Los Altos Fiber construction

[josephshen]

Just signed up for fiber and was met with the 2031 date, and Google brought me here. It's rather disheartening to see what seems like zero progress or communication regarding this issue; I remember receiving a mailer some time last year for Sonic but now I'm wondering if it's even progressing at all, considering the lack of updates in the last 6 months. Any clarity on what the issues are preventing installation would be helpful.

[rnixon]

The status for me has gone backwards, from "Construction" to "Pre-Construction". I have talked to the Los Altos Engineering Department and Sonic Support, to obtain the following information.

Sonic did not have an agreement to use PG&E's telegraph poles, so applied to install 1000 "temporary" ones, but (according to the City), didn't have a date by which they would be removed, so the permit was denied. Sonic claimed (July 2024) to have reached an agreement with PG&E to use their poles, and that they would "begin the construction in the coming months", but I've seen none. I've given up chasing them, as I wouldn't believe them anyway.

I signed-up in September 2023, when I received an email from Sonic saying "Sonic's 10-Gigabit Fiber Internet ... is almost yours". They still send me periodic emails to check their "Construction Update Page" and saying "Sonic is hard at work building fiber-optic internet service to your area!"

My biggest issue with them is their misleading availability checker, that still says "Congratulations, You’re eligible for speeds up to 10 Gigabits". They imply that service is available, when it isn't, and hasn't been for the 17 months since they took my credit card details.

[roode]

This is inaccurate. If you look around the city you will see that PG&E has added 2nd poles alongside old poles all over the place. In even more cases they have removed an old pole and installed a new one. Their poles were in bad shape. They have no choice but to allow Sonic to add on to their poles but Sonic has a duty to install a new pole if the old one is in bad shape. PG&E was overdue to replace many poles and it looks to me like they began their action to finally do overdue maintenance when Sonic started their project.

Consider that to serve the entire city Sonic would need access to 5000 existing telephone poles and about 20% are in such bad shape that they needed to be replaced.

[roode]

In other words, PG&E has sabotaged Sonic's work schedule by suddenly mounting a long overdue pole replacement project. I personally had my power shut down 5 times in the past year and the notices were mostly about the need to replace telephone poles. Different amounts of people were shut down each time, sometimes 12 or so and sometimes quite a bit more. This work was spread out over 6 months or so.

Attached you can see how they left a chunk of one old pole dangling off the new one. The dangling portion has all the AT&T and Comcast cables attached to it. This was left this way last April and it's still like that today.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19m5wSK ... sp=sharing

[rnixon]

This is inaccurate. If you look around the city you will see that PG&E has added 2nd poles alongside old poles all over the place. In even more cases they have removed an old pole and installed a new one. Their poles were in bad shape. They have no choice but to allow Sonic to add on to their poles but Sonic has a duty to install a new pole if the old one is in bad shape.

That may well be another issue, but Sonic did not have an agreement to even use the existing, suitable, PG&E poles. Here's exactly what they said on this issue. The City told me that Sonic didn't have the legal right to use PG&E's poles, hence the permit application for 1000 temporary ones:

We've received an update from our team that the legal issues previously discussed have now been resolved and we will begin the construction in the coming months

[roode]

Consider that it would be inordinately expensive to install actual poles. Sonic was only going to do it where the existing Pole was substandard due to do its poor condition. It's been proven that there was a lot of those poles because finally PG&E has replaced so many of them in the past year. It stretches the line that this is just a coincidence with Sonic wanting to use the poles as they are entitled under cpuc rules. An agreement is required from both sides perhaps but they have the legal right.

Also Sonic applied for a permit to do some underground installation of fiber as well and the city denied that too.

[rnixon]

Also Sonic applied for a permit to do some underground installation of fiber as well and the city denied that too.

Are Sonic and the City in a stale mate situation, or is there light at the end of the tunnel (that isn't a train ..)?

[mikesonic]

Adding a tiny bit of info to keep the conversation alive ...

On January 18, PG&E installed a new pole adjacent to the old pole at the corner of Jardin Drive and Panchita Way. They moved all the power lines onto on the new pole. All the AT&T & Comcast lines remain on the now shorter old pole.

Today, I saw a PG&E crew apparently replacing a pole on Jardin Drive very close to the Mountain View border.

Does anyone have any new information on when Sonic 10G fiber might actually start construction in Los Altos ?

[roode]

This is a good question! PG&E has replaced MANY poles and something like half of them went into the spot with the old pole and the wires were all transferred over, including other utilities' wires. I asked the city and they said AT&T and others have a year after PG&E finishes to remove the old poles. But I'm not sure if that means after PG&E finishes replacing all the poles they are going to or after each individual replacement.

[riggle]

I got this response from Sonic today.

This is Sonic Support. Our engineering team looked into this, and they are working on the city aerial permits for this project. The rough estimate right now is that this will not get delivered until mid 2026 at the earliest. This is not a guarantee as things do arise that can delay a project further. We promise you it will be worth the wait once we get there.