
1Gbps fiber for $70&mdash;in America? Yup. - kylelibra
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/1gbps-fiber-for-70in-america-yup.ars
======
kinofcain
Sonic is the only ISP I've ever had that hasn't sucked. They're terrific.
Their techs actually know what they're talking about and, as I'm sure others
on HN can relate to from dealing with other ISPs, they don't treat you like an
idiot when you call up. It was a great decision by google to have sonic act as
the ISP for the Stanford deployment. I hope they're able to roll fiber out
quickly.

~~~
acangiano
It's like Techsavvy in Canada, except I effectively get 3Mbps, not 1Gbps, from
them :(.

~~~
idm
Former sonic.net customer here, then speakeasy, current teksavvy customer.
Speakeasy just isn't in the ballpark, teksavvy is great service, but sonic.net
was hands-down the best ISP I've ever had.

This article makes me happy to read.

------
philthy
I saw a news bit about how breakout ISPs in the UK are selling 100mbps(I
believe I might be wrong on the speed) for as low as 6.99 quid. American
utility bubble? I think so. At this point I am positive the Verizons and the
Comcasts could offer free service to everyone of there existing customers and
still make positive returns from just new contracts. Can somebody please tell
me exactly what you are paying for with 100Mbps for 199.99? Are they using
solid gold equipment? There can't possibly be that much overheard, someone
please set me straight.

~~~
madmaze
I completely agree, when I moved to the US from Germany about 7 years ago, a
large majority of the people I got to know were still running dialup. In
Germany the years prior to my move, I cannot remember a single person not
having at least DSL. Then the next major shock I got was when looking at ISP
and Cellphone carrier prices! at the moment I am paying 60$/mo for 12down 2up
(in boston). My Brother in a small town in southern Germany gets 2 unlimited
phone lines, cable TV and 50down 12up for 40euros/mo so about 60$/mo. Im not
sure how this difference in price can be explained, Especially because in
boston my internet goes down every few days since all the lines are run
overground.

~~~
zwieback
Since you seem to have more up-to-date experience I'll ask this: what are the
other fees Germans pay for telecom? Are there other taxes or fees that are
payed separately?

I moved away from Germany almost 20 years ago but at the time my parents were
still paying "Anmeldungsgebuehr" for their TVs/radios, the basic phone service
was really cheap but local calls were metered in 8min increments.

I believe one of the big problems for the majority of Americans (myself
certainly included) is the limbo created by poorly regulated local monopolies
- I can choose between Qwest DSL and Comcast, neither are particularly good
and both are expensive. There's not enough regulation to create a good minimum
service level but there's enough regulation to prevent local players from
really growing.

One thing I have to say, though, the pictures of the Sonic guys installing
fiber look really scary. I could never get away with a crappy wiring job like
this at work yet around town you see the worst kind of spaghetti jobs, crooked
masts chewed up by woodpeckers, home-made looking junction boxes, etc.

~~~
kayoone
Telekom wasnt even a private company 20 years ago and they had a monopoly.
Today you can choose between lots of ISPs/Telco companies. I get 64/5 Mbit
with 2 unlimited phone lines and cable TV for about 50 EUR in a small german
city. No one i know still has metered calls in germany. Prices fell and speeds
have risen dramatically in the last 5-6 years.

------
ComputerGuru
I'm going to be moving back to Chicago soon, and I wonder if any fellow HNers
have some advice as to who's the best ISP for quality, high-speed internet in
the Chicagoland region for someone that lives their life online?

~~~
durin42
Comcast Business Class. Not the consumer stuff, the _good_ stuff. 20 mbps
sustained download and 14ms ping to google.com. There's a different (and much
better) tech support tree for businesses too. Pricey but easily the best
internet I've ever had. Beats the pants of my old AT&T DSL.

------
click170
Honestly, I'm tired of the way companies try to market Internet to the masses.
Too many people/articles focus on "1Gbps, blazing download speeds". Yeah, for
a day, _maybe_. With bandwidth caps, you can't actually use your connection at
full potential all of the time, so I question the way they market it as
"1Gbps". Call me when it's confirmed that the 1Gbps package comes with no
bandwidth cap, that would be something to write home about.

~~~
palish
"No bandwidth cap" doesn't actually work, though.

The average user (and even the average programmer) wants to use the internet
for 1) entertainment, and 2) information. Those tasks don't require sustained,
maximum bandwidth usage.

The only people who actually need that kind of bandwidth are either
bittorrent... um.... addicts, for lack of a better word, or infected
computers, and consist of about 1-2% of the customers.

Their usage patterns degrade the service for everyone else.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Netflix is mainstream.

------
pedrokost
I wonder why they don't put the wires and fibers underground. It is much safer
and less prone to strong winds and other natural hazards. Is the cost of
having underground wires that high?

~~~
lutorm
The problem seems to be that no one thought ahead when they built the streets
in the US. Back in Sweden, it's _all_ underground. You won't find anything
less than main HV transmission lines above ground. I don't know how they did
it, but based on the lack of ever digging up the streets in the neighborhoods
I lived in, they must have put in conduits when they build the streets. Why
they don't do the same in the US baffles me. It makes absolutely no sense.

~~~
ars
> It makes absolutely no sense.

The US was first. Everyone else had the experience in the US to learn from.

New areas in the US do use underground conduits, but most cities in the US are
pretty old.

~~~
lutorm
_most cities in the US are pretty old._

That's a joke, right? Every place I've lived in the U.S. (which granted is not
that many) was built much later than most European cities, yet there are still
overhead wires strung all over the place.

~~~
ars
Not the city, the installation of electrical service.

------
cowkingdeluxe
For 700 homes.

------
dhughes
That's pretty good, the fastest I can get is 170Mbps/30Mbps for almost $300
plus taxes but capped at 250GB/month, $1 per GB going over 250GB, and torrents
throttled.

------
hammock
Just curious, why would anyone need 1Gbps internet right now? And what %of the
population is that which needs it?

~~~
nl
So you can stop thinking about outdated things like the "local network" vs
"the internet".

If you can store all your stuff remotely, and get it as quickly and easily as
if it were on a local NAS suddenly things get a _lot_ easier.

Ironically, it's the non-geeks who need this the most, because they can't
setup a NAS. How many people do you see emailing images to themselves so they
can get it on their other computer? Every person who does that needs 1Gbps
internet so they can do that for their entire photo and film collection.

(And yes, I know Dropbox helps with this scenario, but even Dropbox is better
with 1Gbps intenet...)

~~~
orijing
That's mostly true, but there's still the latency benefits of physical
proximity. For example, just for an electric signal to travel 6000km across
the country, it will take t=6000km/v where v=c/n (c = speed of light, 3e8 m/s
and n = refractive index of fiber, 1.62). So it'll take 32.4 ms just to send a
packet across the states, and another 32.4 ms to receive one back. This
doesn't even take into effect the latency from the routers in the way, and
other things like that your message doesn't go in a completely straight path.

So latency is really important if you're doing something like playing a real
time game. 32ms is basically a single frame if you're playing at 30 fps. Some
people will notice if they're constantly a frame behind.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber>

~~~
nl
I'm well aware of latency. I chose the example I did specfically because high
bandwidth trumps locality when emailing a picture across the room..

~~~
orijing
I wasn't saying that high speed internet is not good, just wanted to be
careful in declaring that it'll make everything feel as fast as LAN.

Not to mention the fact that the other endpoint needs to be as fast if you
want fast communication.

------
joelhaus
Everyone needs to make sure each candidate answers two questions during the
upcoming election cycle:

    
    
      1. Do you believe higher speed internet service will lead to a better jobs
      economy?
    
      2. What policies will you pursue to so that more Americans have internet access 
      comparable to our global counterparts? E.g. Germany where speeds are 10x's as 
      fast at 2/3 the price?

~~~
webXL
On what rational basis are these two questions pertinent to managing the
executive branch of the United States government?

~~~
joelhaus
To answer your question; because any federal law passed by congress in an
effort to improve consumer choice in the ISP market would require the
signature of the president without a supermajority. However, my call for
answers to these questions applies equally to candidates for congressional,
state and local offices too.

Unless you feel the current regulatory structure has no responsibility for
getting us in this situation, how are they not pertinent?

~~~
webXL
You use phrases like "improve consumer choice" and "regulatory structure" as
if it was possible for your interests to be aligned with those of the
regulators and politicians. Nevermind those being regulated are donating many,
many times more to politicians than your interest group is, to either not be
regulated or regulate their competitors out of the market.

~~~
joelhaus
It's called democracy. I'm sure there's an excellent civics course online
somewhere.

------
w1ntermute
> is a trial and will reach about 700 homes when complete

Don't get your hopes up just yet.

~~~
joezydeco
5 square miles down, 3,500,000 to go. Sounds like a plan to me.

------
fholm
God I love sweden, 100/100 dedicated for 16$/month (~100 SEK)

------
chopsueyar
Nice to see an effort being made.

Bring on the FTTH providers!

~~~
joezydeco
It's an uphill battle. Local governments in the US sign franchise agreements
with cable companies and telecom providers. Many of those agreements give the
cable company exclusive geographical rights to the area in return for hooking
up the entire town.

So when another ISP shows up and wants to string cable all over the
poles...guess what? They're turned away. Verizon FiOS found this out when
trying to get into markets where AT&T had the telephone franchise.

Call it a monopoly, call it anti-competition. But America is _huge_. There's
no other way to get a company to invest in so much infrastructure to cover all
of the land.

~~~
Nrsolis
Franchise agreements aren't exclusionary. They just lay out what a company
will pay to the city for the right to use the public right of way. They also
cover things like in-kind contributions for schools and libraries and minimum
service levels (which set out that they can't cherry pick neighborhoods and
must offer service to everyone in a geographic area). A second provider would
have to agree to conditions at least equal to the first one.

I worked for a city-owned electric utility that would regularly negotiate with
outside entities to do pole-attachments. We did fiber loops around the city
and started to offer Internet service. When it looked like we might actually
make some meaningful progress, Bellsouth and Cox went to the state government
and got a law passed that forbade ANY governmental organization or political
subdivision from getting into the telecomm business.

If we had the national political will to insist on a competitive
telecommunications infrastructure, we'd have one. I'm happy to see that some
ISPs are giving it a go. Unfortunately, the capital costs are so high that
it's hard for an upstart to really gain traction.

Our best bet for a truly competitive marketplace is for the CableCos to
finally get into the business of doing SMB (small/medium biz) customer service
that gives the ATT/Verizons a run for their money.

~~~
chopsueyar
That is not necessarily true.

In Florida, prior to the deployment of Fios, as a competitor to cable
television, Verizon lobbied the Florida legislature to rescind the minimum
service level requirements to offer television to all citizens.

As a result, there are random neighborhoods with Fios access and others
without. Verizon cherry picked the neighborhoods it wanted to service.

As you pointed out, the real problem seems to be the politicians.

~~~
Nrsolis
Like I said, franchise agreements are hardly uniform and the large telcos can
often muscle the politicians to doing things their way. Add in tax revenue
promises and other inducements to side with the telcos and it's easy to see
where the loyalties of our elected officials lie.

I wish it was different but telecom market domination is close to network
neutrality in being out on the minds of the citizenry. Unless you can connect
it to jobs or taxes, it's unlikely to interest any outside of a select few.

------
taylr
I didn't see any mention of bandwidth caps. I hope they don't cap it. I'm not
sure people see the flip side of having an extremely fast connection with the
current model of pricing for most telecommunication providers. The speeds keep
going up but the caps don't. I live in a building that has fiber provided by
Telus, capped at 50MBps. I'm hitting 1TB down per month on average, I'd be
screwed if they started capping my bandwidth. It's interesting how as soon as
companies implement bandwidth caps we start seeing speeds go up.. just another
money grab.

------
ww520
What's the upstream speed? Hope it's symmetric. High speed clusters are
possible. Imagine a cluster of Beowulf...

