 mszv
join:2000-11-20
Hellertown, PA | Input from a Palo Alto person Hi all,
As a person living in Palo Alto, I thought I'd respond, to the FFTH trial, and to other comments about Palo Alto.
--"Palo Alto is a land of snobbish, well-moneyed yuppies". Well, yes and no. Some parts of Palo Alto are more expensive than others, but it is an expensive city. Housing (both rents and house prices) is high, but there is a sizeable group of people who live here who aren't rich, you would be surprised. There are also people here who aren't home owners. It's a great city, and I love it, but I won't go into that - let me just say that there are plenty of people here who would not or could not pay $1000+ for broadband installation.
--The "Fiber-to-the-home" project is small in scope (my understanding), there's not a lot of participation. Most Palo Alto people get their broadband the regular way, through a collection of DSL providers, all or most (sadly) going through Pacbell, instead of Covad. Cable broadband was available with the old Palo Alto cable company (I think) but it's not available now. I would think the FFTH system would attract people who need their own servers, or better than well-off techies who want to be first at this kind of residential technology. I just don't see most of us Palo Altans going for it. It's also kind of a "single family detached home" thing, I don't think it's available to condo dwellers or apartment renters.
--"Broadband in Silicon Valley is bad". Yes, yes, and yes. You'd be surprised at the number of places in Silicon Valley where broadband (and by this I mean cable and dsl) is not available. Broadband cable has been incredibly slow to roll out (it's "coming") and I know lots of people who are too far from the CO to get DSL. Not to mention all the problems with DSL, just go read the old Earthlink and Pacbell threads for the San Francisco Bay area; you can see what I'm talking about. I really don't know why broadband is so awful here.
--East Palo Alto. East Palo Alto is it's own separate city, it's not part of Palo Alto, unlike the east Menlo Park area, which is a part of Menlo Park. East Palo Alto has gone through very hard times, but it's in a lot better shape now; the unaffordable housing market has improved the lot of some parts of Silicon Valley where housing was less expensive. There's some really nice neighborhoods in East Palo Alto, and I'm quite hopeful about the new retail stores. It's also nice to be so close to the baylands. Give the city a chance.
Regards, mszv |
