3 ms·

As someone who lived in the country during both the beginning of the PC revolution as well as the start of the commercial Internet this really resonates with me

by rmason 4y ago

As someone who lived in the country during both the beginning of the PC revolution as well as the start of the commercial Internet this really resonates with me. I remember paying an obscene amount of money to access dialup Internet which was always a long distance call. I lobbied AT&T for an ISDN line and literally was laughed at by the tech who said it would be 25 years before they'd install it. Two years later I got cable Internet at a whopping speed of 5 mb and it opened up the entire world to me. People in Lansing and Grand Rapids only had the option of buying their own T-1 if they wanted broadband at the time. I tried to convince the city fathers of the small town I lived in to invest a little in an empty storefront and build out offices for startups with broadband as the lure. I told them they should exploit the small window that existed before everyone in the state had broadband. Sadly they looked at me like I was absolutely stark raving mad.

EvanAnderson 4y ago
There was a similar situation around my home town in rural western Ohio. The area served by large incumbent telcos (Ameritech nee Ohio Bell, AT&T, GTE) had cruddy options for Internet service. Before 1995 there wasn't anything that wasn't a long distance call. A few miles up the road, where the incumbent telco was a consortium of old independent "farm" telephone companies, was flat rate local dialup. Not for us, though. Eventually the independents offered local service in the large incumbent territory too (presumably when it became cost-effective to drop in a T1 and run a modem pool). In that independent telco area xDSL became an option in the early 2000's. Fiber came shortly after. In the large incumbent's territory none of that magical high speed stuff was an option until the local cable monopoly started offering service in 2004. Even now if your wireline distance from the incumbent CO is too great and you live on a less-populous road (where it's not worth the cable company's cost to run cable) there are no wired high speed Internet options at all. (This is in the 25th most populous county of Ohio's 88 counties.)
- walrus01 4y ago
  One of the interesting things about rural USA telecom is that many states, as viewed at a whole-state map level, often do have a patchwork quilt of old rural coop phone companies and small ILECs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent_local_exchange_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent_local_exchange_carri... In parts of rural western Canada it's very different, if you're in SK in you've got sasktel, if you're in AB you've got the former AGT (now Telus), if you're in BC you've got the former BCTel (also now Telus). Comparing WA and BC, in WA there's pockets of small ILECs all over the place which differ wildly in how much they've invested in overbuilding their old POTS wiring for real rural broadband, and different medium to huge sized ILEC entities covering different big population centers. Ziply (former GTE/Frontier), Centurylink, etc. In BC you've got... Telus. And that's it. And maybe shaw cable if you happen to live kind of near a medium sized city.
bergenty 4y ago
I live in a rural place and messed around with satellite and starlink for a while. Finally just buy the bullet and shelled out $25k to get a dedicated fiber line to the house. Now I have 1Gbps down and all I can say is that it was worth every penny.
- paulmd 4y ago
  where do you go for a quote on that? I have charter/spectrum and I suspect they'll just laugh at me. They did offer me cable when I moved in, but I wasn't ready to pay $200 a month at that point. Still probably not. If I wanted to go down that route I'd probably try to set up a subdivision ISP.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Try to find if there is fiber buried in the area already (look for the poles) and contact whoever that is. If that doesn’t work, try calling for the business side of the business. But if there isn’t even fiber to the town you’re going to be looking at a huge cost.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      We're just off a decent-sized state highway and I wouldn't be surprised (let's say 50/50 or 30/70) if there was fiber at the street and we'd just have to pull it through the subdivision.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    I went to ATT to ask for a business line for $500/month which includes them doing the cabling for free but ended up speaking to a bunch of people there and was able to negotiate $25k out of my pocket but only $100/month for a minimum of 2 years.

by rmason 4y ago

EvanAnderson 4y ago

There was a similar situation around my home town in rural western Ohio. The area served by large incumbent telcos (Ameritech nee Ohio Bell, AT&T, GTE) had cruddy options for Internet service. Before 1995 there wasn't anything that wasn't a long distance call. A few miles up the road, where the incumbent telco was a consortium of old independent "farm" telephone companies, was flat rate local dialup. Not for us, though. Eventually the independents offered local service in the large incumbent territory too (presumably when it became cost-effective to drop in a T1 and run a modem pool). In that independent telco area xDSL became an option in the early 2000's. Fiber came shortly after. In the large incumbent's territory none of that magical high speed stuff was an option until the local cable monopoly started offering service in 2004. Even now if your wireline distance from the incumbent CO is too great and you live on a less-populous road (where it's not worth the cable company's cost to run cable) there are no wired high speed Internet options at all. (This is in the 25th most populous county of Ohio's 88 counties.)

walrus01 4y ago
One of the interesting things about rural USA telecom is that many states, as viewed at a whole-state map level, often do have a patchwork quilt of old rural coop phone companies and small ILECs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent_local_exchange_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent_local_exchange_carri... In parts of rural western Canada it's very different, if you're in SK in you've got sasktel, if you're in AB you've got the former AGT (now Telus), if you're in BC you've got the former BCTel (also now Telus). Comparing WA and BC, in WA there's pockets of small ILECs all over the place which differ wildly in how much they've invested in overbuilding their old POTS wiring for real rural broadband, and different medium to huge sized ILEC entities covering different big population centers. Ziply (former GTE/Frontier), Centurylink, etc. In BC you've got... Telus. And that's it. And maybe shaw cable if you happen to live kind of near a medium sized city.

bergenty 4y ago

I live in a rural place and messed around with satellite and starlink for a while. Finally just buy the bullet and shelled out $25k to get a dedicated fiber line to the house. Now I have 1Gbps down and all I can say is that it was worth every penny.

paulmd 4y ago
where do you go for a quote on that? I have charter/spectrum and I suspect they'll just laugh at me. They did offer me cable when I moved in, but I wasn't ready to pay $200 a month at that point. Still probably not. If I wanted to go down that route I'd probably try to set up a subdivision ISP.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Try to find if there is fiber buried in the area already (look for the poles) and contact whoever that is. If that doesn’t work, try calling for the business side of the business. But if there isn’t even fiber to the town you’re going to be looking at a huge cost.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    We're just off a decent-sized state highway and I wouldn't be surprised (let's say 50/50 or 30/70) if there was fiber at the street and we'd just have to pull it through the subdivision.
- bergenty 4y ago
  I went to ATT to ask for a business line for $500/month which includes them doing the cabling for free but ended up speaking to a bunch of people there and was able to negotiate $25k out of my pocket but only $100/month for a minimum of 2 years.