No Fiber in Mountain View an Internet Desert

General discussions and other topics.
29 posts Page 3 of 3
by fmc » Sat Feb 24, 2024 10:25 am
Having got into Mountain View you may have worked out that sometime about 50 years ago they got somewhat into burying utilities. Which means that there are older residential areas with poles, and newer areas with buried utilities, and some areas where I think formerly aerial utilities were buried. It's kinda patchwork and I sometimes think that where I live on the UFC banana road is kind of an island of aerial utilities surrounded by buried utilities.

If you try to re-develop a property you may be made to advance this agenda:

(1) neighboring property to the north of where I live (on the UFC banana road) was another small apartment building until the mid 1990s when it was redeveloped as several two-story single-family mini-mansions and while the utilities are still on poles along the street they are brought into these mini-mansions through underground boxes not overhead cables

(2) across Villa at the north end of UFC banana road is a former Superfund site which has is said to have been remediated and has been redeveloped into a multi-story rental called "The Tillery" with a new and maybe as-yet-unnamed public park out front, and along the front of that property the overhead utilities (which include AT&T fiber) have been buried

But you may not: if you knock down a single-family home and build a new two-story single-family home on the property, the utilities will not only remain on poles out front but you will be allowed to re-connect to the poles with aerial cabling!

Anyway, I suspect that the city's buried-utilities policy is one of the things that drives their behavior: they don't want to replace poles, policy is that utilities should be buried!
by fmc » Sat May 18, 2024 12:07 pm
From the Shoreline West Association of Neighbors Newsletter:

City of Mountain View Broadband Survey
The City of Mountain View is conducting a study of internet availability, access and affordability as part of a citywide broadband needs assessment. The City is seeking to gather first-hand information through the survey to improve household and business access to high-speed and affordable internet service. The survey link is:
https://www.mountainview.gov/our-city/d ... assessment

Went most of the way through it and then got to Question 23.

23. Would you like to receive more information about broadband and related services and technologies in your area?Let us know who you are and how to reach you. This information will be considered confidential and will not be shared with any other parties.

Who is behind this? I'm sure they would like to tell me that AT&T and/or Comcast and maybe Verizon (yes I have received something in the mail from Verizon about their 5G service) offer "broadband and related services and technologies" and "in my area". Anyway I gave 'em an e-mail address to find out.
by rbd » Mon Jun 24, 2024 2:38 pm
fmc wrote: Sat May 18, 2024 12:07 pm Who is behind this? I'm sure they would like to tell me that AT&T and/or Comcast and maybe Verizon (yes I have received something in the mail from Verizon about their 5G service) offer "broadband and related services and technologies" and "in my area". Anyway I gave 'em an e-mail address to find out.
You're quoting from the survey that the City of Mountain View themselves is doing, right? So it must be the city that is behind it — it sounds like they are trying to make sure that everyone who wants it has home internet.
by shiyingzheng » Tue Jul 02, 2024 9:21 am
dane wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2024 12:44 pm We are working now the cut down the project to a smaller segment of the City, in hopes we can at least build some portion of it where the poles are safe.
Has the plan been settled? If so, would you be able to share which area of the city is getting fiber?
by tunatoksoz » Wed Nov 13, 2024 9:24 pm
What's the latest on Mountain View? I was waiting for some upgrades I wanted to do in my home network before signing up for sonic, but realize it's not really available in our area.

How can we help? I can ask a few people to pre-order sonic, but not sure if that'd help.
by mglventurini » Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:43 pm
In an ASK Mountain View conversation with Jasmine Ortega, I wrote:

INTERNET DESERT! My internet speed is 2.2 Mbps when all goes well. It is AT&T DSL Through Sonic and that is the best they can do, considering the distance from the transmission tower. AT&T fiber is not available in the N. Whisman neighborhood, though it seems to be available in other parts of the city. I have Comcast TV and there are frequent outages. Their internet service has frequent outages, as reported by neighbors on Nextdoor.
There are no other internet providers who will service my area...Sonic, Wave,
T-mobile, Verizon, Sail, etc.
Why is that???
I was cut off on a wifi medical video call this morning. Streaming is impossible at this time. So Comcast is my only other choice. They don't offer fiber either, only high prices and unreliable service.
Google was across the street from me for 11 years, in the heart of Silicon Valley, yet we are in an internet desert.
Suggestions?

9/23/2024Jasmine Ortega: Cable providers are not administered or operated by the City. However, below I am providing contacts for cable providers available in Mountain View. AT&T 866-955-4637Xfinity 855-684-0107Viasat 844-994-2777Hughesnet 844-940-3261 Thank you, Jasmine

I wrote: Please forgive me, but I found your response to lack of quality internet service in Mountain View to be almost offensive. You provided me with contact information for Satellite Inernet Service providers, designed for rural areas! Once again, I am in the heart of Silicon Valley! Yesterday, Comcast had internet service outages from noon to 8:00 pm! My cable tv service, based on their internet, was out for that long. Why does the city of Mountain View contract only with Comcast and AT&T? Other nearby cities contract with a host of other internet service providers? What happened to the broadband assessment for Mountain View?https://www.mountainview.gov/our-city/d ... assessment

12/17/2024 Jasmine Ortega: The broadband needs assessment is scheduled to go before Council in early 2025 and an update will be shared then. Thank you and happy holidays, Jasmine

What does this mean?
by fmc » Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:46 pm
Well, bluntly, it means that a few months ago the City did a survey of internet needs (and hey, I tried to get across to them that anything less than Gb/s symmetric is not serious for actual day to day use today, and is that FreeBSD memstick download done yet? HAH!) and now they're doing a needs assessment to present to the City Council who will probably tell them to go right ahead with the existing program of frustrating anything that doesn't get aerial utilities buried anywhere they can get away with that.

AT&T seem to have started something along California between Escuela and Chiquita (have got photos from mid-October) but I can't quite figure what. Looks like they have been decommissioning some copper up on the pole (maybe making room for a fiber run) and there's some pavement markings for ATT/D indicating a duct in front of a single-family home that's a ways back from the street but not at a corner. Makes me think they might bring fiber to that point and not down the side streets which is what they've done thus far.

And yeah, it's going about as well as I expected, which is that City staff will refer you to AT&T who might offer Gb/s service, Comcast who will but it'll be flaky, and a couple wireless/satellite providers and act like Internet service is not their function.
by tunatoksoz » Thu Dec 19, 2024 11:30 am
You are probably better of getting Starlink at this point. I'm really sorry, at least I have gigabit fiber here in Saint Francis Acres
mglventurini wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:43 pm In an ASK Mountain View conversation with Jasmine Ortega, I wrote:

INTERNET DESERT! My internet speed is 2.2 Mbps when all goes well. It is AT&T DSL Through Sonic and that is the best they can do, considering the distance from the transmission tower. AT&T fiber is not available in the N. Whisman neighborhood, though it seems to be available in other parts of the city. I have Comcast TV and there are frequent outages. Their internet service has frequent outages, as reported by neighbors on Nextdoor.
There are no other internet providers who will service my area...Sonic, Wave,
T-mobile, Verizon, Sail, etc.
Why is that???
I was cut off on a wifi medical video call this morning. Streaming is impossible at this time. So Comcast is my only other choice. They don't offer fiber either, only high prices and unreliable service.
Google was across the street from me for 11 years, in the heart of Silicon Valley, yet we are in an internet desert.
Suggestions?

9/23/2024Jasmine Ortega: Cable providers are not administered or operated by the City. However, below I am providing contacts for cable providers available in Mountain View. AT&T 866-955-4637Xfinity 855-684-0107Viasat 844-994-2777Hughesnet 844-940-3261 Thank you, Jasmine

I wrote: Please forgive me, but I found your response to lack of quality internet service in Mountain View to be almost offensive. You provided me with contact information for Satellite Inernet Service providers, designed for rural areas! Once again, I am in the heart of Silicon Valley! Yesterday, Comcast had internet service outages from noon to 8:00 pm! My cable tv service, based on their internet, was out for that long. Why does the city of Mountain View contract only with Comcast and AT&T? Other nearby cities contract with a host of other internet service providers? What happened to the broadband assessment for Mountain View?https://www.mountainview.gov/our-city/d ... assessment

12/17/2024 Jasmine Ortega: The broadband needs assessment is scheduled to go before Council in early 2025 and an update will be shared then. Thank you and happy holidays, Jasmine

What does this mean?
by yeilat » Sat Jan 25, 2025 10:15 pm
I noticed there haven't been any messages on this thread lately. Is there any news about Sonic in Mountain View, or is there still a standoff between Sonic and the city about the utility poles?

I still get quarterly emails from Sonic that my installation is moving ahead, but the the emails don't mention any dates.
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