Hello all,
Finally joined the site and have been a youtube subscriber for some time. So hello! What really brought me here was how Logan and company are intersted in the fiber opportunities in North America and the world. Sonic.net is another great ISP in the bay area. As we saw in the ratings they are quite reputable and they have been testing a fiberhood they started for free initially and are now thinking of slow expansion.
I do not follow this newsgroup but here's a story on it: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120506/BUSINESS/120509761/1036/business?Title=Sonic-net-builds-super-fast-network-for-future
So the bay area is showing promise but I don't think it's plausable until 5+ years to get the system at full speed and widely acessable to us. However, I used to work for a local ISP in Santa Cruz called Cruzio(cruz-i-o). At Cruzio, they currently resell Sonic.net ADSL bundled hardline phone service which doesn't sound like much but it's the only thing that's capable along with Comcast for the best speeds. The real push Cruzio is trying to do is resell their 5gbps fiber line they recieved from UCSC and disperse it. It's just the city and customers here are very reluctant with new tech as we like to think of ourselves as a simple beach community. So instead of dealing with fiber infrastructure here, they've taken to wireless point-to-point services to the nearby mountain tops, in-house coworking offices, and server hositng. At some point, of course I think they would love to gain more fiber and start infrastructure, it's just the public still doesn't fully understand the need. Personally, I do not know how we can spread the idea and basic knowledge so soon but I guess we can hopefully see more when internet savvy people are holding high office positions to be more excited with technology.
Just wanted to expand a bit on wireless connections. To those not in the know, wireless through point-to-point antennas are another high-speed option. However it delivers symmetrical 300mbps through large dishes (5' in diameter drums) and popular 20mbps (1'6" dishes). 1gpbs is possible but the range is shortened to a couple blocks of distance. So, there's possibility there, but we can only use so much radio frequencies. Also, when using larger dishes, you need to have a license per link and gain approval with certain groups nearby. Up to 50mbps is where you can almost freely put up links but they are restriced to a set few channels and easy to populate if other customers are nearby. In the end, it's only a great interim plan in light of fiber.
Anyway, I just wanted to educate you guys with a simple post about what I have personally put my hand in and wanted to give a "shout out" to them as my time there was enlightening. Feel free to ask more questions about them but of course, as an ex-employee, don't take my words as those of the companies'.
Cruzio.com
Sonic.Net
Welcome to TekSyndicate - it's a great community :D
Now, 5Gb/s would be ridiculous. First of all, standard motherboards come with, at most, a Gigabit NIC. You can purchase a PCIe 10 Gigabit NIC for about $500, so I'm assuming a 5Gb NIC would be along the lines of $300 and up. It is more than just the cost of the service; it is also expensive for the hardware to use it. Youhave to have a desktop to take advantage of anything more than 1Gb/s, which is fine for most people who care aboutreal performance ;), but it certainly limits the market, in this modern age of smartphones and tablets. Still, thanks for informing us; I never would have found out about that on my own :)
Cheers, and welcome to TS :)
Correct, but I didn't mean 5gbps to a single connection. It's just the current limit Cruzio is able to distribute. They will get more as they start to populate it but not as quickly as we all hoped. I only meant that they can only serve 2-3 customers with a gigabit fibre connection if they were able. Instead they are forced to use high end wireless point to point to populate the connection. But yeah, I bet mushroom networks or whoever is crazy about bonding connections has already started on such a piece of hardware. Imagine your own local company with a 2gbps backhaul!
Thanks for the welcome! It's good to meet you ^.^
Nice post, and welcome!
I live in sebastopol Ca where sonic is roling out their fiber! Im so fricken excited. It hasn't come to my part of town yet. I called up sonic and they told me that there waiting for neighbor hoods to switch over to their broadband connections before rolling out fiber. So i will most likely switch when my contract is up.
On a side note. unfortunately sonic.net is (or something like this) subcontracting the fiber install to AT&T. so the user and sonic still requires the help of another ISP which makes thing slow and unfortunate.
Also sonic didnt shell out their own cash, the project is being funded by google :D
EDIT the sebastopol project is seperate from the google funding, though im sure thats helping in some regard. Googles funding is going to fiber being installed at stanford
http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2010/12/13/sonic-net-selected-by-google-to-operate-stanford-fiber-network/
EDIT
At my work in the other end of seb, we have sonic fiber.... and its FASTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Ill post a speedtest.net capture when im there thursday.
Quite jealous and happy for you at the same time man! Yeah, unfortunately these companies have to contact AT&T for initial setup of the ADSL link from the central offices to your phone box outside. But whats nice is that we do get priority as I belive there is something like a contract that obliges them to consider our needs respectably quick. But we all know AT&T and other major ISP technicians are not paid at all what they should; so sometimes you find the good and bad. After that, Sonic/Cruzio technicians take over the second half and get the internet from your phone box to the right phone jack in your building. So that's the case with the ADSL and I think something similar will be for fiber. AT&T just has too much control over their current infrastructure (telephone poles, conduit underground, central offices, etc) that these companies need to make this easier than just leasing a bunch of it and auditing would be a pain I'm sure. Good to know Google is behind this (I didn't know), the more we can collectively learn is better than just a bunch of small ISPs taking shots in the dark. As the Sonic CEO is an advocate of net neutrality I hope we see them standing for us and I think they will until CISPA or someother demands government regualtions on our bandwidth... I hate to say that it's just too close everytime they try this.
I'm glad to hear your place may be hooking up soon. I really do respect these companies and their customer support is excellent. Cruzio at least takes all calls by person and Sonic does their best too but they have a larger customer base on top of dealing with bigger issues that Cruzio has sometimes. But they do work well together here in Santa Cruz. I just remembered my last chat with Comcast and oh man... Do I never wish it upon anyone. But now I still use them and am finally getting the right speeds (top tier cable ~35mbps) we've been paying for after years of service. I digress though, this will pale in comparison to the next gen you'll be getting! Best of luck as adoption of something brand new can be rocky but you'll set the pace for the rest of the bay area!