When you can see the fibers 20ft from your house but only get offered DSL...

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
5 posts Page 1 of 1
by pbar » Sun Jul 05, 2020 10:26 am
I see Sonic vans in my SF neighborhood on a daily basis with enticing advertisements on the side offering gigabit fiber for $40 (*) I can see the fibers running to houses less than 30 feet away from mine.
But when I go to sonic.net and fill in the form, it tells me "Congratulations!! you can get 20mbit DSL!!".
It's kinda frustrating to be offered slower internet service than I currently have in such a cheery fashion.

This is presumably because our little dead-end street has underground utilities and no overhead wiring poles. So, I'm apparently stuck with Comcast.

But... one of the Sonic van drivers told me "we could maybe string a fiber to that pole over there and get to your house, but we'd need to get permission" .. However, I have found it impossible to speak to anybody technical about whether there is any way to run a fiber to my property.

Is there any was to speak to somebody at Sonic who can tell me anything other than what I can already see on the web site?
by dane » Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:58 pm
The short answer if you've got underground utilities in SF is probably that you're out of luck. Currently at least, San Francisco does not allow new utility operators like Sonic to build new underground conduit using modern, trenchless construction methods. Until that's resolved, I just can't see those locations getting anything other than the two incumbent choices.

Supervisor/Mayor Farrell was working on this, but Public Works expressed a lot of skepticism, and then the effort stalled after Farrell's departure.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by chris » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:51 pm
I'm in the same boat (might even be on the same street). Is there anyone you recommend contacting in Public Works or on the Board of Supervisors to try to get this moving again?
by dane » Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:06 pm
chris wrote:I'm in the same boat (might even be on the same street). Is there anyone you recommend contacting in Public Works or on the Board of Supervisors to try to get this moving again?
The best bet is probably your local district supervisor. Reference the Farrell microtrenching bill. But note that as currently drafted, it's not usable and would require significant changes.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by dannygray » Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:23 pm
Thanks for this explanation @Dane. Unfortunately totally in the same situation...

I've enjoyed Sonic Fiber in SF for a few years, now moving to a new place just a few blocks away but which has underground utilities.

There is a pole ~50 feet away supplying an adjacent street, but a building in between which the cable would need to pass over (we'd need to get permission from this neighbor as well as the owner of our building).

There's also an underground conduit in between pole and building but sounds like no way Sonic could pass cable from the pole to the conduit and on to our building?

With FTTN we can only get 75 Mbps, admittedly better than DSL but still slow compared to FTTB. Really sad to leave Sonic but might have to swallow my principles and go with the cable provider :/

Fingers crossed Sonic can overcome this challenge in general - I'd come back in a heartbeat!
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