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In June, Google announced that it would acquire Webpass, an urban ISP that delivers ethernet drops rather than requiring cable or DSL modems. WebPass has fiber connections throughout its various cities ("San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston") and connects the last mile with a wireless connection to the customer's rooftop using point-to-point radios.

This is mentioned in TFA as well:

Google Fiber last month bought Webpass Inc., a company that beams internet service from a fiber-connected antenna to another antenna mounted on an apartment building. The company serves roughly 820 buildings in five cities.

Webpass already offers 100+mbps (up and down!) for $46/mo ($550/y or $60/mo) at the residential level, and I'm under the impression the speed is actually bottlenecked by the ethernet switching and cabling within each participating building rather than the wireless signal; they support up to 1Gbps using this model.

In June, Google announced that it would acquire Webpass, an urban ISP that delivers ethernet drops rather than requiring cable or DSL modems. WebPass has fiber connections throughout its various cities ("San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston") and connects the last mile with a wireless connection to the customer's rooftop using point-to-point radios.

This is mentioned in TFA as well:

Google Fiber last month bought Webpass Inc., a company that beams internet service from a fiber-connected antenna to another antenna mounted on an apartment building. The company serves roughly 820 buildings in five cities.

Webpass already offers 100+mbps (up and down!) for $46/mo ($550/y or $60/mo) at the residential level, and I'm under the impression the speed is actually bottlenecked by the ethernet switching and cabling within each participating building rather than the wireless signal; they support up to 1Gbps using this model.

In June, Google announced that it would acquire Webpass, an urban ISP that delivers ethernet drops rather than requiring cable or DSL modems. WebPass has fiber connections throughout its various cities ("San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston") and connects the last mile with a wireless connection to the customer's rooftop using point-to-point radios.

This is mentioned in TFA as well:

Google Fiber last month bought Webpass Inc., a company that beams internet service from a fiber-connected antenna to another antenna mounted on an apartment building. The company serves roughly 820 buildings in five cities.

Webpass already offers 100+mbps (up and down!) for $46/mo ($550/y or $60/mo) at the residential level, and I'm under the impression the speed is actually bottlenecked by the ethernet switching and cabling within each participating building rather than the wireless signal; they support up to 1Gbps using this model.

Took a look at their home page https://webpass.net/residentia... Compared to Verizon or Comcast, it's heaven on earth. A flat $550 a year, no asterisks, no teaser rates, no setup charges, no equipment rentals, no bundled content nobody wants, and free installation. I can't even tell what I'd have to pay Verizon to get the same service but I know it's at least twice that.

I pay $55/mo for 200+ Mbps, but the availability is pretty limited.
http://webpass.net/

Meanwhile, my provider offers 200mbps for 37.50/mo when you pay for a year up-front. Fiber internet rocks!

And no router, hub or any other network connection anywhere? Not in either image?

A lot of home and small business ISPs are providing modems with integrated routers. No visible network hardware could just mean everything is using the Wi-Fi signal from the ISP's modem.

Hah, the AT&T-supplied modem that he used to have is horrible. I hate it. In the article, he says that he had both the AT&T combination modem-router-WiFi device and a crappy Netgear router, but he replaced the Netgear with an Apple router and he replaced the modem with a subscription to Webpass. Note that he needed his apartment's owner to subscribe to Webpass before he could get Internet from it.

To be fair, I guess I should say that the Motorola modem-router-WiFi things that AT&T is buying now are better than what they used to send. It's still a somewhat annoying device. And plenty of 2Wire modems are still out there, because AT&T is definitely not going to spend money to replace them if they can get away with it.

In 2013 he does not have a microwave anymore? Seriously?

He updated the post to say that he still has a microwave, but it's now built into the wall.

And no router, hub or any other network connection anywhere? Not in either image?

Well, in the text, he says he used to have a DSL modem, but now he doesn't. That's because he replaced the horrible AT&T service and the expensive Comcast service with a nice Webpass account, that the apartment building's owner had to install. And he stopped paying for cable TV, so that's a major lifestyle change.

More amusingly, he replaced the unreliable Netgear crap with an Apple router, not in the picture.

Where has the microwave gone? I'm not aware of any technological developments since 2005 that has "converged" the microwave into any other device.

He updated the post to say that he still has a microwave; it has converged with the wall. So he's not able to pull it out for the photo shoot.

This is important. Mature technology becomes invisible. The microwave is not gone; it's part of the wall. The Internet adapter is not gone; the DSL modem has been replaced by the Webpass router in the apartment building's wiring closet. And we are gradually getting more of this, like networked lights and programmable washing machines.