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This is so frustrating. We bought a house out in the sticks once it became WFH forever, thinking there was service because of the FCC's map which said there was

by rozap 4y ago

This is so frustrating. We bought a house out in the sticks once it became WFH forever, thinking there was service because of the FCC's map which said there was Comcast and CenturyLink broadband. When we moved in and I called them, Comcast said they didn't have service in the area and CenturyLink offered me 1.5mbps (!!!) DSL. We limped along on a spotty LTE connection until we got starlink after waiting a year, which has been great.

ghaff 4y ago
Starlink is a game changer for rural areas. For the house my family owns up in Maine, the best we could get was about a 1Mbps down DSL and the house was the last one on the road that could get "broadband" at all. Only other choices were traditional satellite or marginal Verizon hot spots. Could never have worked from up there.
- teachrdan 4y ago
  Meh. I know a number of folks who moved to rural areas, and not a single one was able to use Starlink due to tree coverage and the extremely narrow band of sky their receiver had to be pointed at. I'm glad it worked for you! But the rural places where my friends live have lots of trees, tall ones, and they made Starlink totally unusable.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    The house does have a pretty good view of the sky. I'm not sure what the answer is in general. It's probably not realistic to expect universal wired broadband in very rural areas. Conventional satellite is by all accounts pretty bad. And cellular isn't really an option absent a good 5G signal. But, other than a vacation cottage, lack of usable Internet isn't really an option either if you're going to be working from somewhere.
    - thomas_ma 4y ago
      But, why is universal wired broadband in very rural areas of the US an unreasonable expectation? We did the same thing 100 years ago with universal service requirements for telephone. As I understand it, the build out was subsidized by the government along with a universal service fee for all phone lines. Is the infrastructure for low-broadband in low density areas inherently more expensive than POTS infrastructure was 75-100 years ago?
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        We paid for universal broadband too, we just didn't get it or the money back.
      - tomrod 4y ago
        In general, problems are caused by people, policy, or technology. I think you hit on a people+policy misalignment.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Things are of course a lot different than they were 100 years ago. Bringing electricity and phone service to farms and ranches probably seemed pretty important. I'm not sure how a lot of modern coastal urbanites would feel about a very expensive project to bring wired broadband to everyone living on the side of a mountain somewhere today. (Especially given that wireless technologies are an option for a lot of people, if not everyone.) POTS bills also at least used to have a universal service charge line item, in part to subsidize rural service.
        burnished 4y ago
        As one of those coastal urbanites, fucking great. Didnt we already pay a bunch of money for that anyway? Even aside from that the internet is great, I'm not going to feel bad about helping to pay to bring it to everyone.
        ghaff 4y ago
        I don't even really disagree. I just see a lot of hostility on here about providing infrastructure for people who aren't in metros. I'm not convinced that in this day and age it all has to be wired. But it's not unreasonable to consider that at least reasonable Internet should be a basic utility service even for very rural locations.
    - maxsilver 4y ago
      > It's probably not realistic to expect universal wired broadband in very rural areas. I don't know why. It seems incredibly realistic to expect wired broadband in most rural areas. (We were able to provide them with power lines and telephone lines over 60+ years ago, there's no reason fiber would have to be any different)
    - ahepp 4y ago
      I’m not sure I understand why broadband should be a problem anywhere there’s electrical infrastructure.
  - keneda7 4y ago
    This is largest hurdle I've seen for Starlink. I know at least 10 people in the foothills of Northern CA that are stuck with 2 choices if they want Starlink. They can either cut down several massive (100ft+) trees or they can pay someone to climb up a tree and mount the dish. The second options comes with a whole other sets of problems and typically still includes cutting some other trees down.
    - excitom 4y ago
      Side note: If I lived in the Northern California foothills I would be cutting down big trees close to the house due to extreme fire danger. Side benefit, better Satellite visibility.
      - keneda7 4y ago
        Well they all have defensible space around their homes. It is a requirement for the only fire insurance they can get. Even the defensible space does not clear enough to get uninterrupted Starlink service.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    I know some people used to chop down trees to get a line of sight for satellite TV. Starlink is different in that you need more than a single LOS to a specific spot in the sky, but I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of people ultimately chop down more trees to get access. Alternatively, perhaps the starlink antenna could be mounted on a large pole or modest radio tower. That would be ugly but probably a lot less ugly than chopping down your trees.
    - 0xffff2 4y ago
      Yeah, I have a house in a heavily forested area. I put the starlink dish on top of a 12ft pole mounted on my roof. I have a double of line of sight issues, but it's good enough that I don't notice service interruptions.
      - toomuchtodo 4y ago
        For a house in the Adirondacks in upstate NY (heavily wooded), we used a 50' triangular antenna tower with Dishy at the top to clear the tree line. Went from abysmal DSL speeds to ~100Mbps, also added microcells from the largest mobile providers to improve cell coverage on the property (mounted to the antenna structure in water resistant housings). Total cost was sub $5k for everything mentioned. If close to the home doesn't work, depending on siting requirements, you can erect a tower in a clearing or where there is clear line of sight to the sky and then run power and network to the tower from the nearest structure. Don't neglect lightning surge suppression to protect equipment. Similar to this: https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/mk4jfx/starlink_dishy_a_little_closer_to_the_stars_on_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/mk4jfx/starlink_d... https://www.rohnnet.com/rohn-g-series-self-supporting-tower https://www.rohnnet.com/rohn-g-series-self-supporting-tower
  - ultrarunner 4y ago
    The Facebook groups I used to be in had most people putting them on poles, or even mounting them to the tops of said tall trees. Seemed to work fine, even with a bit of sway.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    if you don't mind putting up a huge pole with a platform on top, you can get around it that way.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    It's worth noting that most alternatives require a satellite dish of some sort. Before Starlink, I had a roof-mounted HughesNet dish (and before that a custom WISP receiver). Either way, I'd say Starlink is an enormous improvement over every other satellite solution I've tried. The lack of data cap alone puts it head-and-heels above the competition, and the speeds are good enough to coax people off 4G. I have some small complaints about CGNAT and the provided router, but the service itself is more reliable than some cable connections I've tried. Having seen (and tried) a lot of the alternatives, there really aren't any pushbutton services that compare.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      Starlink doesn't have a data cap? No way that's sustainable.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        They said they were limiting people to 1tb/month this year, but I don't think that's enacted yet. At least, if it is, I haven't noticed it yet...
        ghaff 4y ago
        That's more than I use. On the other hand, it's mostly just me and I don't do a huge amount of streaming video.
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        That's still a pretty generous cap. When I was living with 5 other heavy internet users, our monthly usage didn't exceed 600GB.
        opamp 4y ago
        It’s still unlimited beyond that, you’re just “deprioritized.” Depending on how rural you are, you might not even notice. It’s much like a cell tower where a geographical area has finite capacity. You use your “priority” data that has speed guarantees, then it slows down, but is still unlimited. Apparently some users were reselling the link & maxing out the upload/download 24/7. (yeah, I get it, but in this case some kind of QoS probably needs to happen to turn a profit) I’ve been a beta user since the first couple months of launch. They’ve had growing pains, but it has overall been light years ahead of our local WISP or Hughesnet/Viasat in terms of speed and reliability. Several of my neighbors have no other option than traditional geostationary satellite providers, and I don’t think any of us every want to go back to 600ms+ latencies! edit: I just wanted to add that for many people, priority speeds for 1TB & having sub-100ms latency is far, far better than the alternatives.
  - callalex 4y ago
    It’s funny, people don’t hesitate to trim and remove trees for roads, power lines, or plumbing. I would consider trimming a tree to access the internet worthwhile.
    - hydrometallurgy 4y ago
      Yes, but Starlink needs a really wide/large view of the sky. Often, it's not enough to simply trim a few trees.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  You're still tying your connectivity to a single provider. That's dangerous considering internet isn't regulated as a utility. No doubt starlink will turn the screws on their customers given they're basically a monopoly for folks in rural areas.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    No doubt? They're the only satellite internet company with surplus rockets that they need to burn. Customer volume for Starlink is arguably more valuable to SpaceX than profit per customer.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > You're still tying your connectivity to a single provider. That's dangerous considering internet isn't regulated as a utility. Dangerous also because the media industry insists that ISPs permanently cancel the service of customers after multiple unproven allegations of copyright infringement and without a single conviction. So far, the courts have been completely agreeing with them and ISPs who refuse to bow to the wishes of the media industry and terminate these users are being sued. Anyone can lose the ability to have an account at the only ISP they have just because some third party P2P snoop, hired by a movie studio, forwarded a DMCA notice to their ISP with their IP address on it too many times (with "too many" being entirely unspecified in law and up to whatever the ISP thinks won't get them sued). Those third parties haven't exactly always been so careful about avoiding false accusations either. Actually doing anything to deserve a DMCA notice isn't required.
- akira2501 4y ago
  4g. External antenna and third-party modem. I typically get 30Mbps up and down, but the latency is horrific at like 150ms minimum. Those vendor provided hotspots are absolute junk and don't even work out here. Incidentally the latency has really improved my web development practices.
sidewndr46 4y ago
I live in a mega-neigborhood with thousands of homes. That same map indicates there are something like 4 ISPs in my area. Some of which aren't even companies I can even contact.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Seems like a golden opportunity for a community owned and operated Internet provider.
  - mh- 4y ago
    I'm not sure anyone who has started a local ISP would call it a "golden opportunity", regardless of the circumstances.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    It's no different than trying to start a local ISP anywhere.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      I mean a number of states made it against the law for cities to create their own internet services and there are lots of different utility laws, so I don't think the same set of rules applies everywhere.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Comcast or whoever the coaxial ISP is will drop their prices to where customers will choose them over any new fiber network.
    - nobleach 4y ago
      This is what I kindly refer to as the "Comcast Be Good Stick". They're tyrants about things like data caps, speeds, etc. Then the fiber trucks roll in with a Ditch Witch and they're all of a sudden ready to play ball. The only thing is, they simply can't give a residential customer anything more than 6Mps up. Sure I can get 500Mpbs down but, honestly, anything after 200, I barely notice. I'm just not streaming 4k video or anything like that.
bombcar 4y ago
Before you buy ask the owner what they have, and maybe even ask a few of the neighbors. Then call and try to get service. Maps and accuracy are way off and sometimes they have a “connection fee” that is way high because they plan to be in your street but haven’t run the cables yet.
caseyohara 4y ago
The same exact thing happened to me last year. Before we moved, we checked with Comcast and the support agent told us they could provide service to our new home. Then after we moved, we called them to start service and they said we weren't within the area. Comcast gave me a quote for $330,000 to run a fiber line to my house. Starlink is beter than nothing but still disappointing compared to the speeds they promise. And I worry it's going to get worse as more people start using Starlink.
- rozap 4y ago
  Same, comcast offered me a quote for around $250k. I'll just check the couch cushions... There was a comcast truck driving down the street a while back (before we had starlink) and I literally chased him down and asked if they were installing broadband. He was a little confused, and then said "no, I'm just checking the line levels...but you're the fourth person to ask me that on this street"
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The same exact thing happened to me last year. Before we moved, we checked with Comcast and the support agent told us they could provide service to our new home. Then after we moved, we called them to start service and they said we weren’t within the area. I had a funny similar thing happen a long time ago, back when copper ADSL was “broadband”, and it was all the incumbent local telcos or resellers: Before a move, I contacted my local telco, who I was getting ADSL directly from and setup everything for the move, including confirming that service was available and, because of available service appointment windows, having it shutoff at my new place before the move and turned on at the new location. When we got to the new place, telephone was up and ADSL wasn’t. Initially was told they would need to schedule a new service call, which they missed, and then when I called again was told service wasn’t available. In the meantime, given the service problems, I had already contacted one of the ADSL resellers, who said my address did have ADSL available, and was quoted a lower price than directly from the telco. Confronted the telco with this information, and they insisted that despite confirming multiple times in the past that the new address was in the service area, it was, in fact, too far from the central exchange for ADSL service. Switched to the reseller, and stayed with them for several years (and faster service tiers) before switching to another provider that had fiber available.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
Let me get this straight. You bought a house without going through the ISP's portal to confirm they serviced an address? That is some leap of faith! I'm happy you got star-link but you've tied yourself to a single provider who will no doubt turn the screws on you eventually because we don't treat internet as a utility in this country. Having at least two good internet providers is a requirement for any home I purchase going forward.
Diederich 4y ago
In 2020 when we rented in the bay area and decided to find a forever home, we also moved to full WFH and started looking at hundreds of houses in the Pacific NorthWest. The very first thing we did (mostly my wife) was to call Comcast, give them the specific address, and have them verify the place had high speed Internet. For those that passed that test (a relatively low percentage did since we were looking to live in a relatively rural area) the next thing we did was contact the relevant real-estate agent. This part was tricky and often annoying. We cut through everything they had to say and said that, if they wanted to potentially move forward, they had to do something for us. They had to get permission from the current owner and run an Internet speed test. This was a PITA, but most of the time they did it. And most of the time, Comcast's data was accurate about whether service was available. The place we ended up buying is about 10 miles outside of Olympia Washington. Our street is one of the very few in the area that has high speed comcast. Having said that, we also got a starlink dishy right away and we use that as backup, because while most of the time our Internet is really excellent, speed is great, etc, it has a lot of small outages, so it's worth having a highly reliable but much less fast backup.
- darknavi 4y ago
  Does Ziply Fiber exist down there? We have it on the East Side and it's so nice. They just rolled out 2 and 5Gbps as well.
  - duskwuff 4y ago
    Doesn't look like it: https://ziplyfiber.com/Fiber-construction https://ziplyfiber.com/Fiber-construction
- rozap 4y ago
  Funny, we moved just outside Lacey. Honestly we made do with LTE for a year and survived just fine, it didn't impact work much. So I have no regrets, but am still upset at Comcast for blatantly lying the the fcc.
  - Diederich 4y ago
thomaslord 4y ago
This probably goes without saying since you presumably just read this article, but I always tell people to actually check the website like they're trying to buy service before moving somewhere new. This is a particularly important for me personally because I have a slightly-petty personal vendetta against Comcast, so I'll only live somewhere that has Verizon FiOS (or a comparable fiber provider). Even this method can be flawed - there might be a hefty installation fee, or you might run into a situation where even though service is technically offered at your new place but it's not physically possible to install. My mom and I ran into the latter situation years ago when she moved into a new house during a FiOS installer strike. They scheduled installations weekly for a month or two, optimistically thinking they'd reach an agreement I suppose, but nobody ever showed up. We eventually had to sign up with Comcast, which sort of got us through a few months until it was possible to get FiOS installed.

by rozap 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

Starlink is a game changer for rural areas. For the house my family owns up in Maine, the best we could get was about a 1Mbps down DSL and the house was the last one on the road that could get "broadband" at all. Only other choices were traditional satellite or marginal Verizon hot spots. Could never have worked from up there.

teachrdan 4y ago
Meh. I know a number of folks who moved to rural areas, and not a single one was able to use Starlink due to tree coverage and the extremely narrow band of sky their receiver had to be pointed at. I'm glad it worked for you! But the rural places where my friends live have lots of trees, tall ones, and they made Starlink totally unusable.
- ghaff 4y ago
  The house does have a pretty good view of the sky. I'm not sure what the answer is in general. It's probably not realistic to expect universal wired broadband in very rural areas. Conventional satellite is by all accounts pretty bad. And cellular isn't really an option absent a good 5G signal. But, other than a vacation cottage, lack of usable Internet isn't really an option either if you're going to be working from somewhere.
  - thomas_ma 4y ago
    But, why is universal wired broadband in very rural areas of the US an unreasonable expectation? We did the same thing 100 years ago with universal service requirements for telephone. As I understand it, the build out was subsidized by the government along with a universal service fee for all phone lines. Is the infrastructure for low-broadband in low density areas inherently more expensive than POTS infrastructure was 75-100 years ago?
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      We paid for universal broadband too, we just didn't get it or the money back.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      In general, problems are caused by people, policy, or technology. I think you hit on a people+policy misalignment.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Things are of course a lot different than they were 100 years ago. Bringing electricity and phone service to farms and ranches probably seemed pretty important. I'm not sure how a lot of modern coastal urbanites would feel about a very expensive project to bring wired broadband to everyone living on the side of a mountain somewhere today. (Especially given that wireless technologies are an option for a lot of people, if not everyone.) POTS bills also at least used to have a universal service charge line item, in part to subsidize rural service.
      - burnished 4y ago
        As one of those coastal urbanites, fucking great. Didnt we already pay a bunch of money for that anyway? Even aside from that the internet is great, I'm not going to feel bad about helping to pay to bring it to everyone.
        ghaff 4y ago
        I don't even really disagree. I just see a lot of hostility on here about providing infrastructure for people who aren't in metros. I'm not convinced that in this day and age it all has to be wired. But it's not unreasonable to consider that at least reasonable Internet should be a basic utility service even for very rural locations.
  - maxsilver 4y ago
    > It's probably not realistic to expect universal wired broadband in very rural areas. I don't know why. It seems incredibly realistic to expect wired broadband in most rural areas. (We were able to provide them with power lines and telephone lines over 60+ years ago, there's no reason fiber would have to be any different)
  - ahepp 4y ago
    I’m not sure I understand why broadband should be a problem anywhere there’s electrical infrastructure.
- keneda7 4y ago
  This is largest hurdle I've seen for Starlink. I know at least 10 people in the foothills of Northern CA that are stuck with 2 choices if they want Starlink. They can either cut down several massive (100ft+) trees or they can pay someone to climb up a tree and mount the dish. The second options comes with a whole other sets of problems and typically still includes cutting some other trees down.
  - excitom 4y ago
    Side note: If I lived in the Northern California foothills I would be cutting down big trees close to the house due to extreme fire danger. Side benefit, better Satellite visibility.
    - keneda7 4y ago
      Well they all have defensible space around their homes. It is a requirement for the only fire insurance they can get. Even the defensible space does not clear enough to get uninterrupted Starlink service.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  I know some people used to chop down trees to get a line of sight for satellite TV. Starlink is different in that you need more than a single LOS to a specific spot in the sky, but I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of people ultimately chop down more trees to get access. Alternatively, perhaps the starlink antenna could be mounted on a large pole or modest radio tower. That would be ugly but probably a lot less ugly than chopping down your trees.
  - 0xffff2 4y ago
    Yeah, I have a house in a heavily forested area. I put the starlink dish on top of a 12ft pole mounted on my roof. I have a double of line of sight issues, but it's good enough that I don't notice service interruptions.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      For a house in the Adirondacks in upstate NY (heavily wooded), we used a 50' triangular antenna tower with Dishy at the top to clear the tree line. Went from abysmal DSL speeds to ~100Mbps, also added microcells from the largest mobile providers to improve cell coverage on the property (mounted to the antenna structure in water resistant housings). Total cost was sub $5k for everything mentioned. If close to the home doesn't work, depending on siting requirements, you can erect a tower in a clearing or where there is clear line of sight to the sky and then run power and network to the tower from the nearest structure. Don't neglect lightning surge suppression to protect equipment. Similar to this: https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/mk4jfx/starlink_dishy_a_little_closer_to_the_stars_on_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/mk4jfx/starlink_d... https://www.rohnnet.com/rohn-g-series-self-supporting-tower https://www.rohnnet.com/rohn-g-series-self-supporting-tower
- ultrarunner 4y ago
  The Facebook groups I used to be in had most people putting them on poles, or even mounting them to the tops of said tall trees. Seemed to work fine, even with a bit of sway.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  if you don't mind putting up a huge pole with a platform on top, you can get around it that way.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  It's worth noting that most alternatives require a satellite dish of some sort. Before Starlink, I had a roof-mounted HughesNet dish (and before that a custom WISP receiver). Either way, I'd say Starlink is an enormous improvement over every other satellite solution I've tried. The lack of data cap alone puts it head-and-heels above the competition, and the speeds are good enough to coax people off 4G. I have some small complaints about CGNAT and the provided router, but the service itself is more reliable than some cable connections I've tried. Having seen (and tried) a lot of the alternatives, there really aren't any pushbutton services that compare.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Starlink doesn't have a data cap? No way that's sustainable.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      They said they were limiting people to 1tb/month this year, but I don't think that's enacted yet. At least, if it is, I haven't noticed it yet...
      - ghaff 4y ago
        That's more than I use. On the other hand, it's mostly just me and I don't do a huge amount of streaming video.
      - xboxnolifes 4y ago
        That's still a pretty generous cap. When I was living with 5 other heavy internet users, our monthly usage didn't exceed 600GB.
      - opamp 4y ago
        It’s still unlimited beyond that, you’re just “deprioritized.” Depending on how rural you are, you might not even notice. It’s much like a cell tower where a geographical area has finite capacity. You use your “priority” data that has speed guarantees, then it slows down, but is still unlimited. Apparently some users were reselling the link & maxing out the upload/download 24/7. (yeah, I get it, but in this case some kind of QoS probably needs to happen to turn a profit) I’ve been a beta user since the first couple months of launch. They’ve had growing pains, but it has overall been light years ahead of our local WISP or Hughesnet/Viasat in terms of speed and reliability. Several of my neighbors have no other option than traditional geostationary satellite providers, and I don’t think any of us every want to go back to 600ms+ latencies! edit: I just wanted to add that for many people, priority speeds for 1TB & having sub-100ms latency is far, far better than the alternatives.
- callalex 4y ago
  It’s funny, people don’t hesitate to trim and remove trees for roads, power lines, or plumbing. I would consider trimming a tree to access the internet worthwhile.
  - hydrometallurgy 4y ago
    Yes, but Starlink needs a really wide/large view of the sky. Often, it's not enough to simply trim a few trees.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
You're still tying your connectivity to a single provider. That's dangerous considering internet isn't regulated as a utility. No doubt starlink will turn the screws on their customers given they're basically a monopoly for folks in rural areas.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  No doubt? They're the only satellite internet company with surplus rockets that they need to burn. Customer volume for Starlink is arguably more valuable to SpaceX than profit per customer.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > You're still tying your connectivity to a single provider. That's dangerous considering internet isn't regulated as a utility. Dangerous also because the media industry insists that ISPs permanently cancel the service of customers after multiple unproven allegations of copyright infringement and without a single conviction. So far, the courts have been completely agreeing with them and ISPs who refuse to bow to the wishes of the media industry and terminate these users are being sued. Anyone can lose the ability to have an account at the only ISP they have just because some third party P2P snoop, hired by a movie studio, forwarded a DMCA notice to their ISP with their IP address on it too many times (with "too many" being entirely unspecified in law and up to whatever the ISP thinks won't get them sued). Those third parties haven't exactly always been so careful about avoiding false accusations either. Actually doing anything to deserve a DMCA notice isn't required.
akira2501 4y ago
4g. External antenna and third-party modem. I typically get 30Mbps up and down, but the latency is horrific at like 150ms minimum. Those vendor provided hotspots are absolute junk and don't even work out here. Incidentally the latency has really improved my web development practices.

sidewndr46 4y ago

I live in a mega-neigborhood with thousands of homes. That same map indicates there are something like 4 ISPs in my area. Some of which aren't even companies I can even contact.

Bilal_io 4y ago
Seems like a golden opportunity for a community owned and operated Internet provider.
- mh- 4y ago
  I'm not sure anyone who has started a local ISP would call it a "golden opportunity", regardless of the circumstances.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  It's no different than trying to start a local ISP anywhere.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    I mean a number of states made it against the law for cities to create their own internet services and there are lots of different utility laws, so I don't think the same set of rules applies everywhere.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Comcast or whoever the coaxial ISP is will drop their prices to where customers will choose them over any new fiber network.
  - nobleach 4y ago
    This is what I kindly refer to as the "Comcast Be Good Stick". They're tyrants about things like data caps, speeds, etc. Then the fiber trucks roll in with a Ditch Witch and they're all of a sudden ready to play ball. The only thing is, they simply can't give a residential customer anything more than 6Mps up. Sure I can get 500Mpbs down but, honestly, anything after 200, I barely notice. I'm just not streaming 4k video or anything like that.

bombcar 4y ago

Before you buy ask the owner what they have, and maybe even ask a few of the neighbors. Then call and try to get service. Maps and accuracy are way off and sometimes they have a “connection fee” that is way high because they plan to be in your street but haven’t run the cables yet.

caseyohara 4y ago

The same exact thing happened to me last year. Before we moved, we checked with Comcast and the support agent told us they could provide service to our new home. Then after we moved, we called them to start service and they said we weren't within the area. Comcast gave me a quote for $330,000 to run a fiber line to my house. Starlink is beter than nothing but still disappointing compared to the speeds they promise. And I worry it's going to get worse as more people start using Starlink.

rozap 4y ago
Same, comcast offered me a quote for around $250k. I'll just check the couch cushions... There was a comcast truck driving down the street a while back (before we had starlink) and I literally chased him down and asked if they were installing broadband. He was a little confused, and then said "no, I'm just checking the line levels...but you're the fourth person to ask me that on this street"
dragonwriter 4y ago
> The same exact thing happened to me last year. Before we moved, we checked with Comcast and the support agent told us they could provide service to our new home. Then after we moved, we called them to start service and they said we weren’t within the area. I had a funny similar thing happen a long time ago, back when copper ADSL was “broadband”, and it was all the incumbent local telcos or resellers: Before a move, I contacted my local telco, who I was getting ADSL directly from and setup everything for the move, including confirming that service was available and, because of available service appointment windows, having it shutoff at my new place before the move and turned on at the new location. When we got to the new place, telephone was up and ADSL wasn’t. Initially was told they would need to schedule a new service call, which they missed, and then when I called again was told service wasn’t available. In the meantime, given the service problems, I had already contacted one of the ADSL resellers, who said my address did have ADSL available, and was quoted a lower price than directly from the telco. Confronted the telco with this information, and they insisted that despite confirming multiple times in the past that the new address was in the service area, it was, in fact, too far from the central exchange for ADSL service. Switched to the reseller, and stayed with them for several years (and faster service tiers) before switching to another provider that had fiber available.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago

Let me get this straight. You bought a house without going through the ISP's portal to confirm they serviced an address? That is some leap of faith! I'm happy you got star-link but you've tied yourself to a single provider who will no doubt turn the screws on you eventually because we don't treat internet as a utility in this country. Having at least two good internet providers is a requirement for any home I purchase going forward.

Diederich 4y ago

In 2020 when we rented in the bay area and decided to find a forever home, we also moved to full WFH and started looking at hundreds of houses in the Pacific NorthWest. The very first thing we did (mostly my wife) was to call Comcast, give them the specific address, and have them verify the place had high speed Internet. For those that passed that test (a relatively low percentage did since we were looking to live in a relatively rural area) the next thing we did was contact the relevant real-estate agent. This part was tricky and often annoying. We cut through everything they had to say and said that, if they wanted to potentially move forward, they had to do something for us. They had to get permission from the current owner and run an Internet speed test. This was a PITA, but most of the time they did it. And most of the time, Comcast's data was accurate about whether service was available. The place we ended up buying is about 10 miles outside of Olympia Washington. Our street is one of the very few in the area that has high speed comcast. Having said that, we also got a starlink dishy right away and we use that as backup, because while most of the time our Internet is really excellent, speed is great, etc, it has a lot of small outages, so it's worth having a highly reliable but much less fast backup.

darknavi 4y ago
Does Ziply Fiber exist down there? We have it on the East Side and it's so nice. They just rolled out 2 and 5Gbps as well.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  Doesn't look like it: https://ziplyfiber.com/Fiber-construction https://ziplyfiber.com/Fiber-construction
rozap 4y ago
Funny, we moved just outside Lacey. Honestly we made do with LTE for a year and survived just fine, it didn't impact work much. So I have no regrets, but am still upset at Comcast for blatantly lying the the fcc.
- Diederich 4y ago

thomaslord 4y ago

This probably goes without saying since you presumably just read this article, but I always tell people to actually check the website like they're trying to buy service before moving somewhere new. This is a particularly important for me personally because I have a slightly-petty personal vendetta against Comcast, so I'll only live somewhere that has Verizon FiOS (or a comparable fiber provider). Even this method can be flawed - there might be a hefty installation fee, or you might run into a situation where even though service is technically offered at your new place but it's not physically possible to install. My mom and I ran into the latter situation years ago when she moved into a new house during a FiOS installer strike. They scheduled installations weekly for a month or two, optimistically thinking they'd reach an agreement I suppose, but nobody ever showed up. We eventually had to sign up with Comcast, which sort of got us through a few months until it was possible to get FiOS installed.