For once it wasn’t one of those annoying groundskeepers or Chinese restaurants sticking something on my door. Initially I thought it was a joke because Google Fiber hit Austin like a decade ago, raging full on. Everybody everywhere in the Austin area rejoiced! AT&T sucks! Spectrum (formerly Time-Warner) sucks! Cox sucks! Grande I’ll let slide as they do try harder than Spectrum and Cox. Amerika’s shitty duopoly throughout the country is painful and reminiscent of our flawed politics. You hate what you have and the alternative is either much worse or not good enough to bother. Off to the races Google went…and then they slammed to a sudden halt! I was seriously bummed. What really sucked was hearing from people who managed to get Google Fiber. To this day, not one serious horror story with it or from interacting with their support people, unlike AT&T; many at Ma Bell are trying yet you know they’re not trained adequately.
What makes this entry even better, I ran into an employee on the street. I asked him, is it really happening? After he got clarification of where I lived he confirmed my little dream. I followed up with, how did we get so fortunate? Google can build its fiber as long as you live in Travis County and if you’re outside Austin, you have to be in an unincorporated area. Finally! Unincorporated has an advantage after 21 frickin’ years! I told him how AT&T is a bit panicked given how they lowered my bill a pittance (three whole dollars!). He chuckled and reminded me how AT&T’s fiber is bullshit since the stretch from the SLAM to my house is still Eighties-level copper, when Google arrives, it will be a pure Gigabit pipe for $70! Closing up, I had to know what was the timetable as the Web site stating availability is no help. By the end of 2022 to next quarter. I cannot wait. One co-worker told me, when you tell AT&T you’re ditching them for Google, the retention agent doesn’t even bother to make the empty pitch to get you to stay.