Los Altos Fiber construction

[drewcolace]

I’ve been routinely using the fiber rollout page you set up (Thank you!) to track the progress of fiber installation in my area of Los Altos which evidently (wonderfully) is in the construction phase (though I’ve seen no Sonic vehicles in the area). Recently, the ‘live network’ date has been May 2024, which I’ve been anxiously but patiently awaiting. BUT…checking today, the site is reporting a ‘live network’ estimated date of February 2031. Please, please, please tell me this is an error. I’m not understanding how a project in ‘Construction’ phase could possibly encounter this kind of delay. Hopefully this is just a hiccup on the status tool page.

Can you provide some insight on this please?

Thank you.

[mikesonic]

I am also a Sonic Internet customer in Los Altos. I just made the same observation and have the same concerns. I opened support case #7373864 and am waiting to hear back.

[nadava]

Same here, just signed in for the first time and saw 2031.
Did you hear anything back?

[mikesonic]

I got this reply:

Re: [Sonic #7373864] Fiber availability in Los Altos
From Sonic Support Date Tue 08:58

Hi,

We just got word back that the reason for the delay is that the city will not allow us to do aerial drops. Therefore, this is on hold until this is resolved. Sorry about the delay.

Take care,

Ken
Technical Support Representative

[drewcolace]

I wonder who in the city government we could contact to help this along. How did Sonic purportedly get to construction phase without this detail hashed out.

[drewcolace]

Thanks for letting us know! I wish Sonic folks would join the conversation directly.

I got this reply:

Re: [Sonic #7373864] Fiber availability in Los Altos
From Sonic Support Date Tue 08:58

Hi,

We just got word back that the reason for the delay is that the city will not allow us to do aerial drops. Therefore, this is on hold until this is resolved. Sorry about the delay.

Take care,

Ken
Technical Support Representative

[mikesonic]

Hi Drew,

While I am not optimistic, it is possible that a bit of old-fashioned citizen activism might make a difference. So far, I have passed on the words of Sonic's response to the Los Altos Town Crier (no response) and the Los Altos Residents group. I did get a response from LAR's Freddie Wheeler saying that she would make some inquiries with "City Staff".

If you can add your voice and perhaps the voice of your neighbors, there may be some hope.

The reason that I use the words "not optimistic" above is that I assume the politics of the relationship between legacy telecom carriers (AT&T in this case) and Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC; Sonic in this case) get involved. While I have no insight into what is actually going on, I am prone to wild speculations. For example, AT&T might be saying to the city, something along the lines of: "If you are going to hold us to a standard for undergrounding, you must hold our competitors to a similar standard.". So, the answer to the question of how Sonic got into the construction phase before moving the completion date out to 2031 is all about the timing of Sonic's project coming to AT&T's attention and then AT&T applying pressure on the city.

If any part of my wild speculations are correct, I suspect that even 2031 is optimistic. I don't expect to live long enough to see services to my residence undergrounded.

[left4taco]

I hate this kind of ISP monopoly ..

[drbubbles]

I assume AT&T hasn't undergrounded very many yet? City should respond that they'll require the same percentage of Sonic clients undergrounded as AT&T have done. Then sonic just needs to underground say 1 connection the gazillion others can be aerial drops.

[roode]

Very little of the utility drop infrastructure in Los Altos is underground and the state is not changing that fast. For new construction the city requires underground feeds of communications and electric service. This basically means an underground conduit to the base of a pole and then a run up the pole to tie in. The conduit is private and the utility doesn't cover that cost. The problem is that on any given street there are bound to be serveral newly constructed houses that have to be fed below ground while the neighbors are fed overhead. It may be that Sonic can handle that level of inconsistency.