| Good Riddance to the Duopoly! Lived in San Francisco in Russian Hill, and then the Marina District for the past 8 years. Just moved to NYC one month ago thinking FIOS was everywhere.... It's the greatest city in the world, of course Verizon would spend the money to wire the whole place right!?! WRONG! After talking to many people who live in Manhattan like myself no one can get FIOS because Verizon will not spend the money to wire old buildings at all. Manhattan is not even a Duopoly, it's a monopoly in the greatest sense of the word. You can have 3 meg DSL from Verizon (not really an option) or be forced into cable modem service that is over congested! Yet I digress.....
In San Francisco you can get 6 mb ADSL from AT&T which they brand as U-Verse now for $35 a month, or you can get all the speed tiers from Comcast. However since I hate Comcast and refuse to give them money, they were not an option for me. I was the first person in my building to get Direct TV. 160 channels of brilliant High Def! Wish I could get them in NYC. Landlord flat out said no to coax running down the front or back of the building.
AT&T got into a pissing match with the city of San Francisco as the city insisted that AT&T bury the V-rad closets that allow U-verse to offer TV service, and 24 MBPS internet. The city said the cabinets were an eyesore. So no fast internet from them either.
So there San Francisco sat the biggest economic tech hub in the country with 0 fiber deployed due to AT&T lobbying plenty of politicians I'm sure. Clearwire limped into the market a year ago and barely covered San Francisco. Leaving whole neighborhoods (The Marina) uncovered. It was fun for a while to get 4G internet around the city at 6 mbps but nothing like what Sonic is proposing! Seriously Clearwire why did you spend your entire war chest blanketing rural western Washington, and Portland? Hipsters don't have the money for your service, and Farmers don't even know what it is. You blew 4 billion so farmers in Belling ham Washington can not subscribe to your service? You didn't cover Phoenix at all? Nor San Diego? Really? Anyway I still give you bonus points for being the first to commit to 4G, and catching Verizon, and especially AT&T with their pants down. Kudos! Slap your deployment planners though. They left way too much meat on the table.
Sonic I applaud your efforts! They are choosing the Sunset neighborhood for obvious reasons as they have above ground phone poles, and infrastructure. Being that the San Francisco State is out there with tons of bandwidth hungry college students it makes sense. However it is the lowest rent district in the city. If they were to invest the money to wire up North Beach, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and the Marina they would see a huge return on their investment.
I hope Sonic succeeds, and Google as well. If they do they will turn this whole country's hardwired bullshit internet duopoly service model on its head! Good for them!
Then maybe, just maybe I can get fast reliable internet service in this little rural island on the East coast that they call Manhattan! |
