Chrome OS: what happens when “always connected”, isn’t?
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in operating systems, Cloud, Web browser, Wireless, Mobile, Google, Microsoft on
We recently met up with Jon Lilly, Mozilla’s CEO. During our conversation he talked about the philosophical difference between Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Chrome, he suggested was “A window into the web”, marked by its lack of toolbars and its integration of Google’s web services.
This morning we woke up to the news that Chrome the browser is also the front end to Chrome the OS, a thin Linux kernel with a browser intended for netbooks. It’s not Android, but it shares some key concepts - and will run on Intel and ARM processors. There’s still a lot missing from what Google’s said, and much remains to be revealed when Chrome OS finally arrives on hardware - but part of me is wondering if Google has fallen into what I think of as “The Gilder Trap”.
George Gilder was sort of famous in the early days of the Internet. He wrote a couple of popular economics textbooks, and one of his suggestions was that wired and wireless would swap places. Data would flow through the airwaves, into pocket devices and all manner of mobile computing hardware. After all, in the air bandwidth was essentially free. Sadly he missed a trick or two. Bandwidth may be free, but the hardware needed to support it certainly wasn’t - and the back haul from base stations to the wider network needs to be hefty. Copper and fibre still remain the most bandwidth efficient way of delivering that last mile, and wireless data is really only just starting to get significant traction - and is already starting to creak at the seams, especially in busy city centres, as well as in the country. Even so, people still believe his 1990s words…
You may think the 50:1 contention ratio for your home DSL connection is high, but that’s nothing compared to the connectivity at a central London cellular base station. Your 3G data card may well be connected at 3 or even 7Mbps, but there’s often not more than a 1Mbps SDSL connection from the base station to the net - and you’re sharing that with everyone else. Trying to get email over a 3G dongle can be trial, especially at peak hours.
Now imagine having to do that with a million other people using Chrome OS-powered netbooks.
Sure, many of them will be hooked up to “free” WiFi connections, but don’t expect them to remain free for long when the costs of running the services increase with a sudden massive leap in demand. Cloud services are bandwidth hungry, pushing expensive UI functionality down to local devices. Google’s Chrome OS’s reliance on Google’s online services (even with Gears’ offline web functionality) will fundamentally change the economics of offering wireless services - and not in a good way for the network operators.
Gilder, like many of the proponents of free services, was right to say that the digital world makes many things essentially free to the end user. However, again like many of today’s freevangelists, he was wrong to ignore the costs of infrastructure. Yes, 0.01p is almost zero, but when a hundred million people are using that low cost service, that fraction of a penny quickly adds up into sizable amounts of pounds.
That’s why there’s minimal cellular data service in huge parts of the world, and why travelling on the Tube cuts you off. It’s just too expensive.
We won’t be “always connected” as much as we want to be - especially in the current economic climate. Capital and operating expenses are being slashed across the board, and even giants like Vodafone are looking to buy other networks just to get access to their base stations. Rolling out the network needed for Chrome OS to be everything that Google wants will take time, and will also take truckloads of money.
Always on and always connected are wonderful ideals - but that’s all they are. It took me a long time to realise this, even as I spent years consulting on massive wireless Internet projects. Chrome OS needs free wireless bandwidth, and that’s not something that’s going to happen for a long time - and a massive spike in demand is something that could push it even further away.
I’d like to be wrong. I like Chrome the browser, I like the Chrome OS concept - and I’m especially fond of many of the HTML 5 features that Google is building into its latest applications and services. The web needs an upgrade, and Google is driving that upgrade.
The web isn’t the only thing that needs an upgrade - wireless data networks (as much as Telstra and the like talk about HSPA+ deployments) need a massive amount of work. However I’ve come to know the restrictions of the mobile networks, and the economic realities facing their operators. Without substantial infusions of cash, that upgrade is a long long way off.
It’s a problem that affects us all - not just Google and Chrome OS. We’re being sold a hyper-connected online world where everything’s available 24 hours a day, wherever we are - what we used to call “Martini computing”: any time, any place. What we’re actually getting is wireless networks like AT&T and O2 which are struggling to cope with the minimal demands of iPhone users. How are they going to cope with bandwidth hungry Chrome OS users running their entire lives through online services?
Google could just have fallen into an old, old hype trap.
Google is a company that’s built itself on a basis of abundance - cheap CPU, cheap memory, cheap disk. Mobile operators manage a world of scarcity, and work hard to make sure that things remain scarce and expensive. They’re two diametrically opposed views - and Chrome OS is where they’re going to collide.
The real war isn’t Google vs Microsoft. It’s going to be Google vs the mobile operators. I’m just not sure that Google is going to win.
–Simon
Rated: 82.86% (7 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Paul Wpoding - July 8, 2009 on 9:24 am
Great piece Simon, I hadn’t considered Google’s reliance on the cloud to deliver the OS functionality that users will expect. I was distracted down the “Google takes on MSFT” route. Do you think that Google will now be focusing a sizeable chunk of its R&D on mitigating connectivity issues? Working on making its off-line capabilities more robust so that the new OS can hold its one in the fixed-line / off-line world?
Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 11:42 am
great article Simon, might be interesting as well that Ofcom released their maps of 3G coverage today, you notice some places in the UK are very off!
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Comment by David Wright - July 8, 2009 on 1:17 pm
Having spent the last 3 weekends with only roaming rate data, I’ve been offline for the whole weekend.
Having an on-line only OS is a sure way to get me to ignore it. I spend a lot of time connected, but there are lots of times when no service is available. I don’t want to have to stop working, just because I happen to be in a different country or otherwise don’t have a (cheap) data connection…
Especially for things like media playback. A podcast or music track stored locally or on my iPod is much better than trying to stream it, when I’m in a place where I don’t have a data connection or am not allowed to stream multimedia (clients, satellite offices etc.)
Comment by Larry - July 8, 2009 on 2:39 pm
Google isn’t so dumb as to bring out a full-fledged OS that will take on Vista/Win7/XP head-on, feature-for-feature. What Google does is to provide applications for limited markets (netbooks) with limited features (browser), but the features they do provide really work. Then they gradually expand the markets and features.
Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 2:49 pm
Great article - I had a different take on it - I don’t even think Google is going to win the OS war based on how it’s doing with Android. I blogged about this earlier this morning at:
http://www.varvid.com/2009/07/google-announces-new-os-to-compete-with-microsoft.html
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Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 3:32 pm
HTML 5 has default caching in; eventually making ‘google gears’ obsolete.
using standards, one can now write a ‘web app’ that will automatically cache & work w/ offline data, then sync when next back online.
Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 4:17 pm
Here’s a point you may not have noticed. I am not sure if you are aware, but Google was/is developing WI-MAX across the globe. Free wireless internet for the world, and is already active in a number of places. In an odd way, maybe Google is a step ahead of what you are describing? By serving the public with the devices that have these abilities, and putting the strain on these companies, could their real agenda be to create the need for their FREE Wi-MAX? Which would in turn give them even more advertising access to the world?
A thought to consider…
Adam
Comment by dale223223 - July 8, 2009 on 4:36 pm
Sounds like another cute Linux system that doesn’t run any of my favorite programs…
If only Windows had been “Unix” based from the get-go… If only OSX was released as a stand alone OS….
I can dream can’t I?
Comment by Thomas - July 8, 2009 on 5:26 pm
Google Gears solves the problem of offline access. You can have that today in Google Mail (GMail), Calendar and other applications. Having more people online is not a hype but a reality. I expect free wifi to become a commodity - there are many ways of cashing in on wifi user. Ads would be one way. Google’s Chrome OS might not be the final answer for everyone, but it finally opens up the door to open source wide enough to drive a revolution in the market. Users will benefit in any event.
Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 5:42 pm
Shame the writer doesn’t know about Google Gears and how it already allows Windows machines and Android phones to work offline already.
Comment by - July 8, 2009 on 5:47 pm
Actually I do know about Gears, having written several applications that use it. So I also know that automating the online/offline transition is problematical (to be polite about the whole thing). Gears is interesting, but it’s still some way from standardisation and there’s considerable debate in the HTML 5 community as to just how it’s to be implemented.
That’s not the thrust of my argument though, it’s that there’s not enough wireless bandwidth out there to support an OS that’s intended to use cloud services through a browser. 3G and WiMax and LTE are just ways of making the last mile someone else’s problem - and that’s not going to go away.
S.
Comment by Jonsul - July 8, 2009 on 7:03 pm
Pretty interesting but the future problems you talk about leave a bleak view. Will connections with the internet get so much demand that eventually only the rich will be able to afford it? I think this was thought of and doubt that the problem you suggest may be as bad as your thinking. For one thing the costs of hardware to support the demand is most certainly going to drop since then and will make it a little better.
Comment by techpops - July 9, 2009 on 4:44 am
I’m not so sure this will end up being the big problem you think it will. At home, the connection isn’t a problem right now, out and about, the number of Netbooks is still going to be relatively small compared to the massive bandwidth nightmare that is the cellphone with high megapixel camera.
Also, the size of these web apps is so small compared even to little video clips and those really are soaking up the bandwidth.
Gears is just fine right now and in a year I’m sure it’ll be much better.
The battle is between Microsoft and Google and I don’t see at this point how the lumbering giant that is Microsoft can hope to react to Googles Chrome OS.
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