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Many of these ISPs are shitty because they service the hardest to reach places. Comcast and Verizon have gobbled up billions in government aid to bring service

Many of these ISPs are shitty because they service the hardest to reach places. Comcast and Verizon have gobbled up billions in government aid to bring service to rural areas and end up delivering only to fringe areas which they can reach easily. The small companies end up struggling to get the government cash and end up underfunded providing service to the absolute-most difficult to reach consumers. It's a real crappy deal. Arguably satellite service erases all of this and is a hard reset on rural telecommunications. Unfortunately, it's not a industry small businesses can participate in.

ashneo76 6y ago
So much this. The ground playing field has been controlled by comcast and Verizon. And now space will be spacex. This will be just as bad, if not worse for the people
fossuser 6y ago
I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. From a policy standpoint as a citizen - I think it’s terrible the telecom monopolies took public money and did nothing, but I think they’ll start feeling competitive pressure from Starlink too, hopefully this will force them to adapt or die (I don’t really care which). In SF with Google webpass fiber, Comcast is not competitive.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. I guess it depends on what you mean by bad service. If by "Bad service" you mean don't return calls when your service is down, then I agree. If you are referring to bandwidth or latency, you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price. It's the price you pay for living in the sticks. (I suffered with crap small ISP "high speed" internet for years so I sympathize). I'm not suggesting anyone should stick with an inferior product to bolster small business. Their run at being internet providers is coming to an end.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price Running fiber isn't really any more expensive than running copper, and they managed to afford to run the copper.

ashneo76 6y ago

So much this. The ground playing field has been controlled by comcast and Verizon. And now space will be spacex. This will be just as bad, if not worse for the people

fossuser 6y ago

I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. From a policy standpoint as a citizen - I think it’s terrible the telecom monopolies took public money and did nothing, but I think they’ll start feeling competitive pressure from Starlink too, hopefully this will force them to adapt or die (I don’t really care which). In SF with Google webpass fiber, Comcast is not competitive.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. I guess it depends on what you mean by bad service. If by "Bad service" you mean don't return calls when your service is down, then I agree. If you are referring to bandwidth or latency, you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price. It's the price you pay for living in the sticks. (I suffered with crap small ISP "high speed" internet for years so I sympathize). I'm not suggesting anyone should stick with an inferior product to bolster small business. Their run at being internet providers is coming to an end.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price Running fiber isn't really any more expensive than running copper, and they managed to afford to run the copper.