Five groups are in the hunt for San Francisco’s citywide fiber to the premise (FTTP) project, at least according to one of the bidders. Monkeybrains, a San Francisco-based wireless Internet service provider, tweeted that they’re on one of the five teams that submitted proposals.
The deadline for filing responses to the City and County of San Francisco’s request for qualifications (RFQ) was last week. According to the San Francisco Examiner, Monkeybrains is talking, but no one else is saying much of anything about it…
Rudy Rucker, who founded Monkeybrains in 1998 with Alex Menendez…that they are part of one team of companies that submitted by last week’s deadline…
“Monkeybrains has teamed up with Black and Veatch, Zayo and Nokia,” Rucker said in an email. “I don’t know all the other teams … but I think we have a very strong team"…
“The City received several bids and we are impressed by the seriousness of the bid teams and their submissions,” [San Francisco mayor Mark Farrell] told the Examiner last week. “We look forward to reviewing the bids in detail and moving full-steam ahead with our procurement process.”
San Francisco voters will have the final say as to whether the City backs an FTTP project financially. The nominal business model calls for a private company to build and operate an open access, citywide FTTP system that would be run according to policies and practices laid down by the City. The total $1.9 billion cost works out to $51 per residence per month and $73 per business, and the City says it – or rather, taxpayers – will pick up some of the tab. It’s not saying how much, but it won’t be chump change and some kind of new, voter-approved tax is the only clear path to paying it.
At this stage, everything is still theoretical. The RFQ is only aimed at developing a short list of qualified bidders who will, presumably, submit hard proposals later this year. We might get a clue as to who’s in the running on Monday, when the City is scheduled to notify bid teams that they’re moving on to the next step of the process, which is one on one interviews.