Seattle has Condo Internet and Cascade Link. Both provide gigabit. The Gigabit Squared thing fell apart.
Condo Internet uses a combination of microwave and fiber to provide connectivity to the buildings that they service. They only target apartments/condos, since building the infrastructure to individual residences is not worth it.
"They only target apartments/condos, since building the infrastructure to individual residences is not worth it."
So the definite haves of the city will continue to have amazing access to this world-changing network that we call the Internet and the rest of the city can go screw itself. The vast majority of Seattle's housing stock is in single-family and small multi-family dwellings. Holding up a couple of providers that cherry-pick the easiest ones does not make for a broadband plan, especially when a lot of those SFH-style dwellings are rented by people, either wholly or by the room, who couldn't afford the prices of the very expensive buildings served by CondoInternet or Cascade. Sure, those folks (who aren't all flat broke and destitute, just don't make a quarter-million per year) can suck it up and deal with Comcast and caps and horrible customer service so long as the condo-dwellers get 1Gbps service in addition to their unobstructed views of the Space Needle.
The vast majority of Seattle's housing stock is in single-family and small multi-family dwellings
1. That's primarily a political choice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7344438. One could argue that SFH residents are already telling everyone who wants to live in Seattle but can't afford to, to screw themselves.
2. It's much cheaper per unit to deploy fiber to apartments and condos than it is to single-family houses; it seems unlikely that most residents of such housing would want to pay the true cost of the rollout.
From the linked map, a sizable chunk of Seattle is zoned Lowrise (LR1/LR2/LR3), which is multifamily zoning. Is it the fault of the people who already live there that they haven't torn down their houses and built three townhomes on that lot?
> it seems unlikely that most residents of such housing would want to pay the true cost of the rollout.
Great, I'd love to talk to a company that provides gigabit service in Seattle who will provide a gigabit link to my residence and charge me no more than $2,000 for the install. (Why $2,000? I dunno, out of thin air, I suppose.) "But that's not the true cost of the rollout?" Awesome, and the subscribers to CondoInternet didn't pay the massive up-front cost for their links, either.
Here's my main complaint: People hold up CondoInternet and say "look, look, Seattle has gigabit Internet, why are you still complaining?" That's not anywhere close to answering the underlying discussion. Even if everyone who wanted gigabit could afford to live in those places, they wouldn't physically hold all of the people. It's like the FCC saying that one person in a ZIP code has DSL so the entire area "has broadband."
The debate over SFH versus multifamily is a good one, and I'd love it to tilt in favor of multifamily. But ignoring 95% of a city's residents is not the way to go about getting better access. Hell, even Comcast manages to cover the majority of Seattle with 50Mbps speeds.
Being in a condo that has Condo Internet myself, there really isn't much need for Google Fiber. Instead we get a local and responsive company with actual 24 hour tech support that provides high speed, low latency connectivity for $60.
Agreed. I've been a CondoInternet customer for a while, and have had an incredibly positive experience. They even just announced a promotion on their gigabit plan for $80 a month with no contract.
However, it is a pity that it's restricted to condos and large apartment complexes right now. It would be great if services like this were ubiquitous. Gigabit availability was a large factor in my decision of where to live.
However, it is a pity that it's restricted to condos and large apartment complexes right now. It would be great if services like this were ubiquitous
One obvious solution is to relax zoning rules in Seattle; a lot more condos and apartment complexes would be built if it were legal to do so, and the benefits would extend far beyond fiber connections (see, for example, Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High or Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more).
If you're asking because you're wondering how bad the latency is, remember that microwave is the speed of light and the most direct route between two points. It'll be better than fiber, all other things being equal. It's possible the bandwidth isn't up to snuff, but latency shouldn't be a problem.
I'm guessing these microwave links are short enough to blast through poor atmospheric conditions that are very common in a place like Seattle. At greater distances from the provider packet loss (resulting latency problems) could be a legitimate concern.
Are there any places with Condo Internet that might be considered affordable? Something less than $400,000, or $1300 a month rent? I'd be willing to move for this, but so far I've only seen it available in the $2000/month range.
I've been wondering the same thing - I live in a small studio now for an extremely low price, but have been considering upgrading for a multitude of reasons, including going from 12mbit Centurylink (the best I can get in my building) to gigabit Condointernet. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem possible to rent at a Condointernet served building for under $1800, which is a bit more than I'd like to pay (especially when I manage to eek by for under $700 with all utilities included).
Condo Internet uses a combination of microwave and fiber to provide connectivity to the buildings that they service. They only target apartments/condos, since building the infrastructure to individual residences is not worth it.