Monkey Brains, Lasers, Microwaves and the Internet

In the Bay Area -- home of the Silicon Vally--there are not too many independent Internet service providers to choose from,but that could be changing, well at least for some lucky San Franciscans.

Monkey Brains is a San Francisco ISP that has been in business since 1998. Co founders Rudy Rucker and Alex Menendez started with a web hosting company that over the years has expanded to a business class internet provider. They have currently started offering residential internet services with a twist-- high speed wireless connections using lasers and microwaves. For more on the back store on Monkey Brains check out this video:

Using lasers and microwaves connections is not new, they have been around since the late 1970.  Mostly in dense urban environments, but due to high cost of equipment they have been mostly used for corporate use only. Monkey Brains use new lower cost equipment  to make it available to the general public. This approach offers alternative to running cables thought the city.

Here is how the system works.  Monkey Brains sets up a few microwave dishes and laser system on a roof top in a neighborhood. They run fiber to their new towers to provided the connection to the internet. Then they set up smaller microwaves and laser systems on the customer side. The system is line of sight -- there needs to be a clear line from one dish to another. This can be difficult in hilly San Fransisco, so the system is set up to act as a relay to other roof top system.

Now like an most things there is catch. Not all of San Fransisco is covered mostly around Mission, Bernal, Bayview, Castro, Noe, and SOMA. They are moving to deploy more systems to cover new neighborhoods but it's a slow process. Also there is a $250 fee for the setup but the rate is $35/month after that. I heard that in pilot neighborhoods, users can get up to 4 months of free service. Speeds are around 8Mbps to 20Mbps up and down, not as fast as cable but beats the hell out of DSL. Form looking at there Yelp page most customers that they serve are pertly dam satisfied. So if you live in one of these luck neighborhoods you should look at Monkey Brains.