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.

The Fastes Internet on the Westcost for $70

Update 12/14/11
Sonic to bring fiber to SF!
Well to a lucky 2000 customers in the Sunset --hopefully I will be one of the.

“San Francisco is our fastest-growing market for copper delivered Fusion Broadband+Phone service today, so we are very excited to bring our Fiber-optic upgrade process to the city,” said Dane Jasper, CEO & Co-Founder of Sonic.net. “There is a huge demand in San Francisco for higher bandwidth services, and fiber is the only long-term way to meet this demand.”

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9036346.htm

Sonic.net, a local independent Internet Service Provider, is rolling out its new 1Gbps (1000Mbps) fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service, which includes both Internet and phone service for unheard of price of $70 a month. In comparison Comcast's offers a 105Mbps-- the fastest tire they offer,  for a whopping $200-- that's not including the modem fee and phone services. AT&T speeds don't even come close to Sonic.net services in price or speed. they top out at 6Mbps.

I have to be honest, I have been a customer of theirs for about two years, so I might be more excited about this news more than others. I would say that Sonic.net has been by far the best ISP I have ever had.  In the past two years I have seen two different price cuts on my monthly bill. That is unheard of with AT&T or Comcast which jacked up their prices year after year. Plus I get free future upgrade every couple of months like my own fax number, fax to email and email voice mail for free.

The company recently expanded into fiber, having secured the contract to manage Google's own 1Gbps fiber network that will connect 800+ faculty homes at Stanford University. The new fiber-to-the-home deployment is a trial and will reach about 700 homes in Sebastopol when complete. Sonic.net pulls fiber optic cable from their own head office all the way to the customers house.  This eliminates the need to rent space and old copper phone lines from AT&T.

They price their new services the same as their old DSL services. If the pilot in Sebastopol goes well, Sonic.net hopes to expand the service across the Bay Area.

Sonic.net has been around since 1994,  it was founded by Dane Jasper and Scott Doty, both worked on the computer network at Santa Rosa Junior College. After setting up the Junior College's frist internet service, they decided to start their own localized ISP.

They began with dial-up Linux shell access, and then they used conventional phone lines from Pacific Bell and 16.8kbps modems to provide internet access. Fortunately, they were able to avoid the resource problems that plagued many local ISP start ups during the "Internet Boom" and crash of the late 2000's.

In the last year, Sonic began offering bonded DSL service with speeds upwards of 40Mbps--which bundled with phone serves adds up to $70. Keep in mind this is double the curent maximum speed of AT&T DSL.

They accomplish this by renting 2 phone lines from AT&T and installing their own equipment in the phone company central office.  The 2 phone lines are bonded -- making them one circuit. Sonic then uses a DSL standard called ADSL2+, that allows for higher speeds then regular DSL. This gives them the ability to provide higher speeds at a lower price.

Jasper is unlike your typical US Internet CEO; he made clear that his company avoids purely manufactured limits as a way to make more revenue. "I believe that removing the artificial limits on speed, and including home phone with the product are both very exciting."



For more info about Sonic.net click on the video.

Top Controversies

At&t T-mobile Merger

The deal proposed by AT&T will make the largest cell phone company in the US. They will effectively become the only nation-wide GSM cell phone company in the US. The US government has sued to stop this. In my opinion it will give consumers less choose and hurt competition.

Net Neutrality

The idea that stresses no restrictions by ISP -- Internet service providers or governments on consumers access to networks that participate in the internet.  Network neutrality would prevent restrictions on content, sites, or devices. Telecom companies want to impose a tiered model in order to remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and force subscribers to buy their services over others. I believe net neutrality to be very important to preserve our current internet freedom.

Community Broadband

 Is the attempt by grassroots groups or municipal agencies to to provide viable alternative to traditional ISPs.

Community Broadband can include wireless internet, phone, TV service and Internet. many states have passed or consider law barring local government from providing Broadband services to their residents. I belive that Broadband is becoming as important as electrical power or water. Local community should be able to decide if they want to statrt  community broadband to compete against private companies.

Gps and lightsquared

 LightSquared is a ground-based and satellite based next-generation 4G network  The network is currently opposed by Save Our GPS Coalition, an industry-standard group that promotes GPS issues in Congress. They say that if the network were to be deployed as currently planned it would have severe affects on GPS.  That it would put consumers at risk of losing GPS signal in North America.

ISP Affiliate Program 

ISP used a method of generating additional cash through advertising based on mistyped URLs in a web browesr.The results was searches of certain well-known brands by users where not being provided by the intended search engine. Instead they were being provided through affiliate marketing networks to earn revenue for the ISP. This all was done without consumer knowledge.