Somebody's gotta have the inside scoop on Google Fiber launching tomorrow..??

[DRU]

https://fiber.google.com/savethedate/

Live broadcast over YouTube tomorrow. Anybody have any early news on this? Will it be available all over the Metro? How long will the waiting list be?

Anybody know anything? I'm impatient.

[penguinz]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

That's a big 10-4 good buddy, I just bought my routers before AC was available. I like me some AC.

That being said, I did enable the wireless functions on the two settop boxes (of the three I have) that aren't sitting right next to the network box. Hopefully that'll help in those farther reaches of the house.

What I'm struggling with right now is being sure which device any of the Win10 devices is connected to. The MAC address in "netsh wlan show...." commands aren't matching any of the MAC addresses I'm seeing listed for any of the boxes when I look at them when I'm logged into Google's fiber page - not even the network box's MAC address. It's all good, I'll figger it out sooner or later...

GD... What part of LS are you in? I am in LS and do not have an install date yet.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Valiant

Your installer sucked. Mine ran multiple lines, Did something to make the remote not lag and set up both wifi's passworded. My remote is flawless on its speed. I rather use it than my phone. Even with the problems you are having, still 10x better than the competition.

LOL, I should complain!

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by penguinz

GD... What part of LS are you in? I am in LS and do not have an install date yet.

The Hawks Ridge Fiberhood.

Have the trenched and all yet?

[penguinz]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

The Hawks Ridge Fiberhood.

Have the trenched and all yet?

Yes, they have already torn up my neighborhood. I am not too far from you, over near Miller J Fields, so hopefully soon!

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by penguinz

Yes, they have already torn up my neighborhood. I am not too far from you, over near Miller J Fields, so hopefully soon!

It's cool. Finding some little things, but it's all good.

[Aspengc8]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

First day's opinion(s)....

1) The speed is awesome. Duh! See attached.

2) Now that they've sold you on the "all the TV boxes in the house are a wireless AP and will be an extension of your overall Google Fiber home WiFi network", then they get there and tell you they won't enable it unless you demand it. They want the APs to be 150-200 feet apart before they're actually OK with it. Evidently it's the typical salesman vs. engineer deal, and the feature really isn't ready for prime time. According to the people who actually look you in the eye (unlike the corporate/sales assholes), Google doesn't actually want to enable it right now because the radios apparently step on each other and all the wireless devices get confused, quit working well, disconnect and reconnect a LOT, and it's causing a lot of calls. So it'll work someday, but the sales people don't have the balls to quit selling it like it's ready for Prime time.

3) It blows that Google decided to have their "TV Box" be controlled by a Blue Tooth remote. So if you're coming from Time Warner where you got one "official" remote (like Google), most off-brand remotes could still do 99% of what the Time Warner remote could do, and controlled the TV box and the TV too. Not so with Google. And there appears to be an IF receiver in the box, so it's bothersome. Google's answer is to use their Google Fiber App, and that App kinda sucks for being a Set-top box and TV controller - you can't do things like control volume, and that's dumb. So that off-brand universal "in the kitchen" remote you might have used to mute the TV for family dinner is now junk. Simply stupid IMO.

4) While their Android and iOS "Google Fiber" App seems OK for the phone/tablet/iPad, watching TV on your laptop is a pain! Instead of them having you logon to Google on your laptop, then giving you a TV guide, Google has opted to give you links to about 25 TV show's web sites and from there you have to tell those many different sites you're a Google Fiber subscriber before you see the program. We'll see if it allows you to watch those "channels" even though you're not connected to your home network because you are simply a Google Fiber subscriber. So far it looks like it will, so that's nice I guess. But I think Time Warner 1000% wins that feature.

5) They won't run Cat5e cable to all the wired locations you want, they'll only run one; so chose the location you want the full Gig wisely. The rest are probably going to be wireless. I know I'm going to be using a couple of 5-port Gig switches and running some Cat5e on my own!

6) The remote seems to have a lot more lag in operations like pulling up the guide. It was enough slower that I was pressing the guide button twice because I didn't think I had pressed it.


So, I'm not trying to sound too negative, but I'm offering true feedback. I think too many people will be too giddy about the 970Mbps and forget to remind Google they have some areas that aren't as cool as the people they're competing with.

What types of speeds are you getting to public Ookla test servers? 917Mb down seems kinda low for a on-net test.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Aspengc8

What types of speeds are you getting to public Ookla test servers? 917Mb down seems kinda low for a on-net test.

This morning's test on-net was 940'ish down and 970'ish up.

To Ookla's KC "(powered by Google Fiber point), 1 minute later, it was 750'ish down and 895'ish up.

I think the key difference is that Google's internal test returns the connection's peak value during the upload/download process, Ookla's is an average/RMS of the entire window.

I'll say this again.....WOW, Google has some work to do on the "watch TV on the PC" offering! Simply put, with Time Warner logged into Time Warner and you got a guide looking deal and just played what was available (at home or away did make a difference, just like with GF). With Google they give you a website with 45 links to networks you can go to, logon there (using you GF credentials), then stream from them. A shift in process that's not a shift in the right direction IMO. The PC TV watching developers need to take a lesson from their own Android/iPhone App developers... Both have work to do, but the Android/iPhone people are still way ahead of the "on the pc" people.

[GloryDayz]

OK, more news that you might find interesting.....

1) They don't have Picture In a Picture.. LOL, I just checked my watch and it's 2015! THEY DON'T HAVE PICTURE IN A PICTURE!!! OMG!!! That just makes me laugh!
2) Google Fiber doesn't carry BEIN Sports. For soccer fans, that's not a small deal.
3) They don't carry AMC. Not that I really ever watched AMC, but some of my neighbors seem to give a shit.
4) You CAN use a IR remote! Evidently their own remote does both.
5) If you have a trainable universal remote (most of us have plenty of $10 universal remotes, but not too many of them are trainable...), you can take the Google remote out of blue-tooth mode and program (train) the universal remote to do the same things. It'll take 20-30 minutes because you have to do it key-by-key, but it beats a drive to the Google store and 50+ clams for them to give you a second remote. And it ends the "Throwing the Google remote back and fourth in the living room" syndrome.
6) If you're a geek and want to know what's going on "on your network", don't trust their web interface. First, their web interface will allow you to do plenty of specific tasks per device (static IP, port forwarding, put in DMZ, and the likes), but they forgot to add "block" to the list of options. Their answer is to just change the SSID. OK, that's a bit of a cop-out (that wouldn't work in the wired environment very well), but it is what it is. Then there's the matter of wireless devices showing up as being wired (COAX to boot!!!!) to TV boxes. Yeah, that was the point where the guy admitted their interface was still under development and needed more work. I tend to agree... But if you're an "I don't care about that geeky shit" type, none of this would concern you... Did I mention that you can tell the individual wireless antenna's MAC
addresses in the network and TV boxes? Yeah, makes it sort of difficult to tell which you're connected to (if you care [and I do]).

I know this, the Google lady I was talking to was writing feverishly and asked if it would be OK if a manager and senior engineer could call me "offline" to discuss some of these things. So I fear they're either interested in my questions, or about to snap my fiber!

Did I mention they opted-out of Pic in a Pic? LOL!

[Sully]

I've had picture in picture for years, with AT&T and DirecTV.

I've never used it once.

I wish I did, but it's just more handy to flip back and forth.

[Dr. Gigglepants]

Watch on PC is garbage, I'll agree with that, that said, watch ESPN does work well, its just a bit inconvenient to get to...nbd. No picture in picture is not a big deal. I like the previous feature. Tracks the last 10 channels and you can rewind on any of them.
Posted via Mobile Device

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Sully

I've had picture in picture for years, with AT&T and DirecTV.

I've never used it once.

I wish I did, but it's just more handy to flip back and forth.

Once you figured out that if you used TWC's PIP mode that you were "recording" both, and could swap back and fourth (and backup if needed), it was easy to get used to.

It just strikes me as funny in 2013'ish they must have been sitting in a meeting room and decided not to have PIP.

It's all good, I have a Gig..

I think my larger point is that while the Gig is awesome, GF has some dents in their armor too. I'm sure they'll work them out.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Dr. Gigglepants

Watch on PC is garbage, I'll agree with that, that said, watch ESPN does work well, its just a bit inconvenient to get to...nbd. No picture in picture is not a big deal. I like the previous feature. Tracks the last 10 channels and you can rewind on any of them.
Posted via Mobile Device

I like that too. Some say they don't, they just want to go back to the last channel, but I told them pressing "Prev" twice (to do just that), didn't seem too hard. I haven't seen it do 10, but I'll take you're word for it.

[Dr. Gigglepants]

I know it does 10, but I'm taking the installers word that you can rewind on all of them.

The DVR is pretty robust too. 2 TB, 500 HRs of HD recording, you can really fine tune the settings too, first runs only vs all showings, you can limit a show to only 1 channel, you can limit the number of recordings it saves...I have all mine set up to only save 5 recordings at the most.
Posted via Mobile Device

[WhawhaWhat]

Originally Posted by Dr. Gigglepants

I know it does 10, but I'm taking the installers word that you can rewind on all of them.

The DVR is pretty robust too. 2 TB, 500 HRs of HD recording, you can really fine tune the settings too, first runs only vs all showings, you can limit a show to only 1 channel, you can limit the number of recordings it saves...I have all mine set up to only save 5 recordings at the most.
Posted via Mobile Device

On Labor Day last year, I recorded the entire run of the Simpsons on FXX. Still had like 30% of the space after it was done.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Dr. Gigglepants

I know it does 10, but I'm taking the installers word that you can rewind on all of them.

The DVR is pretty robust too. 2 TB, 500 HRs of HD recording, you can really fine tune the settings too, first runs only vs all showings, you can limit a show to only 1 channel, you can limit the number of recordings it saves...I have all mine set up to only save 5 recordings at the most.
Posted via Mobile Device

Yes, that part of their offering is like perfect tits in your face!