Fiber!

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
121 posts Page 5 of 13
by shaqemil » Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:23 am
oddhack wrote:I'm not sure signups for Fusion will map very directly onto signups for fiber. ADSL2+ performance is so uneven, and even in the best case relatively to very slow for many customers, that many people who would love fiber will quite rationally not want Fusion as it exists today.
I think this is a perfect description of (at least my area in) Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa. While I am already a big Sonic.net fan and am (so far) willing to live with <2Mb speeds, it is difficult for me to want to talk up Sonic to local friends and family when they will likely end up frustrated with the speed.

Really hoping to hear good news about fiber deployment in my area soon!
by mjcunnin » Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:37 pm
dane wrote:Viability is determined by a combination of the level of interest in the community, and the construction costs to serve the area. Percentage take rate requirements vary based upon the costs involved.

Construction cost for the fiber build-out of course vary in each community based upon a variety of factors: availability of conduit in all or a portion of the region, underground versus overhead utilities, ownership of the poles, and density of the housing.

While a city with widespread available conduit is the best case, and thus requires the lowest possible take rate, communities with more challenging construction conditions can still make the business model work if the take rate is higher.

In other words, it's up to you where we build, based upon the level of interest in our $40 Gigabit+Phone service in your community. We will measure that interest based upon signups for Fusion, and in areas where Fusion doesn't yet reach, based upon expressions of interest on the website.
Thanks Dane, good to know. This is all so exciting (notwithstanding the frustrations of folks waiting in Sebastopol) that I can picture community-based marketing by folks who want their towns (or their neighborhoods) to get up to the top of the list. Sure would be cool if Sonic had some sort of social marketing platform that folks could use as a tool to promote Sonic to their neighbors and watch their community's ranking go up (wonder if it could include other cost-of-deployment factors without getting into proprietary and competitive information?). Just thinking here about how much excitement and community-based promotion there was for Google Fiber, and that's a product that costs quite a bit more than Sonic fiber.
by dane » Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:54 pm
We're working toward that. See for example what we've done in Brentwood:

https://sonic.servicezones.net/Zone/Ove ... 78491b292c
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by Mill Valley Guest » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:32 pm
dane wrote:
. . . it's up to you where we build, based upon the level of interest in our $40 Gigabit+Phone service in your community. We will measure that interest based upon signups for Fusion, and in areas where Fusion doesn't yet reach, based upon expressions of interest on the website.
Dane, please consider this the strongest possible expression of interest from Mill Valley 94941.

Forgive the presumption. No doubt y'all are spinning as many plates as fast as you can, but until I stumbled across a side entrance to this forum from your not-overly-informative retail site, I didn't know there was a snowball's chance in hell of getting fiber here in Mill Valley any time in this decade. Marin County never appears in any of Google's fiber announcements, and I had no idea there were any other players on the verge of entering this prime demographic.

When I moved here over a dozen years ago, mine was the only wi-fi network that registered on any of my equipment, and I enjoyed phenomenal speed from whoever it was Comcast swallowed (SPC?) in their quest for hegemony. Now there are literally dozens of networks, many unprotected, and every single one of my neighbors complains bitterly that no matter what bandwidth purchased (mostly from Comcast, but ATT as well), there might be intermittent bursts of speed, but absolutely nobody gets to watch an entire movie on Netflix without being dropped multiple times. I waste hours each day poking and prodding Comcast servers to respond. Rush hours morning and late afternoon when everyone is checking email are impossible. Ditto weekend evenings when Amazon, iTunes, Hulu and now HBOgo vie with Netflix to squeeze through the finite number of copper molecules available. The World Cup was a disgrace.

If everyone knew there was a viable alternative--better still, an ethically righteous one--I have zero doubt Sonic.net would be swamped with folks desperate to end the deplorable sub-Third World state of broadband service in this, the country's 73rd richest zip code, whence Tesla's convey many of The Valley's higher echelon technorati over The Bridge to the 280 and points South and the Sandhill Road exit in particular. A VP of Cisco bought (and majorly remodeled) one house over from mine. His kids are seriously bummed that the net here is too crappy to support MMOW's or MMUG's or whatever-the-frak 12 year-olds with state of the art Macs are into these days.

Sonic.net needs to get the message out that you are watching and waiting. Your front end is incomprehensibly lacking the banner on the top page "Tell us how bad you want fiber in your 'hood." Frequent press releases chronicling your progress would be an entirely appropriate move. It is essential that you let us know salvation is at hand--if indeed it really is. No offense, but the "real soon now's" in this thread go back to 2011.

Please?
by kieran » Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:01 pm
dane wrote:Yup, I hear you - and really, we know we have to solve this issue, and we've got some exciting ideas about how to do it.
7+ months later... are you going to share these "exciting ideas" with us?
Your hometown awaits ...
by kieran » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:56 pm
ben wrote:
dane wrote: As for the chances Bennett Valley (or any other neighborhood) will be built with Fiber by Sonic, that depends primarily on take rate in the neighborhood. We'll be focusing on our areas of highest uptake, because with fixed construction costs to pass all homes, how many of them subscribe is the primary driver of feasibility. We will be releasing a lot more on this topic, as well as area rankings, in the next few months.
Thanks for your response. I hope you aren't basing your decisions on where to build out fiber solely on Fusion take rates. If so, places like Bennett Valley that have poor (if not nonexistent) take rates due to being too far away from CO's will never get fiber. IMHO you should targeting areas that have the highest potential for adding new customers instead of areas that already have a lot of customers. I say that not just because I happen to live in one of those areas but also because I think it makes good fiscal sense.
I couldn't have said this better.

Sonic's strategy to build out fiber based on Fusion take rates is absolutely ridiculous. Instead they should be looking to gather data on highest demand for bandwidth. People who are happy with Fusion (on average around 12mb/s down and a measly 1mb/s up) probably aren't interested in fiber. If a household wants fiber, they probably are Comcast customers (in Santa Rosa anyway).

I'm in the same boat in Rincon Valley (Skyhawk) area of Santa Rosa. Fusion to my house is about 5mb/s, which is totally unacceptable for the multimedia needs of a family of six. There's no WAY I'm going to subscribe to Fusion right now, even though I love Sonic's legendary quality and customer service. I just can't do it. So, I'm stuck with Comcast which is awful to deal with. But at least I consistently get >20mb/s down and >6mb/s up (technically it's 50u/10d I think, but it varies and I'm happy if it's at 20/6 minimum). I pay $70/mo for that which includes basic-basic cable + HBO. Honestly the TV was just a gimme. We hardly watch any, but it was only $8/mo more than the internet service alone so what the heck.

I would happily jump to Sonic for many reasons if they could meet or beat my ISP current speeds. But to do that they'll need to bring fiber to my home. I don't need gigabit to my home... 20-50mb/s would be plenty. :)
by kieran » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:05 pm
oddhack wrote:
dane wrote:In other words, it's up to you where we build, based upon the level of interest in our $40 Gigabit+Phone service in your community. We will measure that interest based upon signups for Fusion, and in areas where Fusion doesn't yet reach, based upon expressions of interest on the website.
I'm not sure signups for Fusion will map very directly onto signups for fiber. ADSL2+ performance is so uneven, and even in the best case relatively to very slow for many customers, that many people who would love fiber will quite rationally not want Fusion as it exists today.
Reposting that one because it's so true. I really don't understand the logic of the current strategy.
by ben » Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:05 pm
kieran wrote:I'm in the same boat in Rincon Valley (Skyhawk) area of Santa Rosa. Fusion to my house is about 5mb/s, which is totally unacceptable for the multimedia needs of a family of six. There's no WAY I'm going to subscribe to Fusion right now, even though I love Sonic's legendary quality and customer service.
Fusion speeds in the Skyhawk area should be much higher than 5mb/s since that is very close to the CO on Los Alamos Rd.
by kieran » Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:44 am
"Should be" is a far stretch from reality, unfortunately. Yes there's a CO on Los Alamos, but the copper wire feet distance to my block is on the order of 8000-9000 feet, according to Sonic's calculations. This is confirmed though by asking neighbors with DSL what speeds they get; people in my immediate neighborhood get ~5-6mb/s. There are areas of Skyhawk that are much closer to Los Alamos Rd. that we are though; those houses probably have better service. Regardless the upstream speed of Fusion DSL is pretty paltry.
Kieran
by rmoniz » Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:32 pm
I see notes around these boards to express interest in fiber. Let our local government and facilities know we want it.
In Sebastopol, is it the process of introducing fiber or local government processes that take the longest? If our local government is in the way, we can help with that.
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