There’s a fat pipe laying beneath Seattle. Now we have a plan to put it to use in a trial that is planned to bring a municipal high-speed fiber network to twelve neighborhoods by fall 2013 — including most of Capitol Hill and the Central District.
The lowdown: Seattle mayor Mike McGinn today announced an agreement with broadband developer Gigabit Squared to operate a high-speed fiber network in Seattle in 12 neighborhoods using the city’s unused “dark fiber” network.
No details on pricing have been announced but the company working on the project promises the various service levels offered will be comparable to competitors like Comcast and Qwest. Speeds will top out around 20 MBPS up to 1 gigabit per second. Just think of how much more CHS you’ll be able to enjoy!
The plan includes a wireless component to bring fast internet service to apartments and condo buildings in the service areas.
While the news could be exciting for geeks around most of the Hill — sorry for anybody around Stevens east of 15th Ave and north of Pike/Pine — it’s especially welcome news in the Central District where residents have suffered with subpar service from commercial providers for decades.
Here’s the full press release:
It is not a municipal service. The agreement is due to the failure of creating a municipal broadband network.
An interesting (I think :) ) discussion on the use of “municipal” in this post here on the CHS Facebook page
While it has been true that under Broadstripe, internet service in the CD was awful, that has recently changed. I just installed service with Wave Broadband a couple of months ago. I now have 50 Mbps download speeds at a reasonable price. While it’s nice to see the city use this fiber option, people in the CD don’t have to wait for this to get fast internet service. It’s already here.
Just FYI Qwest stopped being Qwest more than a year ago and is now CenturyLink.
And for the better part of $60 you can have Wave’s broadband. It works well however I’m not sure that it’s such a good bargain.
Qwest, Centurylink, USWest, whatever – it’s all just a welfare program for inept “marketing” and “branding” slugs.
Four names in 30 years, and the only thing they know how to do is raise rates.
What rates have they raised over the last several years? (Specifically). The trend in local exchange carrier pricing has been towards lower pricing for literally 10+ years or more. Am I missing something? They can’t afford to raise prices, there are too many competitors now.
[…] The plan for laying a fat pipe to much of Capitol Hill and the Central District is a gigabit or two closer to fruition. […]
[…] The plan for laying a fat pipe to much of Capitol Hill and the Central District is a gigabit or two closer to fruition. […]
[…] In December Mayor Mike McGinn unveiled his plan to tap the city’s unused “fat pipe” of fiber optic cable to bring uber high-speed internet into Seattle’s homes and businesses. Housing dense Capitol Hill and Central District were among the 14 neighborhoods selected for the trial service that will feature a partnership with Washington D.C.-based service provider Gigabit Squared. […]