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For the past year the city of Seattle has been hyping "gigabit seattle" as the solution. The idea is that a private group would get access to city fiber at/near

For the past year the city of Seattle has been hyping "gigabit seattle" as the solution. The idea is that a private group would get access to city fiber at/near cost and manage the actual service. The private group in this case is Gigabit Squared. As far as I can tell Gigabit Squared is a sham. They have no previous completed projects. The dates and milestones reported to the press and recorded in the city meetings, like the CTTAB, are woefully different. Event the dates in the press are terribly vauge, and keep slipping anyways. First it was "in 2013", then "late 2013", and now it's "in 2014." My neighbor has been trying to get implementation details for the past year. The Seattle mayors office said "contact our partner". Emails and phone calls to Gigabit Squared went unanswered. She then went to the mayors office, complaining that the "partner" was unresponsive. The reply? "We cant help you. You have to talk to gigabit squared for any details." Last I looked they were missing little things like an ASN, network engineers, an operations group, facilities, outside plant techs and trucks. Their jobs page was a generic "ask about exciting opportunities". I find it a bit incredible that they could feasibly be launching a network of this scope inside of a year. I hope it actually works, I'd love to stop giving money to Comcast. But what I see so far is another Seattle Monorail Project.

philwelch 13y ago
The Seattle monorail was a victim of the hand-wringing, consensus-seeking, do-nothing Seattle process. It came up for a vote four times and won three. If you want that kind of stagnation, Murray's your man.
specialist 13y ago
Thank you for digging into Gigabit Squared. Very interesting. I'll ask McGinn next chance I get. But I'll wait until after Tuesday, in case its moot. An acquaintance started a group to promote better broadband. http://uptun.org http://uptun.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/uptun/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/uptun/ Looks like he hasn't gotten past the angry yelling phase of organizing. The monorail would have succeeded if the Powers That Be wanted it. But none did. I've heard numerous theories for why the monorail died. (eg Weren't provided an accurate head count, so the projected tax revenue was off, which borked the credit rating, which led to higher cost of capital, which spiked the project. Not that I understand these things.) I'm sure there's some truth to most stories. The closest I can figure, unlike Sound Transit's light rail and Bezo's fancy new trolley car, the monorail didn't trigger a rezoning, which would have lead to higher property taxes, which is local government's back door way to raise revenue in the face of the anti-tax jihadists. So there was no reason for a sitting politician to put some muscle behind the effort. A friend from Chicago has joked that the monorail would have happened if Seattle was more corrupt. Big capital expense projects, patronage, pork, jobs for unions, etc. In that neither the monorail or gigabit have juice behind them, they've very similar.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  The fact that it didn't happen means that the people it would have been transporting aren't worth the investment from an economic perspective. In the case of corruption, the city would unwittingly be investing in it's poorest citizens at a deficit to itself. -(-1) is 1.
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
The monorail, if completed, would have been of dubious value to the city. I mean, c'mon, billions of dollars to transport people from Ballard to West Seattle? At least the gigabit internet service offers a clear value proposition: 'gigabit internet service for less than you're paying for Comcast or (god forbid) Broadstripe.' And while we're on the subject, I voted against the tunnel. I think the tunnel is a terrible idea. All that said, I voted for McGinn and I still think he's going to lose terribly on Tuesday.
- specialist 13y ago
  You may feel different if you commuted Ballard-Downtown. Standing room only, even before the service cuts. Have you seen the plans for the Seattle Street Car? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Streetcar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Streetcar Please note the Green and Purple lines. Kinda looks like 1/2 of the monorail project plan. The capital cost of the monorail was ~$1.4b. What killed the project was the finance package, totaling ~$12b. Still less per mile than any surface solution. Sadly, the monorail is starting to look like a bargain.
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    Also totally useless...so far. However I think Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square will be nice for me. Big, important difference is that the SLUT cost $50mm. No reason to expect future lines will be much different in price. I'd much rather have a half dozen 50mm projects than a single billion dollar boondoggle. http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/about/docs/faqCosts.pdf http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/about/docs/faqCosts.pdf
    - avn2109 13y ago
      The Californians in the room are laughing at these numbers because they're used to spending $3.5 million bucks _per calendar day_ on transit projects. Makes Seattle look OK. [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/14/local/la-me-bullet-risks-20120514 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/14/local/la-me-bullet-r...
mattgrice 13y ago
I don't fully understand how the decision was made which neighborhoods will be built out. It is obviously not based on demand because the coverage areas [1] include every single one of Seattle's poorest neighborhoods[2] and virtually none of the richest. Even if you don't know Seattle neighborhoods, there are obvious clues in the map. It seems almost gerrymandered to avoid including non-industrial waterfront. Some of those choices make sense to me (the UW, students are poor). Others less so. I would estimate a majority of the area covered is in lower than average income areas -- the U district and southeast Seattle. It is obvious that there was some non-market-based decision making here. I am OK with that and Seattleites tend to be as well. I don't think infrastructure should be limited to the rich or that a fiber vendor should be allowed to cherry pick neighborhoods. However I wonder if the right balance was struck. My suspicion is the 'highest bidder' was picked in part by how many low income neighborhoods they were willing to deploy in, and I fear this has resulted in choosing an organization that overbid because they didn't actually understand what it would take to be successful. Or worse yet is not even going to be capable of doing the buildout. I'd love to be proven wrong. [1] http://gigabitseattle.com/areas/ http://gigabitseattle.com/areas/ [2] http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/seattle-area/68512d1284998127-there-map-seattle-price-seattle-median.jpg http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/seattle-area/6851...
- donavanm 13y ago
  IIRC the choice to favor neighborhoods like central, chinatown, and beacon hill was intentional. The thinking was that the traditional franchise agreements allowed incumbents to choose to compete in the neighborhoods with the greatest disposable income. Other nieghborhoods were left to providers, like broadstripe and clear, that were unable to provide the significant capital outlays required for infrastructure upgrades. Over the past few decades this led to significant divergence of infrastructure, and ultimately capabilities, between neighborhoods. One of the "funny" things about Gigabit Seattle is that the last mile is actually supposed to be wireless. Much like that other network pioneer of Seattle, Clearwire.

philwelch 13y ago

The Seattle monorail was a victim of the hand-wringing, consensus-seeking, do-nothing Seattle process. It came up for a vote four times and won three. If you want that kind of stagnation, Murray's your man.

specialist 13y ago

Thank you for digging into Gigabit Squared. Very interesting. I'll ask McGinn next chance I get. But I'll wait until after Tuesday, in case its moot. An acquaintance started a group to promote better broadband. http://uptun.org http://uptun.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/uptun/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/uptun/ Looks like he hasn't gotten past the angry yelling phase of organizing. The monorail would have succeeded if the Powers That Be wanted it. But none did. I've heard numerous theories for why the monorail died. (eg Weren't provided an accurate head count, so the projected tax revenue was off, which borked the credit rating, which led to higher cost of capital, which spiked the project. Not that I understand these things.) I'm sure there's some truth to most stories. The closest I can figure, unlike Sound Transit's light rail and Bezo's fancy new trolley car, the monorail didn't trigger a rezoning, which would have lead to higher property taxes, which is local government's back door way to raise revenue in the face of the anti-tax jihadists. So there was no reason for a sitting politician to put some muscle behind the effort. A friend from Chicago has joked that the monorail would have happened if Seattle was more corrupt. Big capital expense projects, patronage, pork, jobs for unions, etc. In that neither the monorail or gigabit have juice behind them, they've very similar.

AsymetricCom 13y ago
The fact that it didn't happen means that the people it would have been transporting aren't worth the investment from an economic perspective. In the case of corruption, the city would unwittingly be investing in it's poorest citizens at a deficit to itself. -(-1) is 1.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

The monorail, if completed, would have been of dubious value to the city. I mean, c'mon, billions of dollars to transport people from Ballard to West Seattle? At least the gigabit internet service offers a clear value proposition: 'gigabit internet service for less than you're paying for Comcast or (god forbid) Broadstripe.' And while we're on the subject, I voted against the tunnel. I think the tunnel is a terrible idea. All that said, I voted for McGinn and I still think he's going to lose terribly on Tuesday.

specialist 13y ago
You may feel different if you commuted Ballard-Downtown. Standing room only, even before the service cuts. Have you seen the plans for the Seattle Street Car? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Streetcar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Streetcar Please note the Green and Purple lines. Kinda looks like 1/2 of the monorail project plan. The capital cost of the monorail was ~$1.4b. What killed the project was the finance package, totaling ~$12b. Still less per mile than any surface solution. Sadly, the monorail is starting to look like a bargain.
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Also totally useless...so far. However I think Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square will be nice for me. Big, important difference is that the SLUT cost $50mm. No reason to expect future lines will be much different in price. I'd much rather have a half dozen 50mm projects than a single billion dollar boondoggle. http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/about/docs/faqCosts.pdf http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/about/docs/faqCosts.pdf
  - avn2109 13y ago
    The Californians in the room are laughing at these numbers because they're used to spending $3.5 million bucks _per calendar day_ on transit projects. Makes Seattle look OK. [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/14/local/la-me-bullet-risks-20120514 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/14/local/la-me-bullet-r...

mattgrice 13y ago

I don't fully understand how the decision was made which neighborhoods will be built out. It is obviously not based on demand because the coverage areas [1] include every single one of Seattle's poorest neighborhoods[2] and virtually none of the richest. Even if you don't know Seattle neighborhoods, there are obvious clues in the map. It seems almost gerrymandered to avoid including non-industrial waterfront. Some of those choices make sense to me (the UW, students are poor). Others less so. I would estimate a majority of the area covered is in lower than average income areas -- the U district and southeast Seattle. It is obvious that there was some non-market-based decision making here. I am OK with that and Seattleites tend to be as well. I don't think infrastructure should be limited to the rich or that a fiber vendor should be allowed to cherry pick neighborhoods. However I wonder if the right balance was struck. My suspicion is the 'highest bidder' was picked in part by how many low income neighborhoods they were willing to deploy in, and I fear this has resulted in choosing an organization that overbid because they didn't actually understand what it would take to be successful. Or worse yet is not even going to be capable of doing the buildout. I'd love to be proven wrong. [1] http://gigabitseattle.com/areas/ http://gigabitseattle.com/areas/ [2] http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/seattle-area/68512d1284998127-there-map-seattle-price-seattle-median.jpg http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/seattle-area/6851...

donavanm 13y ago
IIRC the choice to favor neighborhoods like central, chinatown, and beacon hill was intentional. The thinking was that the traditional franchise agreements allowed incumbents to choose to compete in the neighborhoods with the greatest disposable income. Other nieghborhoods were left to providers, like broadstripe and clear, that were unable to provide the significant capital outlays required for infrastructure upgrades. Over the past few decades this led to significant divergence of infrastructure, and ultimately capabilities, between neighborhoods. One of the "funny" things about Gigabit Seattle is that the last mile is actually supposed to be wireless. Much like that other network pioneer of Seattle, Clearwire.