

Google won’t bring Fiber to San Francisco - a_taylor
http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned-once-before-google-wont-bring-fiber-to-san-francisco/

======
JoshGlazebrook
If you want to look at even more dysfunction turn your attention to pondering
why lovely Seattle was overlooked and was even cut off of Google's map (okay
that was most likely just scaling).

Gigabit Squared seems like it was destined to fail the second it was
announced, and where are they now? We have all that fiber already in place and
no one to use it. Could Seattle not sell it to Google? Some of kind of
partnership? Something?

The last I read about what the Mayor is planning on doing is try to make the
fiber initiative into a public utility[1].

1\.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1xtsjb/why_i_oppose...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1xtsjb/why_i_oppose_the_comcast_time_warner_merger/cfelx14)

~~~
Hydraulix989
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/](http://www.condointernet.net/)

~~~
dkulchenko
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.

~~~
techsupporter
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.)

~~~
icelancer
Is Wave alright? I have Comcast and I'm actually pleased with the service (not
the CS, but the actual product of bandwidth). Wave has bandwidth caps but I
don't generally exceed 300 GB so it should be fine (and I can get 1 TB if I
want), but the price is way lower.

If anyone could chime in that'd be great. The reviews of Wave on Yelp and
other sites are awful, but then again, they are terrible for Comcast too.

------
Meekro
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 neighborhood for under $300k.

Imagine that.

~~~
stbtrax
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).

~~~
SirensOfTitan
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.

~~~
tga_d
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.

~~~
diafygi
The big city culture in Texas is actually quite progressive. Houston was the
first major city to elect an openly gay mayor.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker)

~~~
bdcravens
Don't forget the startup darling Austin. Lifelong Texan here, and I live in
Houston. I have a cousin who has lived in Austin for a long time - 30+ years.
She's conservative, and country - she describes Austin as the capital of Texas
where you can almost see Texas.

------
pronoiac
Oh man! I knew the answer to this before I read the article. After I heard
about contentious community meetings about Google Wifi, I went myself, taping
them for posterity.[1] The community seemed generally receptive. I was sad
when it fell through; in case of an earthquake, I think a wifi mesh would be
much more robust than fiber.

The Google wifi FAQs / complaints I remember:

* radiation concerns.

* extra hardware on telephone poles.

* "low bandwidth." I think someone was miffed that YouTube would take time to buffer.

[1] [http://pronoiac.org/recordings/category/wifi-for-
sf/](http://pronoiac.org/recordings/category/wifi-for-sf/)

~~~
cnlwsu
"Radiation" should be better taught and understood I think. A local wind farm
got shut down in my home town because someone convinced some townies they give
off radiation and will give everyone cancer. There's a big difference between
ionizing and non-ionizing radaition - A microwave (cell phone etc) can boil
your blood with enough power but it will never cause a chemical change to DNA.

~~~
mikeash
Science literacy in general is woefully inadequate. You can get amazingly far
in life without knowing what "radiation" actually is, or why airplanes leave
trails behind them sometimes, but it leaves you open to being extremely easily
fooled.

~~~
911_Inside_Job
I'll just leave this here: [http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-
gadgets/201002/warning-...](http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-
gadgets/201002/warning-cell-phone-radiation?printable=true)

"Frey tested microwave radiation on frogs and other lab animals, targeting the
eyes, the heart, and the brain, and in each case he found troubling results.
In one study, he triggered heart arrhythmias. Then, using the right
modulations of the frequency, he even stopped frog hearts with
microwaves—stopped the hearts dead.

"Frey observed two factors in how microwaves at low power could affect living
systems. First, there was the carrier wave: a frequency of 1,900 megahertz,
for example, the same frequency of many cell phones today. Then there was the
data placed on the carrier wave—in the case of cell phones, this would be the
sounds, words, and pictures that travel along it. When you add information to
a carrier wave, it embeds a second signal—a second frequency—within the
carrier wave. This is known as modulation. A carrier wave can support any
number of modulations, even those that match the ­extra-low frequencies at
which the brain operates (between eight and twenty hertz). It was modulation,
Frey discovered, that induced the widest variety of biological effects."

Well that's food for thought! Seems it might be a bit hasty to just say "well
it's non-ionizing radiation, so one is ignorant to fear it"

Or as put by Joe Bageant:

"The Information Racketeers: It is the job of our combined institutions to
manage cultural information so as to deny the harmful aspects of the rackets
they protect through legislation and promote through institutional research.
That's why research shows that cell phone microwaves cause long-term memory
loss in rats, but do not harm people. Evidently, we are of different, more
bullet-proof mammalian material."

~~~
mikeash
> Seems it might be a bit hasty to just say "well it's non-ionizing radiation,
> so one is ignorant to fear it"

That would be nice if anyone was saying that. But we're not. Instead, we're
saying that people fear it out of ignorance, which is considerably different.

Do you have a link to Frey's study? I couldn't dig that particular one up.

~~~
911_Inside_Job
Try:
[http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/pendingproceeds/docket_409/inl...](http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/pendingproceeds/docket_409/inlandwetland/409-iw_exh69-79.pdf#page=17)

I found it as one of many papers by Frey at:
[http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/?page_id=594](http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/?page_id=594)

~~~
mikeash
Is there a later one as well? Because that one shows only a small effect,
certainly nothing like stopping the heart altogether.

~~~
911_Inside_Job
Well, if I know the typical populace, which includes people who have
conditions, or know loved ones with conditions, which make arrhythmia life-
threatening, they would not regard such effects lightly.

But, sure, the GQ author may be guilty of using a mis-leading characterization
of the induction of irregular heart patterns as the full "stopping" of heart
patterns. ("Hey it's true it 'stopped' for a little," plausibly says the
misleader.) Kind of like industry just may be guilty of mis-leading us in the
opposite direction.

Oh, and thanks for not trying to make me substantiate the Joe Bageant quote.
He's more of a dead, angry, neo-communist Hunter Thompson who values
rhetorical effect above all, and will play loose with facts. I just like his
rhetoric.

But back to the bottom line: "The data as a whole clearly indicate that the
heart responds to EM energy, particularly if it is pulsed and the pulses
impinge at the right time in the cardiac cycle... [but] are not sufficient to
draw conclusions about mediators.... [but, again,] the neural system is
responsive to the energy."

Anyway, in my long experience, people let their preferred conclusions guide
them persistently (if sub-consciously) to interpret perceptions, observations,
and "facts" accordingly. The conclusive ends justify the means of getting
there. When people want to persistently deny something, they can, easily. With
that in mind, I just say "I exhort you draw your own conclusions -- you
probably were going to do just that anyway."

Profitable as this conversation has been, I think I'll exit stage-left now.

~~~
mikeash
This is a good example of the difference between "fear due to ignorance" and
"fear can only come from ignorance". Perhaps there are reasons to think that
heart arrhythmia is a potential effect of microwaves. Certainly there's an
obvious and plausible mechanism, i.e. microwaves induce electric currents, the
heart is sensitive to electric current, and the two could very well interfere.

However, this is the first I've heard of it. Which is not to discount it, but
rather to point out that people fear microwaves for completely different
reasons. I've never seen anyone say "it'll interfere with my heartbeat!" No,
they think that they'll get brain cancer or something that makes little sense,
and for which there is no real evidence.

Regarding Joe Bageant, I don't think that quote really contained any facts, so
there isn't much to substantiate. Anyway, I'd rather learn about irradiating
frogs than argue, so thank you for the link to the paper on that.

Edit: one big fat exception to not hearing about this is, of course, the
common warning that people with pacemakers should stay away from microwaves.
Which illustrates this in the opposite direction: while there's debate about
how realistic the danger is, nobody thinks it's a crackpot idea, because it's
fairly well founded.

------
bifrost
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](http://www.sonic.net)) and I'll be much happier.

~~~
Decade
I'm not entirely pleased with sonic.net. They have a nice business plan, but
they don't care about the deep issues.

For example, Dane is against Net Neutrality, and he doesn't think IPv6 is
terribly important.

The beta IPv6 service is manually configured, and some time around the weekend
they changed my IP address via DHCP, breaking my IPv6 tunnel. I'm going to
have to hunt down my sonic.net login so I can get my tunnel back. Or switch to
an he.net tunnel.

~~~
dotBen
Do you have a link to qualify the statement Dane is anti NN? Knowing him and
his business I find that hard to believe.

On IPv6 their implementation might be beta but most ISPs don't offer anything
and don't care.

------
george88b
I don't live in Sf but its city government sure sounds dysfunctional, more so
than most cities at least.

~~~
wyclif
SF is the NIMBY capital of America for a reason. Loads of people who can't
seem to understand why housing prices keep rising while they simultaneously
ensure that no new housing can be built.

~~~
walshemj
The FIOS (FTC) role out was objected to in certain posh parts of London
because the residents objected to "the ugly green cabinets"

Apparently the second assistant nanny complained that it was hard to maneuver
the giant buggy/prams around :-)

BT said ok no FTC for you then and went off and did other less precious areas

~~~
rwmj
Tell me about it! In our village, FTTC has been delayed at least 2 years
because one NIMBY b __stard didn 't want his view of the field in front of his
house to be obscured by a larger cabinet. He's already _got_ a cab in front of
his house, just didn't want one perhaps 8 inches taller. That's one man
holding back progress for thousands.

------
dredmorbius
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 fast, reliable, and inexpensive
($35/mo).

[https://www.monkeybrains.net/](https://www.monkeybrains.net/)

[https://www.monkeybrains.net/wireless.html](https://www.monkeybrains.net/wireless.html)
(coverage map)

~~~
Matsta
From the looks of it they are just using Ubquiti wireless gear.

[http://www.ubnt.com/airmax#nanobridgem](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 lines can
even handle that much.

Speaking of which, I noticed there's not many Data centers in SF which
probably because there isn't much fibre around. My Digital Ocean box in SF is
really quick however, even less hops to New Zealand than it is from LA which
is weird since the Southern cross cable lands closer to LA.

~~~
ansimionescu
Not nitpicking, just honestly confused: do you mean aerial?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial)

~~~
cybrjoe
Aerial is another word for antenna:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_(radio)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_\(radio\))

------
jof
As one of the volunteers operating the existing Market St. WiFi and the
housing project WiFi, I can say that this is definitely being discussed and
evaluated, but I don't have a lot of hope for the Department of Technology
making anything happen.

They have deeply-rooted relationships with large telcos and utilities that
have granted them good deals on easements to lay their existing fiber and
copper paths. If the city started offering competing services for money, it
would throw those relationships in jeopardy.

It's really too bad, as a lot of the dark fiber resources are already in place
to build a decent backbone that could support radial paths out different
neighborhoods. However, there's very little technical clue (if you're a
competent network engineer in the Bay Area, why would you work for a city?
ick.) and political capital/gumption towards making this happen.

The layer 0 - 7 stuff is easy. It's layer 8 and above (money, politics,
humans) that make this hard to accomplish.

If you're an SF resident, call or write your supervisor. Let your opinion be
heard and demand proper infrastructure!

Fiber is becoming the new roads; how you get your product to market.
Municipalities need to step up and get building, because the big utilities and
ISPs sure as hell aren't.

~~~
Matsta
A similar sort of thing happened in New Zealand, ISP's ruled and weren't doing
much to upgrade internet speeds. Then the government stepped in and said you
gotta get your crap together then forced Telecom (which is now split into
multiple companies, Chorus and Visiontek I believe) to build a nationwide
fibre network. I believe it's meant to be finished by the end of next year,
but it's actually pretty cool how most people who live centrally can get
100mbps (and now 200mbps) fibre from virtually any ISP that offers it.

People say the NZ government is pretty useless (which is still is depending on
what topic/area) but I was surprised they actually got it together and got
something right for once.

------
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.

------
PaulHoule
I wonder how much of the problem in San Francisco is Wi-Fi congestion rather
than the wired service.

When I am in SF the number of SSID's I see boggles the mind and with people
stacked up in small apartments, plus Comcast offering the public Hotspots,
even the 5GHz band is overloaded, and it's amazing 2.4 works at all.

------
fragmede
As long as we're talking about things only the lucky get, like fiber in
Kansas, _some_ buildings in San Francisco get Webpass - 100 or 200 Mbit
symmetric residential service for $50/month.

------
the_watcher
The anti-fiber arguments are all so crazy to me. They literally only benefit
those making money on the status quo, which is a small number of ISPs. I
cannot imagine walking up to 1000 people and asking them what they would put
up with to improve their satisfaction with their ISPs and not getting answers
like "Literally anything." It seems like this is one of those things that
nearly everyone would agree on.

------
dmak
It's a shame. I'm glad this was published. The public needs to be educated!

