Google’s Dark Network Plan
For those of you who don’t know, Google has been buying lots and lots of what’s known as “dark fiber”. Essentially, this is unused fiber optic network that major network infrastructure companies built, but can’t make use of so they sell it off. Now, it’s been speculated all over the place about what Google would need a dark fiber network for. Now, ZDnet is writing that Google is buying a large block of IPv6 addresses.
IPv6 is the next generatioin IP address protocall. It provides enough unique IP addresses to have pretty much every atom in the known universe have its own IP address. Anyhow, Google is registered with a /20 block address or what could be called a provider block of addresses. That means that Google in the next 5 years needs to start providing ISP services to at least 200 or more individuals or organizations.
So, Google has the addresses and the dark fiber, so what’s left? Really, it’s going to come down to the last mile for Google. Google is building the infrastructure to provide nationwide internet access with enough bandwidth to do IPTV, VOIP, and still have bandwidth to spare. The telecommunications companies were supposed to do this years ago. In fact, the government gave billions of dollars to companies like AT&T to build such a network, but they just took the money and ran. At the same time AT&T wants to start charging Google and eBay just to use their network.
That is why Google is building a massive nationwide network. As soon as AT&T and other telecoms make it legal to charge Google extra to reach their customers, Google will flip the switch and the nationwide Google network will be born. The only question is how will we use it? Bringing fiber directly to the home isn’t practical for Google or any other company for that matter. Verizon is doing it, but it’s extremely time-consuming to do each house one at a time. Cable would be another way to go, but Google would need to buy Comcast or Time Warner to make that happen. So, the most likely possibility is either internet over power lines or WiMAX. I’m betting on a combination of the two.
Right now neither technology is quite mature enough to handle Google’s needs to they are probably waiting until it’s ready, but once WiMax and Internet over power lines technologies are ready, Google will be able to tackle the last mile. Once Google puts the network in our homes we won’t need phone lines, cable, sattelie, or DSL. Phone, Television, and Internet will all come from one pipeline and it will be incredible. At the same time the whole telecommunications industry will become largely irrelevent in the same way that AOL is now irrelevant. If Time Warner could, they would sell AOL, but they are stuck with AOL and its dwindling subscriber base.
Oh, and the cost of the Google network? FREE! Why? Well, once Google controls the network they will be able to obviously do the same ads they currently do on search, but they will be able to put contextual ads in televisions shows, digital tv, etc… Heck, we might not even have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials per 30 minutes of television anymore.
This all might sound crazy, but think about it. Google took internet advertising from a broken marketing channel to a multi-billion dollar industry. Google brings in billions of dollars every year just from simple text links in search queries. Imagine the cash flow Google could bring in by putting their contextual advertising into television, where there is already a multi-billion dollar advertising industry? The possibilites are staggeirng and believe me, Google is seriously thinking about this.
July 17th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
I have heard some rumblings of this sort of plot by Google. If they can get a hold of TV, phones and cable they will truly run the show. They made money during the bursting of the “tech bubble” while so many internet companies were going belly up. Like you said they are now making billions off of text ads online so who could put it past them to capture so much more of the economy.