
Show HN: Using city permits to map Sonic.net fiber - ThatDan
https://github.com/ThatDan/sonic_fiber
======
firloop
Link to the map itself:
[https://thatdan.github.io/sonic_fiber/](https://thatdan.github.io/sonic_fiber/)

~~~
godot
That's cool. Is there data for outside of San Francisco? For example,
Brentwood? I am considering moving to Brentwood since Sonic offers fiber
there. Would like to learn more about their coverage.

~~~
firloop
As someone who used to live in Brentwood, the Brentwood fiber rollout was very
disappointing. Sonic used to have maps of their planned rollout that now point
to dead links [0]. The house I used to live in was marked as planned to
receive fiber by fall 2016, but when I put in the address Sonic says they
currently don't service it.

For those who don't know, Brentwood was slated to be one of the first places
in the Bay Area to get fiber, mostly because Brentwood required fiber conduit
houses built for all developments after 2000, and because its city council was
fairly generous to Sonic themselves. I don't strictly blame Sonic here... they
took a risk doing this and likely were unable to drum up the support and
enthusiasm in the community that would make a true city-wide rollout
economically feasible. Seeing Sonic's experience in Brentwood makes me believe
that the only way FTTH will be vastly deployed in the US anytime soon is
through government subsidy.

[0]: [https://www.sonic.com/get-involved-brentwood-
fiber](https://www.sonic.com/get-involved-brentwood-fiber)

~~~
seanmccann
San Francisco's population density, willingness to pay for faster internet,
and displeasure with Comcast will hopefully mean more success than Brentwood.

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unruthless
Awesome. One of those blue lines is close by, so I looked up my address in
Sonic's availability tool[1], and sure enough: "Gigabit Fiber is coming to
your location Service is scheduled to be available Dec 2017"

[1] [https://www.sonic.com/availability](https://www.sonic.com/availability)

~~~
axoltl
I'm half a block away from one of the blue lines, unfortunately the tool's
only presenting me with DSL... I love Sonic, but I used to have their DSL
service and it wasn't great. Not Sonic's fault, but San Francisco's copper is
pretty horrible.

These days I have a Comcast business account, but I'd take any chance to
switch back to Sonic.

~~~
wahern
Sonic installed my fiber service late last year. Last week AT&T was hanging
fiber on my street. I chatted with the lineman and he was upfront
(unsolicited, even!) that the only reason he was out there was because Sonic
forced AT&T's hand. Previously AT&T was building out FTTN infrastructure in
places like Mission Bay, but he said they've completely ditched that strategy
and are switching to FTTH. However, Sonic appears to be methodically rolling
out fiber street-by-street. The lineman said AT&T had him installing fiber in
a more-or-less haphazard manner. I guess AT&T is literally freaking out,
trying to catch up and perhaps head-off Sonic as best they can.

Anyhow, point being, while Sonic's methodical rollout might mean they are
unlikely to reach you anytime soon if they've already passed you by, keep an
eye on the AT&T trucks. They may decide to systematically install service to
the areas Sonic misses, or inexplicably serve your street before another. AT&T
is charging $90/month to Sonic's $40/month, with less guaranteed throughput,
so it's particularly attractive for them to serve a block Sonic misses.

$90/month is still amazing, but I think AT&T's strategy is going to be much
like Comcast's: $90/month for internet only, or $95/month for internet +
network television. Either way you're going to be paying for the network
television. But they want to induce you to be "officially" served so they have
something to sell to the networks and advertisers.

~~~
toast0
> The lineman said AT&T had him installing fiber in a more-or-less haphazard
> manner. I guess AT&T is literally freaking out, trying to catch up and
> perhaps head-off Sonic as best they can.

When ATT did my street (in San Jose), they had cables labeled and made for
each street with the right length drops to connect at each pole. It may seem
haphazard, but there's enough planning in getting the cables made that there's
probably some reason to the madness. Their FTTN was a mess of different speed
tiers, many of which wouldn't be available for a given user, perhaps the
precise cabling reduced costs enough for FTTH to be cost competitive enough to
get installed instead.

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TobbenTM
Not an American, so could someone tldr me what makes Sonic.net interesting?
Just better than Comcast/VZ/etc?

~~~
corysama
Sonic.net customer here. Why I give them my money:

1) [https://corp.sonic.net/ceo/](https://corp.sonic.net/ceo/) The company is
politically outspoken and well aligned with the interests of its customers.

2) Their customer service is actually knowledgeable, empowered and downright
pleasant to engage with. The only frustration I've had is whenever they've had
to delegate work to AT&T.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
I'll also note that, though the DSL service is obviously not very fast, it has
had excellent uptime and consistency for me. I'm consistently able to stream
HD video (1080p 30fps, 900p 60fps) without interruption. Contrast this to
local cable where many people complain about poor streaming performance around
peak times, despite much 'faster' service.

As much as 12-14Mbps is limiting, you genuinely get that performance nearly
always.

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HaloZero
I was debating about getting it and curious if it really makes that world a
difference? Does a gigbit connection make the internet substantially better?

It's almost double the cost of MonkeyBrains another provider that has a strong
net neutrality position, custom service, and etc.

~~~
wpietri
My friends with MonkeyBrains grumble about variable bandwidth availability and
poor customer service. Sonic has been rock solid for me on both accounts.

Personally, I expect the gigabit connection to make a pretty modest difference
for me vs my current ADSL. The main problem it'll solve for me is backups,
which take too long to run. It'll also make it much easier to stream audio and
video from my home server to other spots when I'm traveling.

~~~
HaloZero
I will admit, variable bandwidth availability has been painful sometimes.
Sometimes I just want to watch a movie and it's like crawl.

Not sure if that's worth an extra $500/year though for gigabit.

~~~
wpietri
If I'm reading things rightly, it's about $700/year for gigabit. [1] I'm
paying something like the same for Sonic's ADSL, so it's a no-brainer for me.

[1] [http://hoodline.com/2017/05/sonic-now-offering-gigabit-
fiber...](http://hoodline.com/2017/05/sonic-now-offering-gigabit-fiber-
internet-in-new-san-francisco-neighborhoods)

~~~
inferiorhuman
Yes, Sonic's DSL offerings are quite expensive.

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ThatDan
Happy to see this hit the front page.

I wanted to share this with the users at
[https://forums.sonic.net](https://forums.sonic.net) who have been pining for
maps but you need a Sonic.net account to post. If anyone is willing to share,
I'd appreciate it.

~~~
cybersol
I posted it to the Access forum there.

Thanks for the map, it is now clear to me that they will not get to many of
the hills of the city for quite some time.

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kevinburke
If you want this in your Bay Area town/region you should write your city
council. There are a lot of older neighbors who oppose new poles / new right
of ways so it's good for the City Council to hear voices that support fiber.

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mrhwick
[http://projects.timesfreepress.com/2014/05/epb/gig/gig.html](http://projects.timesfreepress.com/2014/05/epb/gig/gig.html)

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avh02
not worth a PR (cos it's opinion and a specific application), but if you have
aria2c on your machine you can do something like:

aria2c -i permiturls.txt

to download file lists.

~~~
mynewtb
wget supports the same :)

~~~
avh02
ah, I had a feeling one of the more common methods did... i even checked the
curl man page but not wget's :(

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fludlight
Why doesn't Sonic have a map like this on their webpage? They could even add a
second color for "coming soon" streets.

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derekdahmer
Wow I'm 1/2 block away from a fiber line. How do I convince Sonic to do my
street?

~~~
ThatDan
There are examples of complaints about this on Sonic's forums[0] If you're not
parallel to a line you might be out of luck.

[0]
[https://forums.sonic.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1085&start=131...](https://forums.sonic.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1085&start=1310)

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throwaway91111
Looks like it's just san francisco? Might want to alter the title.

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megakwood
Very cool... The map comes pretty close to my house so I put in my address and
they allowed me to preorder for October.

Thanks!

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omgduh
Neat stuff!

I'm pretty sure I saw them out there today stringing some up on my street, and
it's reflected on the map.

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hackunomatter
2 blocks from where I live... dammit! So close, and yet so far...

