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Most cable providers allocate spectrum to prioritize download. Even the DOCSIS standard is built around that asymmetry. Much depends on the level of over-subscr

Most cable providers allocate spectrum to prioritize download. Even the DOCSIS standard is built around that asymmetry. Much depends on the level of over-subscription in a neighborhood. In my old neighborhood, Comcast appeared to have a relatively low over-subscription ratio. My promised 1000/40 service pretty much always hit exactly that and I was a pretty happy camper. In my new neighborhood, the Comcast over-subscription ratio is far, far worse. My neighbors complain that realized speeds never approach promised speeds. And I was unable to get service at all (despite all of my neighbors on the same street having service). After a year of tooth-pulling, I got an F-U quote from Comcast at $210,000 to connect my house. So I banded together with neighbors in the community on a couple of adjacent un-served streets and we trenched and laid fiber. Now I have 10000/10000 service and it's awesome. Edit: I actually can't measure how close my service is to meeting the promise. I run out of CPU first. That's OK.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> So I banded together with neighbors in the community on a couple of adjacent un-served streets and we trenched and laid fiber. Now I have 10000/10000 service and it's awesome. That’s fantastic! One might even scale this community up to a few more blocks and call it a government. Too bad it’s such a bad word for many.
- nybble41 5y ago
  It's not a government until you get the guns out and force people to join up and pay dues whether they want to or not. What zbrozek described is just a co-op, or something less formal along the same lines: an organization designed to provide benefits other than financial profit for its (voluntary) members, who are also its shareholders. Co-ops are great. I wish people would use them more often rather than clamoring for unnecessary government involvement.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Co-ops are good for a farm. Or maybe in a rural area without lots of easements. Logistically, everyone will want fiber, and there’s no reason it cannot be dealt with like water/sewer/gas/electric. I do not see a volunteer based co op making progress in an urban area.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      The water/sewer/gas/electric service you refer to is frequently supplied by a co-op, even in urban areas. I get my own electricity from a co-op. Natural gas is provided by a private company but there are also co-ops offering it in the area. Water and sewer are traditionally handled by the city, but are funded through service fees rather than taxes—there's really no practical reason why they couldn't be provided the same way. I can see the attraction in bundling everything together in hopes of cutting down on administrative overhead, but having the same organization empowered to impose taxes and regulations also supply utility services creates a huge conflict of interest and stifles competition.
briffle 5y ago
You literally cannot find the upload for Comcast/XFinity until after you have gone through the sign up, and even given your credit card. There is one more confirmation before your card gets charged, and that is where it is. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/comcast-hides-upload-speeds-deep-inside-its-infuriating-ordering-system/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/comcast-hides-up... I have tried to see if upgrading from 200Mb down to 400Mb down would change my upstream, and havent found a thing. One site suggests i might get 5Mb/s more upload. Sucks for pushing docker images.
- Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 5y ago
  I got 1gb from them just to rise my upload speed.
gigel82 5y ago
Can you share more details about how you managed to get that done? Costs, obstacles, resources? I'm stuck in a Comcast monopoly neighborhood in western Washington.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  The mutual benefit corporation is https://lahcommunityfiber.org https://lahcommunityfiber.org and I'm now on the board. It's basically the same corporate structure as our water company and so far is treating us well. Costs are all over the map. My neighborhood ended up being about $12.7k to build out and $155/mo, but we're on a steep hillside and with large parcels in an expensive metro area. Another neighborhood in a flatter area and with slightly smaller (but still quite large) parcels and higher uptake was around $4k. We were at ~50% uptake. Those that didn't either were outliers with Comcast, or weren't really serious internet users. Our alternative is AT&T DSL at 18/0.75 for $50/mo. We're expecting rebates on the initial build as uptake rises and additional nearby infra gets built, as well as a reduction in monthly cost as our backhaul gets better utilized. Getting enough commitment to be able to nail down costs and avoid the dilemma of a cost death spiral as people pull out of the project mostly boils down to peer pressure. We did OK on this in our neighborhood because the DSL alternative was so miserable that there was strong will to continue. Construction is hard and the contractors were incompetent and constantly screwed things up. Folks suffering that incompetence got pissed. Getting power from PG&E is a miserable sufferfest and won't be resolved for another year. In the mean time we're mooching power from one of the subscribers and paying him back. Luckily we didn't need a lot in the way of permits because it's all private property, including the road. If we were constructing in the public right of way we'd either need special permission from the town to do so, or we'd need to register as a CLEC with the public utilities commission. In practice we're working on both, but becoming a CLEC is so far away in our future that it won't be viable for any currently-planned expansions. Usually getting special permission from the town is easier for getting started.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> So I banded together with neighbors in the community on a couple of adjacent un-served streets and we trenched and laid fiber. Now I have 10000/10000 service and it's awesome. That’s fantastic! One might even scale this community up to a few more blocks and call it a government. Too bad it’s such a bad word for many.

nybble41 5y ago
It's not a government until you get the guns out and force people to join up and pay dues whether they want to or not. What zbrozek described is just a co-op, or something less formal along the same lines: an organization designed to provide benefits other than financial profit for its (voluntary) members, who are also its shareholders. Co-ops are great. I wish people would use them more often rather than clamoring for unnecessary government involvement.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Co-ops are good for a farm. Or maybe in a rural area without lots of easements. Logistically, everyone will want fiber, and there’s no reason it cannot be dealt with like water/sewer/gas/electric. I do not see a volunteer based co op making progress in an urban area.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    The water/sewer/gas/electric service you refer to is frequently supplied by a co-op, even in urban areas. I get my own electricity from a co-op. Natural gas is provided by a private company but there are also co-ops offering it in the area. Water and sewer are traditionally handled by the city, but are funded through service fees rather than taxes—there's really no practical reason why they couldn't be provided the same way. I can see the attraction in bundling everything together in hopes of cutting down on administrative overhead, but having the same organization empowered to impose taxes and regulations also supply utility services creates a huge conflict of interest and stifles competition.

briffle 5y ago

You literally cannot find the upload for Comcast/XFinity until after you have gone through the sign up, and even given your credit card. There is one more confirmation before your card gets charged, and that is where it is. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/comcast-hides-upload-speeds-deep-inside-its-infuriating-ordering-system/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/comcast-hides-up... I have tried to see if upgrading from 200Mb down to 400Mb down would change my upstream, and havent found a thing. One site suggests i might get 5Mb/s more upload. Sucks for pushing docker images.

Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 5y ago
I got 1gb from them just to rise my upload speed.

gigel82 5y ago

Can you share more details about how you managed to get that done? Costs, obstacles, resources? I'm stuck in a Comcast monopoly neighborhood in western Washington.

zbrozek 5y ago
The mutual benefit corporation is https://lahcommunityfiber.org https://lahcommunityfiber.org and I'm now on the board. It's basically the same corporate structure as our water company and so far is treating us well. Costs are all over the map. My neighborhood ended up being about $12.7k to build out and $155/mo, but we're on a steep hillside and with large parcels in an expensive metro area. Another neighborhood in a flatter area and with slightly smaller (but still quite large) parcels and higher uptake was around $4k. We were at ~50% uptake. Those that didn't either were outliers with Comcast, or weren't really serious internet users. Our alternative is AT&T DSL at 18/0.75 for $50/mo. We're expecting rebates on the initial build as uptake rises and additional nearby infra gets built, as well as a reduction in monthly cost as our backhaul gets better utilized. Getting enough commitment to be able to nail down costs and avoid the dilemma of a cost death spiral as people pull out of the project mostly boils down to peer pressure. We did OK on this in our neighborhood because the DSL alternative was so miserable that there was strong will to continue. Construction is hard and the contractors were incompetent and constantly screwed things up. Folks suffering that incompetence got pissed. Getting power from PG&E is a miserable sufferfest and won't be resolved for another year. In the mean time we're mooching power from one of the subscribers and paying him back. Luckily we didn't need a lot in the way of permits because it's all private property, including the road. If we were constructing in the public right of way we'd either need special permission from the town to do so, or we'd need to register as a CLEC with the public utilities commission. In practice we're working on both, but becoming a CLEC is so far away in our future that it won't be viable for any currently-planned expansions. Usually getting special permission from the town is easier for getting started.