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Santa Cruz's plan for a ubiquitous fiber-to-home network

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50 pointssteven46 comments

Oh Santa Cruz how I miss you. And now with fiber, even more reason to return.

I'm not sure why it works that way, but you go looking for surf at Ocean beach and you wind up in Santa cruz. Santa Cruz turns any crappy surf day into perfect waves. Only problem is there are about 50 other people there surfing too & they all know each other, but still.. such great surfing!

And now with fiber. What could be better?

Indeed; we currently go to the University of California, Santa Cruz, when we need a speedy connection. : o )

In 2015, I was getting 96Mbps download from their freely accessible CruzNet campus wireless network.

It's hilarious. They only have 10 Mib/s in the on-campus housing, but if you go to any lecture hall after hours you can get 100 Mib/s or so (synchronous!) over the wifi. Good luck getting anything but dropped packets over that same wifi network when the lecture hall is full, though.

It beats the camper park, I guess (?):

"The camper park receives no direct Ethernet service. It does have CruzNet service via a wireless access point installed on a light pole. Residents can utilize USB wifi extenders to receive a signal in their residence." http://its.ucsc.edu/resnet/cable-plant.html

That's Mb or Mbit, not Mib. "mibi", the binary mega, is 1024 * 1024, which is almost never used for data transmission rates given in bits.

Tor likes mibi

I measure my data transmission rates by timing how long it takes to transfer 100 MiB of random noise, so I do end up with mibi rather than mega unless I do extra maths.

It sucks so bad I actually made a site a few years ago to acknowledge how terrible it is: http://slugishnet.appspot.com/

If you can get access to an office with ethernet you can get 800mbits+. Certainly made use of that my last quarter there.

I went to UCSC from 2010-2014. One of the most amazing experiences.

The town itself is riddled with problems -- many people either love it or hate it. It's infrastructure cannot handle it's popularity. I would argue it's housing issues are even worse than San Francisco's if you're a student. I know many students who live out of their van, and not just to be grungey and cool.

I would return if I had the opportunity, but I feel like as a non-student I would look at it with a more critical eye.

How tough are the local police against folks living out of vans? I'm over here in Portugal. Here it's a breeze. I've got a decent motorhome & have all the basics -- living in it with my girlfriend and a dog. It's our little home. 15Mbit 3g internet is just a euro a GB. Not bad. And it'd be faster if I upgraded to 4g.

A few left turns and who knows, maybe I'd be back in the bay area. Living out of a van vs. paying SF rent seems pretty good -- waking up near some great SC surf sounds very good -- if it's not too much hassle from the police. Lots of nature spots around Santa Cruz. Any of those spots OK for a camper?

The July 2015 "Santa Cruz Waves" issue had an article by Peter Gregg, page 76, which talks about living out of a van and surfing, in Portugal:

https://issuu.com/santacruzwaves/docs/scw2.1/1

Seems to speak highly of the Portugal surf scene. : o )

Portugal is nice. No problems for having a camper & traveling by camper. The waves so far have not been too great. Too much wind. Everyone says it's not normal weather. I hope it gets back on course soon. Until then, there is some hiking.

There have been people living "off grid" and being apart of the community for decades. At the same time, there are people here who are addicts living in their vehicles who also commit crimes/prey on neighborhoods. For those people, neighbors aren't putting up with it.

That said, the community also seems to be getting different treatment from the Coastal Commission as mentioned here:

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/government-and-politics/201...

As someone who lives just off Highway 1 on the Santa Cruz west side (closer to the University of California, Santa Cruz), at least our household has looked forward to this with excitement, for some time now. : o )

Currently using local ISP Cruzio's Velocity Internet + Phone ADSL (Residential)[1], which, due to distance from the nearest telephone exchange, delivers ~1.0 Mb/s. Note: those closest to the telephone exchanges get speeds up to 75 Mb/s; first world problems, for sure.

We chose to support the local ISP, rather than throw money at Comcast/AT&T, so we've accepted the performance. Note: Comcast[2] and AT&T[3] seem to have their own troubles/past performance issues, in the area.

In 2015, Cruzio began surveying existing customers, regarding prioritizing fiber buildout plans[4]. It seems you can still view results/vote and even help champion your local area, online.[5]

[1] http://cruzio.com/services/broadband/economy/

[2] http://downdetector.com/status/comcast-xfinity/santa-cruz

[3] http://downdetector.com/status/att/santa-cruz

[4] http://cruzio.com/santa-cruz-fiber/

[5] https://cruzio.servicezones.net/santacruz

If the number of homes is significant, you can bet that Comcast and friends will hurry to make offers themselves, now that someone is becoming a viable alternative. It's happened the same way in Germany too. Zero activity up until a local effort is started to build lines.

In line with your comment: in September 2015, regional publication "Santa Cruz Tech Beat" published a special report, by Steve Blum of Tellus Venture Associates, titled, "Santa Cruz Muni Fiber Threat Forces Comcast Upgrade":

http://www.santacruztechbeat.com/2015/09/23/santa-cruz-muni-...

TL;DR: "Before the upgrade, the best that Comcast could reliably deliver in the Santa Cruz area was less than 25 Mbps download and somewhere between 1.5 Mbps and 3 Mbps upload speeds.... Comcast routinely advertized and sold Santa Cruz subscribers its faster 150 Mbps service. According to a story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, when pushed to the wall, Comcast gave refunds and discounts to customers, but apparently only to those who went to the trouble of complaining to the district attorney, the CPUC or other regulatory agencies."

how are the local WISP's in the area?

We actually seriously considered using a WISP (wireless Internet service provider). Cruzio offers "Business Broadband"[1], with "50 Mbps typical download and upload speeds" and the sales representative suggested we use that, instead.

At the time (early 2015, I think?) Cruzio had just finished installing a wireless presence on/near the old Wrigley Gum building (now a business park). They visited our site, to see whether we had line-of-sight to their antenna, and Cruzio engineers concluded they couldn't guarantee service, due to some trees.

So, it fell through, for us, but working with Cruzio staff has always seemed like a positive experience.

I'm not sure what other WISPs exist, but that's our story.

[1] http://cruzio.com/services/broadband/business/

Line of site, 20Mbit Symmetric is ~$99/mo. Real speeds, typically above that. But does require line of site to the handful of locations they have.

Talk to cruzio about point to point wifi if you are line of sight of the Wrigley plant.

@jmspring--please see my earlier reply, to @beachstartup; thank you. I enjoyed reading your successful history. : o )

I saw that after I commented -- long day and didn't scroll.

Even here, there is the concern about some "neighbor trees", but they put it in and I will double check things as trees grow.

I live in Santa Cruz and have for over 25 years, visiting for longer, friends with people who have been here generations. I live on the east side of town near where Hwy 1 and 17 meet. For years, I have various DSL offerings (sonic.net was one), through one of the local trunks I was able to get 6Mbps down, 768kbps up. It was...yeah, no.

A couple of years back, Cruzio started putting up point to point Wifi. They started on the North (west) side of town at the old Wrigley Building. A former colleague was one of the early residential customers. 20Mbps/sec @ $99/year. Real speeds, a bit higher (using speediest).

I was the first to sign up in my neighborhood when they eventually lit up the 911 center. Their network engineer lives a few blocks from me, he was the first over here :)

20Mbps/sec allows me to work well from home. Fiber would be a good thing. It will take awhile for Fiber to be fully deployed, so I suspect I will stay on the direct Wifi for a few years.

Do I see this changing the economic development outlook for Santa Cruz? No. The University is the biggest employer, has a great deal of real estate around town and pays no property taxes and hasn't built enough housing to keep up with enrollment. The growth of administrators to staff/students is another issue.

Santa Cruz is mostly built out. There are a lot of infill projects going in Santa Cruz, but the uptick in actual tech isn't where it was 2000s. There aren't really any large employers like there were then. Amazon has a small presence, Full Power has been here awhile, Imprivata has a presence, Looker, Cruzio and Next Space have incubators. Apple and Google have shuttles -- yeah, no.

Santa Cruz has serious social ills as well. It has had a tolerance for "alternative lifestyles", but the weather, the tolerance, and a blind eye being turned have made things a cesspool too. Prior to the 89 quake and even into the 90s, most of the homeless here were the older drunks, maybe a vet, who were down on their luck. Meth and heroin have taken over, gang issues, the local police blotter is a revolving door of many of the same names -- several (many homeless) arrive here from other areas. Private residents are having to invest in alarms and camera systems. Local hotels are telling people not to leave their bikes on their cars even when parked in a monitored lot.

Where things go, I don't know. Personally, I see my days here as being on the decline.

I wonder if it's too late for fiber, with companies like starry talking about working phased-array technology delivering hundred of megabits at low install costs?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601442/wireless-super-fas...

Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070584

What might you say to the Starry skeptics (?) For example: "hurdles of needing line of sight, weather and obstacle sensitivity, degradation due to exposure, antenna positioning and leasing space, plus all the required maintenance."

If Santa Cruz had the will and might, what would stop it from becoming "New San Francisco"? Seems to me that creating a competing city is easier and quicker than reforming one.

How do you define "might"? I mean, if you mean by that, the concentration of wealth, talent, and established industry players that San Francisco has, then, sure, if they had that, they could easily become the New San Francisco.

The question is how they would ever get the might?

> Seems to me that creating a competing city is easier and quicker than reforming one.

Santa Cruz is an existing city, and apparently one that you propose reforming into your ideal of what San Francisco should be. Why is that easier to reform that existing city than San Francisco?

Several possible limiting factors:

1) Population - As of 2013 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated Santa Cruz's population at 62,864 [1], versus ~860,000, for San Francisco alone, as of 2015.[2]

2) Water - "The SCWD currently has four water supply sources: 1) surface water diversions from three creeks and one natural spring on the Santa Cruz Country Coast; 2) surface water diversions from San Lorenzo River; 3) surface water from Loch Lomond Reservoir; 4) groundwater extracted from the Purisima Formation by the Live Oak well system."[3] The recent drought represented a sobering reality for residents, regarding capacity of the existing system.

3) Geography - Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on this might weigh in, on this, but the area comprises a number of marine terraces; you go from ocean to hilly redwoods in about three miles, or less, with most people living primarily on the marine terrace plateaus. You could develop it, I guess (?)

It's a gem, for sure, and not saying it's impossible; I guess we'd have to define the characteristics of what a New SF would represent, for you. : o )

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_California

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

[3] http://www.ucsc.edu/conserving-water/water-supply.html

Water is the biggest limiting factor. The campus has plans to expand further into the redwoods and build additional student housing, but can't do so without an adequate water supply. Currently their plans would further endanger local fish e.g. the smelt.

Santa Cruz hates building housing. It's worse than SF in that regard.

Source: Lived here 10 years.

Well, it's all built out and no existing property owner wants to have a 5-story monstrosity go up next door. The city is trying to prioritize condos and ADUs but that's a slow process.

It's not an easy problem to solve.

Yes a five story "monstrosity" that will block out the sun permanently leaving the city in darkness. Geez. The fact that you frame necessary housing that way is the problem.

The "corridors program" is ramming severs 3-4 story high density housing projects along several of the main arterial roads in the city, mostly on the east side.

Those proposing them and voting to support them do not live in the impacted area and throw up their hands when residents complain -- "we need housing".

So, am I reading this correctly when I come to the understanding that there is going to be a single company in control of delivering service on this wire? That seems like a recipe for more of the same, where a single provider has little incentive to price competitively or improve service in the absence of competition. You could probably decay from exciting internet to under-performing in as little as a decade.

On another note, can the trunk lines be kept to a relatively low capacity, and then scaled later, or is this not feasible? I'm wondering how much you have the chance in the implementation of this to start with limited bandwidth (but still very high for residential users) and then scale up once you have users and all the connections to the homes.

Definitely a valid concern. And ideally I think it would be more open to competition. Though at least with this it's creating competition for Comcast, which currently is the only way to get adequate internet here (and a lot of other places). Also the company (Cruzio) has been in the community for decades, is run by a local family, and has done a lot for the community over the years. They are way more connected to Santa Cruz then Comcast ever will be. Not to say they couldn't abuse this situation and that concern deserves a good response. I'm not affiliated with Cruzio, though I was a customer way back in the dialup days.

To add to the comments by @justinlaing:

"Under the terms of the partnership, the City will own the network, and Cruzio will act as the developer during engineering and construction and as the operator when the network is complete. Financing for the development of the network will be through City-backed municipal revenue bonds, repaid through the revenue from the sale of network services (and not by the taxpayers). The project will be financially self-sustaining and 100% of the profit generated will stay in the City of Santa Cruz." http://cruzio.com/2015/06/the-santa-cruz-fiber-project-2/

Comcast upgraded their network in Santa Cruz in response to this. Amazing what a little competition will do.

Who owns the poles?

If not the municipality, what is the cost to the city to use the utility poles?

Excellent question; thank you. I'd like to know, but I don't. At least one of the Supplemental documents, from the City of Santa Cruz December 2015 City Council meeting, mentioned microtrenching. I've also seen mention that they may have right-of-way via existing railway. That's about all I know.

Unable to understand why is the City partnering with one local ISP?

tn13, see @justinlaing, above, in response to yompers888, as a start.

The City of Santa Cruz has ~62,000 people, as of 2013. [1] A 2013 boosterism whitepaper, "Broadband Infrastructure in the Monterey Bay Region" [2] [note: published by an investor; salt ready (?)] describes some of the then-current issues experienced with larger broadband providers, which include Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and/or Charter Communications, depending on where you live in the greater Monterey Bay area.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_California

[2] http://www.tellusventure.com/downloads/ccbc/Broadband_Infras...

Who actually needs this? Why the corporations that want to sell people on-demand movies, TV and whatnot.

If you push the infrastructure in the name of "The Internet", you look like a saint.

The internet was pretty terrible in Santa Cruz when I lived there, so some competition can really help.

@kazinator, some people might prefer the ability to have video-conferencing sessions, from the comfort of the home and/or home office. That fills a real human need for connectedness.

The City of Santa Cruz December 08, 2015, City Council Meeting Agenda has a number of freely available Supporting Materials, which describe the case for the Cruzio public-private partnership:

http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?mee...

[1] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - Agenda Report

[2] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - CTC Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Financial Forecast Initial Report – July 2015

[3] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - CTC Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Financial Forecast Report Addendum – November 2015.pdf

[4] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - CTC Market Survey Analysis – November 2015

[5] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - Cruzio Internet, Inc. Market Survey Results – November 2015

[6] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - Public correspondence

[7] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - PowerPoint Presentation 1

[8] Santa Cruz Fiber Public-Private Partnership Approv - PowerPoint Presentation 2.pdf

[1] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[2] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[3] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[4] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[5] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[6] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[7] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

[8] http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=...

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