[转帖] [2013.4.13]谷歌光纤—搜索大鳄锁定新的目标试水高速宽带服务

showcraft

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-185261-1-1.html
Google Fiber
谷歌光纤

We’re not (just) in Kansas anymore
从堪萨斯开始

The search giant chooses a second city for its fast broadband service
搜索大鳄谷歌锁定新的目标试水高速宽带服务

Apr 13th 2013 |From the print edition

Larry the cable guy
宽带网络牛人——拉里

FIRST stop, Kansas City. Next stop, Austin. On April 9th Google said that it had chosen the Texan capital as the second location for Google Fiber, an ultra-fast broadband network. Google will offer the same deal there as in Kansas City, where it began connecting households in November. For $70 a month it promises both downloads and uploads at a gigabit per second, fast enough to send a high-definition feature-length film in a few blinks, and a terabyte (ie, a shedload) of cloud storage. Television, with a Nexus tablet that serves as a controller, costs an extra $50. Google Fiber also offers a free version (after a connection fee). At five megabits per second for downloads, it is only a little slower, by Google’s count, than the average for which Americans now pay.

第一站是堪萨斯城，下一站是奥斯丁。4月9日，谷歌公司表示，已经锁定德克萨斯州首府作为其超高速宽带网络“谷歌光纤”的第二个目标。去年11月，谷歌开始在堪萨斯城实施光纤到户工程，此次，奥斯丁项目的交易内容将与前者相同。谷歌承诺同时提供每秒千兆的上传和下载速度，费用为每月70美元，这种速度足以在几秒钟内发送一整部高清电影，完成一兆兆字节（那是极其庞大的）云数据的存储。使用Nexus平板电脑作控制器的电视机，每月加收50美元服务费。“谷歌光纤”还提供了免费方案（需先交纳初装费）。免费服务的下载速度为每秒5 m，据谷歌计算，这只比目前美国家庭付费使用的宽带服务的平均网速慢了一点。

Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein, a broker, estimate that in Kansas City Google will spend $84m to pass 149,000 homes. (Connection will cost a few dollars extra per home.) If it expects to make a mint from selling broadband and television, it may be disappointed. According to Pivotal Research Group in New York, in essence no one has ever made a financial success of building additional cable networks in America. Incumbents that are entrenched in lots of cities can cut prices and improve services to see off isolated entrants.

一家经纪公司Sanford c . Bernstein的分析师估计，为使网络覆盖堪萨斯城的149000个家庭，谷歌将投入8400万美元。（光纤进入每个家庭将花费大量的成本。）如果指望靠出售宽带和电视服务获取巨额回报，结果可能不会乐观。据纽约市场研究机构Pivotal Research Group的调查显示，在美国，基本上没有哪家公司靠建设附加的有线网络取得经济上的成功。盘踞在各个城市的传统运营商可以通过降价或提高服务质量，把孤立的市场介入者驱逐出去。

But sweeping aside America’s leading broadband and cable-TV suppliers is probably not what Google has in mind. More likely, it wants to spur them into speeding up their own services. The goad is working: on the same day as Google said it was coming to Austin, AT&T declared that it too planned to bring gigabit-per-second broadband to the city. “Users who have faster connections do more,” said Kevin Lo, general manager of Google Fiber, who also welcomed AT&T’s announcement. The more they do online, using Google’s search engine, watching videos on YouTube and so forth, the better for Google.

但是，谷歌或许不会对美国主要的宽带和有线电视提供商视而不见。很可能，谷歌是希望刺激他们加快提高其自身的服务。刺激正在发挥作用：在谷歌表示将要落户奥斯汀的同一天，AT&T宣称，为了让这个城市享受到千兆宽带服务，他们已经做好了充分的准备。“谷歌光纤”总经理Kevin Lo对AT&T的声明也表示欢迎，他表示：“接入速度越快，用户能做的事情就越多”。用户网络应用越多（使用谷歌搜索引擎、观看YouTube视频等等），对谷歌就越有利。

By having its own service Google will also buy a direct link to consumers, from which it can learn a lot about how they will use ultra-fast connections. Austin, a high-tech hub, may be a good laboratory. The search company will be able to dabble with experiments in television advertising, which it knows much less about than it does about the online variety. Its investment in wires may be money well spent.

谷歌在拥有自身服务的同时，还会购买一条客户专线。通过这条专线，谷歌可以更多地了解客户希望如何利用超高速接速入。作为高科技中心的奥斯丁市可能是绝佳的实验场。这家搜索企业将可以试水电视广告业务，这一业务与各种在线应用相比，他们此前知之甚少。它在网络上的投资可能是值得的。

From the print edition: Business

[附注]
谷歌正在为堪萨斯城建设的超高速宽带网络，是普通宽带接入速度的100倍。“谷歌光纤”将这座互联网接入相对落后的小城一举跃升为美国互联网接入最快的城市。