haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
About a year ago Amazon started their lockbox program, where they lease space in 7-11s and some other stores to allow rapid delivery directly to these dropboxes in dense neighborhoods. Right away I joined Amazon Prime, and I have been getting free, secure delivery to a lockbox a couple blocks away for anything that is not too large, which is 85% of what I buy. I think they initially rolled out here and in NYC, though there may be other cities involved too.
But recently they are scrambling to get more leases, as too often there is not a free box to deliver to. I believe that they have recently shortened the time that a recipient has to pick up his package, to get faster turnover. I would guess that there is a fair amount of mathematical and behavioral modeling going on. My guess is that the boxes are assigned to buyers as if everyone who is expecting a package will pick it up at the last minute, although they could cut it tighter at the risk of having nowhere to go with newer orders that were assigned to the box locations. When they have more units, they could fairly safely do this, like the airlines assign seats based on expectations. Looks like are 11 locations in or near Seattle. Mostly close in, but one in Redmond which though suburban has many multifamily buildings. I think they need 100. My last few orders I could not schedule lockbox delivery, even if I tried a few downtown and farther away but still in my area. I guess some of this might be Christmas buying.
Another interesting development involves a partnership between UW, Gigabit Squared, and the City of Seattle, and to be called Gigabit Seattle. It is supposed to bring very much faster broadband internet and also cable TV first to 12 close-in neighborhoods starting next fall. They plan to serve business and research installations, as well as consumers. A later phase is supposed to roll out to more suburban neighborhoods that nevertheless have a good density of multifamily dwellings. This will use wireless signal delivery in part.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2012/12/13/ultra-high-speed-gigabit-internet.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2012-12-13 gives a quick summary, and here is a more complete announcement from the mayor.
Mayor McGinn » City of Seattle, University of Washington, and Gigabit Squared announce plan to develop ultra-fast broadband network
I hope this happens, as we currently do not have very good service.
Ha
But recently they are scrambling to get more leases, as too often there is not a free box to deliver to. I believe that they have recently shortened the time that a recipient has to pick up his package, to get faster turnover. I would guess that there is a fair amount of mathematical and behavioral modeling going on. My guess is that the boxes are assigned to buyers as if everyone who is expecting a package will pick it up at the last minute, although they could cut it tighter at the risk of having nowhere to go with newer orders that were assigned to the box locations. When they have more units, they could fairly safely do this, like the airlines assign seats based on expectations. Looks like are 11 locations in or near Seattle. Mostly close in, but one in Redmond which though suburban has many multifamily buildings. I think they need 100. My last few orders I could not schedule lockbox delivery, even if I tried a few downtown and farther away but still in my area. I guess some of this might be Christmas buying.
Another interesting development involves a partnership between UW, Gigabit Squared, and the City of Seattle, and to be called Gigabit Seattle. It is supposed to bring very much faster broadband internet and also cable TV first to 12 close-in neighborhoods starting next fall. They plan to serve business and research installations, as well as consumers. A later phase is supposed to roll out to more suburban neighborhoods that nevertheless have a good density of multifamily dwellings. This will use wireless signal delivery in part.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2012/12/13/ultra-high-speed-gigabit-internet.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2012-12-13 gives a quick summary, and here is a more complete announcement from the mayor.
Mayor McGinn » City of Seattle, University of Washington, and Gigabit Squared announce plan to develop ultra-fast broadband network
I hope this happens, as we currently do not have very good service.
Ha
