Fiber in Alameda CA

[r1smith]

AT&T has been putting fiber in throughout Alameda. Is Sonic able to upgrade existing customers to Fiber?

[steelgaze]

Sonic has no/low interest in putting down fiber after another company gets to an area first.

[virtualmike]

AT&T has been putting fiber in throughout Alameda.

Alameda's infrastructure is a shame. The City owned fiber throughout, and ran its own ISP (and cable) until 2009, when it sold all of it to Comcast. Comcast had its own set of substandard lines throughout the City. Did it migrate its customers to the superior fiber network? No, it migrated everyone to the old coax and abandoned the fiber.

[oddhack]

I exchanged a bit of email with the Alameda city government about fiber and know the contact, and also kicked off a discussion on Nextdoor that turned up some interested residents. But given that Sonic's only advice to people wanting fiber in their cities is "get more people to sign up for Fusion", can't take it any further. No point in trying to make the city government more receptive when the company is not showing any interest.

[oddhack]

I learned there is a new potential option for wireless Internet in Alameda - something like Monkeybrains does in SF - coming up. I suppose it would be churlish to post a URL here, but if anyone lives on the island they can PM me for a link. Don't know much about them yet.

[semievolved]

An AT&T rep came to our door last night to let us know their fiber is now live on Buena Vista Ave. Their online tool says it isn't yet available, so maybe that needs some time to be updated.

I love Sonic as a company due to their customer service, EFF score, and stance on Net Neutrality. These are literally the only reasons I keep my service with them, since I agree with others that the value proposition isn't hugely compelling in the face of other providers. Hopefully Sonic can continue the fiber rollout and keep AT&T at bay in other markets.

[steelgaze]

I've visited a location in Alameda last month and they had AT&T work done.

It's a fiber cable being pulled up somewhere underground to a terminal, to a new shiny distro box, and splits off to service the building. Not sure if it's live in service now, but it pretty much shows AT&T is doing work in Alameda.

[Omar]

AT&T Gigapower should be available for use in 3 months in All or part of Alameda.

[bubba198]

AT&T Gigapower should be available for use in 3 months in All or part of Alameda.

Can you "see" your address as potentially lit up? What tool do you use about Gigapower? I can't find one real tool; all "tools" on AT&T are total marketing BS static pages they call "availability tool" LOL

[oddhack]

I'm not sure what "potentially lit up" might mean, but AT&T is definitely doing a lot of work on the island (and apparently, in many other parts of the SFBA - there are some forum threads on dslreports.com touching on this). They ran fiber on Union near where I live recently and the techs confirmed it when I asked them.