Don't forget the work on self-driving cars. Once that becomes more commonplace technology, I think you'll see the stock increase dramatically. Every industry with the logistics of moving stuff from point A to point B not on rail could eventually be affected by the work they are doing. Once you can automate that you've effectively reduced tons of problems to automated packet-switching.
Oh yeah, forgot those too. I'm especially bullish on Fiber. I made this comment about Fiber a few weeks ago:
This isn't about bandwidth. It's about content. The only thing standing
between YouTube and the CableTV providers is bandwidth.
If Google cracks the bandwidth nut, they can essentially replace TimeWarner,
Comcast, etc. in one fell swoop because they can easily replace 100% of the
services those companies offer at a fraction of the cost.
...
I think that you're ignoring the reality of getting into the telco business. Google is hardly the first company to jump into the bandwidth market, but without the corporate welfare they got in KC, they wouldn't have been able to build their network.
The reality is that as long as we have privately owned and operated metro networks, google's bandwidth access will be limited to the few metro areas that consent to their access requirements (and that's assuming the big telcos aren't able to successfully lobby against this incentive, as they've been successful in doing in the past).
The answer is publically owned, and privately operated metro networks. This is a dream that will never come to pass in America, and Google's ambition will remain just that: an unrealized dream.
Sorry for being such a Debbie downer, but bandwidth in the US is a really massive problem that won't be solved by one search engine or one company. We really need a national reform effort.
My impression is that Fiber is a project for the same reason that Chrome was developed. Not for profit per se.
Google depends on people having a good browser and a good connection to the net. Competition and progress had stagnated in the existing markets. By bringing out Chrome, they got Microsoft and Mozilla interested in security and excited about implementing new stuff again.
Google (or whoever else) could simply create their own suburbs/towns/cities from scratch, streamlined construction and all, on cheap land bought in bulk in the desert out west. Not everyone would move, but many people would, especially if it was all managed by what they perceive as a trustable tech-savvy company like google. The might even cost them nothing if they would simply ask for pre-sale deposits.
It's a crazy idea but there's nothing difficult technically or financially to make it happen. There's probably at least 1 million customers who would sign up day 1.
