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This is great for urban areas, but connectivity in more rural parts of the country is shockingly bad, and doesn't seem to have as many elegant solutions as dens

This is great for urban areas, but connectivity in more rural parts of the country is shockingly bad, and doesn't seem to have as many elegant solutions as densely populated urban areas do. I live "out in the country" now during COVID and I'm now paying $60 for 250MB/s down, as opposed to paying $70 for gigabit a couple months ago living in the city. It cannot be understated how badly the more rural parts of the country are being screwed by big telecom right now.

cheerlessbog 6y ago
> $60 for 250MB/s dow I’m going to guess that 80% of the US can’t get that.
- freeopinion 6y ago
  I live in a rural area where the incumbent is building out FTTH as fast as they can. For all residences that have fiber, the price difference between 50M, 300M, and 1000M is significant. The actual bandwidth used by a 300M customer and a 1000M customer is usually the same. The provider's upstream contracts would not change much if they put every one of their customers on 1000M. But their pricing is regulated. The arm and a leg they charge for 1000M service is largely a function of that regulation, even though it hardly affects their costs otherwise. You might think that if the infrastructure costs are the same for 1M or 1000M and that the infrastructure costs are 90% of all costs, 1M and 1000M could be priced within 25% of each other. It might seem that a price jump from $100/50M to $1000/1000M is unreasonable. But the U.S. government right now is handing out $billions to rural providers to build out fiber, then requiring them to charge ridiculously high prices.
  - dsr_ 6y ago
    "The actual bandwidth used by a 300M customer and a 1000M customer is usually the same. The provider's upstream contracts would not change much if they put every one of their customers on 1000M." Correct. I have a gig/gig symmetrical connection and a family of four information-devouring people. In the last 30 days we used 1 TB of data... which is to say, an average of just over 3Mb/s. We probably peaked at about 600Mb/s a few times.
- shadowoflight 6y ago
  I pay $70 for 175/5, and I'm technically in the biggest city in my state.
- beezle 6y ago
  Can I switch with you? I pay $88/mo for what is rate as "25 Mbps" high speed service. Reality? 20-22 Mbps down and 6-8 Mbps up in the local area, falling off significantly with distance (10.5 down just now to SF). This is asymmetric with no disclaimer on their advertising page from an entrenched local monopoly in the north east (a small one)
  - gbrown 6y ago
    I’d happily switch with you lol. $60 for 10/0.5. American broadband infrastructure is a sad joke.
    - BenjiWiebe 6y ago
      We were at 6/0.768 for ~$90/month. 60ms latency. We switched to a local WISP and got 10/2 for $65/month, with 20ms latency. And the WISP's service is usually a bit faster than what they say as opposed to CenturyLink...
      - gbrown 6y ago
        If I had more free time, I’d legitimately start a WISP for my neighborhood.
mtwshngtn 6y ago
We pay $50/mo for (up to) 10 Mb/s down, 1 Mb/s up (that's megabits, so just over 1 MB/s down, and 0.125 MB/s up). Our only alternative is bundled service from Comcast that's $130/mo not including fees (at up to 300 Mb/s, with a 1TB data cap).
notJim 6y ago
> I'm now paying $60 for 250MB/s down LOL. My mom lives in an older house in a formerly-rural area where she's now surrounded by suburb-style new development. She wanted cable internet, and it cost her about $8000 and endless hours of haranguing Cox and chasing down service vans just to get a hook up. Literally she would see a Cox van at a construction site and stop and ask the person, because no one would talk to her on the phone. She eventually found one guy who gave her his business card and cell number, and knew a few people in the construction department who would help. The woman who took her credit card number over the phone to charge for the service told her she knew absolutely nothing about the process, and could make no guarantees about when it would happen. My mom was so desperate, she gave her her credit card number anyway. It took nearly a year to run maybe 100 yards of cable down her driveway from the street to her house, but she finally does have broadband now.
- dpoochieni 6y ago
  Meanwhile in Mexico... my dad's closest ISP switch was fully saturated by his neighbors. Somehow, he convinced the guys to run a full fiber run (about 300 ft) to his house from the next link for a good tip (20 USD). Even then the service is not particularly expensive around 30USD for 50MB+ symmetric. I was surprised it is more expensive in the US after many years of being quite expensive in Mexico and basically having a monopoly.
gbrown 6y ago
I’m paying $60 for 10Mbps down and 0.5 up. It’s a weird situation. Windstream lies to the federal government and says they offer broadband to my area, when they don’t offer any service at all. The only actual provider (South Slope), which offers fiber elsewhere, is therefore shut out of the usual federal programs to finance upgrades to the completely antiquated and over-provisioned DSL lines. I’m 3 miles line of sight from their headquarters.
rnicholus 6y ago
I’m out in rural Wisconsin with 3 choices for high-speed Internet. With my current provider: 1Gbps down/400Mbps up for $75/month. My parents live in the near Chicago suburbs, have 1 choice for high speed Internet, and pay $80/month for 100Mbps down and 6Mbps up. So, rural internet options are actually better than urban in some areas.

cheerlessbog 6y ago

> $60 for 250MB/s dow I’m going to guess that 80% of the US can’t get that.

freeopinion 6y ago
I live in a rural area where the incumbent is building out FTTH as fast as they can. For all residences that have fiber, the price difference between 50M, 300M, and 1000M is significant. The actual bandwidth used by a 300M customer and a 1000M customer is usually the same. The provider's upstream contracts would not change much if they put every one of their customers on 1000M. But their pricing is regulated. The arm and a leg they charge for 1000M service is largely a function of that regulation, even though it hardly affects their costs otherwise. You might think that if the infrastructure costs are the same for 1M or 1000M and that the infrastructure costs are 90% of all costs, 1M and 1000M could be priced within 25% of each other. It might seem that a price jump from $100/50M to $1000/1000M is unreasonable. But the U.S. government right now is handing out $billions to rural providers to build out fiber, then requiring them to charge ridiculously high prices.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  "The actual bandwidth used by a 300M customer and a 1000M customer is usually the same. The provider's upstream contracts would not change much if they put every one of their customers on 1000M." Correct. I have a gig/gig symmetrical connection and a family of four information-devouring people. In the last 30 days we used 1 TB of data... which is to say, an average of just over 3Mb/s. We probably peaked at about 600Mb/s a few times.
shadowoflight 6y ago
I pay $70 for 175/5, and I'm technically in the biggest city in my state.
beezle 6y ago
Can I switch with you? I pay $88/mo for what is rate as "25 Mbps" high speed service. Reality? 20-22 Mbps down and 6-8 Mbps up in the local area, falling off significantly with distance (10.5 down just now to SF). This is asymmetric with no disclaimer on their advertising page from an entrenched local monopoly in the north east (a small one)
- gbrown 6y ago
  I’d happily switch with you lol. $60 for 10/0.5. American broadband infrastructure is a sad joke.
  - BenjiWiebe 6y ago
    We were at 6/0.768 for ~$90/month. 60ms latency. We switched to a local WISP and got 10/2 for $65/month, with 20ms latency. And the WISP's service is usually a bit faster than what they say as opposed to CenturyLink...
    - gbrown 6y ago
      If I had more free time, I’d legitimately start a WISP for my neighborhood.

mtwshngtn 6y ago

We pay $50/mo for (up to) 10 Mb/s down, 1 Mb/s up (that's megabits, so just over 1 MB/s down, and 0.125 MB/s up). Our only alternative is bundled service from Comcast that's $130/mo not including fees (at up to 300 Mb/s, with a 1TB data cap).

notJim 6y ago

> I'm now paying $60 for 250MB/s down LOL. My mom lives in an older house in a formerly-rural area where she's now surrounded by suburb-style new development. She wanted cable internet, and it cost her about $8000 and endless hours of haranguing Cox and chasing down service vans just to get a hook up. Literally she would see a Cox van at a construction site and stop and ask the person, because no one would talk to her on the phone. She eventually found one guy who gave her his business card and cell number, and knew a few people in the construction department who would help. The woman who took her credit card number over the phone to charge for the service told her she knew absolutely nothing about the process, and could make no guarantees about when it would happen. My mom was so desperate, she gave her her credit card number anyway. It took nearly a year to run maybe 100 yards of cable down her driveway from the street to her house, but she finally does have broadband now.

dpoochieni 6y ago
Meanwhile in Mexico... my dad's closest ISP switch was fully saturated by his neighbors. Somehow, he convinced the guys to run a full fiber run (about 300 ft) to his house from the next link for a good tip (20 USD). Even then the service is not particularly expensive around 30USD for 50MB+ symmetric. I was surprised it is more expensive in the US after many years of being quite expensive in Mexico and basically having a monopoly.

gbrown 6y ago

I’m paying $60 for 10Mbps down and 0.5 up. It’s a weird situation. Windstream lies to the federal government and says they offer broadband to my area, when they don’t offer any service at all. The only actual provider (South Slope), which offers fiber elsewhere, is therefore shut out of the usual federal programs to finance upgrades to the completely antiquated and over-provisioned DSL lines. I’m 3 miles line of sight from their headquarters.

rnicholus 6y ago

I’m out in rural Wisconsin with 3 choices for high-speed Internet. With my current provider: 1Gbps down/400Mbps up for $75/month. My parents live in the near Chicago suburbs, have 1 choice for high speed Internet, and pay $80/month for 100Mbps down and 6Mbps up. So, rural internet options are actually better than urban in some areas.