Underground utilities

[foax zilch]

Are underground utilities an impediment to installing Sonic fiber in a neighborhood?
I live in Marina Bay Richmond which is a compact neighborhood that would enthusiastically welcome Sonic. About half of the homes have FTTN available and many use Sonic. The other half has access only to legacy DSL or cable and many are unhappy and would love to switch to Sonic fiber. Our utilities are underground and I notice that many of the areas getting Sonic fiber have utility poles. Is this an issue?

[wa2ibm]

Yes, that is an issue. Stringing cables, fiber or otherwise, overhead is much cheaper than having to dig underground. There are ways to reduce that cost via directional boring and micro-trenching, but it's still more expensive. Existing underground conduit is typically owned by other utilities and they're usually not keen on sharing.

Bill

[patiently_waiting]

So we here in the Sunset corridor north of Taraval are in a similar situation. Our telephone cabling is underground, yet comcast comes from poles. I don't think comcast owns the poles, maybe ATT or PGE. So, what options do we have? Can we too dream of a near future with gigabit to our homes?

[pockyken007]

Till SF passes the bill for microtrenching you guys are sadly out of luck >_<

[dane]

I'm not totally confident that the proposed microtrenching ordinance will be practical. While typically microtrenching is done in the roadway, or at the edge of the roadway, SF's proposal limits it to sidewalks only. As a result, I'm unclear exactly how a network could be built, given the reinstatement of the sidewalks that'd be required. We will continue to research methods and products that might help in this area, so we'll see how it turns out!

[dane]

So we here in the Sunset corridor north of Taraval are in a similar situation. Our telephone cabling is underground, yet comcast comes from poles. I don't think comcast owns the poles, maybe ATT or PGE. So, what options do we have? Can we too dream of a near future with gigabit to our homes?

This is confusing to me - if you get Cable via overhead poles, I'm not sure why your telephone lines would come in underground. Generally speaking, if you have aerial utilities, all of them are overhead, and we can build and serve. (There are lots of exceptions; underground-isolated segments, overloaded poles, etc - this speaks to the general case.)

[patiently_waiting]

So 37th and 36th Avenue north of Taraval are the two streets bordering Sunset Blvd. We face Sunset towards the large grass divider. Power and Comcast comes from the poles. Phone service(ATT) is via underground trenches in the sidewalk.

South of Taraval is where all the B boxes are located, so they get gigabit somehow. But we are on the wrong(north) side of Taraval.

[patiently_waiting]

I will tell you that we have gigabit installed in our father's condo in the inner Richmond. It took a while to plan for the whole condo building after our order. But then the day came when they installed the fiber. We couldn't be happier. It's been up for 6 months now and we get 900mbps down and 120mbps up consistently. My old mac book pro maxes out at it's wifi limit of 320mbps.

[dane]

So 37th and 36th Avenue north of Taraval are the two streets bordering Sunset Blvd. We face Sunset towards the large grass divider. Power and Comcast comes from the poles. Phone service(ATT) is via underground trenches in the sidewalk.

South of Taraval is where all the B boxes are located, so they get gigabit somehow. But we are on the wrong(north) side of Taraval.

I'm having trouble understanding where you live exactly, but I'm speculating that you are on 37th Ave between Taraval and Santiago. (36th at that location is served, so that's how I'm coming to the guess.)

If I'm correct in this, the issue here is that the aerial segment is isolated to the North and South - it's tied in via Santiago, which is an East/West street we have not yet built. If/when that gets built, it's likely we'd be able to interconnect your street. (This also applies to similar two-block-long segments of 38th and 39th.)

[foax zilch]

Dane, aside from the specifics of San Francisco, could you address my original general concern. In other communities in the bay area with underground utilities, such as Richmond Marina Bay where I reside, will you be installing fiber, or will you only be servicing areas with above ground access? I'd much prefer to return to Sonic where for years I had legacy DSL but no FTTN is available in my area.