Google buys a lot of "dark fiber" (unused fiber-optic capacity) and many people take guesses at their reasons. Alex Lightman, CEO of IP telephony vendor Innofone.com, thinks that Google prepares for IPv6 era. IPv6 will replace IPv4 internet protocol as it will support much more internet addresses. As the number of devices connected to internet grows exponentially, IPv4 + NAT routers will not be enough.
"You know who else has a big pot of slash 20? Google," Lightman said. "Yahoo does too. It's not that service providers aren't doing it — it's the savvy service providers, with the high multiples and visionary management, that are getting ready to go into it. This is why Google bought mobile dark fiber. It's to go out and go: 'All these bozos in America aren't rolling out IPv6, so we'll do it if they aren't going to'."
Another reasons for buying dark fiber might be: Google Video's infrastructure, Google Wi-Fi and Google's data centers.
I think the purchase of dark fiber has more to do with protection from anti-competitive actions from the Telcos and the Cable companies - this is why they've (Telcos/Cable) been lobbying against net neutrality and Google and others have been advocating for congress to pass some sort of net neutrality act.
ReplyDeleteAssumeing Google uses RFC1918 private IP address network 10 they can only address about
ReplyDeleteecho "2^24" | bc
16777216
hosts without resorting to that technological garbage called NAT. I'd guess the use 10-20% of that space now. But projecting for growth, as an ISP, this won't cut it, so IPv6 makes sense. Google can supporyt a lot of customers with its /20 block, and with the QoS features, it would make home delivery of video content a praactical business. The dark fiber Google owns provided the necessary bandwidth, Google already has a Video player.
Apple had better watch out for Google. Forget Microsoft, they are unable to think so far ahead, perhaps because so many chairs are flyng around the camplus. The cable and DLS companies trying to deliver Video content will be a distant competitor in this picture. That leaves the last mile .... and then its all over. WiFi max anybody?
- JB