For the time being, though, Google is clearly still learning the ropes of installing and marketing Fiber in Kansas.
"Marketing fiber-optic services, especially in Brazil, will require a different set of skills".
Because it was too expensive to deploy all the computers needed to serve small local markets, fiber-optic backbones now serve mainly as cross-country thruways, but the shift to optics could let fiber networks extend farther into neighborhoods than ever before.
The market for fiber used in in short-distance links within metropolitan areas is growing -- but at much too slow a rate to compensate for the drop-off in the long-haul market.
As an element of the telecommunications meltdown that has come to light only recently, the market for fiber network access seems to have been an important common ingredient in the epidemic of accounting fiascos bursting out all over.
The purchases -- most of them made with Nortel stock -- helped transform the former Bell Canada telephone equipment subsidiary into a force in Internet equipment market, particularly fiber optic networking, and into a formidable competitor to Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies and Alcatel.
Alcatel, which before the merger talks had planned to bid for the unit, is now reconsidering how badly it needs it amid a souring market for fiber optic equipment and its own revamping, according to an executive close to the company.
By early 2001 Corning had 32% of the market for fiber, but plummeting bandwidth pricing turned its dominance into a handicap.
Understanding the needs and interests of a specific target market whose fiber preferences may be determined by functional and aesthetic requirements that have both similarities to and differences from their own is essential for students who want to work in the apparel and textile industries.
For example, in the two Kansas City markets, Google Fiber charges about $70 per month for just high-speed internet service, or $120 for an internet and TV package.
