Tag: "san francisco"

A Monkeybrainey Plan to Improve Connectivity in San Francisco Public Housing - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 319

Posted August 21, 2018 by lgonzalez

Communities who want the best for their citizens typically recognize the importance of digital equity and often take steps to develop digital inclusion programs. Last year on the podcast, we invited folks from the ISP Monkeybrains to explain how they were working with the city of San Francisco to develop a way to provide high-speed connectivity to residents living in several public housing facilities. We decided it was time to share the details of their model so other communities could consider their approach as a workable plan. Our summer Public Policy Intern Hannah Rank took on the task of writing a detailed report about the project. This week, she sat down with Christopher to offer a preview of what she’s learned.

In addition to an outline about the history of ISP Monkebrains and where they obtained additional funding for the project, Christopher and Hannah discuss the pros and cons of the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). They discuss how a smart digital inclusion program as part of such a plan to offer broadband to lower-income households can help those enrolled and help keep overall costs down. 

Be sure to look for the release of our report this fall to learn more details about how San Francisco and Monkeybrains are bringing better connectivity to public housing to help residents participate in the digital economy. Until then, you can learn more about Monkeybrains and the plan by listening to episode 264 of the podcast.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 32 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Read the...

Read more

PCMag's Fastest and the Local Links That Made Them

Posted June 25, 2018 by lgonzalez

On June 18th, PCMag came out with its list of “The Fastest ISPs of 2018.” The analysis looks at ISP performance in several different ways and provides a range of different side-by-side comparisons. The results prove that publicly owned infrastructure has in important role in bringing high-quality Internet access to Americans.

The Dakotas' Co-ops Rock

When taking a wide angle lens view of the fastest U.S. states results, we noticed that two of the top four states with the fastest ISPs were North Dakota and South Dakota. Rural cooperatives in these two states have excelled at deploying high-quality Internet access via fiber optic infrastructure. As a result, North Dakota and South Dakota has some of the most complete coverage of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Internet access and gigabit FTTH in the country. Notice all the coverage on our cooperative map:

small-2018-06-Cooperative-Gigabit-Fiber-Map-Update.jpg

Check out a larger map here.

Like rural electrification in the 1930s, cooperatives are taking on the task of bringing high-speed Internet service to members in rural areas. They live and work in the areas they serve. Big ISPs don’t consider sparsely populated areas suitable investment opportunities, so electric and telephone co-ops are repeating the approach of the 1930s, but this time with fiber networks. Dickey Rural Telephone Cooperative in North Dakota and Venture Communications Cooperative in South Dakota are only a few that have worked to get their members connected.

To learn more about how rural cooperatives have helped rural communities, including North Dakota and South Dakota, check out our policy brief, Cooperatives Fiberize Rural America: A Trusted Model for the Internet Era. We also had an interesting conversation during...

Read more

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 264

Posted August 2, 2017 by Staff

This is the transcript for episode 264 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Mason Carroll and Preston Rhea join Christopher Mitchell on the show to talk about their work at Monkeybrains, an urban wireless Internet Service Provider. Listen to the audio here.

Mason Carroll: Every single person needs to have their own Internet connection. This is not just like, "Oh, I can sort of get the building-wide Wi-Fi as I stand near my front door." No. You should have your own Internet connection that you can plug in, and watch TV, or set up a computer, or to do your work. That's really what digital quality is.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is episode 264 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. Episode 264 takes us to San Francisco, home to the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and Monkeybrains. Preston Rhea and Mason Carroll from the Internet service provider are here to tell us about the local company, the services they provide in the Bay Area, and the work they're doing to chip away at the digital divide. Learn more about the company at Monkeybrains.net. As a reminder, this conversation with Preston and Mason is commercial free, but our work at ILSR requires funding. Please take a moment to contribute at ILSR.org. If you have already contributed, thank you. Now, here's Christopher with Preston Rhea and Mason Carroll, from Monkeybrains.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Joining me today is Preston Rhea, Senior Field Engineer for Monkeybrains, an ISP in California. Welcome to the show.

Preston Rhea: Thanks Chris, a pleasure to be here.

Christopher Mitchell: And we also have Mason Carroll, Lead Engineer for Monkeybrains. Welcome to the show as well.

Mason Carroll: Yeah, thanks a lot.

Christopher Mitchell: So, I think the first question is, monkey brains, I remember running into those in a Harrison Ford movie a long time ago. What is Monkeybrains in San Francisco?

Preston Rhea: Monkeybrains is a local Internet service provider. We're a...

Read more

Connecting San Francisco Low-Income Housing with Monkey Brains - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 264

Posted August 1, 2017 by christopher

After we saw April Glaser's article on a local San Francisco ISP connecting low-income housing to high-quality Internet access, we knew we wanted to learn more. Preston Rhea is the Senior Field Engineer for Monkey Brains and someone we knew from his work with the Open Technology Institute at New America. He joins us with Mason Carroll, Lead Engineer for Monkey Brains, to explain what they are doing in Hunters Point and more broadly across San Francisco.

Monkey Brains delivers Internet access primarily via high-capacity fixed-wireless links to buildings with multiple tenants. Working with the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, they are delivering gigabit access to low-income housing units at Hunters Point. 

Preston and Mason discuss the process, the challenges, the long-term plan, and more. In particular, they discuss why good wiring in each building is important for ensuring high-quality access to each household rather than just relying on common Wi-Fi access points around the buildings. 

Silicon Beat also covered this story.

Read the transcript of the show here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 28 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Arne...

Read more

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 261

Posted July 14, 2017 by Staff

This is the transcript for episode 261 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Dane Jasper of Sonic joins the show to discuss how the company, publicly-owned infrastructure, and public-private partnerships. Listen to this episode here.

Dane Jasper: I think a city that adopts an open access, dark fiber model creates the greatest opportunity for a diversity in choices for the consumer and a diversity in the performance and price of services. That's the model that I think would be the most interesting.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is Episode 261 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. Dane Jasper from the internet service provider Sonic visits with Christopher this week. We've written about Sonic on MuniNetworks.org and how the company has used publicly-owned infrastructure to bring better connectivity to Brentwood in California. In this interview, Dane offers his perspective on different types of publicly-owned community networks, and how those networks affect a potential partnership with a company like Sonic. Before we start the interview, we want to remind you that this is a commercial-free podcast, but it isn't free to produce. Take a minute to contribute to ilsr.org. If you're already a contributor, thanks. Now here's Christopher with Dane Japer from Sonic.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell, and today I'm speaking with Dane Jasper, the CEO and Co-founder at Sonic. Welcome to the show.

Dane Jasper: Thanks, Chris.

Christopher Mitchell: Dane, I suspect most of our listeners are familiar with Sonic. Although you serve three cities in California, your reputation is much wider and deeper than that. Maybe you can just enlighten those who haven't heard of Sonic. What is Sonic?

Dane Jasper: Sonic is an alternative access provider, so we're a regional, competitive, local exchange carrier and internet provider. Today, we offer broadband services in 125 California cities using copper technologies, VDSL, pair bonding, ADSL2+, and three cities, as you noted, with gigabit fiber to the home. We have a little over 400 employees and about 100,000...

Read more

San Francisco Passes Ordinance: Tenants Have ISP Choice At Last

Posted December 20, 2016 by lgonzalez

San Francisco multi-occupancy building tenants will no longer be stuck with the Internet Service Provider most friendly with the landlord. On December 13th, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance to ensure that competing ISPs have reasonable access to buildings to offer competing services and give tenants a choice.

Ensuring Choice In Apartments, Condos, Businesses

Earlier this month, Mark Farrell from the city’s Board of Supervisors spoke with Christopher about his proposed legislation during episode #231 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. He described how city leaders began digging into ways to improve local connectivity and uncovered a problem that was much larger than they had anticipated. While federal law prohibits property owners from forcing tenants to sign up with one particular provider, many have effectively done so by preventing competing providers from installing wiring or antennas in or on their buildings. In exchange for limiting access to the competition, building owners and landlords take kickbacks from the ISP willing to make the best offer.

The new ordinance makes such agreements between building owners or landlords and ISPs fruitless because they can no longer block competing providers from their buildings. Webpass, a fixed wireless provider focusing on serving multi-dwelling unit (MDU) tenants, has been trying to get a foothold in the city but the ordinance has proven to be a difficult barrier. A local providers, Monkeybrains, raised the capital through crowdfunding to begin a fixed wireless service, but without the ordinance their reach is limited.

New Choices For Tens Of Thousands

In an urban setting like San Francisco, eliminating the ability for landlords and ISPs to lock tenants into a take-it-or-leave-it scenario will create choice for a huge swath of people:

... Read more

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 231

Posted December 9, 2016 by Anonymous

This is the transcript for episode 231 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Mark Farrell of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors explains a proposed ordinance to improve Internet access for residents of apartment buildings. Listen to this episode here.

Mark Farrell: The MDU access policy is truly part of a broader scope here in San Francisco of work around Internet connectivity and Internet access.

Lisa Gonzalez: Welcome to episode 231 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast from the Institute For Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. Residents of apartment building or other types of multi-dwelling units don't always have their choice of Internet service provider, even if they're two or three companies competing in their neighborhood. Owners of the buildings they live in have been known to restrict access to the buildings to one provider. As a result, tenants who want Internet access have no practical choice at all. In episode 231, Mark Farrell joins Christopher. Mark is from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and has introduced legislation that would create an ordinance to allow competing ISPs access to multi-dwelling units. Mark explains the ordinance and why the city needs to implement it. He also describes how this policy is only one part of the city's greater effort to improve connectivity for all its residents. Now here's Chris talking with Mark Farrell, supervisor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors about a new proposal to remove restrictions of subscriber choice for people who live in multi-dwelling units.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell. Today I'm speaking with Supervisor Mark Farrell of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Welcome to the show.

Mark Farrell: Thanks for having me.

Christopher Mitchell: I think I'd like to jump right in and just ask, you're proposing a law that deals with condo and apartment buildings. What would your law fix?

Mark Farrell: Right now in San Francisco we have a huge number of multi-dwelling unit buildings, or MDUs as they are called, where tenants have not been able to get access to the Internet service providers...

Read more

San Francisco Proposal For Tenant ISP Choice - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 231

Posted December 6, 2016 by lgonzalez

Cities across America are implementing policies that create friendly environments for Internet Service Providers in order to encourage competition. In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors is now considering legislation that will create choice for residents or businesses in multi-welling units, or MDUs. In episode 231, Mark Farrell, a member of the Board of Supervisors, joins us to discuss the proposal.

City leaders have worked in various ways to chip away at the digital divide and have discovered that a number of MDU building owners do not allow more than one ISP access to their buildings. As a result, residents have no option but to subscribe to the ISP of the owner’s choice, or have no service at all. The proposed ordinance will put an end to that practice by ensuring that building owners do not deny tenants choice and do not deny ISPs access to their buildings.

In this interview, Mark discusses the need for the ordinance and what city leaders hope to achieve with this new policy. When they investigated the issue, they realized that it impacted a significant number of stakeholders. Mark acknowledges the care of the city’s approach in encouraging competition, supporting responsible entrants, and doing so in a community with a range of old and new structures. The city is eager to improve their connectivity and this policy is one step in a larger plan.

Read the transcript of the show here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or...

Read more

San Francisco Proposal Aims At Giving Multi-Tenants Access Choice Of ISPs

Posted November 2, 2016 by Scott

If San Francisco Board of Supervisor Mark Farrell gets his way, tenants in multiple-occupancy buildings will have a greater opportunity to choose their Internet Service Providers. 

In October, Farrell introduced a proposed ordinance that would require owners of multi-tenant residential and commercial properties to give building access to all state-licensed ISPs. 

Choice Effectively Denied 

Farrell’s proposal comes amidst reports of tenants denied access to ISPs of their choice.

According to a legislative digest of the proposed ordinance, property owners are not legally allowed to force tenants to sign up with one provider, but by limiting access their building to install fiber or antennas, they prevent their renters from choosing the provider they want:

"[M]any occupants of residential and commercial multiple occupancy buildings are unable to choose between service providers because their buildings property owners allow only one provider to install the facilities and equipment necessary to provide services to occupants..."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: 

“The reality in San Francisco is that tens of thousands of residents have been denied access to different Internet service providers,” Farrell said. “I fundamentally believe competition is a good thing that will ultimately drive prices down and improve Internet access across all of San Francisco.”  

Charles Barr, founder of up and coming fixed wireless provider Webpass, said owners block their access to approximately 400 large apartment buildings in the city. Google Fiber recently acquired Webpass.

The Proposed Ordinance  

Farrell’s proposed ordinance would guarantee:

[t]he “right of occupants of residential multiple dwelling units and commercial office buildings (“multiple occupancy buildings”) to choose...

Read more

Webpass and Its Fixed Wireless Seek Fix for Landlord Abuses - Community Broadband Bits Episode 197

Posted April 12, 2016 by christopher

San Francisco is one of the rare cities that has multiple high quality ISPs competing for market share, though the vast majority of people still seem to be stuck choosing only between Comcast and AT&T. This week, we talk to a rising ISP, Webpass, about their success and challenges in expanding their model. Charles Barr is the President of Webpass and Lauren Saine is a policy advisor - both join us for episode 197 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

We discuss the Webpass model, which uses fixed wireless and fiber to serve high density apartment buildings where they are allowed in by the landlord. Unfortunately, they have been locked out of many of these buildings and are looking to the city of San Francisco to adopt better policies to ensure a single provider like AT&T cannot monopolize the building. Though the FCC has made exclusive arrangement unenforceable, the big providers are still finding ways to lock out competition.

We also talk a little about the role of fiber and fixed wireless technologies, chokepoints more generally, and why Webpass is so sure it could succeed if residents were all able to to choose the ISP they wanted.

Read the transcript from this show here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 27 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."

Pages

Subscribe to san francisco