[dredmorbius]

Friends of mine in SF tell me of an existing alternative, though availability varies by neighborhood and building: Monkeybrains is a wireless ISP which offers service from 1 Mbps to 10 Gbps, with 100+ Mbps not being unheard of.

Coverage is mostly in the eastern / hipster side of the City: North Beach, downtown, the Haight, Noe, to Bayview. So Sunsetters and Richmondites are SOL. Reports I've heard are that service is fast, reliable, and inexpensive ($35/mo).

https://www.monkeybrains.net/

https://www.monkeybrains.net/wireless.html (coverage map)

[a_taylor]

This Monkeybrains outfit also tried to crowdfund $325 million for a satellite last year (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monkeybrains-satellite). They fell $324.989484 million short, though maybe that's just because crowdfunding wasn't as mainstream a year ago. That said, SF residents probably wouldn't tolerate a satellite in their air-space... i mean space-space?

[Matsta]

From the looks of it they are just using Ubquiti wireless gear.

http://www.ubnt.com/airmax#nanobridgem That is the ariel in the picture on their site.

Crazy how they charge you $350 though, they cost $79 to buy individually (they are probably getting a wholesale discount).

I'm guessing for business accounts they are using the Airfiber which is pretty cool and fast. They can't do 10gbps though, don't think their fibre lines can even handle that much.

Speaking of which, I noticed there's not many Data centers in SF which probably because there isn't much fibre around. My Digital Ocean box in SF is really quick however, even less hops to New Zealand than it is from LA which is weird since the Southern cross cable lands closer to LA.

[ansimionescu]

Not nitpicking, just honestly confused: do you mean aerial?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial

[cybrjoe]

Aerial is another word for antenna:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_(radio)

[Matsta]

Haha yup, my spelling and grammar is usually pretty crap.

[dredmorbius]

Among the reasons there aren't many DCs in SF are the cost of real estate, and the seismic risks. There is 365 Main, and a second one going into warehouses south of Potrero Hill.

Others are on the Peninsula and San Jose. There are also several in the Central Valley, which is more seismically stable, though flooding can be a concern.

[dredmorbius]

Since provisioning is on a building basis, there may be individual unit wiring required as well -- the antenna goes on the roof, you need a router and Cat-6 to your unit, so there's a wiring run required and some testing.

[timerickson]

Reliability and Monkey Brains is not something I'd put in the same sentence. It's a pretty regular occurrence for it to go down at our office, even after moving to a new space, several streets down.

[pronoiac]

A couple of years ago, Monkeybrains talked about using microtrenching to spread a fiber network across San Francisco. I guess it's stalled, but I occasionally look for updates.

https://www.monkeybrains.net/projects.html

[balls187]

If they offer up to 10Gbps, then why are you making 100+ Mbps seem like a big deal?

[dredmorbius]

From what little I know: 10 Gbps is more commonly associated with business service. For residential, 100 Mbps is more typical. It's also symmetric (you see it up and down).

I'm reporting on 1) what their site claims (10 Mbps residential, 10 Gbps elsewhere), and what actual experiences are (they're delivering more than they promise).

Given that most DSL/Cable options are still a small fraction of that, it's a considerable improvement.

[ibmthrowaway218]

It makes more sense if they'd said:

    1 Mbps to 10 Mbps, with 100+ Mbps not being unheard of.