Microtrenching or other workarounds in SF?
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:13 pm
I saw that there were some expansion efforts in the Nob Hill/Russian Hill/Chinatown/North Beach nexus.. I assume that these expansions are limited to areas with above-ground utilities, since I am basically the exact center of gravity for that area, but am on an underground-utilities block and didn't get a notification/offer. (Are there any coverage maps anywhere? I can't find them.)
I haven't heard anything new on microtrenching and the SFPUC, so I assume that we are still where we were for the last three years: considering allowing microtrenching but only in ways that make it useless. If so, is there any real, tangible reason to believe that they will change their minds in the next decade? I don't mean 'we are trying to work with them', I mean actual evidence that they are listening and may actually act on that advice. If not, are there any other options that are under active consideration?
I am honestly trying to decide if I should just move out of the bay area entirely. I'm living in a nice rent controlled place in San Francisco, but I have exactly the same internet options I had when I moved in, nearly two decades ago:
* 4 mbps/256 kbps Sonic (or AT&T): only one working phone connection to my unit so I can't duplex
* Comcast that is completely intermittent (cuts out for seconds to minutes, multiple times a day, possibly related to the amount of bandwidth I'm using at the time) and which they refuse to fix and anyway I loathe that company; or
* 8 mbps monkeybrains residential with a high up-front cost.
* cellular home internet, mostly with a cap, maxing out around ~10 mbps here for the one I tried. (Okay, okay, so this one is a bit faster than it was when I moved in.)
As far as I know, even if I were willing to pay ten thousand dollars in up-front costs and five hundred a month, that's literally all I could get without buying ten cellular services and rolling my own multilink PPP over them. Which sounds like just a truckload of fun. And there is literally no statement from any company that I have talked to that suggests they will be offering anything different ten years from now, aside from cellular, which who knows but which probably won't be unlimited data.
With my new job, none of my options will be good enough to allow me to work from home... none except comcast are fast enough for the data and db connections I need, and with comcast I can't keep a VPN going, and even if the cell service gets fast enough, with a data cap it'll be useless.
And I can't afford to move elsewhere in the city, due to the huge spike in rents since I moved in. And if I'm going to move out of the city, I'm going to just leave the area, and probably the country. I'm tired of the US.
I've lived in an RV with a single 110 volt 20 amp plug providing power to the whole thing, for a week. I couldn't run the lights and the microwave at the same time, and I couldn't run the refrigerator off of electricity at all. At this point, having 4 mbps internet feels like that. Why would I live like that for any extended period of time?
So. Is there any hope for me? Or should I just get the hell out of here?
I haven't heard anything new on microtrenching and the SFPUC, so I assume that we are still where we were for the last three years: considering allowing microtrenching but only in ways that make it useless. If so, is there any real, tangible reason to believe that they will change their minds in the next decade? I don't mean 'we are trying to work with them', I mean actual evidence that they are listening and may actually act on that advice. If not, are there any other options that are under active consideration?
I am honestly trying to decide if I should just move out of the bay area entirely. I'm living in a nice rent controlled place in San Francisco, but I have exactly the same internet options I had when I moved in, nearly two decades ago:
* 4 mbps/256 kbps Sonic (or AT&T): only one working phone connection to my unit so I can't duplex
* Comcast that is completely intermittent (cuts out for seconds to minutes, multiple times a day, possibly related to the amount of bandwidth I'm using at the time) and which they refuse to fix and anyway I loathe that company; or
* 8 mbps monkeybrains residential with a high up-front cost.
* cellular home internet, mostly with a cap, maxing out around ~10 mbps here for the one I tried. (Okay, okay, so this one is a bit faster than it was when I moved in.)
As far as I know, even if I were willing to pay ten thousand dollars in up-front costs and five hundred a month, that's literally all I could get without buying ten cellular services and rolling my own multilink PPP over them. Which sounds like just a truckload of fun. And there is literally no statement from any company that I have talked to that suggests they will be offering anything different ten years from now, aside from cellular, which who knows but which probably won't be unlimited data.
With my new job, none of my options will be good enough to allow me to work from home... none except comcast are fast enough for the data and db connections I need, and with comcast I can't keep a VPN going, and even if the cell service gets fast enough, with a data cap it'll be useless.
And I can't afford to move elsewhere in the city, due to the huge spike in rents since I moved in. And if I'm going to move out of the city, I'm going to just leave the area, and probably the country. I'm tired of the US.
I've lived in an RV with a single 110 volt 20 amp plug providing power to the whole thing, for a week. I couldn't run the lights and the microwave at the same time, and I couldn't run the refrigerator off of electricity at all. At this point, having 4 mbps internet feels like that. Why would I live like that for any extended period of time?
So. Is there any hope for me? Or should I just get the hell out of here?