Hacker News Reader

Comment by 8ytecoder | Hacker News Reader

Bay Area’s fiber and broadband network is a joke. That it’s the tech capital of the world makes it so much worse. Things are improving - I got fiber in 2020 - and speeds are trending upwards with some local completion. AT&T and Comcast are finally getting a bit better with speed. Coverage still sucks. Number of available options still suck. Not to mention weird collusions between Comcast and apt management companies and other anti-competitive behaviour. Then there’s PG&E using various excuses to block using their poles to expand the network.

It’s terrible.

View on HN

The future is here, it's just (very) unevenly distributed. There's an IPX in downtown San Francisco so if you have the money for it, you can get 10-gig business class Internet. But if you're principled and don't want to get Comcast, and are in a shorter building so you can't get monkey brains, the local WISP, you get DSL, even in the heart of San Francisco so a friend is on 3Mbit down/128kbps up. Watching streaming at her place is a roll of the dice, so I torrent it at my place and walk it over on a USB drive. She pays for Paramount+ which is where the show we're watching is on, so monetarily I'm okay with myself.

Yep, completely terrible. My only high-speed choice in a well-developed neighborhood in San Francisco is 1000/35 from Comcast (not like I ever see that 1000, though). AT&T's fiber trunk is a block away from me, but they want $20k+ to run that fiber to my home.

Apparently Comcast has been experimenting/offering higher upload speeds for a while now, but it's still not available where I am.

As a non resident, perhaps it's a good thing. Advanced people eat dogfood with slow connection.

There is something to be said for this. Didn't Marissa Mayer refuse to get broadband at home for a long time to make sure the tech she was managing was usable on dialup?

No, you don't understand. The offices have gigabit connections…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com