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Microsoft says its data shows FCC reports overstate broadband adoption

341 points by sethbannon 8y ago

jimrandomh 8y ago
This is comparing broadband "availability" (whether you could have >=25Mbps if you paid for it) with broadband "use" (whether your downloads actually go at >=25Mbps). The latter is a better metric, but there isn't any mystery why these numbers are different.
- mjevans 8y ago
  It's 2019. For a first world country even the BASIC package, within an actual city, should fulfill the "minimum broadband" definition of 25Mbit/sec down and 3-5Mbit/sec up; even during peek hours. If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Akamai's speed test reports are getting a bit dated, but in Q1 2017, no country had more than 40% at 25 mbps+: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-t.... The U.S. was #10 at 21%. The only European countries to make the list were Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. Putatively first world countries like France and Italy were at 18% and 12% with 15mbps+. Even today, I'd wager that for the vast majority of the EU (by population, so the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Spain), 25 mbps is closer to the median than the floor.
    - mikekchar 8y ago
      That's quite interesting. I live in rural Japan and have fiber, so I get well above those speeds. I had a quick look at the document and I think things certainly have changed in a few years -- at least in Japan. These days there is virtually nowhere that you can't get 4G as far as I know. The vast majority of people here use the internet on their phone so I'm willing to bet that percentage has gone up a lot. Feature phones used to be popular, but now if you don't have a smart phone it's pretty darn unusual. There is very little free wifi here as well, so almost everybody who has a phone has a 4G data plan. In terms of availability, even fibre is ubiquitous now. At least in the Tokai region, I would be shocked if there was a single town that didn't have fibre now. NTT rolled it out aggressively about 10 years ago. When I got hooked up in my apartment 4 years ago they didn't even bother to check availability. It would be super interesting to see what the numbers are like now. Of course it's apples and oranges. The US is much harder to serve than Japan (although I guess the many earthquakes keep the fibre repair guys busy). But I think you'll see SE Asian countries having nearly ubiquitous coverage in the next handful of years.
    - the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
      I always wonder how much of this is availability vs what the market wants. I'm constantly surprised how many people just don't pay for faster internet even today even though they have the option.
  - throwaway190102 8y ago
    >If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages. No, not everyone is going to have your use patterns or knowledge. Most ordinary folks are just price sensitive. "What's the lowest price thing I can get that's not dialup." I agree there need's to be more competition, but so long as there exits cheaper packages bellow the "minimum broadband" definition there will be many normal people who buy them.
  - jfoutz 8y ago
    > If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages. I cannot overstate the absolute brilliance of this comment. It is absolutely critical that we all recognize terrain has no influence whatsoever on communication technology. There is literally no difference between a link in the rocky mountains and the great plains. With sufficient competition the price will be identical. It's not possible for regional conditions to influence price, if there is any difference, the market will correct that and someone will become very wealthy. It's also important to recognize the operators of technology have no preferences in living and working conditions. the vast majority of telecom operators in jackson hole are willing to move to san francisco with virtually no effort. And vice versa, there's hardly anyone in san francisco that would be unwilling to relocate. This comes down to a fundamental tenet of economics. If you see a $100 bill laying on the ground, that's the indication you need to go to the doctor. It's not possible the money would simply be laying on the ground. You're hallucinating. Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that capital will simply flow to where the opportunity exists. If only one low quality provider exists in a location, it's basically zero effort to bring in a million or ten million dollars to install a more efficient infrastructure. Perhaps a community waits a year or two, but it's basically a blip that access is unusually expensive. In any case, it's been a long time since i've read such a brilliant analysis on HN. It's just a fantastic marriage of theoretical understanding and a deep deep knowledge of how theory meets reality. All right, enough condescending mocking. There's a reason it's always a town of 500 people that's the most dangerous in the country. small markets have weird results. You're not wrong, it's true that eventually it'll all balance out. Your breezy disconnected comment is insulting to the reality people face today. An ever so slightly more sophisticated analysis can solve a _ton_ of problems today. Your casual disconnected analysis is the kind of thing that would completely overlook the opportunity provided by VC capital. It ain't easy. but a few small pushes can have a huge, outsized impact in these small markets.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  Good point. I live in an area that has broadband availability, and I choose to be on Comcast’s cheapest tier (18/3) because I don’t need faster speed and it would cost $250/yr to be at a higher tier. If there were more competition (Comcast has a monopoly in western SV), prices would likely be lower and I’d probably be at/above 25mbps for the same price I’m paying now.
sethbannon 8y ago
While 4B people don't have access globally, it's astounding to me that affordable broadband access is still an issue even in the United States. Glad that new solutions like satellites [1] are coming online to solve this problem. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2019/01/16/twenty-percent-of-alaskans-dont-have-access-to-broadband-internet-this-satellite-startup-aims-to-change-that/#2d14ef2957e8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2019/01/16/twenty-per... Disclaimer: I'm an investor in Astranis, mentioned in the Forbes article.
- jerrysievert 8y ago
  > Glad that new solutions like satellites [1] are coming online to solve this problem. i wouldn't call satellite service in geostationary orbits (which was the subject of the article, though they did mention LEO options as competition) something that really "solves" this problem. you end up with fairly low bandwidth with current providers (for instance, hughesnet maxes out at 25mbit, which is theoretical since busy hours mean much less), with enough latency to make anything interactive extremely painful ... connecting to a remote shell without something like mosh is worse than 300baud dialup due to the latency - first hop to the satellite typically runs 800-900ms, and the next hop to a terrestrial gateway is 1200-1300ms. streaming isn't exactly feasible either, given the latency and that a typical plan is measured in gigabytes per month (before you are throttled to an average speed of 1.5mbit). but it works where there are no other providers and cell service doesn't reach.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Satellites will never fix the broadband penetration problem. There are fundamental laws of physics in the way. If you can change those, let me know. If you want to solve broadband adoption, you have to get Congress to stop allowing broadband companies to lie through their teeth.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    For anyone else curious... geostationary orbits run at an altitude of 22,236 miles or 120ms. Double that for round-trip and bump it by a bit more for the angle and I'd expect pings >= 300ms on top of the delays in the electronics.
jedberg 8y ago
The FCC says that I have seven possible ISPs at my home. Never mind that three of those are just different levels of service from AT&T. And one of those is Sonic that just resells AT&T for more money at lower speeds (not their fault, they have to ride on AT&Ts lines because AT&T won't let Sonic into their cabinets). And two of those are wireless broadband providers who don't actually service my house (although they do service within a mile of me). So really I have two choices -- AT&T and Comcast. And I'm one of the lucky ones that has two choices. And even luckier that one of those is Gigabit. So even for my house, with Gigabit service, the FCC report is still grossly overstated. I can't imagine how bad their data in rural areas is.
- woodruffw 8y ago
  Same for me in Manhattan: the FCC reports that I have 6 options, including Gigabit fiber. In reality, I have two: Charter (a/k/a Spectrum, a/k/a TWC) at 200/20, and Verizon ADSL at 5/1. Confusingly, the 5/1 hookup is actually more expensive than 200/20.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    And that ADSL doesn't even count as broadband anymore!
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  Sonic is more expensive for just internet? Or are you bundling with TV etc.?
  - Groxx 8y ago
    Sonic is a fair bit more expensive for me, and I can only get DSL so I have terrible upload speeds. Worth it. Calling support has been fast and pleasant, and I'd prefer to not give that money to comcast.
WillPostForFood 8y ago
Microsoft is basing the data on users of their services, which is largely a self selected group. Would it be surprising if people using Bing instead of Google or Duck Duck Go were the kind of people who use Windows, default to using Bing, and don't see the value of a high speed internet connection? I have older family members who fit this profile.
- bgdnyxbjx 8y ago
  Bing isn’t the only service Microsoft has. Update, office, Xbox, Windows itself, etc
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Bhilai 8y ago
  Last I checked Windows was still the second most used OS. I am sure Microsoft collects a lot of telemetry through Windows even when the user is not using Bing (or Edge.)
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It's the primary domestic OS isn't it?
- chungleong 8y ago
  I strongly suspect that the data comes from Microsoft's MSN page. Video downloads is really the only usage scenario broad enough to generate such a data set. MSN serves loads of them and is the default page on Windows. Since their contents target the audience favored by advertisers (i.e. young urban folks with money), the data could have a strong selection bias. Rural Americans simply aren't viewing the pop-culture-centric materials on MSN.
  - mdturnerphys 8y ago
    How about Windows Update, Xbox, OneDrive . . . There are plenty of services Microsoft runs that could help provide this information.
xnaas 8y ago
[Pikachu shocked face]
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Don't post low quality zero content garbage to HN.
hermitdev 8y ago
MS's findings largely lineup with my parent's experience in rural Montana. Their only non dialup (yes, dialup) was an experimental microwave connection that was expensive, line of sight and peeked at about 5 Mbps down, and far less up. It was also very tempermental, subject to weather outages in snow or rain. The local cable internet provider wouldn't run cable, as it wasnt cost effective. They'd have had to run around 5 miles of cable to serve less than 50 households. The cable TV provider did run some cable, and made it obvious they didnt care or plan to really service it. Personally, dont know why they bother other than to possibly meet a regulatory requirement as they didnt run it until 2000-2001 and anyone that wanted "cable" already had Directv or Dish by that point. After every rain storm or snow melt, a different section of cable became exposed (they ran the cable in the ditch alongside a dirt road on the side of a mountain with less than a foot of top soil on average before you hit bedrock, so cant complain too much they didnt go deeper).
- rayiner 8y ago
  Running five miles of cable would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars: https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7mp9gz/comment/drvn3ad https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7mp9gz/comment/.... Then, if you’ve got 50 houses, how many will subscribe? Hint: not many, since folks who buy houses in places without broadband probably don’t prioritize broadband. Say you get 20 houses though, with $200,000 invested. That’s $10,000 per house. That’s an optimistic figure. Will you ever make that money back? No. Charter has a market cap of $5,000 per subscriber. If you blow double that on capital costs alone per subscriber, you’ll never come close to making it back. (Especially in a scenario like the above with high maintenance costs.)
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    Oh, I am well aware of the costs involved. Hence why I stated they likely only ran the cable to fulfill a regulatory check box and appeared to have done it as cheap as possible where you could see dozens of yards of cable exposed in a ditch, or even exposed to vehicles driving over it. But that's also why Congress has passed acts to compel providers to provide service. Hell, I currently live in an affluent Chicago suburb, and I have exposed wires from both Comcast and AT&T just inches from the sidewalk out my back door. My dog literally takes dumps on the internet/TV cables to the townhouses I live in. Haven't had AT&T service since they sold AT&T BI to comcast, but Comcast has the balls to tell me when I complain about an outage I should upgrade to business class if I want fewer outages (lower speeds, more money, supposedly service guarantees).
jmspring 8y ago
Hmm. I am paying more than I should for fiber through a rural coop, but I have fiber. It’s been way more stable than any broadband (including a local line of site WiFi) and my prior abode in the Bay Area.
nickreese 8y ago
Microsoft is right. 477 data is notoriously inaccurate and there are few things stopping companies from not exaggerating their coverage. Basically companies need to reasonably be able to service any address within a census block without a major effort to be able to report that block as covered. Then if a block is considered to have enough competition providers can’t get funding from various government sources to support their build outs. To further exasperate the problem it appears the FCC is essentially doing very little validation on the data they are given and subsequently release. We encountered all of these factors over the past ~5 years building BroadbandNow.com and lobbying the FCC to start collecting better address level data... or to at least minimally validate what they release. On iur end, with each 477 data release it takes a team of 5 almost 2 weeks to process and merge the data properly. In that process we do a ton of geospatial and some statistical validation to make sure the data actually makes sense. (A CA provider also covers 400 people in Maine??) We also compare it to historical data sets and a few propritary ones to make our data as accurate as possible. (We’ve also got some other tricks up our sleeve but can’t disclose those). The only real long term solution is for the FCC to collect and release address level availability data from providers. The providers will rant and rave that this is a regulatory burden but the reality is that most of them already have this data and make it publicaly available if you go through the right channels... this is why we built businessinternet.com. We could easily get our hands on “lit building lists” and even fiber routes for business customers but when you ask ANY major ISP if they have address level coverage for residential customers they’ll tell you their systems aren’t advanced enough to have that data. It’s crazy. When we started BroadbandNow in 2014 we did so because we realized there were millions of Americans who we considered “underserved” meaning that they didn’t have more than 2 wires providers that offered 10/4 mbps. Today we measure that metric at 25/3 but it is sad to say the number of underserved Americans has barely improved. As a team we believe better data improves competition. Hopefully Microsoft bringing attention to the issues around 477 data will create enough political leverage to help fix the issues.
tzs 8y ago
Here's a map from the FCC that will let you look up a location and see what service the FCC thinks is available there [1]. [1] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/ https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/
- o10449366 8y ago
  Echoing the top comment in this thread, FCC lists 6 providers for my neighborhood; in reality there's only two and Comcast is the only one who provides cable. This means if I have an issue with them, there's no competitor I can join instead and they take full advantage of this. I got it resolved recently after many years of issues, but it turns out that Comcast installed my cables wrong. They 1) Used television grade cables that weren't properly shielded so every time my neighbor ran their microwave my ping would spike to 800-2,000 and 2) Didn't hook up the cables right so my other neighbor and I have been splitting connections for the past five years Every time I bugged them about this they would send out a tech that would poke around in the attic for a bit, but ultimately just shrug their shoulders and be on their way. I was finally able to get it resolved, but only because I happen to know a local Comcast executive that was able to escalate the issue for me. If I provided such a negligent service and charged my customers full-price as an individual I would be arrested and charged with theft and fraud.
  - 8ytecoder 8y ago
    Same here. As if the issues aren't enough, Comcast is also the "preferred" provider at my building and they are citing "safety reasons" to not let another provider who is willing to extend to my place.
- zanny 8y ago
  Apparently some company called Pencor has gigabit symmetrical fiber where I live, but I can't find any reference they even provide ISP services, and the mentioned subsidiary only advertises DSL. Considering I live in a rural town of 3k I doubt it.
- OrgNet 8y ago
  For my address, they list two cable providers and of course one of them is not available... Are there any areas in the US where two different cable providers are allowed to service customers in the same area?
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
I have a Fios modem in my apartment but with Verizon's extortionate pricing I couldn't ever consider them an option.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  I'm paying about $60 for 100/100 FiOS in Pittsburgh. I'm actually more pissed about not having IPv6, despite claims of it coming for years.
m0zg 8y ago
None of this is gonna matter, worldwide, when Musk launches his constellation. And he will launch it eventually. I, for one, will sign up even if I don't need it, provided there's a plan for under $50/mo, just to show my outstretched middle finger to Comcast.
nfriedly 8y ago
Here's the link to the actual Microsoft report: https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/ https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/
oneowl 8y ago
I'm not really aware of how FCC collected this data and how the analysis were done. I'm also not aware of the policies that are set by the US government to provide rural connectivity. But I have a few general thoughts on the issue. Estimating the broadband adoption is a tricky issue because of number of stakeholders involved. First there are the companies that provide the physical connectivity. Their job is done as soon as the lines are laid to the base station or the satellite is sent into the space, etc [1] According to them anywhere the physical layer has reached there is internet connectivity (which is true...to an extent) But this does not actually get the internet in to your home. Local distribution is a very big challenge. A similar thing happened in India with Bharat net [2]. While the government successfully laid down the fiber optic cables the last mile connectivity was overlooked. So of course the broadband is inadequate when the capacity is not being used. I agree with the article that internet is connected to a higher economic growth and overall prosperity. The same sentiment is also echoed by the WEF report [3]. However these reports miss one very crucial point. Internet is not a service provider. Internet is a transport. You need to have people provide service on the internet if it is to be used. Local internet economy is almost non existent. Many of the faults in FCC's report can be explained if you look at the internet provider business as a marketplace. - Big companies own the platform and assert that the platform can reach anywhere. Which might very well be true. - Local internet service providers use this platform to provide services to the customers. - Customers pay for the internet service according to usage. Why should a customer pay heavy charge for the broadband usage? Why should the local internet service provider invest into last mile connectivity? On a global scale internet rapidly reached new levels of adoption when the application layer succeeded. Something similar needs to happen on a local level, I think. And this is what microsoft is also trying to do with their airband platform [4]. [1] If you do a bit of digging into physical layer distribution there are many exotic ways to provide network connectivity including sending weather balloons up in the air! Very interesting area of research if you're into this sort of thing. [2] https://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack-policy/report-summaries/progress-implementation-bharat-net https://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack-policy/report-summa... [3] https://www.weforum.org/projects/internet-for-all https://www.weforum.org/projects/internet-for-all [4] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/airband https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/airband
- 8y ago
eecc 8y ago
In Italian we say “chiedere all’oste se il vino è buono” which translates to “ask the inn-keeper if the wine is good”. The meaning is clear
_pmf_ 8y ago
But Google will roll out Fiber nationwide in the US and via balloons in Africa!

341 points by sethbannon 8y ago

This is comparing broadband "availability" (whether you could have >=25Mbps if you paid for it) with broadband "use" (whether your downloads actually go at >=25Mbps). The latter is a better metric, but there isn't any mystery why these numbers are different.

mjevans 8y ago
It's 2019. For a first world country even the BASIC package, within an actual city, should fulfill the "minimum broadband" definition of 25Mbit/sec down and 3-5Mbit/sec up; even during peek hours. If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Akamai's speed test reports are getting a bit dated, but in Q1 2017, no country had more than 40% at 25 mbps+: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-t.... The U.S. was #10 at 21%. The only European countries to make the list were Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. Putatively first world countries like France and Italy were at 18% and 12% with 15mbps+. Even today, I'd wager that for the vast majority of the EU (by population, so the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Spain), 25 mbps is closer to the median than the floor.
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    That's quite interesting. I live in rural Japan and have fiber, so I get well above those speeds. I had a quick look at the document and I think things certainly have changed in a few years -- at least in Japan. These days there is virtually nowhere that you can't get 4G as far as I know. The vast majority of people here use the internet on their phone so I'm willing to bet that percentage has gone up a lot. Feature phones used to be popular, but now if you don't have a smart phone it's pretty darn unusual. There is very little free wifi here as well, so almost everybody who has a phone has a 4G data plan. In terms of availability, even fibre is ubiquitous now. At least in the Tokai region, I would be shocked if there was a single town that didn't have fibre now. NTT rolled it out aggressively about 10 years ago. When I got hooked up in my apartment 4 years ago they didn't even bother to check availability. It would be super interesting to see what the numbers are like now. Of course it's apples and oranges. The US is much harder to serve than Japan (although I guess the many earthquakes keep the fibre repair guys busy). But I think you'll see SE Asian countries having nearly ubiquitous coverage in the next handful of years.
  - the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
    I always wonder how much of this is availability vs what the market wants. I'm constantly surprised how many people just don't pay for faster internet even today even though they have the option.
- throwaway190102 8y ago
  >If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages. No, not everyone is going to have your use patterns or knowledge. Most ordinary folks are just price sensitive. "What's the lowest price thing I can get that's not dialup." I agree there need's to be more competition, but so long as there exits cheaper packages bellow the "minimum broadband" definition there will be many normal people who buy them.
- jfoutz 8y ago
  > If it isn't being selected, then clearly there's insufficient competition to drive better prices and better packages. I cannot overstate the absolute brilliance of this comment. It is absolutely critical that we all recognize terrain has no influence whatsoever on communication technology. There is literally no difference between a link in the rocky mountains and the great plains. With sufficient competition the price will be identical. It's not possible for regional conditions to influence price, if there is any difference, the market will correct that and someone will become very wealthy. It's also important to recognize the operators of technology have no preferences in living and working conditions. the vast majority of telecom operators in jackson hole are willing to move to san francisco with virtually no effort. And vice versa, there's hardly anyone in san francisco that would be unwilling to relocate. This comes down to a fundamental tenet of economics. If you see a $100 bill laying on the ground, that's the indication you need to go to the doctor. It's not possible the money would simply be laying on the ground. You're hallucinating. Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that capital will simply flow to where the opportunity exists. If only one low quality provider exists in a location, it's basically zero effort to bring in a million or ten million dollars to install a more efficient infrastructure. Perhaps a community waits a year or two, but it's basically a blip that access is unusually expensive. In any case, it's been a long time since i've read such a brilliant analysis on HN. It's just a fantastic marriage of theoretical understanding and a deep deep knowledge of how theory meets reality. All right, enough condescending mocking. There's a reason it's always a town of 500 people that's the most dangerous in the country. small markets have weird results. You're not wrong, it's true that eventually it'll all balance out. Your breezy disconnected comment is insulting to the reality people face today. An ever so slightly more sophisticated analysis can solve a _ton_ of problems today. Your casual disconnected analysis is the kind of thing that would completely overlook the opportunity provided by VC capital. It ain't easy. but a few small pushes can have a huge, outsized impact in these small markets.
gnicholas 8y ago
Good point. I live in an area that has broadband availability, and I choose to be on Comcast’s cheapest tier (18/3) because I don’t need faster speed and it would cost $250/yr to be at a higher tier. If there were more competition (Comcast has a monopoly in western SV), prices would likely be lower and I’d probably be at/above 25mbps for the same price I’m paying now.

sethbannon 8y ago

While 4B people don't have access globally, it's astounding to me that affordable broadband access is still an issue even in the United States. Glad that new solutions like satellites [1] are coming online to solve this problem. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2019/01/16/twenty-percent-of-alaskans-dont-have-access-to-broadband-internet-this-satellite-startup-aims-to-change-that/#2d14ef2957e8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2019/01/16/twenty-per... Disclaimer: I'm an investor in Astranis, mentioned in the Forbes article.

jerrysievert 8y ago
> Glad that new solutions like satellites [1] are coming online to solve this problem. i wouldn't call satellite service in geostationary orbits (which was the subject of the article, though they did mention LEO options as competition) something that really "solves" this problem. you end up with fairly low bandwidth with current providers (for instance, hughesnet maxes out at 25mbit, which is theoretical since busy hours mean much less), with enough latency to make anything interactive extremely painful ... connecting to a remote shell without something like mosh is worse than 300baud dialup due to the latency - first hop to the satellite typically runs 800-900ms, and the next hop to a terrestrial gateway is 1200-1300ms. streaming isn't exactly feasible either, given the latency and that a typical plan is measured in gigabytes per month (before you are throttled to an average speed of 1.5mbit). but it works where there are no other providers and cell service doesn't reach.
killjoywashere 8y ago
Satellites will never fix the broadband penetration problem. There are fundamental laws of physics in the way. If you can change those, let me know. If you want to solve broadband adoption, you have to get Congress to stop allowing broadband companies to lie through their teeth.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  For anyone else curious... geostationary orbits run at an altitude of 22,236 miles or 120ms. Double that for round-trip and bump it by a bit more for the angle and I'd expect pings >= 300ms on top of the delays in the electronics.

jedberg 8y ago

The FCC says that I have seven possible ISPs at my home. Never mind that three of those are just different levels of service from AT&T. And one of those is Sonic that just resells AT&T for more money at lower speeds (not their fault, they have to ride on AT&Ts lines because AT&T won't let Sonic into their cabinets). And two of those are wireless broadband providers who don't actually service my house (although they do service within a mile of me). So really I have two choices -- AT&T and Comcast. And I'm one of the lucky ones that has two choices. And even luckier that one of those is Gigabit. So even for my house, with Gigabit service, the FCC report is still grossly overstated. I can't imagine how bad their data in rural areas is.

woodruffw 8y ago
Same for me in Manhattan: the FCC reports that I have 6 options, including Gigabit fiber. In reality, I have two: Charter (a/k/a Spectrum, a/k/a TWC) at 200/20, and Verizon ADSL at 5/1. Confusingly, the 5/1 hookup is actually more expensive than 200/20.
- jedberg 8y ago
  And that ADSL doesn't even count as broadband anymore!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
mehrdadn 8y ago
Sonic is more expensive for just internet? Or are you bundling with TV etc.?
- Groxx 8y ago
  Sonic is a fair bit more expensive for me, and I can only get DSL so I have terrible upload speeds. Worth it. Calling support has been fast and pleasant, and I'd prefer to not give that money to comcast.

WillPostForFood 8y ago

Microsoft is basing the data on users of their services, which is largely a self selected group. Would it be surprising if people using Bing instead of Google or Duck Duck Go were the kind of people who use Windows, default to using Bing, and don't see the value of a high speed internet connection? I have older family members who fit this profile.

bgdnyxbjx 8y ago
Bing isn’t the only service Microsoft has. Update, office, Xbox, Windows itself, etc
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Bhilai 8y ago
Last I checked Windows was still the second most used OS. I am sure Microsoft collects a lot of telemetry through Windows even when the user is not using Bing (or Edge.)
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  It's the primary domestic OS isn't it?
chungleong 8y ago
I strongly suspect that the data comes from Microsoft's MSN page. Video downloads is really the only usage scenario broad enough to generate such a data set. MSN serves loads of them and is the default page on Windows. Since their contents target the audience favored by advertisers (i.e. young urban folks with money), the data could have a strong selection bias. Rural Americans simply aren't viewing the pop-culture-centric materials on MSN.
- mdturnerphys 8y ago
  How about Windows Update, Xbox, OneDrive . . . There are plenty of services Microsoft runs that could help provide this information.

xnaas 8y ago

[Pikachu shocked face]

throwaway2048 8y ago
Don't post low quality zero content garbage to HN.

hermitdev 8y ago

MS's findings largely lineup with my parent's experience in rural Montana. Their only non dialup (yes, dialup) was an experimental microwave connection that was expensive, line of sight and peeked at about 5 Mbps down, and far less up. It was also very tempermental, subject to weather outages in snow or rain. The local cable internet provider wouldn't run cable, as it wasnt cost effective. They'd have had to run around 5 miles of cable to serve less than 50 households. The cable TV provider did run some cable, and made it obvious they didnt care or plan to really service it. Personally, dont know why they bother other than to possibly meet a regulatory requirement as they didnt run it until 2000-2001 and anyone that wanted "cable" already had Directv or Dish by that point. After every rain storm or snow melt, a different section of cable became exposed (they ran the cable in the ditch alongside a dirt road on the side of a mountain with less than a foot of top soil on average before you hit bedrock, so cant complain too much they didnt go deeper).

rayiner 8y ago
Running five miles of cable would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars: https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7mp9gz/comment/drvn3ad https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7mp9gz/comment/.... Then, if you’ve got 50 houses, how many will subscribe? Hint: not many, since folks who buy houses in places without broadband probably don’t prioritize broadband. Say you get 20 houses though, with $200,000 invested. That’s $10,000 per house. That’s an optimistic figure. Will you ever make that money back? No. Charter has a market cap of $5,000 per subscriber. If you blow double that on capital costs alone per subscriber, you’ll never come close to making it back. (Especially in a scenario like the above with high maintenance costs.)
- hermitdev 8y ago
  Oh, I am well aware of the costs involved. Hence why I stated they likely only ran the cable to fulfill a regulatory check box and appeared to have done it as cheap as possible where you could see dozens of yards of cable exposed in a ditch, or even exposed to vehicles driving over it. But that's also why Congress has passed acts to compel providers to provide service. Hell, I currently live in an affluent Chicago suburb, and I have exposed wires from both Comcast and AT&T just inches from the sidewalk out my back door. My dog literally takes dumps on the internet/TV cables to the townhouses I live in. Haven't had AT&T service since they sold AT&T BI to comcast, but Comcast has the balls to tell me when I complain about an outage I should upgrade to business class if I want fewer outages (lower speeds, more money, supposedly service guarantees).

jmspring 8y ago

Hmm. I am paying more than I should for fiber through a rural coop, but I have fiber. It’s been way more stable than any broadband (including a local line of site WiFi) and my prior abode in the Bay Area.

nickreese 8y ago

Microsoft is right. 477 data is notoriously inaccurate and there are few things stopping companies from not exaggerating their coverage. Basically companies need to reasonably be able to service any address within a census block without a major effort to be able to report that block as covered. Then if a block is considered to have enough competition providers can’t get funding from various government sources to support their build outs. To further exasperate the problem it appears the FCC is essentially doing very little validation on the data they are given and subsequently release. We encountered all of these factors over the past ~5 years building BroadbandNow.com and lobbying the FCC to start collecting better address level data... or to at least minimally validate what they release. On iur end, with each 477 data release it takes a team of 5 almost 2 weeks to process and merge the data properly. In that process we do a ton of geospatial and some statistical validation to make sure the data actually makes sense. (A CA provider also covers 400 people in Maine??) We also compare it to historical data sets and a few propritary ones to make our data as accurate as possible. (We’ve also got some other tricks up our sleeve but can’t disclose those). The only real long term solution is for the FCC to collect and release address level availability data from providers. The providers will rant and rave that this is a regulatory burden but the reality is that most of them already have this data and make it publicaly available if you go through the right channels... this is why we built businessinternet.com. We could easily get our hands on “lit building lists” and even fiber routes for business customers but when you ask ANY major ISP if they have address level coverage for residential customers they’ll tell you their systems aren’t advanced enough to have that data. It’s crazy. When we started BroadbandNow in 2014 we did so because we realized there were millions of Americans who we considered “underserved” meaning that they didn’t have more than 2 wires providers that offered 10/4 mbps. Today we measure that metric at 25/3 but it is sad to say the number of underserved Americans has barely improved. As a team we believe better data improves competition. Hopefully Microsoft bringing attention to the issues around 477 data will create enough political leverage to help fix the issues.

tzs 8y ago

Here's a map from the FCC that will let you look up a location and see what service the FCC thinks is available there [1]. [1] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/ https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/

o10449366 8y ago
Echoing the top comment in this thread, FCC lists 6 providers for my neighborhood; in reality there's only two and Comcast is the only one who provides cable. This means if I have an issue with them, there's no competitor I can join instead and they take full advantage of this. I got it resolved recently after many years of issues, but it turns out that Comcast installed my cables wrong. They 1) Used television grade cables that weren't properly shielded so every time my neighbor ran their microwave my ping would spike to 800-2,000 and 2) Didn't hook up the cables right so my other neighbor and I have been splitting connections for the past five years Every time I bugged them about this they would send out a tech that would poke around in the attic for a bit, but ultimately just shrug their shoulders and be on their way. I was finally able to get it resolved, but only because I happen to know a local Comcast executive that was able to escalate the issue for me. If I provided such a negligent service and charged my customers full-price as an individual I would be arrested and charged with theft and fraud.
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  Same here. As if the issues aren't enough, Comcast is also the "preferred" provider at my building and they are citing "safety reasons" to not let another provider who is willing to extend to my place.
zanny 8y ago
Apparently some company called Pencor has gigabit symmetrical fiber where I live, but I can't find any reference they even provide ISP services, and the mentioned subsidiary only advertises DSL. Considering I live in a rural town of 3k I doubt it.
OrgNet 8y ago
For my address, they list two cable providers and of course one of them is not available... Are there any areas in the US where two different cable providers are allowed to service customers in the same area?

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

I have a Fios modem in my apartment but with Verizon's extortionate pricing I couldn't ever consider them an option.

theandrewbailey 8y ago
I'm paying about $60 for 100/100 FiOS in Pittsburgh. I'm actually more pissed about not having IPv6, despite claims of it coming for years.

m0zg 8y ago

None of this is gonna matter, worldwide, when Musk launches his constellation. And he will launch it eventually. I, for one, will sign up even if I don't need it, provided there's a plan for under $50/mo, just to show my outstretched middle finger to Comcast.

nfriedly 8y ago

Here's the link to the actual Microsoft report: https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/ https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/

oneowl 8y ago

I'm not really aware of how FCC collected this data and how the analysis were done. I'm also not aware of the policies that are set by the US government to provide rural connectivity. But I have a few general thoughts on the issue. Estimating the broadband adoption is a tricky issue because of number of stakeholders involved. First there are the companies that provide the physical connectivity. Their job is done as soon as the lines are laid to the base station or the satellite is sent into the space, etc [1] According to them anywhere the physical layer has reached there is internet connectivity (which is true...to an extent) But this does not actually get the internet in to your home. Local distribution is a very big challenge. A similar thing happened in India with Bharat net [2]. While the government successfully laid down the fiber optic cables the last mile connectivity was overlooked. So of course the broadband is inadequate when the capacity is not being used. I agree with the article that internet is connected to a higher economic growth and overall prosperity. The same sentiment is also echoed by the WEF report [3]. However these reports miss one very crucial point. Internet is not a service provider. Internet is a transport. You need to have people provide service on the internet if it is to be used. Local internet economy is almost non existent. Many of the faults in FCC's report can be explained if you look at the internet provider business as a marketplace. - Big companies own the platform and assert that the platform can reach anywhere. Which might very well be true. - Local internet service providers use this platform to provide services to the customers. - Customers pay for the internet service according to usage. Why should a customer pay heavy charge for the broadband usage? Why should the local internet service provider invest into last mile connectivity? On a global scale internet rapidly reached new levels of adoption when the application layer succeeded. Something similar needs to happen on a local level, I think. And this is what microsoft is also trying to do with their airband platform [4]. [1] If you do a bit of digging into physical layer distribution there are many exotic ways to provide network connectivity including sending weather balloons up in the air! Very interesting area of research if you're into this sort of thing. [2] https://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack-policy/report-summaries/progress-implementation-bharat-net https://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack-policy/report-summa... [3] https://www.weforum.org/projects/internet-for-all https://www.weforum.org/projects/internet-for-all [4] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/airband https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/airband

8y ago

eecc 8y ago

In Italian we say “chiedere all’oste se il vino è buono” which translates to “ask the inn-keeper if the wine is good”. The meaning is clear

_pmf_ 8y ago

But Google will roll out Fiber nationwide in the US and via balloons in Africa!