3 ms·

I live in the rural south. How rural? I was on the phone last week with Verizon begging them for some kind of internet access besides the crappy satellite I use

I live in the rural south. How rural? I was on the phone last week with Verizon begging them for some kind of internet access besides the crappy satellite I use now. It took over an hour just to get to the correct department. What? A regular person wanting internet way out there? But I finally got an answer -- about 400 bucks a month for a 1.5MB T-1 line. So it's not all attitude, but that's a huge part of it. There's also a lot of infrastructure problems out here that are, frankly, shameful. I know my state has had money for a long time that was supposed to bring broadband to the masses. But so far that's just a dream. [insert long, emotional rant here] On the flip side, the net, what little I have of it, has helped out a great deal. On here I get to hang out with famous and not-so-famous startup folks, learn marketing, watch videos and read blogs on how to form and run a startup. I see a great future for a lot of the South, but there's going to be a lot of bootstrapping going on. Startup growth is going to happen here in a much different way than Silicon Valley. The culture isn't going to be all in one spot, it's going to be spread out widely, with little "islands" like Austin, Raleigh or the DC beltway. Founders are also more likely to be individualistic and older. The crazy thing is how much is going on under the radar. I have no doubt that within a 20-mile radius there are a couple of hundred or more folks working on profitable startups, but heck if I know who they are. I seriously doubt the local Chamber of Commerce or government startup efforts have any idea either. Makes me wonder how trustworthy many of the statistics we see about entrepreneurship really are.

hugh3 15y ago
Surely that's a function of "rural" rather than "South"? You can get great internet in some parts of the South, and crappy internet if you move to remote parts of California. Or so I would assume, having never tried to get internet in the South or in remote parts of California.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  Yes. I forgot to qualify that. By being along the Southeast U.S. seaboard, we're physically located close to some of the highest-bandwidth backbones in the world. I live about 30 miles from the Mid-Atlantic Broadband fiber backbone, one of the most advanced fiber backbones on the planet. So it's not like we're lost somewhere in the middle of Utah; there's plenty of bandwidth nearby. This is a local political problem -- no doubt we needed a big pipe, but to take all that time and money and build a pipe that doesn't even help those close-by? My opinion is that when these planners thought "economic growth" they thought about bringing in a new factory or large business. Therefore they spent the money in that manner. But the economy is growing in a different manner entirely. As the article mentions, we have an impedance mismatch between the way the old structures and institutions think things are supposed to work and the way they are actually working.
  - lotharbot 15y ago
    > "it's not like we're lost somewhere in the middle of Utah" Actually, rural Utah is remarkably well connected. A lot of major backbones run through Salt Lake City, and many communities in the middle of Utah have fiber to the home (via the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or UTOPIA). Right now, I live in a town of under 20,000 people and get both download and upload speeds in the 20 megabit range with pretty low latency. As you said in a few posts up, it's a local problem. This community decided broadband was important, so we voted for it and got it. Other communities and governments don't really recognize the importance, so you can be just a few miles from major backbone and yet be stuck with dialup or weak satellite.
- betterth 15y ago
  Yes, definitely a function of rural. I live in the South, with a few million suburbanites surrounding me just outside a major city, and I pay Comcast about $50/mo for 24Mbps down. Heck, they offer 100Mbps (and possibly more).
efsavage 15y ago
So...did you get it? $400/month for a T-1 is a lot more than the $55 I pay for fios, but certainly within reach for someone who needs it for work, and you probably break even if it lets you stop commuting and/or cancel regular phone service, etc.

hugh3 15y ago

Surely that's a function of "rural" rather than "South"? You can get great internet in some parts of the South, and crappy internet if you move to remote parts of California. Or so I would assume, having never tried to get internet in the South or in remote parts of California.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Yes. I forgot to qualify that. By being along the Southeast U.S. seaboard, we're physically located close to some of the highest-bandwidth backbones in the world. I live about 30 miles from the Mid-Atlantic Broadband fiber backbone, one of the most advanced fiber backbones on the planet. So it's not like we're lost somewhere in the middle of Utah; there's plenty of bandwidth nearby. This is a local political problem -- no doubt we needed a big pipe, but to take all that time and money and build a pipe that doesn't even help those close-by? My opinion is that when these planners thought "economic growth" they thought about bringing in a new factory or large business. Therefore they spent the money in that manner. But the economy is growing in a different manner entirely. As the article mentions, we have an impedance mismatch between the way the old structures and institutions think things are supposed to work and the way they are actually working.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  > "it's not like we're lost somewhere in the middle of Utah" Actually, rural Utah is remarkably well connected. A lot of major backbones run through Salt Lake City, and many communities in the middle of Utah have fiber to the home (via the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or UTOPIA). Right now, I live in a town of under 20,000 people and get both download and upload speeds in the 20 megabit range with pretty low latency. As you said in a few posts up, it's a local problem. This community decided broadband was important, so we voted for it and got it. Other communities and governments don't really recognize the importance, so you can be just a few miles from major backbone and yet be stuck with dialup or weak satellite.
betterth 15y ago
Yes, definitely a function of rural. I live in the South, with a few million suburbanites surrounding me just outside a major city, and I pay Comcast about $50/mo for 24Mbps down. Heck, they offer 100Mbps (and possibly more).

efsavage 15y ago

So...did you get it? $400/month for a T-1 is a lot more than the $55 I pay for fios, but certainly within reach for someone who needs it for work, and you probably break even if it lets you stop commuting and/or cancel regular phone service, etc.