Government Shutdown = Scheduled Maintenance

So since the government shut down, Army Specialist Lionell Brown and Air Force 1st Lieutenant Joshua Montgomery (that's me!) don't have drill this weekend.  That kind of sucks ( we both enjoy drill weekend ), but as a bonus we can spend the weekend doing something else.

So we decided to upgrade the fiber bus at our 2100 Harper POP this weekend.

You may have noticed we've been opening maintenance windows pretty regularly lately.  This is because a lot of our original equipment was 100 megabit per second Ethernet.  Since we are moving more of our infrastructure to 1,000 megabits per second, these sites need to be upgraded to accommodate the additional capacity traffic.  We are swapping out a lot of switching and routing gear.

Usually it goes smoothly, but sometimes things break, so we are doing it on overnights.

Anyway, the gist of this post is that we are taking down the network (the whole network) on Sunday morning at around 2:00 AM.  It should be back up by around 5 AM......no later than 7 AM if we go out for pancakes.

Precinct 39 Wins Wicked Fiber Pre-Registration Contest

For Immediate Release October 1, 2013	PRESS RELEASE Contact: Kris Adair Phone: (785) 840 - 7989 Email: kris.adair@wickedbroadband.com

PRECINCT 39 WINS WICKED FIBER PRE-REGISTRATION CONTEST

Lawrence, Kan. – October 1, 2013 - Wicked Broadband is pleased to announce that Precinct 39 has won the Wicked Fiber Gigabit Pre-Registration contest.  Precinct 39 crossed the threshold Monday with 10% of the households in the neighborhood pre-registering for Wicked Fiber service.

Because this precinct has only 746 addresses, Wicked Broadband has expanded the pilot project to include Vermont St. and two small neighborhoods in central and west Lawrence.  With the addition of these areas the pilot project will pass just over 1,000 addresses.

Figure 1: Wicked Fiber Pilot Neighborhoods

During the five month pre-registration period, over 500 households from all over Lawrence pre-registered for service.   Lawrence residents expressed their desire for to the same ultra high speed service that is available in Kansas City-KS, Chattanooga-TN, Lafayette-LA, Provo-UT and Austin-TX.

Neighborhoods with Wicked Fiber’s gigabit service will be able to access the Internet at 100 times the speed of the average American household.  Customers using the service can stream multiple HD video streams and download full length movies in minutes.  Since the service is bi-directional (i.e. upload speeds similar to its download speeds) customers are also able to upload photo albums, videos and other large files in the blink of an eye.

In keeping with Wicked Broadband’s commitment to community service, the company has pre-approved nineteen non-profit and government organizations in the pilot neighborhood for free Gigabit service.  Pre-approved non-profits that express interest and return the application form will be provided with free gigabit service as part of the project.

Chamber of Commerce City of Lawrence Douglas County Douglas County Casa, Inc. Douglas County Community Foundation Douglas County Sheriff's Office Downtown Lawrence, Inc. Fire Station n No 1 Habitat for Humanity

Headquarters Counseling Center Hillcrest Elementary School Hobbs Park Just Food, Inc. Lawrence Arts Center Lawrence Community Building Lawrence Police Department Lawrence Public Library New York Elementary School Van Go, inc.

Figure 2: Non-Profit Organizations Pre-Approved for Free Wicked Fiber Service

This list is by no means comprehensive.  Other non-profit organizations and government agencies with facilities in the pilot neighborhood will be able to apply for free service by downloading and returning a form available on the company’s website: http://wickedfiber.com

The next step in the process is to secure funding for the project.  In Kansas City-KS, Google received millions of dollars in subsidies in the form of $10 pole attachment fees and free co-location of equipment at City owned sites.  In Provo-UT Google received $40 Million in municipal owned fiber.  Chattanooga and Layfayette both built their own networks at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to taxpayers.  Wicked Broadband has applied for a $500,000 matching grant from the City of Lawrence to make the pilot project possible.  This grant matches the $500,000 Wicked Broadband is investing in the Lawrence pilot project.

Once the matching funds are in place, Wicked Broadband will begin designing and installing its common carrier fiber network in the pilot neighborhoods.  The goal is to have the pilot network completed and operational within 18 months of project funding.

The company is currently planning two follow-on phases to the project.  The first expansion phase is a 10,000 household expansion to begin in 2015.  This project will be funded by Wicked Broadband through an equity funding round.  The final phase of the project will complete the Lawrence network by bringing fiber to the remaining 20,000 households.  This final phase will start in 2017 and will be funded through a traditional bond offering. 

Fiber Speedtests

So, speedtesting a 1 Gbps link is tough to do.  You can use iperf and do it through the old CLI, but most users want a visual meter.

Anyway, here is a speedtest from our newest fiber customer.

We are going to need a faster speedtest server........

If you are not getting............

If you are living the KU residence halls and you aren't getting speeds like these:

You should ask your resident hall director why......'cuz we'll build it if they'll call us.

Speed test taken from a 100Mbps switch port Kappa Delta sorority tonight at 7:17 PM CDT.

Maintenance Window Delayed to Friday

Due to a number of last minute delays, we've decided to move tonight's maintenance window back one day.  We'd rather do the work right the first time.

We are going to be doing maintenance on the network Friday starting at 2:00 AM.  We plan to be done by 8:00 AM.  We are adding capacity to central and north-west Lawrence by changing some of our equipment from a 100Mbps bus to a full Gigabit bus.

Service will be effected for about 1/2 our our members during this time, so expect outages and delays if you are up that early (or late).

Where we suck and how we are improving it.........

Google changed their mapping API last week (or finally disabled the version we were using), so I ended up reaching into our website's signup software and the member side of our management portal.

They really suck.  Not just a little.  They suck a lot.

There are a number of things we need to improve.  We need to allow our members to update their information easier, pay past due bills online, upgrade or downgrade service.   We need to provide better information about our products and limit the amount of time it takes us to provision and set up service for our members.

As a Wicked Broadband member you shouldn't have to call us unless you want to chat with Lionell (who is very friendly and wants to chat with you too.)

So, over the next three weeks I am going to re-code the entire thing from the ground up.  I don't know if I can get it done, tested and delivered in this time frame, but I'll give it my best shot.  If not, we'll get it out as close to this date as we can.

Sorry for taking so long to notice this issue.  I'll work to do better in the future.

Competition for Wicked Fiber Heats Up as Precinct 39 Takes the Lead

Lawrence, Kan. – Sept 5, 2013 - Wicked Broadband’s pre-registration contest is heating up.  The company recently pre-registered Poehler Lofts bringing 48 new registrations to precinct 39.  This puts historic East Lawrence in the lead.

District 39 is now only 17 pre-registrations away from being selected as the first neighborhood in Lawrence to receive gigabit Internet service.  Precinct 39 has taken the lead from precinct 27 south of the University of Kansas campus.

An interactive map of the top 5 precincts can be found at:  http://wickedfiber.com/progress