3 questions about Google's proposed high-speed Internet service

Google's announcement that it plans to roll out a high-speed broadband service is getting much media play today (albeit a fairly slow day for business news), including being the lead story in today's Wall Street Journal.

There's much promise to a new, and significant, player seeking to offer Americans broadband speeds of up to gigabyte per second, which is up to 100 times current rates. After all, a recently released study by Akamai reports that average broadband speeds in the U.S. actually decreased in the third quarter of 2009, compared with the same period last year. We now rank in 18th place for the swiftness of our broadband coverage internationally, behind the likes of Romania.

In its announcement for the service, Google describes an appealing and exciting world of next-generation apps and a more open Internet. And if the search giant indeed shows up cable and phone companies by demonstrating faster speeds, that could help spur those telecom giants to up their investment in faster fiber-optic networks, which are expanding more slowly than many of us had hoped. (I'm in a seemingly perennial wait for fiber in my Upper Manhattan neighborhood, for example, despite a generally affluent population and the presence of Columbia University right across the street.)

The Federal Communications Commission, which is now exploring how broadband service can be better and more competitive in the U.S., endorsed the Google initiative yesterday, saying that "big broadband creates big opportunities."

Yet there's a lot we don't yet know about the Google initiative, which makes it premature to rub our hands in anticipation of dumping the cable company for GoogleNet or whatever it may be called.

Here are three open issues:

• Who will get the service? Not many people, we know; initially, only 50,000 to 500,000 people, according to Google. In fact, the initiative may be more of a demo effort than a serious service, at least at first. If so, where Google actually rolls out may matter, to achieve the maximum bang in terms of embarrassing competitors and demonstrating the possibilities of ultrafast access. In a brilliant PR move, Google is inviting communities to go online and nominate themselves to be among the first to receive the service. (Note to Google: Where better than an Upper Manhattan neighborhood loaded with media types and academics?)

• How will service be for the service? When it comes to broadband, speed isn't everything. That's amply demonstrated by our Ratings of broadband service, available to subscribers, where some providers are pulled down in overall satisfaction by below-average scores in customer service. Google isn't experienced in this area, as it's demonstrated with some glitches in handling customer service for its Nexus One smart phone.

• • Will others use Google's fat pipes? Google's commitment to openness—another key broadband issue for consumer advocates and the FCC—includes making their ultrafast networks available to other providers.

More than altruism or policy priorities are behind Google's openness. Absent of the further, more daunting challenges of launching their own TV and phone services—which might be too much for even Google's ambitions—they'll have to depend on other, and likely existing, providers to step in to offer those to Google subscribers. The providers' interest in offering those services via Google, and essentially competing against themselves, is an open question. As is what the services, and Googlenet itself, may cost.

—Paul Reynolds