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San Francisco's City-Wide Fiber Internet Plan is Delayed, Future in Doubt (arstechnica.com)

San Francisco's plan to build a city-wide gigabit fiber Internet service won't go forward this year, as city officials decided they need to do more research before asking voters to approve a ballot initiative. From a report: The universal broadband project "has suffered a setback as outgoing Mayor Mark Farrell will not place a tax measure on the November ballot to fund the project before he leaves office in the coming weeks," the San Francisco Examiner reported Sunday. The deadline for Farrell to submit the ballot initiative passed yesterday. In January, the city issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to find companies that are qualified to build the network. After examining the submissions, the city named three entities (Bay City Broadband Partners, FiberGateway, and Sonic Plenary SF Fiber) as "pre-qualified bidders."

4 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Wait by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...are you suggesting that we can't simply have everything we want when we want it, and just charge it on our credit card?

    Next you're going to say stuff costs money and we have to pay for it.

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    -Styopa
  2. Re:Why? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You answered your own question when you said "Comcast."

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  3. Re:yurope checking in by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Europeans and their quaint ideas on remote. There are spots in the US have may have dozen people in the area of an European country.
    The US is has the 3rd largest population, but is 50th in population density.

    So that means a lot more long last mile connections. So in Europe you can have the bulk of your population in a urban center, this allow it to be economically feasible to give a connection to a more remote area because the population of the remote area is much smaller.

    That isn't to say the US isn't at fault for being behind the times. We havn't had any leadership willing or able to shake up the big telecom companies and push them out for the greater good.

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  4. Re:Why? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comcast is accessible to people who are willing and able to pay for the service, We as customers are paying more for infrastructure that isn't going to our homes, as they will wire a community with only 50% may want to pay for the service. The wires are there, but they just decline service.

    Having a government ISP All people pay via taxes for internet, which is overall cheaper because everyone is paying, and more people would use it because they would have affordable access.

    Even if you buy a cabin in the woods and need to pay taxes for internet that you may not personally use, it will provider internet for that local grocery store who will process your credit card payment for food, update their inventory, so when you go on your away from it all vacation, you are not hunting for a place that you can buy that one thing you are missing.

    Internet today is a key infrastructure. Like our roads, electrical grid, plowing, police, fire protection... There is a benefit to you even if you are not actively using it.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.