[unruthless]

Awesome. One of those blue lines is close by, so I looked up my address in Sonic's availability tool[1], and sure enough: "Gigabit Fiber is coming to your location Service is scheduled to be available Dec 2017"

[1] https://www.sonic.com/availability

[axoltl]

I'm half a block away from one of the blue lines, unfortunately the tool's only presenting me with DSL... I love Sonic, but I used to have their DSL service and it wasn't great. Not Sonic's fault, but San Francisco's copper is pretty horrible.

These days I have a Comcast business account, but I'd take any chance to switch back to Sonic.

[wahern]

Sonic installed my fiber service late last year. Last week AT&T was hanging fiber on my street. I chatted with the lineman and he was upfront (unsolicited, even!) that the only reason he was out there was because Sonic forced AT&T's hand. Previously AT&T was building out FTTN infrastructure in places like Mission Bay, but he said they've completely ditched that strategy and are switching to FTTH. However, Sonic appears to be methodically rolling out fiber street-by-street. The lineman said AT&T had him installing fiber in a more-or-less haphazard manner. I guess AT&T is literally freaking out, trying to catch up and perhaps head-off Sonic as best they can.

Anyhow, point being, while Sonic's methodical rollout might mean they are unlikely to reach you anytime soon if they've already passed you by, keep an eye on the AT&T trucks. They may decide to systematically install service to the areas Sonic misses, or inexplicably serve your street before another. AT&T is charging $90/month to Sonic's $40/month, with less guaranteed throughput, so it's particularly attractive for them to serve a block Sonic misses.

$90/month is still amazing, but I think AT&T's strategy is going to be much like Comcast's: $90/month for internet only, or $95/month for internet + network television. Either way you're going to be paying for the network television. But they want to induce you to be "officially" served so they have something to sell to the networks and advertisers.

[toast0]

> The lineman said AT&T had him installing fiber in a more-or-less haphazard manner. I guess AT&T is literally freaking out, trying to catch up and perhaps head-off Sonic as best they can.

When ATT did my street (in San Jose), they had cables labeled and made for each street with the right length drops to connect at each pole. It may seem haphazard, but there's enough planning in getting the cables made that there's probably some reason to the madness. Their FTTN was a mess of different speed tiers, many of which wouldn't be available for a given user, perhaps the precise cabling reduced costs enough for FTTH to be cost competitive enough to get installed instead.

[ThatDan]

Glad it worked!

I was spot-checking various addresses but Sonic's captcha makes it painful. Interestingly there seems to be no correlation to when a permit was pulled vs when service is actually available. There are addresses covered by permits from last year that aren't serviceable until 2018!

[samstave]

Budgeting? Staffing skills? Cautious entry? Revenue ROI projection validation?

Could be a range of factors....

Having the permit doesnt mean the fiber is pulled.

Fiber puller could be a third party installer and the negotiate contract cost/schedule/other legal-BS

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I recall seeing some guys in 2012 up near 21st and Market, above castro - noe valley border, installing fiber. I stopped and asked them who tey were pulling the fiber for and the said "google" -- although google still doesnt have any residential fiber in that area that I know of... I could only think it was more for a "googler" as opposed to "google" or a "google user" -- or the guy was BSing...

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Anyway, permit doent mean the lines are slpliced/polished/terminated and that they have equipment to light them up yet.

Heck - they may have access to conduit etc... but they may not have equipment space negotiations with some telco who has a CO in the area. and you know how much fun telco-to-telco contracting agreements are....

[ThatDan]

Very very true. I should clarify that the map is speculative at best.