The City and County of San Francisco has released a little bit of information about the companies that are vying for a $2 billion municipal fiber to the premise (FTTP) project. (Okay, they say it’s $1.9 billion, but at this early stage in the game, the rounder and higher $2 billion figure probably describes it better).
A cryptic post buried on the City’s purchasing website says…
Notice of Shortlist of Respondent Teams selected for Oral Interviews for the Citywide Fiber to Premises Network, Lit Fiber & Wi-fi Services RFQ
The written proposal evaluation for the Citywide Fiber to Premises Network, Lit Fiber & Wi-fi Services RFQ is now complete. The following firms will be invited to the Oral Interviews: Bay City Broadband Partners, FiberGateway, Golden Gate Broadband Partners, and Sonic Plenary SF Fiber.
And that’s it. So in the absence of hard information, we can try to read the tea leaves. The only statements about the written responses to the City’s request for qualifications submitted on or before 26 March 2017 have come from Monkey Brains, a San Francisco wireless Internet service provider. In a tweet and a subsequent newspaper interview, Monkey Brains owner Rudy Rucker said that five groups submitted proposals. One of those groups – Bay City Broadband Partners – includes Monkey Brains and, according to Rucker, Black and Veatch, Zayo and Nokia.
It’s a fair guess – but only a guess – that Sonic Plenary SF Fiber is led by Sonic.net, which is already in the business of building out its own FTTP system in San Francisco. No word yet from Sonic.net, though.
I don’t have any idea at all who’s behind Golden Gate Broadband Partners. A google search didn’t turn up any company that operates under that name, and it’s generic enough that it could be anybody. Same with FiberGateway – no company by that name – but tantalisingly, Altice, a mid-sized U.S. (and huge-sized European) cable company uses that brand name for its router and associated management app. At this point, though, it would be an egregious stretch to infer a connection.
Presumably, one of the written proposals was rejected out of hand. So only four groups are moving on to the oral interview round of the competition, which is scheduled to happen next week. After that, the City will finalise a list of qualified bidders who will be allowed to submit firm responses to a request for proposals that’ll be released later this year.