Sonic Bringing 1 Gbps Fiber to San Francisco

I wish this project the best even though im not even close to it! Im sure a lot of people will be watching it closely.

Agreed. Hopefully will lead others to pursue similar interests in adequate markets.

True but you can bet that ATT will slow down the build if they own the poles or can talk the local power company into slowing them down.

Only up to the mandated time limit allowed by FCC easement law.

you mean rule? FCC doesn't pass laws. they pass rules. they're not given legal power to pass law. but T could very well make it very difficult for them to wire.

>FCC doesn't pass laws. they pass rules.

Really? So if I deliberately interfere with a radio station, I can't go to jail?

What is the difference between a 'law' and a 'rule'?

The difference is Congress NEVER gave them the power to create laws. They gave them the power to create rules. And that is a rule not a law.

A law is passed/put into effect by someone that has the power (Congress or other legal bodies) others issue RULES. Even the IRS for the most part uses RULES and not Laws but they have the power to use both.

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW CONCERNS RULES

Well put. Overseas, their equivalent FCC and consumer protection agencies have the authority to smack down these companies.

This is why the have common cellar frequencies and technology, allowing for legitimate competition. Or mandating that handsets have to be unlocked, allowing the customer to choose who to use with their handsets.

The excellent and competitive products and services offered abroad speaks for itself. Whereas, we allowed the 'free market' (aka the corrupt) to pull the string here and have been forced to bend over and take it.

Only congress can pass bills and the president signs them into law. As he stated, agencies can only pass rules under the authority granted to them by congress.

Ok, but what is the effective difference? It seems that agencies (FCC, IRS) have their own courts(?) but if I can be sentenced to prison time for willful radio interference or not paying taxes is there really a difference; or is it name only?

They'll just try to make sonic take an arrow in the knee.

Fail

Sonic's biggest obstacle would more likely be the Board of Supervisors and their aesthetics nazis than would AT&T or a power company. NIMBY is the rallying cry of neighborhood activists in SF.

Real high speed internet would increase property value though. AT&T U-verse isn't anything that would draw an upper income earner, I can understand why the cabinets aren't worth it.

people barely have money to pay for food let alone worrying about property values going up due to HSI.

Which people are you talking about? Not the people who live in that part of SF, that's for sure.

people in general.

SF isn't exactly a minimum wage city to live in due to high cost of living there.
surprising fios isn't there.

AT&T has the monopoly there, with their useless crap-verse.

If only the tech capital of the world knew what they were missing out on.

Verizon should have rolled out a new network in the San Jose area.

I'd move if I only had u-verse to choose from. FIOS absolutely destroys it and San Fran does miss out.

Jeez, you're spoiled aren't you. All we have is Comcast cable. Good enough, but not great. And it's 1/3 the speed of U-Verse.

Comcast only 1/3 as fast as u-verse? On what planet? When did you come here to earth?

You've got some catching up to do.

Comcast = 8mbps
U-Verse = 24mbps

8/24 = 1/3

Where did you come up with 8 mbps as top Comcast speed?

Comcast also offers 30 mbps, 50 mbps and 105 mbps speeds. U-Verse can't go that fast even if you were willing to pay for it.

P.S.>> And I have the regular Comcast tier and I get 15 mbps BEFORE powerboost speeds up to about 27 mbps.

First of all, those lower packages are showing the burst speeds, not the sustained speeds.

In our area, the top sustained speed for Comcast is 8mbps, U-Verse is 24mbps. Our area has U-Verse, just not in my neighborhood.

I think Comcast is just about on the brink of upgrading to allow the faster packages. When they come, we'll get upgraded from 8mbps to 16mbps, but I tried it the other day, and we're not at 16 yet. I can't figure out what their packages are from their website, they are so confusing, I think you need a PhD in Comcast to figure them out.

I think our Powerboost goes to around 25/2.5, our equipment is limited to a theoretical maximum of 38/30...

Supposedly, U-Verse is going to 50mbps for pair-bonded setups. At least there is a little bit of competition...

nopers. The minimum provision is 12mbps with boot up to 25 or higher.

???

Comcast has up to 105mbps available in the City. Maybe you choose to buy some cheap slow package but that does not mean U-verse is faster than Pachell. I am in NO WAY a fan of either company... but Comcast has MUCH faster speeds available over coax with DOCIS3.

Does ATT have a 105mbps package available for residential?

OK, end of that debate.

(looks like TJ straightened this out 15 seconds faster than I... nice job

In the SF environment, I don't think anyone like AT&T, partly because of the inadequate network planning their of related AT&T Mobility (which most people see as one company), so the local government will probably support this.

I would definitely switch from Bright House (Road Runner) internet to them ( keep the TV). I love Brighthouse service but their speeds and tiers are mediocre at best; and FiOS is a rip-off( and crap customer service) in my eyes after all of the Verizon "fees and taxes" get added on and in contrast to Sonic.

You nailed it. Good luck to Sonic!

Yet another FTTP deployment offering stand-alone lower prices than Verizon.... tsk, tsk, tsk.

Don't know how this is going to work given VZ couldn't make it work even with their larger scale economics. Unless Dane & his financer's are willing to take a long & low ROI, it's going to be a very rough road.

Really, start at Sunset District???

When I did a redfin search for available housing in the Sunset District, most of the available housing is one bathroom, and over $500,000 !!!

It would be smarter for Sonic.net to start at the Bayview District, where the average price for a house, according to redfin, is $450,000 vs. $720,000 for the Sunset District.

Although the Sunset District is a start, I would start in neighborhoods, where housing is cheaper.

Any fiber deployment will make the housing price go up, so it may not be an average of $700,000 for a house in the Sunset District, two years from now.

To dane, I know it will take "five" years to develop this for most of the San Francisco City, but please put the Bayview District next, as I am looking for new housing (currently, I am looking at Long Beach, CA for two reasons, 1. Long Beach has fiber optics, and 2. some bus routes have 15 minute frequency) anywhere where there is 24mbps internet that is not using DOCSIS, or from AT&T and Cenurylink, that from the house, there is a bus stop 0.125 miles from the house, and is also 15 minute frequency, and there are Frys Electronics and Micro Center within 3 hours by public transit.

I have a found a house in the Bayview District, but it's a short sale, and it's about $400,000.

I will never buy another house without first verifying myself that there is a fast connection. I won't even take someone's word for it.

Many of my neighbors can only get satellite.

I am in RC but man I love sonic... They think about the customer and believe in providing honest internet services.

No mention of a cap?

»corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/ ··· eb-hogs/

How come Sonic can offer service without caps but others (ahem Comcast/AT&T) can't?

This is great news!

Currently, I'm a webpass subscriber -- which is an AMAZING ISP -- they provide uncapped 100/100 for $45/mo or $400/yr, but they're limited to pretty much SOMA.

Having more options for fast internet in more neighborhoods in the city can only be a good thing!

This would cost at least $5,000.00 a month in Canada not to mention the cap here would be around 100 (one hundred) gigabytes a month and would also be severely throttled. With no caps it would cost around $25,000.00 a month up here.

Ugh I wish I lived in SF now, I am in Pleasanton, so close, yet so far... ;'(

Pfft. That's not close. I live in Daly City. Very close to the border with SF. I'm basically a thousand feet too far to get fiber.

Sometime after my great grandchildren are born. Go Sonic! (yes, I love Sonic, and was a DSL customer of theirs for years. Just couldn't stand the 6/.8 speeds in 2009, when comcast business class offered 2x the speed for $5 less a month. No cap. 2 less static IPs (6 vs 8))

If Sonic wants to test their fiber out here, I'm ready.

It's great to see Sonic.net making FTTP expansion plans so very soon! Can't wait until they'll be expanding even further down in the Bay Area!

Here in San Jose, CA, 95126, I have AT&T U-verse FTTP (622/155 1:32 BPON, over which AT&T is only willing to provide a laughable 18/1.5 internet), yet I'd be willing to bet that it won't be AT&T that would be the first one with true broadband packages like even 100/10 (not even speaking of 1000/100 for under 100 bucks).

Sonic.net FTW!

Come to San Jose!!!!!!!!

Sonic.net based in Santa Rosa, but we are waiting? Lucky people in frisco.

I thought they were talking about the burger chain ...

unless its in TN then who cares??

I remember reading somewhere from Dane that Sonic is using Adtran's GPON CPEs for homes. Assuming that if they share a lead fibre with upto 32 users, 100mbps is still feasible but how about those subscribing a 1gbps line will they have less contention such as 1:8 with the lead fibre?

Besides, is Google considering DWM PON? I can only see the benefit of DWM PON as a backhaul solution and not for end users i a long run

Reason:

1) It's unproven and cramming wavelengths over a single fiber can have serious complications.

2) Expensive white band(tunable ONTs/couplers) equipments

3) Unbundling for customers at L2(switch level) is impossible for PONs.

4) Difficult troubleshooting.

Go Active Ethernet for 1Gbps and beyond!

DWM PON can still be use for backhaul and feeding the Active Ethernet switch.

With a total of 40Gbps combined capacity, DWM PON could provide more than enough bandwidth even for a 32 ports Gigabit Ethernet Active Switch.

This makes more sense for a future proof design.

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!