Google Fiber Launching Without TV

Google Fiber isn't dead yet, but as yet another sign that its strategy at launch was, if not fundamentally flawed, at least, not where the market was going. Fiber's next cities, Louisville and San Antonio, are not getting the Internet and TV service, but only its Internet service. It turns out, cable TV is a hard business.

Google notes that there are now a wealth of over-the-top "cable TV" services that can ride over its laudable gigabit connections, and that is true. Its own YouTube TV is one of them.

Google Fiber Stalled Out in KC

It is not exactly new news, but Google Fiber, which hoped to jolt the Internet access business with its signature $70 per month, 1 gig service, has hit the wall in Kansas City.

I have been involved in the cable TV industry for a long time and can safely say that it is exceedingly complex. The vast majority of cable operator employees do things like installations and customer service, which is really outside of Google's core competency. The packaging of programming involves business relationships with a handful of key suppliers (e.g., Disney, Comcast/NBC Universal, Fox, Discovery, CBS, AMC, A&E Networks) for whom there are typically no good substitutes. The business structure of the industry developed as a local monopoly (via exclusive franchises granted community-by-community). The early cable technology was very one-size fits all, not easily addressable to an individual house, which led to the big "basic cable" bundle. Despite all its assets, Google couldn't remake the television programmer-operator relationship with its small scale.

As an Internet access business, at $70 per month, it was simply a lot more expensive and powerful than a typical cable Internet service and naturally appealed to well-heeled early adopters, despite sincere efforts by Google to sell the benefits of high speed interest to less-well-off people. The analogy that comes to mind is selling higher-priced organic food to people who cannot afford it without sacrificing something else that they already buy -- not easy.

Google Fiber never made it to NYC, I would have liked to try it.

AT&T's U-verse Withers Because of Physics

When I wrote this post (DirecTV is to AT&T as HITS Was to TCI) it was pure speculation.

When AT&T launched U-verse, which attempted to provide TV, Internet and phone service without a fat pipe (i.e., cable or fibre) into the household, I recalled that cable engineers said that it wouldn't work. I recall the quote from one. He described the problem as: "physics".

For a few years, however, it did. AT&T could provide TV, Internet and phone service via twisted pair (traditional telephone wiring), provided the Internet speeds were not too fast and the household was not watching or recording too many HD programs at the same time. Until a 2010 upgrade, a household could not watch more than 2 HD programs at the same time.

However, now the writing is on the wall. Since AT&T acquired DirecTV in July 2015, it has steadily deemphasized its newer U-verse offering (launched 2006) in favor of expanding DirecTV (launched 1990). U-verse lost 1.36 million video customers in 2016, while DirecTV added 1.23 million subscribers. Since the multichannel television market is not growing, but Internet access is, clearly moving customers off of U-verse TV service (and shutting it down) will allow AT&T to devote that bandwidth to offer faster Internet speeds on such systems without a complete rebuild. Reason: physics.

Today brings an article about the likelihood of shutting down the U-Verse website on which it markets the triple play.