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It appears the potential market in the US is based on Federal broadband coverage figures. From the story: "In 2017, more than 26% of people who lived in r

It appears the potential market in the US is based on Federal broadband coverage figures. From the story: "In 2017, more than 26% of people who lived in rural areas in the U.S. were not covered by terrestrial broadband internet service, according to a May report from the Federal Communications Commission." FCC numbers are pure fiction. It is well known that providers are GREATLY exaggerating their coverage and available capacity to rural and semi rural areas. Much of the coverage that actually exists is also garbage; fixed wireless suffering absurd contention and unreliable, low performance cable system or DSL systems. There are well-heeled communities adjacent to large urban areas that can get nothing worthwhile; they're inflicting substantial new property taxes on themselves to fund FTTH build-outs. I suspect the actual market for rural broadband is many times larger than whatever is assumed in this story. I also know for fact that there is a cohort of people that will go further out into the hinterlands the instant they can solve the bandwidth problem at a reasonable cost. I'm one of them.

phil21 7y ago
> FCC numbers are pure fiction. It is well known that providers are GREATLY exaggerating their coverage and available capacity to rural and semi rural areas. Thank you. At risk of piling on a "+1" comment, I will add a little bit of context. My parents live about 35 miles from a "midwest urban core", they are served by Frontier. Supposedly they can get "1.5Mbps DSL" which qualifies as broadband. On a good day they can get 64k. This has degraded from about 768k ~10 years ago, to ~64k today. Absolute no maintenance other than "electrons kinda flowish" has been done on these lines. But, my parents and their neighbors of ~150 households totally count for "broadband" stats. The fraud going on here is absolutely mind boggingly in scope. The "lie big if you're going to lie" thing comes into mind here. Billions evaporated due to nothing other than absolutely in-your-face fraud.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  That's slower than ISDN :( To stream Netflix at 10 frames per second, they'd have to watch a show in something like 28 px by 21 px. That'd be like playing Minecraft on a 1970s LED calculator.
  - phil21 7y ago
    Indeed. They have since canceled as of about 4-5 months ago. Now they use a T-Mobile re-seller (via walmart, iirc) that gives them 25GB/mo for less than their "broadband DSL" cost. So far they have been happy - watching shows at 480p.

phil21 7y ago

> FCC numbers are pure fiction. It is well known that providers are GREATLY exaggerating their coverage and available capacity to rural and semi rural areas. Thank you. At risk of piling on a "+1" comment, I will add a little bit of context. My parents live about 35 miles from a "midwest urban core", they are served by Frontier. Supposedly they can get "1.5Mbps DSL" which qualifies as broadband. On a good day they can get 64k. This has degraded from about 768k ~10 years ago, to ~64k today. Absolute no maintenance other than "electrons kinda flowish" has been done on these lines. But, my parents and their neighbors of ~150 households totally count for "broadband" stats. The fraud going on here is absolutely mind boggingly in scope. The "lie big if you're going to lie" thing comes into mind here. Billions evaporated due to nothing other than absolutely in-your-face fraud.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
That's slower than ISDN :( To stream Netflix at 10 frames per second, they'd have to watch a show in something like 28 px by 21 px. That'd be like playing Minecraft on a 1970s LED calculator.
- phil21 7y ago
  Indeed. They have since canceled as of about 4-5 months ago. Now they use a T-Mobile re-seller (via walmart, iirc) that gives them 25GB/mo for less than their "broadband DSL" cost. So far they have been happy - watching shows at 480p.