San Francisco fiber
Someone emailed me this afternoon, saying “To get web access in a way that supports your 'don't support the telephone monopolies' campaign, where do I go? Whom to tell my friends to switch to? (I've had it with my Verizon dsl — too slow for my kids videos on YouTube), but aren't the cable companies just as problematic?”
Well, there really isn't anywhere to go — although Verizon is not the same as AT&T, and Verizon FiOS might be a good solution for my email correspondent if it exists in his neighborhood.
There's interest today in a feasibility study [warning, enormous PDF] for city-wide municipal fiber in San Francisco. It's expensive ($560 million) but bold. Oren Sreebny says it's fascinating, and I agree.
But it's not clear that fiber is necessarily neutral — indeed, this article suggests cities think fiber networks would have to be prioritized in order to pay off.
I share my email friend's despair at speeds here; from my school connection I can't use VoIP or watch streaming videos of hearings and arguments. Maybe we'll all be moving to San Francisco.
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The physical-line/ISP distinction is still present in many areas. Here in new york city, there are a couple “hip” ISPs to choose from. I have cable internet; my my isp is and I don't give Time Warner a penny (other than the licensing fees New York Connect pays them).
There is also the super-awesome Optimum Online, which is the ISP for Cablevision, who are an actual cable television provider and, if I am not mistaken, own their own lines. Optimum Online service is waaaay faster than Time Warner… something like 16 down and 2 up…(still a far cry from Korea's ~100 up and down…).
Anyway, I have no idea what is available in San Francisco, but I would imagine there are some alternate-ISP-over-evil-physical-line options still around. (even after the Supreme Court ruling a couple year's back made that no longer required… from my pedestrian understanding of it.)
Cheers,
John
lost a couple of words up there…
“My ISP is [New York Connect]”