Fibernomics

More on the Google Fiber rollout from Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm:

All of these things will help Google deliver a gigabit per second to the home at a profit. Granted, that profit might not be as large as the broadband profits that Comcast or AT&T currently enjoy, but it’s a profit. And hopefully regulators and average consumers will look at what Google is doing and ask themselves, “Why are the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world complaining about how much it costs to serve up broadband when Google can deliver 100 times the traditional ISP’s top speeds for the same or a lower price.”

Say Hello to Google Fiber

Today Google announced the rollout of its Google Fiber service to the good people of Kansas City. You might remember that Google selected KC for this nerdy honor early last year after a nationwide campaign. Alas, in all likelihood the people of happy Holland, Michigan will be waiting for quite some time.

Google is offering 3 simple plans:

  • 5 mbps down/1 mbps up for $0. That's right, free. And it's guaranteed for at least 7 years. All you pay for the privilege is a one-time construction fee of $300. Works out to about $3.57 per month by my calculations.
  • Up to 1 gigabit up and down for $70/month. The construction fee is waived under this plan.
  • Up to 1 gigabit up and down AND TV for $120/month. This is where things get a little crazy. Google will be offering a complete TV lineup over fiber (á la AT&T U-verse and Verizon FIOS), plus a 2 TB networked storage box, plus a 1 TB Google Drive. Oh, and a Nexus 7 tablet so you can control the TV.

This is really exciting. Sure, it's going to take a while for Google to be able to offer this kind of service in all the major markets, plus there's no telling if the program will even be successful in Kansas City to begin with. However, competition is always good for the consumer. Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon… they'll all be paying attention as Google launches its fiber network in KC this fall.

Sparrow Acquired by Google

Dom Leca, Sparrow CEO:

We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application. While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.

We had an amazing ride and can't thank you enough.

Full speed ahead!

Man, oh man, I hope this isn't the end of the road for significant updates to Sparrow, although it sure sounds like it. However, I wouldn't mind Google rebranding Sparrow as Gmail for Mac, et al., and then continuing to invest in it going forward. I also think elements of Sparrow's UI could have a real place in the Gmail web app. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Good on the Sparrow team for building a great product from the ground up and seeing it through to this point.

Sparrow is available on the Mac App Store (for now).