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My startup is 100% remote and we've been doing it for the past 4 years. We are very collaborative, and for that to work remotely, you need good & reliable inter

My startup is 100% remote and we've been doing it for the past 4 years. We are very collaborative, and for that to work remotely, you need good & reliable internet. And that is turning out to be a problem sometimes. You can't just work from any random beach or forest. Right now I live in a big city but I want to move out to the country. Well, lots of places in the country don't even have cable or dsl. You can only get "wireless" internet which is shit. So yeah, until it's easy to get broadband even out in the country, I don't think remote work is going to catch on. Because if you live in a city, you're probably just going to get a non-remote job. Half the advantages for working remotely is that it allows you to live out in the country, but without good internet, a big chunk of remote work is just not doable.

MichaelBurge 9y ago
I wonder how much it costs to lay the cable. If you offered $10k/20k to your ISP, they might be able to come up with a solution for you even in a rural area.
- socialist_coder 9y ago
  Yeah, I wonder that too. Eventually I will investigate stuff like this in more detail.
lj3 9y ago
Damn, how remote are we talking here? I live in the middle of nowhere in New York State (1 hour drive to the nearest town, 2 to the nearest C-list city, 4 to Toronto, 10 to NYC). We've had high speed cable internet since 1999. > You can only get "wireless" internet which is shit. Depends on where you are. WISPs with a microwave connection are usually faster than cable, if run properly. More and more of them are popping up in rural areas because you don't have the high cost of running cable or fiber.
- socialist_coder 9y ago
  I've been looking at 20+ acre land parcels in Oregon/Washington. The only internet service is wireless stuff like this: http://www.peakinternet.com/internet/fixed-wireless/ http://www.peakinternet.com/internet/fixed-wireless/
GordonS 9y ago
While some will want to be digital nomads, the majority of remote workers will simply work from home, where they have access to a good internet connection. Are you in the US? I ask because I'm suprised that not everywhere gets cable of ADSL (I'm in Scotland, and many places have fibre. It's really rare not to have access to at least ADSL nowadays, even for somewhere fairly remote). As I see it, one of the advantages of working remotely is that I'm not constrained to jobs and salaries on offer in my city.

MichaelBurge 9y ago

I wonder how much it costs to lay the cable. If you offered $10k/20k to your ISP, they might be able to come up with a solution for you even in a rural area.

socialist_coder 9y ago
Yeah, I wonder that too. Eventually I will investigate stuff like this in more detail.

lj3 9y ago

Damn, how remote are we talking here? I live in the middle of nowhere in New York State (1 hour drive to the nearest town, 2 to the nearest C-list city, 4 to Toronto, 10 to NYC). We've had high speed cable internet since 1999. > You can only get "wireless" internet which is shit. Depends on where you are. WISPs with a microwave connection are usually faster than cable, if run properly. More and more of them are popping up in rural areas because you don't have the high cost of running cable or fiber.

socialist_coder 9y ago
I've been looking at 20+ acre land parcels in Oregon/Washington. The only internet service is wireless stuff like this: http://www.peakinternet.com/internet/fixed-wireless/ http://www.peakinternet.com/internet/fixed-wireless/

GordonS 9y ago

While some will want to be digital nomads, the majority of remote workers will simply work from home, where they have access to a good internet connection. Are you in the US? I ask because I'm suprised that not everywhere gets cable of ADSL (I'm in Scotland, and many places have fibre. It's really rare not to have access to at least ADSL nowadays, even for somewhere fairly remote). As I see it, one of the advantages of working remotely is that I'm not constrained to jobs and salaries on offer in my city.