41–50 of 149 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm getting 81 Mbps download speeds right now on my laptop and have 4G on my phone wherever I go, not really near a 3rd world country as far as I know.
How? Are you in Google Kansas?
"AT&T just admitted that they'll offer better service if there's real competition, so how do we make sure there's real competition?"
AT&T and the others have been claiming for years that they are doing the best they can and raking in huge profits; this kind of abrupt turnaround just shows what a lie that was.
I am so glad Google is putting AT&T (and the other broadband providers) in the hot seat. Sadly I don't think San Francisco will get Google Fiber anytime soon. Why is it we don't even have Verizon FIOS?!
Some apartment buildings (Including mine) have webpass which is 100mbps up and down (and in some locations 200mbps) for $50 per month. Other than that internet in SF is surprisingly bad
All marketing lies. Make any company seeking such guarantees put up a $1 Billion bond that will be forfeit if they don't complete in a few years and watch AT&T back down. And for pete's sake stop giving tax deferments on the FRONT END. If a company claims they are going to make jobs or supply a service do not give them the tax break until that actually happens.
All great ideas, except for lobbyists. In reality, it's probably not reasonable to force someone to put up a bond to build a network. And a billion dollars is probably an order of magnitude (or two) higher than what it'll cost AT&T to completely build out Austin. I believe google recently said they could build out most of the major population centers in the US for 11 Billion, so that gives you some context for a sing…
So the amount should be what it costs to build the network for the location.
I am so glad Google is putting AT&T (and the other broadband providers) in the hot seat. Sadly I don't think San Francisco will get Google Fiber anytime soon. Why is it we don't even have Verizon FIOS?!
Because this is what happens when you try to do stuff like that in the Bay Area: http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2011/11/15/no-att-lightspeed-inter...
These fools should be banned off into an Amish-like community.
This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…
> The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP. This is the model I see as ideal and it always baffles me why it's so rarely mentioned as an option. Make the fiber network a public grid like roads, water, sewer, power. Then sell access to private companies to deal with the connectivity, services (TV/VoIP…
BT only bother upgrading areas to fibre where they've got competition from Virgin Media, so people tend to either have the choice between two 100mbps fibre providers or none at all. The disparity in broadband speeds is growing rapidly, because the areas not served by Virgin Media tend to be those furthest from BT's exchanges and hence having the slowest ADSL speeds.
I'm not normally one to advocate government intervention, but the situation seems absolutely absurd.
I am so glad Google is putting AT&T (and the other broadband providers) in the hot seat. Sadly I don't think San Francisco will get Google Fiber anytime soon. Why is it we don't even have Verizon FIOS?!
Because this is what happens when you try to do stuff like that in the Bay Area: http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2011/11/15/no-att-lightspeed-inter...
It's not a sick joke, it's San Franciscan :/. I sometimes feel like we work in a city that's all things at once: tech bastion, hipster haven, and a home to a generation of hippies. There's a lot of culture and there's a part of it that hates ugly things and a part of it that hates technology and every time someone wants to build some cool tech like city wide wifi, this is the inevitable result.
This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…
> The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP. This is the model I see as ideal and it always baffles me why it's so rarely mentioned as an option. Make the fiber network a public grid like roads, water, sewer, power. Then sell access to private companies to deal with the connectivity, services (TV/VoIP…
> AT&T's expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives. Sounds more like AT&T is expecting to make a deal with Google to resell bandwidth off Google's own fiber after Google puts up all the initial expense to lay it. That would indeed give them…
Hey, if they want to do that and Google will co-operate, sounds fine & dandy to me.