7 ms·

It's ironic that for the most part Silicon Valley only has terrible ISP infrastructure. Cellular service isn't all that great either.

cbhl 6y ago
The ISPs have tried, but they get pushback from local residents whenever they try to install the necessary network boxes at intervals down the street. They had to go out of their way to hide cellular towers as streetlamps to get the 5G rollout to happen; I remember getting two or three notices for this (each from different telcos, so the one street corner has three streetlamps and two traffic lights on one corner). I suspect if the droughts didn't make people get rid of their green grassy lawns homeowners would be more amenable to seeing green network boxes every few houses. It looks awful in the context of concrete sidewalks, though.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Solution: Paint the boxes grey.
  - NullPrefix 6y ago
    Solution 2: Lift the box up, attach it to the head of the street lamp.
    - okigan 6y ago
      servicing at the top of the street lamp would me so much easier, right?
  - toast0 6y ago
    Naw man, woodgrain stickers.
  - gwittel 6y ago
    Other options: 1) Sprout the streetlamp from the box, add a car charging port. 2) Hire an artist to paint the box with artwork (property owner gets to pick from option set). Consider it to be city owned art installations.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Or even some cheap creeping hedges like bouganvillea
- Lammy 6y ago
  PROTIP: The boxes are an excuse. Building infrastructure would make more people want to move there, and claiming the boxes are ugly is something you can’t disagree with.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  The parts of SV that haven't buried their power lines (not too pretty to begin with) have gotten significantly uglier since all of the new cable/fiber/DSL infrastructure has gone in. There are in many cases multiple of these things on loads of poles: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-this https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-thi...
  - xxpor 6y ago
    god forbid infra has some infra on it
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    Here in Germany we bury everything. I don't even want to imagine how long it takes to rebuild all of that when some drunkard crashes his car into one of these poles or a lightning strike hits.
    - hangonhn 6y ago
      I grew up in the Florida Keys where the water table is very close to the surface so it's impossible to bury anything. When I was a young teenager, we would lose electricity all the time from tree branches brushing up against the power lines. They finally solved the problem by putting in power lines on concrete poles that are a few stories up! No more squirrels and tree branches disputing power!
    - slopirate 6y ago
      A lot less time than when an earthquake snaps an underground cable.
    - ian-g 6y ago
      I could be wrong, but I'd worry about earthquakes severing the lines. This map[0] shows the major faults, but each one of those is a lot of small minor faults that all could snap things and shift. One small fault right by where I grew up is about three blocks long. Last I checked had one earthquake to its name: a magnitude 5.0 aftershock of Loma Prieta [0] https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5a6038b3a1684561a9b0aadf88412fcf https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id...
- grumple 6y ago
  SV residents really do complain about everything, huh? Try living in an east coast city, our aesthetic is a mess.
fnord77 6y ago
is the cellular deadspot on 101 just north of redwood city still there?
- gopalv 6y ago
  Are you thinking about the area just around the SFO landing zone? I thought that was less of a "won't" and more of a "can't" between the lack of taller building towers and the radio interference zone for the airport means the directional antennas skip a slice there. This will probably get fixed if 5G becomes a proper thing and there's a lot of micro-cells along the "bay area's biggest parking lot".
jedberg 6y ago
NIMBYism at its finest. Cupertino did not allow cell phone towers for a very long time. The only one was an ATT tower on the top of Infinite Loop, right on the Sunnyvale border. The people who would call their provider about bad cell coverage in their house are the same people that would go to city hall and demand that no cell towers be built in the city.
- astrange 6y ago
  It’s amusing seeing Cupertino city council transcripts about this because the people show up claiming 5G gives them cancer and the city council desperately tries to get them to use better excuses so they can approve denying it. Makes a change from the city council members usual practice of denying Vallco permits and claiming Apple employees are hiring prostitutes and molesting high school students. (I did not make this up.)
  - derivagral 6y ago
    Are these transcripts online?
    - astrange 6y ago
      Only informally as far as I know. https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1125959134329708545 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1125959134329708545 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1154781703262498816 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1154781703262498816
hangonhn 6y ago
Palo Alto has its own municipal fiber program: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/utl/business/programs/fibernet.asp https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/utl/business/progra... Wonder if someone should take them up on it.
- dbt00 6y ago
  It’s only for commercial use. As much as I’d love to be able to drop a node in to peer at paix for my house ...
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    I know people with Palo Alto Fiber running to their house. They were hosting websites out of their garage years ago (I think archive.org for a while.), but today it's just residential, so it's very much possible.

cbhl 6y ago

The ISPs have tried, but they get pushback from local residents whenever they try to install the necessary network boxes at intervals down the street. They had to go out of their way to hide cellular towers as streetlamps to get the 5G rollout to happen; I remember getting two or three notices for this (each from different telcos, so the one street corner has three streetlamps and two traffic lights on one corner). I suspect if the droughts didn't make people get rid of their green grassy lawns homeowners would be more amenable to seeing green network boxes every few houses. It looks awful in the context of concrete sidewalks, though.

freeone3000 6y ago
Solution: Paint the boxes grey.
- NullPrefix 6y ago
  Solution 2: Lift the box up, attach it to the head of the street lamp.
  - okigan 6y ago
    servicing at the top of the street lamp would me so much easier, right?
- toast0 6y ago
  Naw man, woodgrain stickers.
- gwittel 6y ago
  Other options: 1) Sprout the streetlamp from the box, add a car charging port. 2) Hire an artist to paint the box with artwork (property owner gets to pick from option set). Consider it to be city owned art installations.
- asdff 6y ago
  Or even some cheap creeping hedges like bouganvillea
Lammy 6y ago
PROTIP: The boxes are an excuse. Building infrastructure would make more people want to move there, and claiming the boxes are ugly is something you can’t disagree with.
cameldrv 6y ago
The parts of SV that haven't buried their power lines (not too pretty to begin with) have gotten significantly uglier since all of the new cable/fiber/DSL infrastructure has gone in. There are in many cases multiple of these things on loads of poles: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-this https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-thi...
- xxpor 6y ago
  god forbid infra has some infra on it
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Here in Germany we bury everything. I don't even want to imagine how long it takes to rebuild all of that when some drunkard crashes his car into one of these poles or a lightning strike hits.
  - hangonhn 6y ago
    I grew up in the Florida Keys where the water table is very close to the surface so it's impossible to bury anything. When I was a young teenager, we would lose electricity all the time from tree branches brushing up against the power lines. They finally solved the problem by putting in power lines on concrete poles that are a few stories up! No more squirrels and tree branches disputing power!
  - slopirate 6y ago
    A lot less time than when an earthquake snaps an underground cable.
  - ian-g 6y ago
    I could be wrong, but I'd worry about earthquakes severing the lines. This map[0] shows the major faults, but each one of those is a lot of small minor faults that all could snap things and shift. One small fault right by where I grew up is about three blocks long. Last I checked had one earthquake to its name: a magnitude 5.0 aftershock of Loma Prieta [0] https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5a6038b3a1684561a9b0aadf88412fcf https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id...
grumple 6y ago
SV residents really do complain about everything, huh? Try living in an east coast city, our aesthetic is a mess.

fnord77 6y ago

is the cellular deadspot on 101 just north of redwood city still there?

gopalv 6y ago
Are you thinking about the area just around the SFO landing zone? I thought that was less of a "won't" and more of a "can't" between the lack of taller building towers and the radio interference zone for the airport means the directional antennas skip a slice there. This will probably get fixed if 5G becomes a proper thing and there's a lot of micro-cells along the "bay area's biggest parking lot".

jedberg 6y ago

NIMBYism at its finest. Cupertino did not allow cell phone towers for a very long time. The only one was an ATT tower on the top of Infinite Loop, right on the Sunnyvale border. The people who would call their provider about bad cell coverage in their house are the same people that would go to city hall and demand that no cell towers be built in the city.

astrange 6y ago
It’s amusing seeing Cupertino city council transcripts about this because the people show up claiming 5G gives them cancer and the city council desperately tries to get them to use better excuses so they can approve denying it. Makes a change from the city council members usual practice of denying Vallco permits and claiming Apple employees are hiring prostitutes and molesting high school students. (I did not make this up.)
- derivagral 6y ago
  Are these transcripts online?
  - astrange 6y ago
    Only informally as far as I know. https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1125959134329708545 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1125959134329708545 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1154781703262498816 https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1154781703262498816

hangonhn 6y ago

Palo Alto has its own municipal fiber program: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/utl/business/programs/fibernet.asp https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/utl/business/progra... Wonder if someone should take them up on it.

dbt00 6y ago
It’s only for commercial use. As much as I’d love to be able to drop a node in to peer at paix for my house ...
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  I know people with Palo Alto Fiber running to their house. They were hosting websites out of their garage years ago (I think archive.org for a while.), but today it's just residential, so it's very much possible.