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Hi Josh. Forgive my ignorance, I am honestly just curious. I took a look at your test area on your website, and it is filled with homes/condos that are in the

Hi Josh. Forgive my ignorance, I am honestly just curious. I took a look at your test area on your website, and it is filled with homes/condos that are in the millions of dollars. What practical reason would someone that could afford a home that costs this much need to utilize your service? Is this area essentially exactly that, a test area, and not intended to be the location you deploy in first?

fixthenet 8y ago
Our intended initial deployment was in Culver City, off a tower that had reach to Culver and city district 10. We met with LA city, Culver City, and did a lot of prep in that direction. Unfortunately, the critical path to fiber was delayed in construction for a year, with another year to go. In addition, we were thrown a curve ball with a tower engineering study prior to that tower's use that would eat up a sizable portion of funding. Right around this time we were offered funding from WeTransfer as part of their Net Neutrality campaign, but under the obligation serve their area in Venice. We decided to go for it, and use that as a launching point for a proof of concept network. While not ideal for obvious reasons, it goes a long way towards proving our tech and business model. Our hope is that we can grow out the network towards Culver and CD10, acquire some critical infrastructure there, and then push east across the West Adams/Jefferson Park corridor. It is a true deployment--we don't plan to uproot the Venice service, but it may end up being an arm of the network as opposed to the core in the future. One of the key goals of our project is to free low income neighborhoods from stone age technology by offering broadband speeds far above DSL for a fair price.
- fixthenet 8y ago
  I should add that it'll take us some time to tap into the federal programs and grants to truly make this incredible for low income neighborhoods. Venice has been serving us well as a means to get our sea legs, so to speak. Starting there won't impact our plans for closing the technology gap where it exists.
- instaheat 8y ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate it - makes sense! I wish you all the best of luck.

fixthenet 8y ago

Our intended initial deployment was in Culver City, off a tower that had reach to Culver and city district 10. We met with LA city, Culver City, and did a lot of prep in that direction. Unfortunately, the critical path to fiber was delayed in construction for a year, with another year to go. In addition, we were thrown a curve ball with a tower engineering study prior to that tower's use that would eat up a sizable portion of funding. Right around this time we were offered funding from WeTransfer as part of their Net Neutrality campaign, but under the obligation serve their area in Venice. We decided to go for it, and use that as a launching point for a proof of concept network. While not ideal for obvious reasons, it goes a long way towards proving our tech and business model. Our hope is that we can grow out the network towards Culver and CD10, acquire some critical infrastructure there, and then push east across the West Adams/Jefferson Park corridor. It is a true deployment--we don't plan to uproot the Venice service, but it may end up being an arm of the network as opposed to the core in the future. One of the key goals of our project is to free low income neighborhoods from stone age technology by offering broadband speeds far above DSL for a fair price.

fixthenet 8y ago
I should add that it'll take us some time to tap into the federal programs and grants to truly make this incredible for low income neighborhoods. Venice has been serving us well as a means to get our sea legs, so to speak. Starting there won't impact our plans for closing the technology gap where it exists.
instaheat 8y ago
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate it - makes sense! I wish you all the best of luck.