January 19

"Really fast" neighborhood broadband Internet service dies – again

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7  comments

Last April, and again in late June, we posted on the possibility of broadband (read “really fast“) Internet service coming to parts of Maple Leaf.

By June, pricing had been announced, as was the fact that the initial list of demonstration projects had dropped the Northgate/Maple Leaf piece.

We never got any response from emails or voice mails we left with the city’s designated partner, Gigabit Squared Seattle. And although its website still works, the company apparently does not.

From our news partner The Seattle Times earlier this month:

Erin Devoto, Seattle’s chief technology officer, said that as of mid-November, the company’s phones were turned off and the city was unable to reach its officers. She turned over the bill for city staff’s preliminary engineering work on a broadband network to the City Attorney’s Office for collection.

The Times has more background here. And GeekWire has posts here and here.

It’s the second time the city’s plans for broadband have died.

About the author 

Sara W

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  1. Not fixed as of Monday at 10:30 am.

    “Mailbox quota exceeded.”

    Wanting to ask why the Zip Line seat and hanging part disappeared on Saturday.

    On topic, I’m also disappointed that this fast cheap Internet access possibility is gone.

  2. This is quite a shame.

    On another note, I’ve been trying to email tips@mapleleaflife.com for the last few days and haven’t been able to get through. I have updated information about Stairway Walks Day that I’d love to share. Thanks!

    I thought we’d fixed that. I’ll go look at it again. Thanks.

  3. @ An Observer:

    I can’t really tell you how to get away from Comcast, but I can say if you call and threaten to cancel your service sometimes you can get a periodic price reduction. Especially if you drop the name of the competitor in the area like CenturyLink. I called Comcast a couple months ago and said I wanted to cancel because CenturyLink offered me a much better deal. All of sudden out of thin air they were able to drop my bill by $30-$40 a month for 3 months. I will call again once the bill goes back up. It’s a dumb game, but saving something is better than nothing.

  4. Not sure why DSL is “off the table” if one is searching for an alternative to Comcast. I live in the northeast portion of Maple Leaf, and I have DSL through CenturyLink. I don’t have the super-fast speed version, but it works adequately at around 1.4 mps. If you want to stream high-def video, that’s not going to work, but for more pedestrian uses, it’s fine.

    I would love a super-fast bandwidth pipe to my house, but I can see why the business model doesn’t really pan out in a neighborhood like Maple Leaf, which is not particularly dense.

  5. I have been searching and searching. Since DSL is off the table there are only two decent options left in Seattle: Condo Internet and Wave Broadband. Both are owned by the same parent company and neither are available in our hood.

  6. Bummer. Anybody have any suggestions on how to get away from Comcast?

    Constructive and positively framed comments, please.

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