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Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

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Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#31

Post by dredmorbius »

balls187 wrote: post #18
dredmorbius wrote: post #16

Friends of mine in SF tell me of an existing alternative, though availability varies by neighborhood and building: Monkeybrains is a wireless ISP which offers service from 1 Mbps to 10 Gbps, with 100+ Mbps not being unheard of. Coverage is mostly in the eastern / hipster side of the City: North Beach, downtown, the Haight, Noe, to Bayview. So Sunsetters and Richmondites are SOL. Reports I've heard are that service is…

If they offer up to 10Gbps, then why are you making 100+ Mbps seem like a big deal?

From what little I know: 10 Gbps is more commonly associated with business service. For residential, 100 Mbps is more typical. It's also symmetric (you see it up and down).

I'm reporting on 1) what their site claims (10 Mbps residential, 10 Gbps elsewhere), and what actual experiences are (they're delivering more than they promise).

Given that most DSL/Cable options are still a small fraction of that, it's a considerable improvement.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#32

Post by vidarh »

Meekro wrote: post #20

Contrast SF's dysfunction with Houston, one of the conservatives' model cities. Houston's streets are clean, public parks seem to have the quality one would associate with private ones, there's no graffiti or homeless folks in the streets. The business-friendly environment means that there is constant development and affordable housing prices. You can actually own a huge and beautiful house in a gorgeous and safe nei…

> The business-friendly environment means that there is constant development and affordable housing prices.

The far more likely explanation is the almost five times higher population density in San Francisco (6800/km^2 vs 1391/km^2) due to the natural limitations on expanding due to its position on a peninsula - San Francisco is constrained to a much smaller land area than Houston.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#33

Post by dredmorbius »

Matsta wrote: post #30
dredmorbius wrote: post #16

Friends of mine in SF tell me of an existing alternative, though availability varies by neighborhood and building: Monkeybrains is a wireless ISP which offers service from 1 Mbps to 10 Gbps, with 100+ Mbps not being unheard of. Coverage is mostly in the eastern / hipster side of the City: North Beach, downtown, the Haight, Noe, to Bayview. So Sunsetters and Richmondites are SOL. Reports I've heard are that service is…

From the looks of it they are just using Ubquiti wireless gear. http://www.ubnt.com/airmax#nanobridgem That is the ariel in the picture on their site. Crazy how they charge you $350 though, they cost $79 to buy individually (they are probably getting a wholesale discount). I'm guessing for business accounts they are using the Airfiber which is pretty cool and fast. They can't do 10gbps though, don't think their fibre…

Since provisioning is on a building basis, there may be individual unit wiring required as well -- the antenna goes on the roof, you need a router and Cat-6 to your unit, so there's a wiring run required and some testing.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#34

Post by dredmorbius »

Meekro wrote: post #20

Contrast SF's dysfunction with Houston, one of the conservatives' model cities. Houston's streets are clean, public parks seem to have the quality one would associate with private ones, there's no graffiti or homeless folks in the streets. The business-friendly environment means that there is constant development and affordable housing prices. You can actually own a huge and beautiful house in a gorgeous and safe nei…

That's because the weather's so gawdawful hot in Houston nobody dares venture outside for 8 months of the year.

In San Francisco, you can live and sleep in the streets. Any many do!

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#35

Post by Shivetya »

george88b wrote: post #3

I don't live in Sf but its city government sure sounds dysfunctional, more so than most cities at least.

Oh I can name a few more dysfunctional cities, Detroit comes to mind. Is a city dysfunctional because it fails one segment of its population? Lets face it, high speed internet is not going to appeal or be used by many in any city. Yes there are those who will, but we tend to vastly over estimate the impact the net has on those who are poverty line or lower.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#36

Post by hueving »

bifrost wrote: post #17

I was born in SF and have lived here most of my adult life. Our city government needs to be thrown away, it really is that bad. That said, Google should never be allowed to run a public network for the city. Its like handing the NSA the keys to the kingdom. Get the city to greenlight a company that actually cares about this stuff ( http://www.sonic.net ) and I'll be much happier.

What gives sonic more power against wiretapping with gag orders?

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#37

Post by rayiner »

The second to last paragraph makes an excellent point. One of the reasons you see governments in eastern Europe making it a point to help deploy fiber is they see it as a way to attract business. American cities don't have the same sense of needing to compete since they're on top to begin with.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#38

Post by tga_d »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #29
stbtrax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you have to drive everywhere. Also you would live in a state where people give intelligent design serious consideration, and the weather is unbearable during the summer, and a lack of outdoor activities and an abundance of obesity(houston is #1 in the list of fattest cities).

Neither the abundance of obesity nor intelligent design proponents affects me or my quality of life in any way. So the arguments against Houston collapse to: you have to drive everywhere and weather (essentially). And taking the MUNI isn't much of an upgrade over having a car in an affordable place.

Could be wrong, I interpreted the obesity and intelligent design comments as reflections of the culture. Unless you never leave your house, living in a place that promotes sedative lifestyles and intellectual crutches seems... draining.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#39

Post by rayiner »

Meekro wrote: post #20

Contrast SF's dysfunction with Houston, one of the conservatives' model cities. Houston's streets are clean, public parks seem to have the quality one would associate with private ones, there's no graffiti or homeless folks in the streets. The business-friendly environment means that there is constant development and affordable housing prices. You can actually own a huge and beautiful house in a gorgeous and safe nei…

Eh. Houston also has uncontrolled sprawl and major pollution issues from letting chemical companies have free reign. I'm quite impressed with Chicago myself. The business climate is a lot more stifling, but for example it has never imposed rent controls so housing is a lot more affordable than in comparable cities. Its famous for being liberal, but is a lot more pragmatic than say San Francisco. And in many parts of the city, there are two FTTC providers (ATT Uverse and RCN). I remember 70 megabit was like $55-65. Atlanta is quite good too--I was glad to see it as a Google Fiber city.

Re: Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco

#40

Post by techsupporter »

dkulchenko wrote: post #13
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle isn't too bad off. It has CondoInternet (the thing I miss the most since moving to the Bay Area): http://www.condointernet.net/

You mean that service that's only available in a few very dense high-rises around the city? Doesn't really help the vast majority of people living in the Seattle area. Still holding out hope for Google Fiber, or, really, anyone but Comcast.

If you're in the CD, Cap Hill, Belltown, most of Beacon Hill, the ID, or Rainier Valley you have Wave Broadband which is, from what I've been told, pretty good these days. Most of Cap Hill and Beacon Hill even have a choice of Wave or Comcast because the franchise areas overlap.

( The only good thing about living in Belltown, heavily outweighed by having to live in Belltown when the bars close.)

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