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Lawrence, KS To Get Gigabit Fiber — But Not From Google
symbolset writes "Just 40 miles west on the Kansas Turnpike from Kansas City Kansas sits Lawrence, KS. With the slow rollout of Google fiber in their neighbor city, it was looking like their 89,000 people were not going to get the gigabit fiber to the home for quite some time. Up steps Wicked Broadband, a local ISP. With a plan remarkably similar to Google's they look to build out fiber to the home, business, and so on with gigabit speed and similar rates, symmetric bandwidth and no caps. Wicked Fiber's offer is different than Google Fiber's, with more tiers — with cute names. The "Flying Monkey" gigabit plan is $100/month, "Tinman" at 100Mbps is $70/month. They offer TV as well but strangely put Internet streaming and Roku to the fore. They are even using Google's method of installing first in the neighborhoods with the most pre-registration to optimize efficiency, and installing only where there is enough demand. It seems Google's scheme to inspire competition in broadband access is working — if Wicked Fiber gets enough subscribers to make it pay. If this succeeds it may inspire similar ISPs near us to step up to gigabit fiber so let's root for them."
Way too high? That $70 a month is only about $10 a month more than what it costs to get a 5mbps connection around here. Probably a bit more depending upon the taxes involved.
I'm paying $60 a month for 20 Mbps - $70 for 5 times as much? $100 for 50 times as much? Not to mention by 'Symmetric bandwidth' I assume upstream = downstream speeds. It's no Google but it still isn't a bad deal.
That's still way too high.
Don't buy it then. Duh.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'd pay that and giggle happily while doing it. I'd love to pay 100 dollars a month for great service rather than 50 a month for shit service.
The company rebranded themselves from FreeNET and have a really bad track record delivering what they promise. They have "free" wifi all around the city including hotspots that haven't been maintained for years. One would hope that Google does their research and comes to Lawrence despite the local attempt.
I hate to tell you, but the incumbent providers can cherry pick too, and have for quite some time. My neighborhood has no cable as an option, but its a mile in any direction. And good luck even trying to figure out who at ATT you can talk to about getting a remote DSLAM in your neighborhood so you can get decent internet speeds.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I am paying $100 a month for a "10MB" DSL going 56k speeds. Welcome to Juneau, Alaska. You actually have it good!
Google Fiber is working and doing what it is mean to do, get the US out of the Internet stone age by forcing other companies to get real about Internet service. Bandwidth is insanely cheap anywhere except residential or small business because they artificially limit their own capacity. Google has years of experience managing fiber (they bought a /lot/ of the dark fiber back after .com crash) and knows there isn't any legitimate reason to keep things as they are.
Cable companies have been pushing back at Google (youtube etc) claiming that they use too much of their available bandwidth and trying to justify charging Google extortion money for extra bandwidth. Google has a choice, they can pay the extortion money to companies that refuse to honor network neutrality or they can spend the money on rolling out their own fiber. Google is demonstrating to the cable companies that their position is not insurmountable and that if they have to they will simply go around them.
I didn't know Monster Cable made Pringles!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I'm paying $60 a month for 20 Mbps - $70 for 5 times as much? $100 for 50 times as much? Not to mention by 'Symmetric bandwidth' I assume upstream = downstream speeds. It's no Google but it still isn't a bad deal.
Just to compare prices worldwide, here in Serbia, I get fiber to home 20/10 for $28.20 and could get 120/60 for about about $70 (around 54 EUR). Gigabit plans are available ("where available") but prices are not advertised publicly. So, the prices they get in Lawrence, KS are as good as in third-worldish (for lack of a better word for a European country which is neither Switzerland nor a part of EU) Serbia, and I am not sure what to make out of it...
The guys that run this company are a bit sketchy. They've been involved in other internet provider companies in Lawrence that never delivered what they promised. Most in Lawrence are a little leery of this deal.
As others from the area point out, these guys have a track record of big dream-can't implement. "Lawrence Freenet", "Community Wireless Corp", "Wicked", etc. Spotty customer service record at best. Several different schemes to try to beg money out of city hall.
The reason this rinky-dink stuff keeps working? The town is desperate. Highly educated, highly tech-savvy. But, the local cable provider was owned for years by the local newspaper. They had bandwidth caps in place 15 years ago! And not a 'throttle' if you went over. A 'holy crap $300 bill' if you went over. The cable company got sold a few years back, but it's historically been bad enough to make you wish TWC/Cox/Comcast would take over. AT&T is the incumbent telco, but only pulled U-Verse to a couple neighborhoods before stopping.
I put in my $10, expecting that it's a scam and I won't see anything as a result. Consider it my sign of complaint. But, I used a one-time credit card number to send the $10... that's how little I trust these guys.