5 ms·

I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh. It seems pretty clear that tearing up New York City to lay fiber is a much more expensive and tedious proces

I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh. It seems pretty clear that tearing up New York City to lay fiber is a much more expensive and tedious process than it would be in Raleigh. The state and local governments also seem much more friendly to that kind of thing.

johnward 13y ago
Doesn't raleigh already have municipal fiber? I know there is fiber in in the RTP area.
- austintaylor 13y ago
  Nope. There is municipal fiber in Wilson, NC which is about an hour away (greenlightnc.com). I'm not sure about RTP. A crappy anti-muni broadband law was passed at the state level a couple of years ago (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/cable-backed-anti...), so apparently the network has to be run by a private company? There is joint initiative by local municipalities and universities to bring in a private company to run fiber (http://ncngn.net http://ncngn.net). It's not clear to me how this will be affected by the Google announcement. (They released a rather vague statement about it.)
  - johnward 13y ago
    Maybe I was thinking that they were going to get muni fiber but then they passed a law to not allow it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jseliger 13y ago
I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh Howdy neighbor: I live in NYC too. A lot of NYC already does have fiber in the form of FiOS. I'll also observe that NYC's overall Internet situation appears to be much better than many places; right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN. In Tucson, where I used to live, I was paying $70 for 12 down / 1 or 2 up. Google is presumably targeting the places with the crappiest service and the most amenable local governments; NYC's service isn't terrible and its government isn't exactly known for being responsive.
- mkaziz 13y ago
  RCN is a solid provider from what I hear. I'm JUST out of their coverage area and am consigned to Comcast. Tis a terrible fate.
  - jseliger 13y ago
    I'm JUST out of their coverage area and am consigned to Comcast. Tis a terrible fate. That hurts. We're looking for a new place to live and I have been asking landlords if their buildings get FiOS service. It doesn't seem to be an uncommon question, and the ones without it seem somewhat unhappy about the situation.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN And I'm paying $54 for 20 Mbs/down on Time Warner, which is already a "discounted rate". (I'm in Manhattan). The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too. I agree that New York City isn't the best target for Google Fiber, but the Internet situation here varies very heavily based on where in the city you live (not just the neighborhood, but which physical building and management company).
  - ericd 13y ago
    Hear hear. I've never been more frustrated about the ISP situation than when I lived in NYC. I have some friends that had such a bad experience with TWC (daily outages) that they voluntarily dropped down to ridiculously slow DSL, their only other option.
  - jimbokun 13y ago
    "The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too." Is your building rent controlled? If not, I suspect your landlord is short sighted. I am curious to see whether property values will start to diverge based on quality of internet access. With more people wanting to work from home, I think availability, speed, cost, and quality of Internet access will have an impact on property values. (Of course, you're in Manhattan, which means landlords can do almost anything and still charge insane rents, so this may not apply to you. Sorry.)
teach 13y ago
So far Google isn't "tearing up" anything; they've been targeting cities with overhead power lines they can piggyback.
- compuguy 13y ago
  I guess that cancels out cities and suburbs that have underground power lines.....
dublinben 13y ago
NYC is already quite full of fiber. It's just not accessible to residential customers. Some of the world's major internet exchanges are in NYC, as are any number of datacenters. Most large office buildings in NYC should have a fiber connection from one of the commercial providers.
SonicSoul 13y ago
i just checked online, and it said it was available in my zip code. got super excited, and called Verizon. after 20 minutes on hold I asked them if "Fios is available in my apartment" after which I was asked 20 personal questions and told that there is some "good news" and i'd be transferred to a "Verizon specialist", who asked me 10 more personal questions. Finally i was given a great introductory price of $59.99.. great!! and then he informed that Fios is not available in my apartment, but they can still give me reliable fast internet which will cover all those things i told them i was going to use it for. I told him that it was really misleading how I got conned into answering all these questions all for a marketing pitch of a service i didn't ask for, and the guy said that he was "upfront with me about Fios not being available in my area" he just needed to spend some time to perform this check.. WTF?! i feel so violated.. at some point i even asked how those questions are relevant to checking Fios availability, to which i was told "these are just part of standard questions i ask everyone" if you call Verizon, refuse to answer any questions until they tell you if Fios is available at your address.

johnward 13y ago

Doesn't raleigh already have municipal fiber? I know there is fiber in in the RTP area.

austintaylor 13y ago
Nope. There is municipal fiber in Wilson, NC which is about an hour away (greenlightnc.com). I'm not sure about RTP. A crappy anti-muni broadband law was passed at the state level a couple of years ago (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/cable-backed-anti...), so apparently the network has to be run by a private company? There is joint initiative by local municipalities and universities to bring in a private company to run fiber (http://ncngn.net http://ncngn.net). It's not clear to me how this will be affected by the Google announcement. (They released a rather vague statement about it.)
- johnward 13y ago
  Maybe I was thinking that they were going to get muni fiber but then they passed a law to not allow it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

jseliger 13y ago

I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh Howdy neighbor: I live in NYC too. A lot of NYC already does have fiber in the form of FiOS. I'll also observe that NYC's overall Internet situation appears to be much better than many places; right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN. In Tucson, where I used to live, I was paying $70 for 12 down / 1 or 2 up. Google is presumably targeting the places with the crappiest service and the most amenable local governments; NYC's service isn't terrible and its government isn't exactly known for being responsive.

mkaziz 13y ago
RCN is a solid provider from what I hear. I'm JUST out of their coverage area and am consigned to Comcast. Tis a terrible fate.
- jseliger 13y ago
  I'm JUST out of their coverage area and am consigned to Comcast. Tis a terrible fate. That hurts. We're looking for a new place to live and I have been asking landlords if their buildings get FiOS service. It doesn't seem to be an uncommon question, and the ones without it seem somewhat unhappy about the situation.
chimeracoder 13y ago
> right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN And I'm paying $54 for 20 Mbs/down on Time Warner, which is already a "discounted rate". (I'm in Manhattan). The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too. I agree that New York City isn't the best target for Google Fiber, but the Internet situation here varies very heavily based on where in the city you live (not just the neighborhood, but which physical building and management company).
- ericd 13y ago
  Hear hear. I've never been more frustrated about the ISP situation than when I lived in NYC. I have some friends that had such a bad experience with TWC (daily outages) that they voluntarily dropped down to ridiculously slow DSL, their only other option.
- jimbokun 13y ago
  "The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too." Is your building rent controlled? If not, I suspect your landlord is short sighted. I am curious to see whether property values will start to diverge based on quality of internet access. With more people wanting to work from home, I think availability, speed, cost, and quality of Internet access will have an impact on property values. (Of course, you're in Manhattan, which means landlords can do almost anything and still charge insane rents, so this may not apply to you. Sorry.)

teach 13y ago

So far Google isn't "tearing up" anything; they've been targeting cities with overhead power lines they can piggyback.

compuguy 13y ago
I guess that cancels out cities and suburbs that have underground power lines.....

dublinben 13y ago

NYC is already quite full of fiber. It's just not accessible to residential customers. Some of the world's major internet exchanges are in NYC, as are any number of datacenters. Most large office buildings in NYC should have a fiber connection from one of the commercial providers.

SonicSoul 13y ago

i just checked online, and it said it was available in my zip code. got super excited, and called Verizon. after 20 minutes on hold I asked them if "Fios is available in my apartment" after which I was asked 20 personal questions and told that there is some "good news" and i'd be transferred to a "Verizon specialist", who asked me 10 more personal questions. Finally i was given a great introductory price of $59.99.. great!! and then he informed that Fios is not available in my apartment, but they can still give me reliable fast internet which will cover all those things i told them i was going to use it for. I told him that it was really misleading how I got conned into answering all these questions all for a marketing pitch of a service i didn't ask for, and the guy said that he was "upfront with me about Fios not being available in my area" he just needed to spend some time to perform this check.. WTF?! i feel so violated.. at some point i even asked how those questions are relevant to checking Fios availability, to which i was told "these are just part of standard questions i ask everyone" if you call Verizon, refuse to answer any questions until they tell you if Fios is available at your address.