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Speaking from a strange perspective perhaps but here in Sweden (the land of broadband) there was a little rural town in the south that couldn't wait to get fibr

Speaking from a strange perspective perhaps but here in Sweden (the land of broadband) there was a little rural town in the south that couldn't wait to get fibre so the locals organized all the necessary things to start a town fibre grid themselves. And now every house has 10Gbps with free choice of operator. Normally what most communities do is wait for one of the big fibre operators to reach them and start digging. But these locals did all the practical stuff like digging, laying fibre and building the actual grid themselves by hiring their own contractors. Larger communities, towns and cities, usually have a city wide fibre grid managed perhaps by the local energy company or by the municipality. They in turn might out-source the fibre digging but they still manage the grid and determine what operators are offered to the citizens. In big cities (we have three of those) you can find multiple city wide fibre grids. One managed by the municipality/city and some y large property owners that take it upon themselves to equip their buildings with fibre. Regarding the wireless setups in the article I am very skeptical because this was a trend 10 years back in Sweden and a lot of people lost money by investing in it when they could have just waited a few years and had real fibre. But the US is special because of its size. So wireless might be all they can get for many years.

PaulHoule 9y ago
Fixed Wireless has been a marginal player almost everywhere it has been tried. If you are in a place with favorable geography it can sorta kinda work. If you are in the Appalachian mountains, on the other hand, you are in a dissected plateau and most people live in valleys that are overlooked by a single ridge. You have to build a road over the ridge, run electricity, maybe run fiber, and with a really tall tower (remember we have trees on the East Coast!) you might look into the valleys on each side, and if you are really lucky, another valley over. The kicker is that most of the places which are favorable for wireless already have cable. So the addressable market is this tiny sliver which can be served with fixed wireless and can't get cable.
legulere 9y ago
> But the US is special because of its size. The US has a population density of 35.0/km², while Sweden has one of 22.0/km². So it shouldn't really be bigger problem in the US because of geography.
- propelol 9y ago
  Doesn't the population density vary a lot from state to state, especially in the rural parts.
  - BrandonMarc 9y ago
    Exactly. Exclude the counties with NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc, and it's a very different story. What works in Manhattan could never work in Wyoming or even Wisconsin.
    - legulere 9y ago
      Exclude the kommuner with Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö etc. and it's a complete very different story

PaulHoule 9y ago

Fixed Wireless has been a marginal player almost everywhere it has been tried. If you are in a place with favorable geography it can sorta kinda work. If you are in the Appalachian mountains, on the other hand, you are in a dissected plateau and most people live in valleys that are overlooked by a single ridge. You have to build a road over the ridge, run electricity, maybe run fiber, and with a really tall tower (remember we have trees on the East Coast!) you might look into the valleys on each side, and if you are really lucky, another valley over. The kicker is that most of the places which are favorable for wireless already have cable. So the addressable market is this tiny sliver which can be served with fixed wireless and can't get cable.

legulere 9y ago

> But the US is special because of its size. The US has a population density of 35.0/km², while Sweden has one of 22.0/km². So it shouldn't really be bigger problem in the US because of geography.

propelol 9y ago
Doesn't the population density vary a lot from state to state, especially in the rural parts.
- BrandonMarc 9y ago
  Exactly. Exclude the counties with NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc, and it's a very different story. What works in Manhattan could never work in Wyoming or even Wisconsin.
  - legulere 9y ago
    Exclude the kommuner with Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö etc. and it's a complete very different story