Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

seattle.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 157 posts

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#51

Post by clauretano »

zacs wrote: post #22
phinnaeus wrote: post #3

I'm moving to Seattle in January and was already planning to sign up with CondoInternet. Seeing as my to-be neighborhood is one of those they say this will be offered in, I'm now wondering when this will be rolled out. Awesome news though. Edit: "Gigabit Squared will be aggressively building, with eyes towards beginning services in the Fall of 2013."

Just a friendly mention that if your would-be neighborhood is Belltown or SLU, you may want to investigate some other options (unless of course you already have, in which case please ignore me!). Belltown has become worse and worse for crime (unless Phoenix Jones happens by to save you from being mugged). SLU, while nice and pristine and new, is now very overpriced due to Amazon's recent relocation there. Both neighb…

[citation needed] re: Belltown crime.

SLU is a former industrial neighborhood now filled with Amazon offices and cookie-cutter apartments. Basically the positive there is that you're close to work, the neighborhood itself is severely lacking in culture.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#52

Post by clauretano »

marshray wrote: post #46
clauretano wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just make sure you move to Actual Seattle and not the sprawling suburbs. As someone who has used PhoneFactor for a few years, thanks, congrats, and welcome to Seattle soon!

Thanks, good to hear it. Alas, we'll probably land in the burbs for all the usual uninteresting reasons. But it won't hurt to have the right people seeing Gb internet across the lake.

Well if you must live in the suburbs (Microsoft has a private bus fleet that ferries people from the city out there), they at least have some FiOS out there. I've heard Frontier stopped deploying it, but that existing deployments are maintained.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#53

Post by rdl »

irollboozers wrote: post #45

I am seriously debating why I recently moved from Seattle to SF/Bay... I can't go a week without seeing or hearing something that just rubs it in.

It's not like you had to renounce your citizenship or anything :) I'm sure you could move back. I know I am seriously considering NV or WA 10+ mo/yr as soon as it makes sense for my business (I've also lived in Seattle).

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#54

Post by rdl »

cpeterso wrote: post #30
elteto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better start packing up then! See this: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/12/does-it-really-rain-al...

It doesn't rain all the time in Seattle, but it rains almost every day most of the year. When I lived in Seattle, I remember some months when the sky was gray 24/7. Crushing, relentless gray. It felt like living inside a concrete dome. :\

OTOH, grey skies make photography easier and better.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#55

Post by marshray »

stephengillie wrote: post #26
btilly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don't want to live in Seattle because of the earthquake risk that nobody is prepared for. See http://discovermagazine.com/2012/extreme-earth/01-big-one-ea... if you don't know what I'm talking about.

We've been prepping for "the big one" for generations. Many have become complacent. We're more worried about earthquakes causing a "lahar" mud slide off Rainier and plowing through lowlands. Evacuation drills are down to about 4.5 minutes. Earthquakes are a good reason not to live anywhere on the Pacific coast. Hurricanes are a good reason not to live in the southeast, or apparently, New Jersey. And I don't want to l…

I live in the heart of "tornado alley" and it's really not a noticeably big deal. Our local sirens haven't gone off in years.

On the other hand, living in N. Central FL, there were several times where my life was disrupted for days by hurricanes.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#56

Post by jimray »

irollboozers wrote: post #45

I am seriously debating why I recently moved from Seattle to SF/Bay... I can't go a week without seeing or hearing something that just rubs it in.

I lived in Seattle for 7.5 years, moved to San Francisco September 2011.

My only regret is not doing so sooner.

Seattle is a wonderful town (and it really is a big town more than a city) full of wonderful, if slightly insular, people. It's beautiful, there's great food, you can hike and kayak if that's your thing.

If you're a developer that doesn't work for Microsoft or Amazon, though, the geek community is definitely lacking. There are plenty of professional nerds but much fewer people working on exciting side projects.

I found it much harder to meet people, nerds or civilians. It's the sort of place where people settle in, where people have grown up, where people aren't necessarily looking for new friends. All of which is fine, I just found it a bit off-putting.

Seattle doesn't really do urban density (granted, SF has plenty of room to grow, literally, here). Some of that is intentional, mostly it's just aggravating. It doesn't seem to want to be a city. Portland, which is smaller, manages to do many of the "city" things (like public transportation and urban planning) much better.

And, man. Don't forget the weather. Those months without the sun age you.

I loved my time and life in Seattle. SF feels more like home, even if I have to wait another year for Sonic.net to roll out fiber.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#57

Post by meej »

cpeterso wrote: post #30
elteto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better start packing up then! See this: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/12/does-it-really-rain-al...

It doesn't rain all the time in Seattle, but it rains almost every day most of the year. When I lived in Seattle, I remember some months when the sky was gray 24/7. Crushing, relentless gray. It felt like living inside a concrete dome. :\

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.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#58

Post by guyzero »

loeg wrote: post #42
rdl wrote: post #36

Earlier 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…

Can you expand on why the lack of personal income tax is a good thing? Instead, WA has roughly 10% sales tax which some would say disproportionately taxes the poor.

I suspect he thinks it's good because he's not poor.

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#59

Post by rdl »

guyzero wrote: post #58
loeg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on why the lack of personal income tax is a good thing? Instead, WA has roughly 10% sales tax which some would say disproportionately taxes the poor.

I suspect he thinks it's good because he's not poor.

Sadly false for two reasons. (If I wanted a directly and short-term self-serving policy, I'd just advocate for a $1t/yr national defense budget, half of which to be spent on IT security; I actually think total defense spending should be $50-100b. I am confident I have little enough political power to not matter.)

Re: Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network

#60

Post by potatolicious »

clauretano wrote: post #49
octaveguin wrote: post #10

Earlier 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 :(

Seattle has fantastic transit, as long as you pick the right neighborhoods to live in. Basically, any neighborhood surrounding downtown has fantastic transit, as well as the U. District. Transit to the major job centers in the suburbs is also quite good.

Have to disagree - lived in Seattle 2 years, have also lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, SF, and NYC - Seattle's transit is by a very wide margin the worst out of that bunch.

It's serviceable for some contrived use cases, but a long, long, long, loooong way from "fantastic".

I lived in Belltown first, and then Capitol Hill (right along the Broadway corridor) - both transit experiences were pretty shitty.

The transit is serviceable during off hours, but during rush it is an absolutely, completely unmitigated clusterfuck. All buses leading out of downtown are at crush capacity, and the ridiculous rule that back doors can't be opened means that at every stop there is a massive pile of human bodies as people towards the back shove and squeeze their way to the front to get out - only to run into crowds of people outside trying to get in.

If you work in the central business district, and live in one of the nicer "trunk line" neighborhoods, and you can stagger your work hours to avoid the worst of the inhumanity of Seattle transit during rush hour, you can get to work pretty well. If any one of the three conditions is not met, commuting via transit is going to be absolutely dreadful.

The only place I've ever experienced transit worse than Seattle was in the industrial slums of London, Ontario.

Post reply on HN