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Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

seattle.gov

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Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#151

Post by rdl »

dmishe wrote: post #149
rdl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WA doesn't seem worse than anywhere else -- $118 for a 33yo male for HSA compatible. All the quotes I've seen for individual health insurance in WA are good, and they have a lot of the "good" features of ObamaCare already.

118 with what? In IL I could find a 0 coinsurance plan at least, starting at around 300 depending on deductible. You can't do that in WA, they all have 30-35% coinsurance, they have deductibles of 10+ and out-of-pocket maximums at twice of that. It looks like agents are able to find a much better option, presumably inside group plans, but still.

Oh, I'm comparing to California. For $118 you get an HSA HDHP (but with great coverage, including preventive care, from $0, with full coverage once you hit the yearly $3500). For $200-300, you get a very low ($5-10) coinsurance.

I judge health insurance by the coverage for catastrophic accident or major illness; lifetime limits, access to best doctors, etc., not on the $0-20 copays.

I'd use leaky.com to do the comparison, once they expand from cars to health insurance (which I assume they will).

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#152

Post by joonix »

sage_joch wrote: post #23
amckenna wrote: post #5

it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet

Not to mention the tech industry, super heroes, and nature trails. I am bullish on Seattle.

Need to get myself to Seattle.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#153

Post by joonix »

xhrpost wrote: post #62

In all seriousness, what's the likelihood of bootstrapping something like this? Intuitively I'd say near zero, high upfront costs, low profit margins, slow ROI. For some reason though, my gut isn't convinced.

You're much better off figuring out a wireless solution. Building out and maintaining a network of underground cables in an established city just sounds like a nightmare.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#154

Post by lsc »

Note, Santa Clara has municipal fiber too[1] - It is only 'last mile' (e.g. you have to hook up to a real provider in a santa clara data center) and the per-hookup install costs are... substantial, but the ongoing costs, if I could get several customers on the same physical fiber (I mean, if I signed up a few people in a row on a street) could be competitive with the 100Mpbs down/20Mbps up half a kilobuck comcast cable service, and gigabit or even 10 gigabit (if you are willing to make the setup fees even more... substantial) are realistic.

I'm currently working on a project to light a warehouse in santa clara (and I'm moving prgmr.com, and my massive overcommit of bandwidth to santa clara so I'll have somewhere to get transit) If others are interested in a 'fiber to the condo' type setup, lemme know; as a hosting provider (mostly upload) buying symmetrical links, I'd be pretty happy to have some end-user (mostly download) customers. I'm also willing to show you what I know, if you are trying to do the same thing on your own. (I mostly am interested in the fiber 'cause it's cool, and 'cause it is the next step on the path to learning what I need to know to operate a datacenter... a very long term goal of mine. I don't expect to make much money on the fiber project, as selling 'enterprise connectivity' isn't really my kind of game.)

[1]http://svpfiber.com

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#156

Post by xhrpost »

joonix wrote: post #153
xhrpost wrote: post #62

In all seriousness, what's the likelihood of bootstrapping something like this? Intuitively I'd say near zero, high upfront costs, low profit margins, slow ROI. For some reason though, my gut isn't convinced.

You're much better off figuring out a wireless solution. Building out and maintaining a network of underground cables in an established city just sounds like a nightmare.

I know what you mean, and there has been wireless successful wireless startups so there is a case for it. The big issue though is bandwidth. With ubiquitous wifi hardware (thus cheap), you might be able to push 100Mbps (rough guess, I'm not sure how multi-antenna systems work for the 300 limit, I would assume 1 antenna to a person's house though). Which would be great but you're not going to get it unless you're standing next to the base station. You have to go through thousands of feet of air and then share what's left with everyone else using that AP. How many people would share an AP? Assuming 4 to a tower, easily 100? During peak times of day, I doubt you could get WiFi to deliver speeds that rival current offerings and it may be difficult to even match them (my local WiFi provider just recently broke 15Mbps for their top business tier at a much higher price than local cable).

You also need to physically install and maintain antenna's on everyone's roof (how would this work at apartments?) and hope there's no buildings in line of sight to the tower. Both of which would be highly vulnerable to weather (you put lightning suppressors on those people's antennas and ran a grounding wire to the earth right?).

TL;DR: I don't think wifi is any less of a nightmare (purely hypothesis though, I don't have experience with either in public infrastructure) but we see it more simply because initial cost of deployment is less.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#157

Post by illuminate »

Alaskan005 wrote: post #139
illuminate wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We should assume that bigger pipes cost more money" Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid. "Cable seems to have no problem bringing movies through the old copper wires." What companies choose to charge for old copper is irrelevant to how much of a profit one can make off of newer cable drops.

"Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid." Not every mile is owned by one company, the internet is a series of tubes

This is true! However costs over the years have plummeted for those uplinks and the reduction in costs have not been passed on to the consumer through much lower priced service.
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