5 ms·

> all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber That isn't entirely true, G.fast is a pretty decent alternative here, unlimited 4G/5G is too unreliable for a

> all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber That isn't entirely true, G.fast is a pretty decent alternative here, unlimited 4G/5G is too unreliable for a lot of people.

PaulHoule 4y ago
Thanks to unfavorable geography I get no cell phone service where I live. My power lines go through a beaver swamp so conditions are highly unfavorable for FTTH. (The power company does go through every few years in an off-road vehicle to limb up the trees and if we had a realistic commitment to universal service we'd just run fiber everywhere the power lines go and it would be taken care of eventually) I have 2 ADSL2 lines that connect to a fiber node a bit more than a mile away, each gets about 20 Mbps of bandwidth. Spectrum gives a lot more bandwidth for less money just 2.5 miles away, but I really get 100% of what I am paying for almost all of the time so I can't complain too much.
- coryrc 4y ago
  I think it's ridiculous you want massive subsidies for luxury speeds while living in the middle of nowhere.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Look at how conservatives would howl if there wasn't a universal mandate for electric power everywhere. I mean, if we weren't entitled to energy from coal we'd have to put up solar panels. Had we really been thinking straight about the "information superhighway" in 1994 we would have just decided it was a function of the electric company and strung an optic fiber along with the power lines and it would have been "least cost". People writing about the future in the 1970s expected we would go straight to fiber without detours into CATV, DSL, spotty, expensive and low-performing wireless systems, etc.
    - mickdeek86 4y ago
      Why did we take the scenic route?
btgeekboy 4y ago
G.fast is for pretty short runs. It’s basically just a curb-to-router solution; there’s typically fiber behind it.

> all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber That isn't entirely true, G.fast is a pretty decent alternative here, unlimited 4G/5G is too unreliable for a lot of people.

PaulHoule 4y ago

Thanks to unfavorable geography I get no cell phone service where I live. My power lines go through a beaver swamp so conditions are highly unfavorable for FTTH. (The power company does go through every few years in an off-road vehicle to limb up the trees and if we had a realistic commitment to universal service we'd just run fiber everywhere the power lines go and it would be taken care of eventually) I have 2 ADSL2 lines that connect to a fiber node a bit more than a mile away, each gets about 20 Mbps of bandwidth. Spectrum gives a lot more bandwidth for less money just 2.5 miles away, but I really get 100% of what I am paying for almost all of the time so I can't complain too much.

coryrc 4y ago
I think it's ridiculous you want massive subsidies for luxury speeds while living in the middle of nowhere.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  Look at how conservatives would howl if there wasn't a universal mandate for electric power everywhere. I mean, if we weren't entitled to energy from coal we'd have to put up solar panels. Had we really been thinking straight about the "information superhighway" in 1994 we would have just decided it was a function of the electric company and strung an optic fiber along with the power lines and it would have been "least cost". People writing about the future in the 1970s expected we would go straight to fiber without detours into CATV, DSL, spotty, expensive and low-performing wireless systems, etc.
  - mickdeek86 4y ago
    Why did we take the scenic route?

btgeekboy 4y ago

G.fast is for pretty short runs. It’s basically just a curb-to-router solution; there’s typically fiber behind it.