Comcast needed $210,000 for Web—so this man helped increase a co-op fiber ISP

Sasha Zbrozek lives in Los Altos Hills, California, which he describes as “a rich Silicon Valley city,” in a home about 5 miles from Google’s headquarters. However after shifting in December 2019, Zbrozek says he discovered that Comcast by no means wired his home—regardless of beforehand telling him it may provide Web service on the handle.

In the present day, Zbrozek is on the board of a co-op ISP known as Los Altos Hills Group Fiber (LAHCF), which supplies multi-gigabit fiber Web to dozens of houses and has a plan to serve a whole bunch extra. City residents had been in a position to type the ISP with the assistance of Subsequent Degree Networks, which is not a conventional shopper broadband supplier however an organization that builds and manages networks for native teams.

Zbrozek’s expertise with Comcast led to him getting concerned with LAHCF and organizing an growth that introduced 10Gbps symmetrical fiber to his home and others on close by roads. Zbrozek described his expertise to Ars in a cellphone interview and in emails.

“Earlier than I purchased my house, I checked with Comcast—by cellphone—to see if service was obtainable on the handle. They mentioned sure. After shifting in, I known as to purchase service. The technician got here out and left a notice saying that service was not obtainable,” he instructed us.

Need Comcast? That’ll be $210,000

There are 5 parcels that neighbor Zbrozek’s property, and three of them have Comcast service, he mentioned. Comcast’s on-line availability checker indicated—appropriately, because it turned out—that the home he was shopping for did not have service. But it surely was clear that Comcast was serving the neighborhood, so he known as the cable firm to search out out if he may get Web entry.

Zbrozek recalled a Comcast agent telling him the earlier residents of the home he was shopping for by no means signed up for service and that “we would want so as to add a drop from the pole to your home, however, you realize, in any other case it is no massive deal.”

As an alternative of it being no massive deal, Zbrozek mentioned it took over a yr to get Comcast to inform him how a lot it could cost for a line extension to his home. Zbrozek ultimately needed to attain out to the Los Altos Hills city authorities to get a value quote from Comcast.

The reply was $210,000. Comcast needed Zbrozek to pay $300 per foot to trench cable throughout about 700 ft, in response to a February 2021 e mail from Los Altos Hills’ public works director that Zbrozek shared with Ars.

Whereas Zbrozek had calculated a distance of 167 ft from his property to the closest pole with Comcast wires, he mentioned Comcast instructed him the home was too removed from the pole to legally present above-ground service. Los Altos Hills requires underground set up most often.

Zbrozek additionally proposed connecting to Comcast by operating a line to a neighbor’s property that had Comcast service. “The closest level between my property and a (now former) neighbor with Comcast who would’ve let me do some personal trenching is about 40 ft,” Zbrozek instructed Ars. Nonetheless, Comcast would not permit that kind of property-to-property connection.

“The spirit of the franchise settlement [between Comcast and Los Altos Hills] is that I am supposed to have the ability to get service as a result of I am on a public highway, however in apply that simply wasn’t the case,” he mentioned. Earlier than getting fiber service, Zbrozek and his spouse, Stella, made do by “tethering to a cellphone. I simply acquired a vast plan and plugged my cellphone into a house router and known as it a day,” he mentioned.