Phil Harrison: Google Stadia's Data Cap Challenge Will Be Solved By ISPs

[Neat]

Phil Harrison, vice president and general manager of Google, has indicated that he doesn't believe data caps represent a major challenge to Stadia, the company's upcoming video game streaming service. In an interview, Harrison was asked by GameSpot how much of a limiting factor he sees data caps as. "Data caps [are] not a universal challenge," he replied, going on to say he believes that ISPs will react to demand in order to fulfill the needs of their customers.

"The ISPs have a strong history of staying ahead of consumer trend and if you look at the history of data caps in those small number of markets--and it's actually a relatively small number of markets that have [data caps]--the trend over time, when music streaming and download became popular, especially in the early days when it was not necessarily legitimate, data caps moved up. Then with the evolution of TV and film streaming, data caps moved up, and we expect that will continue to be the case."

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Placing faith in ISPs to respond to the demands of a streaming service like Stadia, which sends 1080p or 4K video feeds to players, depending on the package they're subscribed to, presents further questions. The first being, would the adoption of Stadia be widespread enough to signal a trend that ISPs need to respond to, in the same way that music, TV, and movie streaming did.

Harrison stuck to his guns when presented with this concern, saying he believes "ISPs are smart [and] they understand that they're in the business of keeping customers happy and keeping customers with them for a long time."

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On the suggestion that ISPs may instead see this as an opportunity to attach further costs to having more data, which in turn would become a greater expense on the user, Harrison noted that 5G technology would be one part of the solution.

"There's a very interesting additional dynamic happening in the internet market, which is the evolution of 5G, particularly in what's called fixed wireless, which is not necessarily running 5G on your phone but as a way of bringing 5G into your home. All of the 5G fixed wireless businesses that are up now that I'm aware of have no data caps and are very very high performance, so that's introducing a competitive dynamic. $50 a month. That's what Verizon fixed wireless costs is for minimum 300mb/s and up to a gigabit. It's pretty good value to me."

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Harrison is are aware that Stadia is nevertheless a demanding service and, as a result, it will "give players information about what they're using and how they can change their resolution if they want to."

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This seems like a ton of wishful thinking on Harrison's part, particularly given the current state of internet infrastructure and regulations in the US. I highly doubt that ISPs like Comcast and Spectrum will play fair here. The situation becomes even more complicated when you have ISPs having sole dominion over large areas and being all too quick to throttle data rates, if you're fortunate enough to not have a cap in the first place.

More at the link: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/google-stadias-data-cap-challenge-will-be-solved-b/1100-6468119/

 

[Dest]

haha ooook

 

[xxracerxx]

HAHAHAHAA...they will solve it by charging users for the bandwidth.

 

[AgentStrange]

 

[UltraGunner]

So it will never be solved then?

 

[R dott B]

lmao good luck.

 

[ILikeFeet]

"solved"

 

[NotLiquid]

"Fuck you, we're Google"

 

[Rodney McKay]

Oh course, just pay anywhere from $20-50/month and you won't have to worry about it!

 

[Randomly Generated]

Some weird Stadia PR going on today.

 

[lucablight]

Is there a more disingenuous gaming executive than Phil "rumble is last gen" Harrison?

 

[nib95]

Neat on a thread making rampage.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

I think it's a ploy tbh. They want people to buy Stadia and then get pissed off at data caps to a point where it pushes no data caps, or allows competition (like Google) to move in and take customers.

 

[DontHateTheBacon]

Lmao, ok fam.

It not just that they will be solved by ISPs... it's that they HAVE to be solved by ISPs. Nothing Google can really do about it, except sending Google Fiber out to every nook and cranny of the country. (Strictly in the US)

 

[Chamber]

 

[BringBackSonics]

Yeah no. Comcast has me on lock down.

 

[StarStorm]

What? Those Data caps aren't going anywhere.

 

[Deleted member 17676]

Why would Comcast and co play ball here? Don't know much about American internet but aren't google their competitors in some areas?

 

[Hella]

I used to have no data cap. Now I do.

ISPs rising to the challenge.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

So their strategy to sell Stadia is to tell doubters that the companies with the worst track records and most power will just give away more of their product for less money over time?

 

[UltraGunner]

I think it's a ploy tbh. They want people to buy Stadia and then get pissed off at data caps to a point where it pushes no data caps, or allows competition (like Google) to move in and take customers.

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It would make sense if they didn't give up hard on Google Fiber

 

[Deleted member 15440]

"ISPs are smart [and] they understand that they're in the business of keeping customers happy and keeping customers with them for a long time."

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when ur getting paid to tell the most ridiculous lies

 

[Skittles]

 

[xxracerxx]

I think it's a ploy tbh. They want people to buy Stadia and then get pissed off at data caps to a point where it pushes no data caps, or allows competition (like Google) to move in and take customers.

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Correct me if I am wrong, but they have basically said fuck this Google Fibre bullshit.

 

[Cronogear]

ISPs:

 

[MrS]

Stadia truly has Ouya-level meme potential.

 

[Dreamwriter]

The broadband ISPs in the US have no real competition, they have no incentive whatsoever to remove or increase bandwidth limits. Heck, they are incentivized to keep it like this, so harcore Stadiua users will pay the $50/month extra to make their broadband truly unlimited.

 

[Laserplane]

That's some real fake news right there

 

[HockeyBird]

Sure ISPs will react by demanding more money from us.

 

[Becks']

 

[Deleted member 437]

Google: We are going to put Google Fiber everywhere!!!!111

ISP: Nah bro.

Google: Bu-bu-bu-..........

 

[AmbientRuin]

lmao

 

[TheDutchSlayer]

I think it's a ploy tbh. They want people to buy Stadia and then get pissed off at data caps to a point where it pushes no data caps, or allows competition (like Google) to move in and take customers.

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Google has a very hard time getting local governments to help out.

More and more local governments in the US are pushing lobbyist laws to ban more competition or community isp to help out with the lake of competition in the USA.

Only 1 thing the only thing that will ever help with the terrible state of ISP's in the USA is to declare internet a utility nessecericy to life in the 21 centrury and force current ISP's to let competition in on the already existing cables and force local goverments to allow new IPS's where ever possible to create competition.

 

[SunBroDave]

that's...one way to spin it.

 

[Theorry]

Cant believe some first world countries still have data caps tho. Kinda crazy.
That stuff ended here like years and years ago. Think i only had a data cap with my 56k modem lol.

 

[Shard Shinjuku]

Stadia had a good run.

 

[ILikeFeet]

WHEN YOU SIGN UP FOR TMOBILE, YOU'LL GET STADIA PRO FREE FOR ONE YEAR

 

[Demacabre]

 

[Maple]

"ISPs are smart [and] they understand that they're in the business of keeping customers happy and keeping customers with them for a long time."

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lol

 

[APOEERA]

I lived in an area of the country where local counties still have areas that are on DSL (or worse) or the local government refuses to upgrade to allow broadband internet access.

 

[AllEchse]

"PAY 20 BUCKS MORE FOR THE GAME STREAMING DATA PLAN, HAVE FUN"

 

[Wolfgunblood]

That's one way to put it. I'm sure they will 'get ahead of trends' and 'solve the problem for the customer'.

 

[Deleted member 15440]

Google has a very hard time getting local governments to help out.

More and more local governments in the US are pushing lobbyist laws to ban more competition or community isp to help out with the lake of competition in the USA.

Only 1 thing the only thing that will ever help with the terrible state of ISP's in the USA is to declare internet a utility nessecericy to life in the 21 centrury and force current ISP's to let competition in on the already existing cables and force local goverments to allow new IPS's where ever possible to create competition.

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as long as these private monopolies are allowed to continue they'll always find a way back to the kind of extortion we see today. fuck open access laws, these companies and their infrastructure should all be publicly owned.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

"Data caps [are] not a universal challenge," he replied, going on to say he believes that ISPs will react to demand in order to fulfill the needs of their customers.

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My ISP's reply, "Upgrade to our business plan to raise the cap to 1TB per month :)"

 

[convo]

In all the things you could put your faith in, big ISPs acting for the good of the people isn't one of them.

 

[Cooking]

the Stadia rep that was on Giant Bomb with the Id guys said the same shit - this basically indicates there's no real plan. Caps are common now, I can't really see this taking off unless there's a massive change among ISPs

 

[Slayven]

The hell, caps really begain after ISPs saw how much people were streaming

 

[Instro]

The reality is that they are going to have to lower bitrates and lose audio/visual quality to make this work. I don't see how Google can deliver on what they are promising when streaming bitrates for TV and and movies are still far behind local media.

 

[Grimminski]

If Comcast enforced my data cap I'd be sooooo fucked this month

Sitting at 1256GB's right now thanks to Gamepass PC.

 

[Bane]

The more people involved with Stadia talk, the more turned off from it I get.