1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/1gbps-fiber-for-70in-america-yup.ars

by kylelibra • 15 years ago

219 101 15 years ago

arstechnica.com

w1ntermute• 15 years ago

> is a trial and will reach about 700 homes when complete

Don't get your hopes up just yet.

joezydeco2• 15 years ago

5 square miles down, 3,500,000 to go. Sounds like a plan to me.

philthy• 15 years ago

I saw a news bit about how breakout ISPs in the UK are selling 100mbps(I believe I might be wrong on the speed) for as low as 6.99 quid. American utility bubble? I think so. At this point I am positive the Verizons and the Comcasts could offer free service to everyone of there existing customers and still make positive returns from just new contracts. Can somebody please tell me exactly what you are paying for with 100Mbps for 199.99? Are they using solid gold equipment? There can't possibly be that much overheard, someone please set me straight.

chopsueyar6• 15 years ago

For 199.99, it has to be the best there is. Why else would it be the most expensive?

Maybe they run dedicated coax from the head-end to your home's groundblock?

Business Fios sustained 35Mbps up/35Mbps down w/ fixed IP is only $130/month.

devicenull• 15 years ago

I can't tell if you are serious enough.. there's no way Comcast is going to run a dedicated line for you for $200/mo. The only reason I can see for the increased price is it means they can fit less people per node, so they end up needing more.

madmaze2• 15 years ago

I completely agree, when I moved to the US from Germany about 7 years ago, a large majority of the people I got to know were still running dialup. In Germany the years prior to my move, I cannot remember a single person not having at least DSL. Then the next major shock I got was when looking at ISP and Cellphone carrier prices! at the moment I am paying 60$/mo for 12down 2up (in boston). My Brother in a small town in southern Germany gets 2 unlimited phone lines, cable TV and 50down 12up for 40euros/mo so about 60$/mo. Im not sure how this difference in price can be explained, Especially because in boston my internet goes down every few days since all the lines are run overground.

zwieback• 15 years ago

Since you seem to have more up-to-date experience I'll ask this: what are the other fees Germans pay for telecom? Are there other taxes or fees that are payed separately?

I moved away from Germany almost 20 years ago but at the time my parents were still paying "Anmeldungsgebuehr" for their TVs/radios, the basic phone service was really cheap but local calls were metered in 8min increments.

I believe one of the big problems for the majority of Americans (myself certainly included) is the limbo created by poorly regulated local monopolies - I can choose between Qwest DSL and Comcast, neither are particularly good and both are expensive. There's not enough regulation to create a good minimum service level but there's enough regulation to prevent local players from really growing.

One thing I have to say, though, the pictures of the Sonic guys installing fiber look really scary. I could never get away with a crappy wiring job like this at work yet around town you see the worst kind of spaghetti jobs, crooked masts chewed up by woodpeckers, home-made looking junction boxes, etc.

pbreit• 15 years ago

I don't think making these types of cross-country comparisons is all tha helpful. Do people know, for example, that in Germany it is illegal for most stores to be open on Sunday? Things work differently in different countries. We get it.

rimantas• 15 years ago

I've got 100Mbps fiber for less than $20. There is better plan: 300Mbps for $32. On the other hand my country is the leader in fiber-to-the-home. Benefits of being small.

kierank• 15 years ago

I saw a news bit about how breakout ISPs in the UK are selling 100mbps(I believe I might be wrong on the speed) for as low as 6.99 quid.

If only.

orijing3• 15 years ago

Here's the sad part (unless you bought into their shares early): You're paying for their dividends (i.e. payouts to shareholders). It's their fiduciary duty.

However, companies like them need to realize that there are more stakeholders (like the community) than just shareholders.

richcollins• 15 years ago

It's not a bubble if you have laws passed in your favor that prevent competition.

chopsueyar6• 15 years ago

Nice to see an effort being made.

Bring on the FTTH providers!

joezydeco2• 15 years ago

It's an uphill battle. Local governments in the US sign franchise agreements with cable companies and telecom providers. Many of those agreements give the cable company exclusive geographical rights to the area in return for hooking up the entire town.

So when another ISP shows up and wants to string cable all over the poles...guess what? They're turned away. Verizon FiOS found this out when trying to get into markets where AT&T had the telephone franchise.

Call it a monopoly, call it anti-competition. But America is huge. There's no other way to get a company to invest in so much infrastructure to cover all of the land.

cheez• 15 years ago

That's what they said with the railroads. They should have said: fine, don't.

But politicians are short-sighted.

Nrsolis4• 15 years ago

Franchise agreements aren't exclusionary. They just lay out what a company will pay to the city for the right to use the public right of way. They also cover things like in-kind contributions for schools and libraries and minimum service levels (which set out that they can't cherry pick neighborhoods and must offer service to everyone in a geographic area). A second provider would have to agree to conditions at least equal to the first one.

I worked for a city-owned electric utility that would regularly negotiate with outside entities to do pole-attachments. We did fiber loops around the city and started to offer Internet service. When it looked like we might actually make some meaningful progress, Bellsouth and Cox went to the state government and got a law passed that forbade ANY governmental organization or political subdivision from getting into the telecomm business.

If we had the national political will to insist on a competitive telecommunications infrastructure, we'd have one. I'm happy to see that some ISPs are giving it a go. Unfortunately, the capital costs are so high that it's hard for an upstart to really gain traction.

Our best bet for a truly competitive marketplace is for the CableCos to finally get into the business of doing SMB (small/medium biz) customer service that gives the ATT/Verizons a run for their money.

robflynn• 15 years ago

And even more sadly, it's not the "entire area." I've seen too many folks get stuck on the edge of a county line and end up serviced by neither of two providers due to their weird geographical location.

hammock2• 15 years ago

Just curious, why would anyone need 1Gbps internet right now? And what %of the population is that which needs it?

justinph• 15 years ago

Why would anyone need a car that goes over 65 miles per hour?

GFischer• 15 years ago

Mine doesn't, and I don't miss it.

Not everyone needs a car that goes over 65... I'd actually argue that in non-US cities, the vast majority don't need it 99% of the time (the 1% being when you're planning on doing a road trip).

See also: Tata Nano or Maruti 800 (my car).

OTOH, I'd really appreciate 1gbps internet :) . In a college in Germany they had 1gbps for all the students, and they enjoyed streaming HD movies and all that.

seanmccann• 15 years ago

It's great for a large family or office where everybody is doing bandwidth intensive tasks. The percentage of households that need it is probably quite low but having it opens up new doors.

jorgeortiz85• 15 years ago

The important question isn't whether you think you need it now or not, but rather, what can you do with it once you have it?

hammock2• 15 years ago

The PC is dying, I would rather see more advancements in wireless speeds rather than rolling out all this FTTH.

A couple of the comments talk about speeds enabling cloud lifestyle, I would point out also that mainly hinges again on wireless.

edit: why all the downvotes? have i said anything thats wrong? how does 1gbps help you watch stuff outside one room in your home without unplugging and re-plugging all your devices? is 100mbps sufficient for viewing HD video or do you need 1gbps?

And for the record wireless is not just about mobile phones- as I said the PC is dying, it's about laptops, netbooks, ipads, tablets, internet-enabled TVs, gaming consoles, and the future IP devices (cars) etc all of which are now, today, usually connected wirelessly. And we are the better for it.

chopsueyar6• 15 years ago

I have a family of 12. We live together in one house. Each family member requires their own 720p HD stream.

I also have 16 HD surveillance cameras, all of which are remotely monitored in realtime.

We also run our own live streaming video servers using Wowza.

Just kidding, I have no idea why a home user would need 1gbps, unless they are a huge family with many hulu/netflix watchers (maybe a frat/sorority) house or a home-based business with the server hardware onsite.

I am assuming it is 1gbps up and down.

chopsueyar6• 15 years ago

Also, this really sets the stage for having your own home 'cloud' device.

Instead of all these offsite services that stream 'licensed' versions of media, why not have it all stored at home on your 'cloud' appliance, and it can stream your music, videos, and photos to any of your devices wherever you are (country agnostic).

So, if you have a decent size family, they can watch their shows at home, in the car, at a friend's house, or wherever there is a suitable connection.

mikecane2• 15 years ago

That is my own desire too. I don't want Apple's iCloud. But I'll gladly get a Mac Home Server so I can have my own personal iCloud.

Zigurd• 15 years ago

100 megabit service is available at consumer-oriented pricing in Japan and other places. One obvious use of very fast service is to substitute OTT TV for cable TV, or to provide server-based 3D gaming, or, for non-entertainment purposes, to provide high-definition video conferencing. I'm sure others can enumerate a long list of applications.

But, the real point is there has never been a shortage of uses for more bandwidth. Instead, it has always opened new possibilities and created new value.

The great risk in not having inexpensive, fast Internet service is that the next great value-creations on the Internet will happen more often outside the US, and therefore not help to restore economic growth in the US.

patrickk• 15 years ago

Why do we need to have all the RAM, Gigahertz, TBs of storage in our PCs currently? The hardware specs of modern computers would have been viewed as frivolous just a few short years ago. Now people enjoy desktop eye candy (perhaps not entirely necessary in some cases, but it can make things easier for non-techies), getting rid of CDs and DVDs and so on.

Similarly, by raising the limits on internet speed, new web apps that are inconceivable now will come on stream. For example, an infamous 'dot bomb', boo.com, would make more sense in the broadband era than the 56k modem era[1]. Similarly, there will be new ideas that aren't viable currently that will become viable with 1Gbps.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com#Problems_with_the_user_...

ww5202• 15 years ago

HD videos are not smooth now with DSL. Tele-presence is not possible due to bandwidth limitation. There will be services to use up the bandwidth once it's possible.

jonknee• 15 years ago

It allows cloud solutions to be indistinguishable from local solutions. Quite powerful.

jodoherty• 15 years ago

Nobody needs it right now, but once most people have the option of it, new ways of needing it will appear.

This would be great for cloud computing with family videos or games that you rent online which stream all the content directly from the servers.

With the rise of IPv6, it could also lead to the development of a more distributed web content model where people host a lot of their own content for others to access and browse using personal web servers instead of P2P clients, since pretty much everyone will have the extra processing power and bandwidth.

There's a lot of uses, and many of them could easily become the new "needs" of the future.

nl2• 15 years ago

So you can stop thinking about outdated things like the "local network" vs "the internet".

If you can store all your stuff remotely, and get it as quickly and easily as if it were on a local NAS suddenly things get a lot easier.

Ironically, it's the non-geeks who need this the most, because they can't setup a NAS. How many people do you see emailing images to themselves so they can get it on their other computer? Every person who does that needs 1Gbps internet so they can do that for their entire photo and film collection.

(And yes, I know Dropbox helps with this scenario, but even Dropbox is better with 1Gbps intenet...)

orijing3• 15 years ago

That's mostly true, but there's still the latency benefits of physical proximity. For example, just for an electric signal to travel 6000km across the country, it will take t=6000km/v where v=c/n (c = speed of light, 3e8 m/s and n = refractive index of fiber, 1.62). So it'll take 32.4 ms just to send a packet across the states, and another 32.4 ms to receive one back. This doesn't even take into effect the latency from the routers in the way, and other things like that your message doesn't go in a completely straight path.

So latency is really important if you're doing something like playing a real time game. 32ms is basically a single frame if you're playing at 30 fps. Some people will notice if they're constantly a frame behind.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber

kinofcain• 15 years ago

Sonic is the only ISP I've ever had that hasn't sucked. They're terrific. Their techs actually know what they're talking about and, as I'm sure others on HN can relate to from dealing with other ISPs, they don't treat you like an idiot when you call up. It was a great decision by google to have sonic act as the ISP for the Stanford deployment. I hope they're able to roll fiber out quickly.

grandalf• 15 years ago

Part of this is probably due to Sonic's small size. The people answering the phone are actually engineers. With a big company like Comcast, the people answering the phone are trained to follow a specific (and often frustrating to the customer) algorithm to solve your problem.

epi0Bauqu2• 15 years ago

I was the first person in my township to get FIOS. At that time, their customer service was excellent and in-line with what you both are saying. But over the past 5 years it has steadily degraded. The service itself is great, but you no longer quickly get the technical help you need.

acangiano• 15 years ago

It's like Techsavvy in Canada, except I effectively get 3Mbps, not 1Gbps, from them :(.

thesnark• 15 years ago

Novus in Vancouver is pretty awesome, 40/10 for $65/mo

idm• 15 years ago

Former sonic.net customer here, then speakeasy, current teksavvy customer. Speakeasy just isn't in the ballpark, teksavvy is great service, but sonic.net was hands-down the best ISP I've ever had.

This article makes me happy to read.

rmc• 15 years ago

they don't treat you like an idiot when you call up

The main reason this happens on most ISPs that that there are so many stupid-about-technology people out there that call up ISPs. There are loads of people who think they know all about technology and computers, and it turns out that they don't really know more than a few buzzwords. Hence the tech support flowchart has to assume (no matter what the customer says) that the customer doesn't know anything and that they should (e.g.) restart their PC.

derefr• 15 years ago

They could at least have a procedure to make a note in your account that you're not an idiot after you've proved it to them, so you don't have to run through the same checklist every time you call.

Right now, the "non-bozo bit" is basically a thread-local session variable--it's stored in the head of the operator handling your call, so if they ask you to call back and you get them again, you can skip the procedure, but if you get someone else, you have to go through it all again.

ctide• 15 years ago

Well, then they clearly have better support than service. The one apartment I've lived in that wasn't Comcast wired I suffered through a year of miserable latency, packet loss, and unimpressive speeds via Sonic DSL. Personally, I'll trade shit support for a decent connection any day.

ComputerGuru• 15 years ago

I'm going to be moving back to Chicago soon, and I wonder if any fellow HNers have some advice as to who's the best ISP for quality, high-speed internet in the Chicagoland region for someone that lives their life online?

slyn• 15 years ago

AT&T DSL here, pretty good for latency (low jitter, sub 60 ms, in WoW, SC2, TF2, and others while on wifi as well), not so good for throughput (only goes up to 6 mbps in my area, we have 3 mbps I think).

durin42• 15 years ago

Comcast Business Class. Not the consumer stuff, the good stuff. 20 mbps sustained download and 14ms ping to google.com. There's a different (and much better) tech support tree for businesses too. Pricey but easily the best internet I've ever had. Beats the pants of my old AT&T DSL.

absconditus• 15 years ago

Speakeasy is probably the best ISP available. Unfortunately they are also expensive. AT&T U-verse is cheap, I have not had any problems so far (installed a couple months ago) and I have not heard any complaints from friends and coworkers who have it. Avoid Clear.

pedrokost• 15 years ago

I wonder why they don't put the wires and fibers underground. It is much safer and less prone to strong winds and other natural hazards. Is the cost of having underground wires that high?

m_eiman• 15 years ago

Yes.

Imagine the cost of getting autorization for and digging a long hole through mile upon mile of in-city streets, and then repairing said hole - all while taking care of all the disruptions you cause to traffic and more. Unless you can find and use existing pipes in the right places with spare capacity (you're not going to, don't worry).

trafficlight• 15 years ago

In a lot of cases you can directional bore underneath the streets. It can really reduce the amount of above ground disruptions.

leot• 15 years ago

Really? I had heard that because streets are regularly dug up (well, every 5-15 years or so), and because the cost of doing so is almost always _way_ more than the cost of what goes in there, that for this reason there's already tons of capacity going unused (so-called "dark fiber" -- the Wikipedia article on the topic shows an interesting history of revisions ... ).

count• 15 years ago

Compared to putting them on poles, the cost of running new fiber underground (in an area without conduits already in place) is astronomical. The time delay is also orders of magnitude larger in getting the fiber down, as you need many, many permits to dig up streets, etc.

madmaze2• 15 years ago

Ive wondered the same thing many of times, especially in times when water/sewer pipes get replaced and the street is already ripped open. We have often joked we should make a website with pictures of the wiremess here vs pictures of the wiremess in some of indias slums

lutorm2• 15 years ago

The problem seems to be that no one thought ahead when they built the streets in the US. Back in Sweden, it's all underground. You won't find anything less than main HV transmission lines above ground. I don't know how they did it, but based on the lack of ever digging up the streets in the neighborhoods I lived in, they must have put in conduits when they build the streets. Why they don't do the same in the US baffles me. It makes absolutely no sense.

xxpor• 15 years ago

When they build new development here (outside of inner cities), they generally do put it underground.

eik3_de• 15 years ago

Same here in Germany. Everything is underground, even in smaller villages. And there are even plans to put new HV lines underground.

ars2• 15 years ago

> It makes absolutely no sense.

The US was first. Everyone else had the experience in the US to learn from.

New areas in the US do use underground conduits, but most cities in the US are pretty old.

e40• 15 years ago

Yes. In my town there was an undergrounding project for a certain, high-end neighborhood. The residents voted to pay for the cost themselves. About half way into it, the project hit a snag--unexpected rock, which was difficult to drill through and increased costs quite a lot. The contract with the residents was poorly written and the city, it turns out, was on the hook for the overage. The city canceled the project, because they couldn't afford it and the residents wouldn't pay the extra amount. Lawsuits were flying and it took a couple of years to settle it. The city ended up losing 1/3 of the general fund to this mess.

So, yeah, undergrounding is a mess.

ww5202• 15 years ago

What's the upstream speed? Hope it's symmetric. High speed clusters are possible. Imagine a cluster of Beowulf...

cowkingdeluxe• 15 years ago

For 700 homes.

dhughes• 15 years ago

That's pretty good, the fastest I can get is 170Mbps/30Mbps for almost $300 plus taxes but capped at 250GB/month, $1 per GB going over 250GB, and torrents throttled.

joelhaus5• 15 years ago

Everyone needs to make sure each candidate answers two questions during the upcoming election cycle:

  1. Do you believe higher speed internet service will lead to a better jobs
  economy?

  2. What policies will you pursue to so that more Americans have internet access 
  comparable to our global counterparts? E.g. Germany where speeds are 10x's as 
  fast at 2/3 the price?

webXL2• 15 years ago

On what rational basis are these two questions pertinent to managing the executive branch of the United States government?

joelhaus5• 15 years ago

To answer your question; because any federal law passed by congress in an effort to improve consumer choice in the ISP market would require the signature of the president without a supermajority. However, my call for answers to these questions applies equally to candidates for congressional, state and local offices too.

Unless you feel the current regulatory structure has no responsibility for getting us in this situation, how are they not pertinent?

jerf2• 15 years ago

Pshaw, those questions wouldn't even make any halfway viable candidate blink. "Your concerns are very important to me. Those concerns are the concerns of all right-thinking Americans and vital to the continued success of America. My top priority in office will be to address your concerns by making sure to throw lots of money at your concerns in ways that no amount of further questions will get me to concretely pin down, because I've had decades of practice at dodging this sort of question. Who is the next person who needs some concern addressed with vague promises of papering over the problem with taxpayer money?" Since any politician will say the same thing, there's no information in the answer to those questions.

joelhaus5• 15 years ago

>Since any politician will say the same thing, there's no information in the answer to those questions.

Perhaps, but how would you (and others with vested interests in better internet) react to a politician that gave a thoughtful and coherent response?

The point of these questions is to give the politicians an opportunity to win over a very influential and growing segment of the population. I suspect that a single strong response from a politician would have a domino effect and force the others to answer in-kind.

Based on how most of us view politics in the U.S., it's easy to be cynical about these sorts of things, so I can understand why you wouldn't want to put in the effort. However, the iron is hot and it seems foolish to waste an opportunity to hold our elected officials feet to the fire.

taylr• 15 years ago

I didn't see any mention of bandwidth caps. I hope they don't cap it. I'm not sure people see the flip side of having an extremely fast connection with the current model of pricing for most telecommunication providers. The speeds keep going up but the caps don't. I live in a building that has fiber provided by Telus, capped at 50MBps. I'm hitting 1TB down per month on average, I'd be screwed if they started capping my bandwidth. It's interesting how as soon as companies implement bandwidth caps we start seeing speeds go up.. just another money grab.

click170• 15 years ago

Honestly, I'm tired of the way companies try to market Internet to the masses. Too many people/articles focus on "1Gbps, blazing download speeds". Yeah, for a day, maybe. With bandwidth caps, you can't actually use your connection at full potential all of the time, so I question the way they market it as "1Gbps". Call me when it's confirmed that the 1Gbps package comes with no bandwidth cap, that would be something to write home about.

palish• 15 years ago

"No bandwidth cap" doesn't actually work, though.

The average user (and even the average programmer) wants to use the internet for 1) entertainment, and 2) information. Those tasks don't require sustained, maximum bandwidth usage.

The only people who actually need that kind of bandwidth are either bittorrent... um.... addicts, for lack of a better word, or infected computers, and consist of about 1-2% of the customers.

Their usage patterns degrade the service for everyone else.

MatthewPhillips• 15 years ago

Netflix is mainstream.

fholm• 15 years ago

God I love sweden, 100/100 dedicated for 16$/month (~100 SEK)

1Gbps fiber for $70&mdash;in America? Yup.

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