Comments

1
I understand the sentiment, but it is impossible to bypass switches if you want to send something to a friend (or access a data center) in Denver say, from Seattle. Me sending a message across the valley from QA to Magnolia could in fact be "free" and "municipal" but the city will still be paying large companies to enable the reliable transaction of voice and data once outside the city limits. Them's the breaks. I'm probably in the minority and am not arguing. That is how it works, however.
2
CenturyLink is bringing to your community one of the most advanced fiber Internet technologies available today. With speeds up to 1 Gig, now you can do more than you ever thought possible. It’s more than just speed – it’s new possibilities.


https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/

3
@2 - For about $125 a month.
4
Spammer @2 reported.
5
Meanwhile in the 'burbs Centurylink is reducing and even withdrawing services leaving folks stranded completely. The lack of options for many is truly stifling for whole communities. I'm 6 miles up a main highway from the giant FiOS pipe that serves the entire Olympic peninsula, yet our community's available speed maxes out at 3 mbps. Neighbors get a whopping 1.5 mbps and lack any choice as we're not served by cable at all, so de facto monopoly. Local friends now have to use dial up because these Centurylink mofos not only don't improve things unless forced, they've actively shirked basic maintenance duties that support longstanding customers.

We need municipal broadband more now then ever! Jobs, school, basic communications all rely on it, and if you can't even get on you're stuck with running to the local library during the 4 hours a day of the 4 to 5 days a week they're open. This works well if you're unemployed *and* live nearby... I'm a capitalist at heart, but cannot for the life of me understand how CEO's & COO's get to earn their bonuses when the actual service mission of the organization they run has failed its main purpose. Knowingly, willfully repeatedly failed in while telling its customers how fabulous they should think it is. All this lack of services for the same prices they charge others that receive 50+ mbps. Making web access an affordable utility for ALL will benefit the bottom line of our nation far more than tax cuts to the 1%. I'd tax the heck out of myself out here in the 'burbs just to get the opportunity to get city speeds from the last decade...
6
CenturyLink spent $3 BILLION on stock buybacks over the past year to enrich their shareholders instead of, y'know, improving their abysmal service for paying customers like me. Here on Beacon Hill I'm currently at 1.3 Mbps (down from 1.5 in the past year). The national average is 18 Mbps. I live 3 miles from the downtown core.
They've admitted that they "don't have any options for you which would actually improve the service":
https://twitter.com/BrettHamil/status/61…
7
@5

Couldn't be further from the truth. I know for a fact that century link is building to god knows where. They are expanding -- I know the engineers in the field. It is putting shit down in the middle of Wyoming for god's sake. Many miles of fiber per job from data center to non-local transmission points. There has been quite a bit of vandalism lately though which have had to be repaired.
9
Well @6 that is part of the problem and there is a term that I won't mention, but it is the reason why you can't text during a Seahawks game. Why? Capacity. Believe me. Capacity is being worked on but the city of Seattle won't be able to do shit on its own. So many permits and right of ways and shared hand holds etc.
10
@9 You're saying we should just wait for Comcast & CenturyLink to "fix" it? 2 entrenched monopolies with zero incentive to improve service without the threat of a municipal option?
11
#6

I just signed up for CenturyLink on Kent East.

I went with 12Mbps and my options were up to 40Mpbs.

Dense urban cores have always been slow when it comes to installing the latest technologies.

Suburbs are quick. Modern. Easy.
12
#3

Google "centurylink gig cost":

The broadband offering provides upload and download speeds of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). It costs $79.95 per month when bundled with other qualifying CenturyLink services like a home phone or TV subscription, usually for a minimum combined cost of $115 per month.


13
CenturyLink strung fiber on my block on Beacon Hill last month, and a crew spent Memorial Day weekend wiring a distribution box high on a City Light pole down the block. I can't wait for municipal broadband some years down the pike; I want it now, and I can't wait for the CTL rep to knock on my door. I don't even need 1Gig; I'll take 60-80mbps at a fraction of the Gig price.

Before this municipal broadband campaign gets too far, I hope somebody researches what the privates are doing already. Let's see how much of a market will be left for a municipal system, one that can realistically cover expenses and not leave taxpayers holding the bag (I remember the monorail….)
14
@13, you should check your address on the website, in the meantime. Crews recently (3 months ago?) strung some fiber through the alley and street in my neck of West Seattle and I'm now using their 40/5 fiber service (internet only) for $30/month (plus some $2 recovery fee and an $8 router rental I may be dropping soon). If more people were using my connection right now I'd even consider the 100 mbit $70 plan. I felt like it was my duty to drop comcast internet as soon as a competitor ran more modern infrastructure through the neighborhood and would do the same with a competitively priced muni broadband.
15
Fuck Mattmiller. Take muni broadband to a vote via initiative. Remove the bureaucrats from the equation.
16
@8 Sawant will be front and forward -- in front of the TV cameras -- when she decides this is an opportunity for her megalomaniacal ego to get a bit more bloated. Fuck her.
17
I think that the city has some options that they are simply ignoring, though I can't understand why. Even their survey shows a very high percentage of Seattlites that think the city should step up. If the city continues to ignore, then maybe this mayor will end up being a one-term mayor!
18
I just picked an address at random from Zillow in the Beacon Hill area...

This house:

2101 31st Ave S,
Seattle, WA 98144

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2101-3…

When checked against the CenturyLink site has 1 Gig as an option

https://shop.centurylink.com/MasterWebPo…

So obviously they are rolling it out ..

CenturyLink is also a "Good Company". They recently had a complete reorg and smashed down management layers to only two levels! That's really cool...reduces all the high overhead costs and lets tech engineers dominate.

19
@15 for the Build It Now win
20
Yes. CTL is rolling it out and I am not a salesman. But you will still have to use the COs in order to connect with the rest of the world. Thus it will be paid for in some fashion because Seattle doesn't maintain switches. It is actually as easy as that.
21
@20

If you've got Gig service, it probabably means you can also get 6 to 40 Mpbs for cheap (their 6 Mpbs is only $30 a month, real price, and its enough to run Netflix).

@15 "Remove the bureaucrats from the equation."

As I mentioned in #18, CenturyLink already has! They've stripped management down to two layers. How much leaner and meaner can you get?

Is City Hall doing that? Is the Mayor crunching layers of high priced management down, and letting the front lines do their jobs? Guess I'll have to read the papers to see if that happens..

New CenturyLink CTO in Major Overhaul

http://www.lightreading.com/business-emp…

22
SROTU is a troll or a gullible idiot if he actually believes those service availability maps.
23
@12 - Is that not exactly what I said minus $10? Also, that's if you sign a 3 year contract. The actual rate for a short term user is much higher. Ridiculous for a basic 21st century service.

It's not about a specific provider, it's about a lack of competition. A city broadband service run like Seattle City Light would be amazing, but a few smaller companies leasing infrastructure—assuming it can get built—would be great too.
24
Actually Google has no trouble working with $70 a month, but historically has demanded 15% rates of return on its investment rather than 4% rates available to Seattle. With the cost nearly 100% capital one wonders if Big telecom was able to buy access to the report or was it set up to fail by requiring near physical fiber runs POP to the home. Google and other implementations like Olds. Alberta at $55 and Chanute Kansas at $40 which lack all economies of scale tapped their engineers brains for once, and use a standard traffic based switch on each city block. An engineered City system could split access into up to 1 GBs wifi, IEEE 1905.1 powerline carrier at up to 600 MBs, or fiber drop needs be. From my calculation based on Seattle's demographics and geography, the cost for this system with 100% penetration would be $40 one time with as little as $100 for a wired 1 GBs drop. Note that Google in its cities offers 5 MBs access for $300 one time and no ongoing charge, the difference being borrowing costs. The additional cost for higher speeds is minimal. Wfi access alone is so cheap it can be done virtually for free with speeds far in excess of the our $50 a month typical Big Telecom rates.

It would be dirt cheap to set up the core network then use City Light crews to expand the system neighborhood by neighborhood, gaining experience and funding as the system builds up. The entire city of Santa Clara got WIFI access for free, by piggy backing on the power utilities Smart Meter network.

Unfortunately the City of Seattle doesn't employ skilled Telecom engineers that know how to get these things done.

Its rather like their abysmal record on mass transit, where the city has spent more money on rapid transit boondoogles with a single airport LRT than Vancouver has putting in rapid transit that if it were in Seattle would stretch from Olympia to Everett.

In Vancouver the base rate high speed internet starts at $15 a month for 5 MBs . Shows the power of corruption in Seattle.
25
If backwaters like Mason County can have their PUD deploy fiber and bring 100mbps and Gigabit to the homes out there, why the fuck can't Seattle?
26
@25 because there's more money for Comcast and Centurylink to make in Seattle. Not enough for them to actually provide the service, but enough for them to spend political influence to stop us from doing it ourselves.

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