Living the Broadband Life

Today’s New York Times included an article entitled Living the Broadband Life which described San Diego’s early endorsement of broadband internet. San Diego was, in fact, one of the first four cities to test Time Warner’s fiber optic network back in 1996. “The other test cities were Portland, Me.; Akron, Ohio; and Elmira, N.Y.”

Like most bloggers, I no longer would be able to imagine the internet on a dial-up connection. At this point, I would literally implode with impatience. But it was interesting to see how other San Diegans took advantage of their fast download speeds:

Before getting in their cars, for instance, San Diegans routinely check traffic online. If conditions look unbearable they can use their broadband connections to work from home.

According to comScore, Internet users in San Diego are more likely than others elsewhere to shop online. They spend more money online than Internet users in other cities, and they visit more Web sites.

San Diegans use the Web to read the news, to check the tide’s comings and goings and to tap into the surf-cams that line the local beaches so they can find the best waves.

San Diegans use the Web to buy their cars, and if they could go online to fill their gas tanks, they would. “You can’t buy gas online, but you can track gas prices locally,” said Mark Juergensen, 43, a Scripps Ranch resident who, like Ms. Gibb, was one of the earliest broadband users in San Diego.

On Sunday, the first day of the fire, 4,400 people went to the Web site looking for information, nearly 20 times the normal number. The next day, that number had shot up to 44,000 and on Tuesday, the site had 122,000 visitors, with many looking for information about the fate of their homes or those of friends.

Greg Minter, 23, the Web master of scrippsranch.org, was one of the few people allowed into the burned areas, escorted by police officers. Using a wireless modem, he posted the street address of burned houses at the Web site as he found them. The site came to be one of the quickest and most reliable sources of news. “That Web site was a real lifeline,” Ms. Gibb said.

Without the pervasiveness of broadband in Scripps Ranch, she said, certain options would not exist. For example, the gated entry area to the Gibbs’ neighborhood was vandalized recently, and the incident was caught on video as it happened. Immediately, digital photos of the vandals were e-mailed around the neighborhood; the culprits were identified and quickly caught.

San Diegans are already thinking about greater speeds. “A lot of people are looking for more streaming and more online gaming,” said Ernie Villicana, vice president for marketing at Time Warner Cable in San Diego.

The company is testing a premium service that runs at double the speed that most broadband households get today. When the new service arrives in San Diego, the Gibb family will no doubt be one of the first to sign up.

“I’m definitely looking for what’s next,” said Ms. Gibb, not flinching at the idea of paying perhaps $30 more a month. “I would jump on that in a minute.”