There has been a lot of talk about Google’s plans to deploy 1 Gb/s fiber to some lucky communities. The City of Santa Clarita is pushing hard to be recognized, asking its Facebook followers to submit videos explaining why we should receive super high speed internet access. And today, The Signal wrote an Editorial to Google promising that the SCV would be Google’s forevermore if the company chose us for their project.

All that made me wonder, just how fast is Santa Clarita now?

Let’s find out. Follow the steps below:

1. Close all of your PC’s open browser windows, streaming media programs (like Windows Media Player, Zune or iTunes) and just leave open SCVTalk. Make sure no one on your home network is watching Netflix or streaming audio
2. Click this link: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ , a popular broadband speed test website
3. Choose “Los Angeles” as your location to test from
4. Let the test run
5. With your download numbers in hand, vote in the poll below

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What the numbers mean:

My internet provider is AT&T Yahoo DSL. I’ve had them for about seven years and well, they aren’t advancing with the times. I get about 2.43 megabits per second download speed and 430,000 bits upload speed. A megabit should not be confused with a megabyte. A bit is about 1/8th of a byte. I can download files, in other words, at about .307 megabytes per second, which means it would take me about 16-20 seconds to download a 5 megabyte MP3 audio file.

My dad, on the other hand, has a Time Warner Cable internet connection and routinely gets between 15 and 20 megabits per second download. That averages out to about 2.5 megabytes per second, meaning he could download a 1gigabyte movie file in a little over 5 minutes.

Now what Google is proposing is about 5o times as  fast as the internet connection my dad enjoys on the best of days. We’re no longer talking about downloading movies in minutes or even seconds; no we’re talking about eliminating the concept of  ”downloading” altogether. Basically all media would be instantly accessible to your computer; in fact, under ideal circumstances it could be faster for you to access a High Def YouTube video than to access a High Def video on a computer in the room next to you in your house.

Of course,  you will still be limited by your source’s internet speed. It’s not likely that YouTube or Netflix could actually send you a movie at full 1 gb/s but still, the improvement in your download time would be remarkable.

So yes. I concur with the Signal and the City. Bring the internet to me Google, with great dispatch!

A small slice of radio spectrum in the United States

The SCV just became a little less dark, radio-frequency wise. KROQ, the famous LA rock ‘n roll radio station,has added an FM booster to a mountaintop nearby that blankets the SCV in KROQ’s altogether too predictable mix of over-processed rock and pop bands plus Kevin and Bean in the morning, whoever they are:

It has come to our attention that, a mere three decades after taking to the airwaves in Southern California, our crack Engineering team has installed boosters that (we’re told) allow KROQ to be heard in the following cities:

• Santa Clarita
• Valencia
• Newhall
• Canyon Country
• Agua Dulce
• Stevensen Ranch
• Saugus
• Val Verde

The last time I listened to KROQ was when I bought the first Green Day album, so I’m not particularly excited about this news. However, I am ecstatic that big Los Angeles broadcasters are finally realizing there’s a market of 250,000 up here.

You see, I’ve been bitching for years that radio reception sucks in the Santa Clarita valley. Mostly, I’ve been upset that I can’t get my NPR reliably; KCRW 89.9 has boosters all around Southern California (even Lancaster!!) but nothing for us in the SCV. As a result, in certain parts of town, their signal gets washed out by a religious broadcaster in Kettleman City, CA (I kid you not, I did a full investigation with recordings a few years ago and contacted both stations and the FCC).

But many of us don’t listen to “terrestrial radio” anymore anyway, so who cares? Well, we all should. The VHF and UFH spectrum that carries FM radio carries broadcast television too, and it just so happens that if you want to get the best high-definition television experience (and the cheapest!), you don’t go with the compressed HD signals on Satellite TV, Cable, or even AT&T’s Uverse. No, you go with uncompressed Over the Air HD (OTA-HD) reception. The problem is, we have some big mountains in the way of LA’s VHF/UHF transmitters.

Six years ago, a colleague of mine tried to get OTA-HD from his home in Valencia. He hung a large Yagi UHF/VHF antenna in his attic in his house by the hospital. He used online tools like AntennaWeb.org to orient his antenna, and he was disappointed to receive only ABC 7 in HD and a few other channels. “It just sucks out here, you can’t receive anything,” he told me, his experiment largely failed.

Yet in other areas of town, results can be much better. Last year, my dad, a veteran radio engineer, hung a $100 Yagi UHF/VHF antenna on his roof and received over 50 LA-area television channels in full 1080p. ABC, NBC, CBS, KCAL 9, and scores of others. Free. And the quality is spectacular because the signal is not compressed in any way.

He lives in Sunset Pointe with a clear view of transmitters to the south east, yet AntennaWeb.org predicts very poor results for his location. Knowing that big LA broadcasters haven’t really bothered to install repeaters or boosters for our valley, what could explain his great reception? We think his house is more or less in the line-of-sight of Mt. Wilson, where most of LA’s Broadcasters have towers. Folks in Stevenson Ranch, West Ridge and parts of Canyon Country may also be able to receive these signals.

In contrast, I live on the valley floor and if I were to try to hang a Yagi to receive HD or even FM, the results would almost certainly be poorer. So I’m stuck with my sub-standard & expensive Dish Network HD signal and my Logitech wifi radio to pick up KCRW.

In the future, Santa Clarita’s poor radio frequency coverage may not be an issue at all. Why? Well within 10-15 years, I believe radio and TV signals will be largely irrelevant because broadcasters will start using the newly-opened 700 mhz spectrum to deliver data & internet traffic, voice calls, radio and HD television. Any device you carry will be able to tap into this, and coverage will be widespread, even better than today’s cell phone coverage. Speeds will be phenomenal and indeed, there won’t be any demarcation between different types of media; it will all be IP based right to your mobile device.

Until that glorious day arrives, enjoy your KROQ!

No, not the fake one I wrote about earlier, this is the real McCoy:

The timing on this is impeccable. Disappointed Apple fans, distraught over the joke that is the iPad, can now at least console themselves with the revolutionary new City of Santa Clarita iBitch App, which allows you to report problems, the GPS coordinates thereof and even upload pictures of the problem to the fine folks at City Hall.

(Side note, have they really thought this through? Imagine your typical iPhone user. Now enable them to upload pictures and complaints directly to City Hall from their iDevice. Disaster and hilarity are sure to ensue.)

Android, WebOS and S60 users…report your problems the old fashioned way, by writing a nasty Letter to the Editor or bitching on this blog.

All kidding aside….I’m jealous. I would be all over this if it worked on my phone. I could report a dozen potholes between here and my house.