Google has avoided FiOS markets altogether (not to mention colder-weather climes that would make fiber construction more costly), instead picking areas that fall within AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable footprints. If Google does pull the trigger, the expansion won�t be cheap: Deploying fiber in all 34 cities would cost between $2.2 billion and $3 billion, Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Carlos Kirjner estimated.
Kirjner believes Google Fiber is what Google says it is: a major opportunity. Within six years, Google Fiber could reach 40 million homes and serve 20 million broadband customers � and yield $20 billion in annual revenue, by his math. The capital-intensive characteristics of Google Fiber are divergent from the parent company�s high-margin, cash-cow search-advertising biz, but that doesn�t mean it can�t work.
I think it might be a good idea to spin-off Google Fiber because the capex on telcom is always insane and it would bring margins down for the parent. In any case when Google Fiber eventually comes to Hawaii I will be signing up because the speed is insane and they will probably price very low in order to battle the Telcos.
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