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. But after transferring in December 2019, Zbrozek says he realized that Comcast by no means wired his home—regardless of beforehand telling him it may supply Internet service on the deal with.

Today, Zbrozek is on the board of a co-op ISP known as Los Altos Hills Community Fiber (LAHCF), which supplies multi-gigabit fiber Internet to dozens of properties and has a plan to serve tons of extra. Town residents have been capable of type the ISP with the assistance of Next Level Networks, which is not a standard 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.

“Before I purchased my dwelling, I checked with Comcast—by cellphone—to see if service was obtainable on the deal with. They mentioned sure. After transferring in, I known as to purchase service. The technician got here out and left a be aware saying that service was not obtainable,” he instructed us.

Want 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 was clear that Comcast was serving the neighborhood, so he known as the cable firm to seek out out if he may get Internet 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’d want so as to add a drop from the pole to your home, however, you recognize, in any other case it is no huge deal.”

Instead of it being no huge deal, Zbrozek mentioned it took over a yr to get Comcast to inform him how a lot it might cost for a line extension to his home. Zbrozek finally needed to attain out to the Los Altos Hills city authorities to get a value quote from Comcast.

The reply was $210,000. Comcast wished Zbrozek to pay $300 per foot to trench cable throughout about 700 toes, based on a February 2021 electronic mail from Los Altos Hills’ public works director that Zbrozek shared with Ars.

While Zbrozek had calculated a distance of 167 toes 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 usually.

Zbrozek additionally proposed connecting to Comcast by working 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 non-public trenching is about 40 toes,” Zbrozek instructed Ars. However, Comcast would not permit that sort of property-to-property connection.

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