, Neal McLain, has wondered about the economics of wired broadband service, specifically whether it qualifies as a natural monopoly. My area was not a monopoly even before the Google announcement, as TWC competes with AT&T (formerly BellSouth, nee Southern Bell) and their U-verse service. But I will note that between the time that Google announced about a year ago that our area was a candidate for Google Fiber and the time they announced we would indeed be getting it, both TWC and AT&T started promising significant upgrades to their local offerings. In TWC's case, this included upping broadband rates in existing service tiers without increasing prices. AT&T has started rolling out "U-verse with GigaPower", with speeds an order of magnitude faster than plain old U-verse. It seems that there's nothing like a little competition, or even the mere threat of it, to spur the incumbents to offer better products and prices.
Bob Goudreau Cary, NC