Gigabit Fiber in Bernal Heights

[dwanjackson]

From the Sonic Fiber Status Tool:

"Your forecasted fiber live date is: June 2024"

Coming up:

"Your forecasted fiber live date is: Q3 2024"

After that: "Fall 2024"

If this isn't completed before the end of the year I think I'm going back to AT&T. I've been with Sonic since 2016 so I've definitely been patient waiting on Fiber.

[aatreya]

Any update here? It's been delayed again twice recently, and now my tracker says June 2024. However, the remaining SF DPW permits for the area state that they expired back in March, and no new ones have been filed. Given that, I have little confidence it will actually be complete this month...

[lunulair]

my tracker says June 2024.

Mine also says 'June 2024', which has been the case for a while. Usually as the date approaches everything gets shifted another two months away, but I think this is the furthest into the target month that I've seen.

Nonetheless, I haven't seen a single Sonic truck in the area (south of Cortland) at all. Maybe an entire army of Sonic workers all show up on June 29 and complete everything in a frenzy of Christmas Eve magic.

[dceballos]

Any idea when installation will happen on Nevada St between Jarboe and Cortland? An honest update would be very appreciated.

[dancingsnails]

For me (North of Cortland) it's been projected to be the end of the month for quite a while. Always getting bumped by a month whenever that month has passed. Maybe that means there's some issue they think could be resolved any day? Got me. I'm patient, although it would be nice to get some info on what the issue is.

[jcaseysf]

From sonic support... Bernal heights

I heard back from our team and it seems a conduit that is needed to connect our lines to our main office has been delayed due to needing permits with the city and that is what is holding up the live date for fiber. Getting permits from the city to install these lines takes awhile but our team is still working on getting it approved so we can get the fiber lines active. Sorry for the delay.

[dancingsnails]

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to being connected! I am patient though. (When the city is involved - which I figured was the case, I know I have to be.)

[lunulair]

...it seems a conduit that is needed to connect our lines to our main office has been delayed due to needing permits with the city and that is what is holding up the live date for fiber. Getting permits from the city to install these lines takes awhile

Sonic fiber was strung on poles along Crescent Ave in February 2022. Planning likely started six months before that. This project has been underway for nearly THREE YEARS and they're still dicking around with permits? Not discounting that SF can be a pain in the ass to deal with, this still seems like gross mismanagement of the project.

And I thought that Sonic fiber was already installed in north of Bernal (around Precita Park). If so, then they have already crossed Cesar Chavez. Something simply doesn't smell right here.

[dane]

Here's an update from the project manager on this, with current status and some history:

I am the PMO Manger at Sonic, and have been working with my PM team to get service to the Bernal Heights neighborhood over the past 3 years. We launched design for this project in early 2021 and began construction in Spring of 2022. The biggest barriers in delivering your network has been coordinating underground construction permits. While it is typically fairly easy to obtain underground construction permits from the City of San Francisco, these builds (specifically the permitting process) have been significantly delayed by coordination with SFMTA, we have had multiple occasions of our City permit expiring while the special traffic permit was still in review with the transportation authority creating a cycle of us having to begin the permitting process over again.

Additionally, in the City of San Francisco every intersection crossing is subject to a curb ramp evaluation, they city requires the utility to replace any out of spec ADA ramps in the intersection (even if they are not affected by our construction) those ramps then become subject to review by the state run People With Disabilities Advisory Committee (From what I have heard they have a backlog of several hundred permits needing review - my personal experience was that it took 60 days for them to review our permit and provide comments, then an additional 60 days to review our revisions, this was with regular follow up from our project coordinator every 2 weeks).

One example challenge affecting Bernal has been the underground crossing at 3798 Mission Street. This had an initial 16 month delay while the City of San Francisco debated the merits of Sonic constructing the segment using bore versus open trench, this was followed by 31 weeks of delay in the ADA Curb Ramp Evaluation and PWDAC review. Once the permit was approved, we were further delayed 9 weeks by the City due to the APEC Conference and their mandate that we use City Employees for traffic control, but they had none available due to the conference. This build has recently been completed, and we are waiting for splicing and testing work to be complete to activate the network.

Residents on the other side of Anderson though for example, will continue to wait until the PWDAC approves the Permit for the 277 Anderson crossing.

The other source of delay in this project is surrounding temporary bypass pole placement. These are poles that are needed on a temporary basis to support our network until the Power Company or base pole owner (PG&E in this case) replaces a failed (unsafe/overloaded) pole. While the City of San Francisco is generally fairly easy to permit these poles in, due to the congestion of the landscape there are a few instances in the project where a bypass pole is required and there is no physical space to place one without impacting ADA access or impeding on traffic. In these cases we are waiting for the pole replacement but as a CLEC Sonic has no authority over the schedule in which the power company performs these replacements. Sonic believes that the CPUC's OTMR order addresses these situations, and requires pole owners to fix pre-existing safety violations (including replace bad poles) when Sonic wishes to attach. Unfortunately, pole owners generally, and AT&T and PG&E in specific, do not perform these actions when requested. There is currently one such pole on the backbone feeding the project which serves portions of Bernal Heights and is currently prohibiting our ability to activate the network,

I hope this provides the information you need to understand some of the root causes of the delay of the project in this region.

Hope these insight are helpful. I know folks just want it to be finished, and I can assure you, we do too!

[xconverge]

Thanks for the update! It will come when it comes!