
Seattle to deploy Gigabit fiber network - aaronbrethorst
http://seattle.gov/mayor/SeaFi/gigabit.htm
======
amckenna
it is just getting better and better to live here in Seattle. Legalization of
weed, same-sex marriage, and now high-speed internet

~~~
hoka
Fix that whole rain thing and I'll be there tomorrow.

~~~
ahelwer
Yep. I have an internship there this summer, and I'll be moving from Calgary,
which gets the most hours of sunlight of any city in Canada. Hope the change
won't be too jarring/depressing... it was overcast every day when I was there
for interviews.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Summers are _why_ you live in Seattle. 80°F, sunny, and beautiful every day
(after July 5th)! We get about 16 hours of sunlight on the summer solstice.

There are actually cases of people getting SAD from the over abundance of
sunlight in the summer ([http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/10/depression-
from-too-mu...](http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/10/depression-from-too-
much-sun.html?m=1))

~~~
mahyarm
Moving from seattle to the bay area you basically get that for about 8/9
months on end.

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marshray
Hooray! Now I have one less thing to lose by leaving Kansas City!

RE: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917132> (from today)

~~~
clauretano
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!

~~~
marshray
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.

~~~
clauretano
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.

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DenisM
The initial 12 neighborhoods include: Area 1: the University of Washington’s
West Campus District, Area 2: South Lake Union, Area 3: First Hill/Capitol
Hill/Central Area, Area 4: the University of Washington’s Metropolitan Tract
in downtown Seattle, Area 5: the University of Washington’s Family Housing at
Sand Point, Area 6: Northgate, Area 7: Volunteer Park Area, Area 8: Beacon
Hill and SODO Light Rail Station and Areas 9-12: Mount Baker, Columbia City,
Othello, and Rainier Beach.

~~~
sharkweek
As someone from Seattle, even though I don't see my neighborhood on that list
(Maple Leaf) -- I am extremely excited to see more and more infrastructural
focus on SODO and Areas 9-12 getting some much needed improvement. The light
rail running through that area has been a step in the right direction for
everyone in those neighborhoods, and I'm excited to see that development
continue.

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lostoptimist
Awesome news. Comcast's monopoly on broadband in certain neighborhoods has
produced nothing but sub-par internet access. This should greatly improve
things.

~~~
illuminate
Yeah, Broadstripe and Centurylink are even worse.

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erickhill
So proud of Seattle on a personal and professional level, across multiple
recent advancements.

~~~
fionabunny
Cool, which were they? Just wondering.

~~~
erickhill
1) Marriage equality 2) Decriminalization of small quantities pot 3) Amazon's
recent innovations in the hardware space 4) MS's recent innovations in the
hardware space 5) T-Mobile's finally getting the iPhone

Several others on a more personal, non HN related front. Mostly trivial and
entertainment based.

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reddiric
As thrilled as I am that we're doing this, overdue and hopefully done right in
the public interest, being about _three blocks_ outside one of the initial
service areas stings just a smidge.

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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>

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HelloMcFly
I've got a job interview tomorrow for a position in Seattle. I'm now even more
motivated.

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irollboozers
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.

~~~
jimray
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.

~~~
irollboozers
This neatly summarizes how I feel. Or how I think I feel. Or how I want to
feel?

There's no getting over the fact that Seattle isn't Silicon Valley. But, it's
become so clear that Seattle isn't as static as it used to be. So even though
it's insular now (and always has been), I just have a gut feeling that Seattle
will open up and blossom more. Can you imagine a Seattle with SV's good parts,
and none of the bad parts? Or is that just inherently impossible because it is
Seattle?

In between the legal weed, fast internet, social entrepreneurship community,
and it now being the 'it' place to live and play, it's almost a tossup for me.
If there were money in Seattle and the funding climate there not being so
stingy, maybe I would've stayed.

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phinnaeus
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."

~~~
zacs
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 neighborhoods absolutely have their positives as
well, but I wouldn't move to them just for CondoInternet. :)

~~~
clauretano
[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.

~~~
jlgreco
Belltown is "dangerous" only for people who have never lived in a city with a
_real_ dangerous neighborhood. I have never so much as felt even uncomfortable
walking around Belltown alone at night. I can't say the same about most
_downtowns_ of other cities I've been in, let alone sketchier neighborhoods.

Maybe I've just been desensitized, but I really feel like there is no cause
for alarm in Belltown.

~~~
zacs
It's relative -- among Seattle hoods, I would (anecdotally and out of my ass,
of course) say there is more violent crime there than in others. I'm also a
fairly big guy and I've felt uncomfortable plenty of times there at night when
the streets are semi-abandoned.

In the past year I've seen ambulances taking away normal citizens who've been
beat down (twice) and I've had a stabbing perp run by me as he was chased by
the cops. And this is with me almost never going to Belltown. I've never seen
anything remotely like that while I lived in First or Capitol Hill (although
I've definitely seen plenty of car break-ins).

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tombrossman
Our (government owned) telco is building out an island-wide Gigabit network
here in Jersey which is great. Problem is that it is capped at 50GB/month
usage, which defeats the purpose. Actually using the connection's full
capacity for about 5-6 minutes a month will result in overage charges. I'm
hoping Seattle has a more realistic monthly cap, if one exists.

Sign-up page with plan details here:
[http://www.jtglobal.com/Jersey/Personal/JT-Fibre/Fibre-
Tarif...](http://www.jtglobal.com/Jersey/Personal/JT-Fibre/Fibre-
Tariffs/Tariff-details/)

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egypturnash
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.

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hayksaakian
Hurrah! I was getting worried about something Google fiber esque taking
painfully long to make it here.

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sidjoshi
I live in SLU! Today is a happy day.

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snitko
Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit
internet access?

~~~
bradleyland
Why would you need a terabyte hard drive? Why would you need 8 GB of RAM? Why
would you need a Core i7 processor capable of over 80,000 MIPS?

Step back and think about what you do with a computer or mobile device today.
Most of what we do involves the Internet. We don't "need" Gigabit internet
access any more than we "need" the things above, but when they're present,
we're free to find innovative new ways to use them.

~~~
marshray
It's still a fair question though.

How many streams of retina-quality video do you need to watch (or feed)
simultaneously?

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kemiller
What is a "fiber transmitter"?

~~~
jamesmcn
Any of a number of different wireless transmitters plugged into fiber.

There are laser transceivers for use in open air, but they don't work
particularly well in rain or fog. So not great for Seattle.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-
space_optical_communicatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-
space_optical_communication)

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xhrpost
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.

~~~
joonix
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.

~~~
xhrpost
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.

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sytelus
Does anyone worry about increased microwave radiation due to all these beamed
broadband Antennas all over?

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mtgx
Hopefully the pricing will be competitive with Google Fiber, and not several
times more.

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kyllo
No love for West Seattle? :(

