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90-year-old man spends $10K on ads to tell AT&T CEO about slow internet service
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago> We’re going to see what we can do for you,” he says they told him. He figured if they put in fiber optics in his area, it will improve speed for his neighbors too. Honestly, I’d consider paying $10k for fiber internet run to my (relatively) rural house.
- TheBill 6y agoAT&T's been so slow in getting fiber laid in the north and west suburbs of Chicago that I know more than a dozen homes in line for Starlink. Family's been puttering along on 25 down/5 up for the last 4 years with an annual angry phone call to keep it under $80. AT&T's done a half dozen neighborhoods that Comcast, RCA or Verizon haven't, but none their in.
- zamadatix 6y agoStarlink isn't really a solution for dense areas like suburbs at the moment, maybe in future versions. Well, at least except for the few that can get it quick.
- leetrout 6y agoInteresting- I didn’t realize there was a limitation by density of transceivers. Do you have a link with more info?
- coryrc 6y agoEach satellite has a bandwidth limit and can cover a certain area (more satellites per area close to the poles). It's not that they "can't" it's that they won't be able to be competitive in most suburbs, at least not at this time.
- mlyle 6y agoBasically, fixed wireless should win every time over satellite when fixed wireless is possible. Less path loss means more bits per Hz of bandwidth. Less exotic equipment (no beam-steering). More opportunity for densification to increase capacity. The possibility of wired backhaul. It's only when population density is low, or fill-in for areas where towers don't quite reach, or for specialized uses (military, redundancy in access, some mobile use cases, some financial use cases with reduced latency) --- that satellite is a clear win. Starlink can have a plenty big business addressing the most rural and fill-in, though.
- zamadatix 6y agoFixed wireless is plagued by line of site. The other problems haven't really been an issue for Starlink, even for being in the early phases, it's really just the density issue that bites it.
- mlyle 6y agoLine of sight is a bit of a pain. So is needing sky in all directions to 10-20 degrees of elevation. Satellite is great for A) where it's not worth putting up towers to reach just a few residents, and B) filling in where there's little holes in tower coverage. (This is what I tried to say in the comment you're replying to). > The other problems haven't really been an issue for Starlink, even for being in the early phases, it's really just the density issue that bites it. Capital costs are high per simultaneous user served in an area. Densification is hard. Spectral efficiency is the key figure of merit (how many bits you get to users per limited bit of radio spectrum). That is, the things I mention *are* the reasons for the "density issue".
- Retric 6y agoSpectrum is different with satellites as it’s using directional antenna. In theory you can have nearly arbitrary satellite density depending on efficiency. The only effective limit is the user density you’re aiming to support.
- zamadatix 6y agoI don't have a link to reference but without getting into the specific details I was shared it's not really any different than any other wireless just the problem is larger. E.g. a good AP can handle 20 clients spread 360 at different distances with pretty decent bandwidth. Put all 20 clients within 1 degree and all the same distance away and it becomes a problem trying to serve that spot.
- CameronNemo 6y agoSo add neighborhood wireless networks for last mile. Lay pipe later once the city is forced to cough up a license to dig.
- zamadatix 6y agoWhether you serve 20 clients in one spot or 1 client 20x the size in one spot the problem is still allocating the same amount of frequency to that spot. You could get away with a single much higher end receiver which would help if you designed the satellites for it but there is still a lot of low hanging fruit Starlink needs to grab before that makes more sense than finishing adding additional frequencies and shells in the first place.
- m463 6y agoI don't know how many people can share a satellite. They're 340 miles up, and traveling 17,000mph (I think?) wonder how many satellites will be in view, for how long.
- Retric 6y ago1,400 satellites is enough for global coverage but their aim is 42,000. Which suggests ~40+ are going to be in range at one time.
- m463 6y agoI think this is an important puzzle piece in "distributed living". Pretty soon we'll be "off-grid" with good connectivity plus the other parts like power for living and transportation without being super-expensive or super-low quality of life.
- js2 6y agoWhen AT&T thought Google Fiber was coming to Raleigh, NC, they magically managed to lay fiber to my subdivision on the outskirts of town. $70/mo for unlimited symmetric 1Gbps service. When they're motivated, they can apparently move quite quickly. That was over two years ago. Google Fiber still isn't available anywhere near me.
- wil421 6y agoAT&T laid fiber in my neighborhood and stopped 10 houses away in each direction. They left 20-30 houses in my neighborhood with crappy DSL. The reps I talked to said I can pay for it but I probably wouldn’t want to know the cost. Thankfully Comcast has Gigabit service but the upstream is capped at 25mbps. I enjoyed the symmetrical gigabit at my last place. For $2000 and $300 a month Comcast will give you 2.5 gigabit connection with SFP+ and a 1 gig failover.
- Scoundreller 6y ago> For $2000 and $300 a month Comcast will give you 2.5 gigabit connection with SFP+ and a 1 gig failover. Time to make some friends with your neighbours.
- eps 6y agoFrom 4 days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26086288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26086288
- m463 6y agoand 9 days ago :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26029181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26029181
- nindalf 6y agoAll I see is what amazing RoI that old man got for his $10k. I'm sure he's thrilled about reaching the top of HN multiple times in a week!
- m463 6y agoAnd a phonecall from the CEO of AT&T.
- nindalf 6y agoWhat's a phonecall compared to HN?
- m463 6y agoI was... $10k?? That's not what I remember. So I looked back at the original article. They originally said $1100, but then after I read it they revised the number to $10k. He was more frustrated than I originally thought!
- rgj 6y ago“ Our European visitors are important to us. This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.” The GDPR went into effect almost three years ago. I guess we’re not that important to news10.com.
- Aldipower 6y agoAnd who is AT&T?
- amelius 6y agoA dumb pipe company.
- jgimenez 6y agoClearly we're not important, otherwise you guys would follow the rules. Actually blocking the access is against the law.
- mlyle 6y agoExpecting a random local news station in the US to subject itself to European jurisdiction and follow European privacy laws is a bit of a stretch, IMO.
- rgj 6y agoShutting down complete access instead of holding back a few cookies is a bit of a stretch as well. If you must fail, please fail-open then. And if you decide to fail-close, don’t lie: We’re unimportant to you so you decided to fail-close, and you’re not “working” on anything. You think it’s ok and it can be left like this.
- jtbayly 6y agoHa! You attempting to access a computer service that you aren’t supposed to have access to is against the law.
- coldcode 6y agoAll I have is Spectrum in my neighborhood despite being in the middle of a huge metro area. Everyone I work with has AT&T and I am stuck with Spectrum's over priced slow lane as there are no alternatives. Maybe Starlink will finally provide some competition some day.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrischen 6y agoI had the same experience with AT&T fiber Facebook newsfeed ads. I keep getting them while browsing at home, and when I click through it simply tells me it's not available at my address. I ended up signing up for non-fiber AT&T through that and I still get ads on FB for AT&T Fiber. You'd think with all the invasive tracking FB would be able to optimize conversion rates and ad spend for their customers even a little bit but I guess they don't really care about optimized spending.
- trhway 6y agoAdvertising for a practically monopoly like AT&T is like those advertisements to fly Aeroflot back in USSR where they were the only airline. The AT&T advertisement budget just needs to be spent and FB is happy to help.
- chrischen 6y agoI wouldn’t characterize AT&T as a near monopoly (at least in ISPs). There are multiple DSL providers plus Comcast for cable). This is just pure marketing waste.
- chowes 6y agoAnyone else amazed that those ads only cost 10k?
- Scoundreller 6y agoIt was only in the Dallas and NYC regional editions, but still, yeah.
- jjeaff 6y agoI can't remember the last time I saw a print copy of the wsj or nyt that wasn't in a hotel lobby. So it seems a little high to me.