Is Google Going Dark on Fiber?
One well-placed source in the equipment community says the company is choosing to lease long-haul network capacity from existing carriers, instead of lighting up dark fiber coast-to-coast. Such a network, if ever constructed, would vault Google deep into the telecommunications business, and it might have helped the company expand its muni WiFi, grid computing, and broadband video initiatives. (See Google's Own Private Internet and Google Hypometer.) On the other hand, analysts point to several reasons why Google may have cooled to the idea. And those reasons, coupled with the decision to lease capacity from other carriers, may help explain its wide-eyed interest in the issue of network neutrality. First, Heavy Reading chief analyst Scott Clavenna says there is no real shortage of long-haul capacity. “Building a new backbone from scratch may not be warranted in the U.S., as there is still lots of 10G capacity available from wholesalers at good prices,” Clavenna says. “I would think managed wholesale capacity is available from at least a half-dozen providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Qwest, Level 3, Global Crossing) that would fight hard for this business and provide Google with a high-capacity backbone.”
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Posted to WiFi / Wireless