Oh hell yes. I live in the U District. I am basically first in line for this. Signed up for more info as it happens. Goodbye, Comcast.
Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
101–110 of 157 posts
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it doesn't. Seattle has some of the best summers anywhere; it's one of the city's best-kept secrets. July and August are gorgeous. The relentless gray of which you speak is true of months like December and January.
Exactly, the summer only lasts for July and August. November to February it rains non-stop, and every other month is hit or miss. You can't really plan any trips because those clouds come out of nowhere. And that was the worst part. I would wake up and the sun is shining. I decide to go ride some trails on my bike, half way to the location it starts to rain. Plans ruined.
Those two months are the best summer you'll find anywhere. When I moved to SF, I missed them dearly. SF summers are terrible, and I found three of them more depressing than seven rainy winters in Seattle ever were.
I'll also take nonstop rain from Nov-Feb any day over the snowy winters in the Midwestern states where I grew up.
Finally, the key to not letting your plans get ruined by rain is to always plan for the possibility of rain. =)
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
They discontinued the free-zone a month or two ago, so passengers can now get off the bus at the rear exit.
Uh...but the original rule at elimination of the ride-free zone was that you can get off ONLY at the rear of the bus. There were drivers who were enforcing this with an iron fist. They've since backed off, but it's pretty clear that the people making the rules at King County Metro do not ride the bus. Also, unless the attendants with portable scanners are present, you can't enter the back of the bus unless you're wil…
The issue with the free ride for me was when you were on a bus that was leaving/had left the free ride area, you had to exit the front so that you could pay. That was a major pain in the ass on a full bendy-bus.
Eliminating the free-ride zone has solved all the problems from my perspective. I see no issue with only allowing people to enter at the front; it doesn't cause any hassle as far as I have seen. I guess it would be an issue if you really felt the need to sit at the back?
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#104Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit internet access?
I think in 10 years this question will be regarded the same as "who needs a personal computer?" is today. Similar questions were asked about always-on broadband (vs dialup), gigabytes/terabytes of memory/disk, etc. We've been pretty good at finding ways to use whatever tech is thrown at us.
My pet example use case for 1Gbps is my product, Dropcam (shameless plug: http://www.dropcam.com), where we could use that extra bandwidth to provide amazingly higher quality video, support for more cameras per location, and generally do much more cutting edge stuff.
Symmetric 1Gbps means you don't just access the "cloud" anymore ... you become a part of it. Kinda like the original pioneers of the Internet imagined in the first place.
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bad thing about WA state is the tax structure -- no corp or personal income tax (good), but the B&O tax is a gross receipts tax, really complex (it varies by county and by type of business), and has pyramiding (as do all gross receipts taxes) -- it's equivalent to a 12-15% corp income tax for many businesses. If you don't use 2-3 levels of contractors, or have a lot of work done as subassemblies, it should be ok…
Little known fact - income derived from sales to people outside WA is no subject to B&O tax. An Internet startup will likely have only 2% of their users in WA, and so only that much is subject to B&O tax. This is not a tax advice, consult a competent accountant.
The issue is purchasing services within WA -- those services will be marked up due to B&O (tax pyramiding).
the 0.5-1% rate on final sales is inconsequential; it's the tax pyramiding on every purchase before that. Admittedly it matters a whole lot less for a startup than for a purely local business (say a coffee shop who buys bread locally which is made from facilities, staff, and multiple other inputs, each of which is also produced within the state and has gross receipts taxes added.
It's particularly bad because it essentially discourages outsourcing and encourages vertical integration, counter to efficiency and new business formation. The same product can cost a lot more if you use the best components and best assembly vs. more expensive and lower quality things produced entirely in-house.
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#106Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit internet access?
Because it can be offered, and we've been ripped off by ISPs for quite some time now.
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think almost every region in the country is overdue for some disaster that is predicted to happen any day now.
We have the yellowstone volcano here in Colorado...
You mean Wyoming, right? Yellowstone is closer to Idaho and Montana than it is Colorado.
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
That and the transportation. Otherwise, Seattle is probably the place I like to live in the states the most. The traffic and lack of good public transport options is a serious negative :(
Depends what kind of transportation, though; when I lived there, I made use of the great bicycle infrastructure[1] every day, and really loved how much better that was than any other US city I'd lived in. But yeah, the other forms of transportation (including plodding your own car through the traffic) kinda suck. [1]: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=...
Biking and public transit in seattle are both hit or miss, although both are also improving. If you need to bike into downtown then you're fucked, you better be an aggressive, confident biker who's ok riding in heavy traffic and sharing lanes with cars. If you just want to bike recreationally rather than to get somewhere then things are a lot better.
As for public transit there are two big problems. One, coverage outside of the core downtown areas is comparatively sparse and irregular. Two, buses generally get stuck in the same traffic as cars and metro isn't smart enough to figure out how to adjust the schedules. This can mean that the same commute by bus can take an additional hour depending on the time of day. Also, using public transit for anything other than commuting to/from a normal 9-5 weekday job can be a huge hassle. These problems are very slowly being fixed though.
Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#109Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends what kind of transportation, though; when I lived there, I made use of the great bicycle infrastructure[1] every day, and really loved how much better that was than any other US city I'd lived in. But yeah, the other forms of transportation (including plodding your own car through the traffic) kinda suck. [1]: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=...
Biking in Seattle is great in some areas, horrid in others. Plus, HILLS.
Free workout! My office is moving to East Lake which puts it within biking distance, but the hills between here and there are going to be pretty rough for a while.