Google Fiber

It has been almost a decade since Google launched its Fiber TV service and far longer since it debuted its Google Fiber Internet. Just as it has been shedding old services, features, and devices for the latter, Google is now moving to "upgrade" its Fiber TV experience. That upgrade, however, won't come without some disruption, but, as always, Google is pushing it as something good. In exchange for the old Fiber TV box and expensive fee, you'll get a free Google Wifi, a free Chromecast with Google TV, and the choice to pay for services on your own.

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You may have missed the news back in February that Google Fiber dropped its conventional cable offering, choosing instead to partner with some OTT services for customers interested in live TV offerings. The company only had two streaming partners at the time -- fuboTV and YouTube TV -- but it finally expanded that back in August with the addition of Philo. Now it is back with yet another partner.

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More often than not, ISPs will require you to use their own equipment, sometimes at an additional cost, with the reason of having certified and tested only those. More often than not, those basic routers and modems don't exactly give the best performance, especially in unconventional home setups and structures. Google Fiber started out with the goal of setting itself apart from other Internet providers and it is taking one more step away from the status quo by allowing subscribers to bring their own routers.

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While many people are still living with Internet speeds below 100Mbps, Google Fiber is gearing up to roll out an even faster option to its existing 1 Gigabit plan. In an announcement on Monday, Google said that it plans to start testing a new 2 Gigabit Internet plan with select customers this fall, paving the way for a faster speed option that won't cost much more than what Internet customers are already paying.

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Google Fiber just expanded the number of live-streaming television services available to its Internet customers, building upon its existing YouTube TV and fubo offerings to add a service called Philo. With this, new customers who can no longer get their television service directly through Google Fiber now have another option for streaming live TV, one that is fairly inexpensive compared to other offerings.

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New customers to Google Fi from this point forward will be able to work with an iPhone eSIM system. Users with an iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, or 11 series device will be able to work with an iOS eSIM in place of a physical SIM card for use with Google Fi. This system was previously enabled for some newer Android devices, and was just enabled for some iPhone devices this week.

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You can find almost everything on the Internet, be it through the regular Web or through Internet-based content delivery services, a.k.a. streaming. These days, even TV shows can be accessed over the Internet, giving more traditional over the air and cable TV service providers reason so be worried. Fortunately for them, they have one less competition now, sort of. Google Fiber has just announced it is axing its traditional TV service from its bundle but only it strongly believes people don't need traditional TV anyway.

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When Google Fiber launched in 2010, it was regarded as insane or just another one of Google's short-lived experiments. After all, who needed 1 Gbps Internet anyway? That was, of course, just a little after Netflix launched and before it became the household name that it is today. Fast-forward nine years later, a gigabit Internet service seems almost normal if not barely enough. Which is why Google Fiber will stop offering its 100 Mbps tier that wasn't even cheap in the first place.

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Google has announced that it is bringing gigabit Internet service to Austin, Texas. The launch will involve Webpass, a company acquired by Google Fiber in 2016 after having been founded in 2003. Though Webpass is already available in a handful of other cities, Google says this upcoming launch is notable -- Austin will be the first city where both Webpass and Google Fiber are available.

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Google Fiber is shutting down in Louisville, Kentucky, the company has announced. The decision to pull out of that market was due to ongoing troubles the company has been experiencing, ones that would require it to "essentially rebuild" its entire network to fix. That's not possible, Google Fiber said in its announcement today, and so instead it will be terminating service later this year.

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Google is about to shake things up with its Internet service: Google Fiber won't offer cable TV services when it arrives in San Antonio and Louisville. The company will instead focus on providing its ultra-fast Internet service, a decision that changes the way it has operated thus far (the TV part, that is). This news comes at a time when people are ditching cable in large numbers.

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Alphabet's Q1 2017 earnings report showed that their "Other Bets" category was doing better than this same time last year in revenue. The same chart also showed that Other Bets was doing worse than this time last year - in operating loss. It might seem on the surface like a losing strategy to push more money into parts of the company that could be considered "bets". But Alphabet isn't the sort of company that drops and runs at the first sign of failure.

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