5 ms·

But it's not different at all from providing that service in metro LA, NYC, SF, etc. Yet the rates in many metro areas are still way way higher.

Phlarp 11y ago
Yea, if you want to treat all the major metro areas as islands this is a comfy little world view to hold against the evil cable corps, however, American cities are still generally less dense than their Europe or Asian counterparts. Problem is there are large swaths of the population that don't live anywhere near these metro areas and the communities and economies they participate in are nowhere near as dense. Take the upper mid-west for example: Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit are relatively easy (cheap) to wire up, but what about all the 15,000 population towns in between? Or the other 25% of the population that don't live in cities at all. In these places the options are most often between traditional 56k dialup, or satellite. As everyone else in this thread is saying, the last mile is where the real costs are at, and in America we suffer from both the physical reality of being less dense and the political paralysis that allows organizations like Comcast to flourish. Even if we did fix the political problem, physics is still a bitch.
- erpellan 11y ago
  What makes the cables that carry data different from power, water, phone, gas (does America do gas-powered hobs?) Or are you telling us that 25% of the US population doesn't have these things either?
  - Phlarp 11y ago
    If we had the political environment (and labor laws!) of the time when those things were laid down, sure.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > Take the upper mid-west for example: Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit are relatively easy (cheap) to wire up... Why does Chattanooga, TN have gigabit symmetric FTTP service for $70/month, [0] when San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, or those cities that you mentioned don't have anything comparable? Hint: It's not a population density problem. It's a political problem. Internet service over municipally-owned infrastructure is so cost effective that the incumbent players have work very hard to make it illegal in many districts. [1] [0] https://epbfi.com/internet/ https://epbfi.com/internet/ [1] If you find yourself thinking that this is a reasonable move, ask yourself: "Why do we deliver electricity, water, and sewerage service over municipally-owned infrastructure, but balk at doing the same for Internet service?"
- kbutler 11y ago
  We have a largely suburban town, 20K population when we moved in 15 years ago, primarily single-family dwellings. The commercial ISPs wouldn't even consider providing broadband. Community network plans were made and implemented, then the commercial ISPs spoke up and protested. We had a community cable and broadband internet network built from scratch, fully deployed and running for a couple of years before the incumbent cable company with a pre-existing network (Comcast) started to provide broadband internet service. The community network remains self-funded and profitable, has repeatedly used annual profits to upgrade bandwidth, and remains significantly cheaper than the commercial cable and DSL broadband providers.

Phlarp 11y ago

Yea, if you want to treat all the major metro areas as islands this is a comfy little world view to hold against the evil cable corps, however, American cities are still generally less dense than their Europe or Asian counterparts. Problem is there are large swaths of the population that don't live anywhere near these metro areas and the communities and economies they participate in are nowhere near as dense. Take the upper mid-west for example: Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit are relatively easy (cheap) to wire up, but what about all the 15,000 population towns in between? Or the other 25% of the population that don't live in cities at all. In these places the options are most often between traditional 56k dialup, or satellite. As everyone else in this thread is saying, the last mile is where the real costs are at, and in America we suffer from both the physical reality of being less dense and the political paralysis that allows organizations like Comcast to flourish. Even if we did fix the political problem, physics is still a bitch.

erpellan 11y ago
What makes the cables that carry data different from power, water, phone, gas (does America do gas-powered hobs?) Or are you telling us that 25% of the US population doesn't have these things either?
- Phlarp 11y ago
  If we had the political environment (and labor laws!) of the time when those things were laid down, sure.
simoncion 11y ago
> Take the upper mid-west for example: Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit are relatively easy (cheap) to wire up... Why does Chattanooga, TN have gigabit symmetric FTTP service for $70/month, [0] when San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, or those cities that you mentioned don't have anything comparable? Hint: It's not a population density problem. It's a political problem. Internet service over municipally-owned infrastructure is so cost effective that the incumbent players have work very hard to make it illegal in many districts. [1] [0] https://epbfi.com/internet/ https://epbfi.com/internet/ [1] If you find yourself thinking that this is a reasonable move, ask yourself: "Why do we deliver electricity, water, and sewerage service over municipally-owned infrastructure, but balk at doing the same for Internet service?"
kbutler 11y ago
We have a largely suburban town, 20K population when we moved in 15 years ago, primarily single-family dwellings. The commercial ISPs wouldn't even consider providing broadband. Community network plans were made and implemented, then the commercial ISPs spoke up and protested. We had a community cable and broadband internet network built from scratch, fully deployed and running for a couple of years before the incumbent cable company with a pre-existing network (Comcast) started to provide broadband internet service. The community network remains self-funded and profitable, has repeatedly used annual profits to upgrade bandwidth, and remains significantly cheaper than the commercial cable and DSL broadband providers.