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It’s no surprise that one of the places they’re doing this, Colorado Springs, is pursuing municipal fiber optic. There’s no better way to overcome the complacen
by dublinben 3y ago
It’s no surprise that one of the places they’re doing this, Colorado Springs, is pursuing municipal fiber optic. There’s no better way to overcome the complacency of your local cable monopoly than to publish a plan to offer a competitive service. They’ll improve their service and prices before you can even deploy the first strand of fiber.
- ls612 3y agoDon’t most people in major metro areas have fiber options now? (Municipal or not)
- kogir 3y agoObviously not? Where are you living where even if fiber is available in your city, it’s not just a small section you’d need to deliberately account for in your selection of housing?
- ls612 3y agoMinneapolis has a private fiber ISP, my brother is in Madison and they too have private fiber available widely. I was under the impression there had been a lot of fiber deployment in cities in the past five years.
- k8svet 3y agowell, you're under a very, very, isolated/bad impression.
- samdcbu 3y agoUS Internet (private fiber ISP in the Twin Cities) is an anomaly, not the norm. Minneapolis is incredibly lucky to have a local, private ISP that offers fiber to the home at up to 10 gigabit/s. The only other ISPs in the US that I know offer similar services are either municipal ISPs, co-ops, or Google Fiber.
- api 3y agoCincinnati, Ohio has Altafiber (formerly Cincinnati Bell) that offers 2gbps down 1gbps up for $80/mo. I have it and it’s amazing. Cincinnati Bell was early to roll out DSL too. Went to college here in the late 90s and had a mind blowing 768kbps. I could watch RealVideo at 640x480!
- swanee 3y agoThe Midwest absolutely has seen a lot of fiber going in the ground with federal money the past couple years and Metronet has expanded pretty aggressively.
- ls612 3y agoThat’s fair I was under the impression that the trends I’ve seen were national not limited to the upper Midwest.
- fshr 3y ago"I mean it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? 10 dollars?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw
- lotsofpulp 3y agoNot even close. In my research, only housing developments with new underground utilities since ~2005 to 2010, or sometimes anything super old with overhead wires. Anywhere developed between 1980 to 2005 with underground utilities or anywhere with dense apartment buildings like NYC have effectively zero fiber.
- aftbit 3y agoCounter argument: my neighborhood was developed in the 1970s with underground utilities (and electric only, no natural gas, which is a bit odd in my part of the USA). They installed gas lines in the 90s (ripping up all of the streets) and fiber in the 10s, running alongside the street and using directional drilling to pass crossroads.
- bobthepanda 3y agoNYC interestingly does have a lot of fiber. It was supposed to be citywide, but then there was an argument with Verizon over it and the suit was settled in 2020. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/verizon-wiring-up-500k-homes-with-fios-to-settle-years-long-fight-with-nyc/amp/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/verizon-wiring-u...
- js2 3y agoMy subdivision was built in 2003/2004. Underground utilities. I have both AT&T fiber and Google fiber (as of a few months ago) available to me.
- nico 3y agoI live in the LA metro area, 15min from downtown, and we only get Spectrum (coaxial cable) The only alternative is to get something wireless, either a microwave antenna service or a cell-based hotspot It doesn’t seem any companies are trying to compete or even improve their services Spectrum goes down at least 3 times a month, sometimes for hours on end
- Dylan16807 3y agoIs a million people enough? I can get cable with fast downloads and 11Mbps uploads, or if I remember right the phone line option was 50Mbps each way.
- patmorgan23 3y agoNope. In many areas yes but availability of service is still highly local. Even if you're near net the ISP could still want a build out fee vs an existing provider that's already on property.
- kjs3 3y agoNo. And that's in developed countries. Talk about entitled.
- danielhep 3y agoIt's pretty widespread in Seattle. We have Google Fiber, CenturyLink, and Wave G providing gigabit fiber services in different parts of the city. Then there is Atlas Networks which provides symmetrical gigabit services to apartment buildings via point to point wireless. I have Atlas and it has been fantastic.
- camkego 3y agoI don't believe Google has fiber in Seattle. There is "GFiber" which from their site is: "GFiber is the company that offers Google Fiber and Google Fiber Webpass, high-speed broadband internet services that use fiber optic and wireless millimeter wave technology to deliver fast internet right to your home or business." But millimeter wave wireless is available from Google in Seattle
- lazycouchpotato 3y agoA place I lived earlier had fiber, but only by Comcast. No other competition in the area, so Comcast charged whatever they wanted.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoI always believed Google's primary reason for offering Fiber was to "inspire" current ISPs to pick up the speed pace.
- convolvatron 3y agogoogle is in the business of intermediation. they really want to be the interface between you and the rest of the world. Fiber was just the best, most ultimate version of that - it was just really messy and expensive.
- patmorgan23 3y agoI think it served multiple purposes, they didn't raise consumer expectations at the time/ popularize 1 gig fiber service. Around the same time the FTC was considering (and did) raise the speed definition of broadband and they YouTube had a big push to make 1080p streaming smooth and accessible, and they were being held back by a lot of slow last mile ISPs.
- GauntletWizard 3y agoGoogle was pretty clear about that, internally.
- bsder 3y agoGoogle Fiber was really because Google believed that the ISPs were an existential threat. Then everybody went mobile. So, now Google isn't quite as fussed about fibre.
- deprecative 3y ago> So, now Google isn't quite as fussed about fibre. Even if they were they couldn't get into a whole lot of markets. It sort of piggy backs off of municipal fiber which is a nonstarter in some places due to costs or it straight up being illegal. Google also has Google Fi which is a mobile provider.
- scarface_74 3y ago
- purplezooey 3y ago[flagged]
- tnel77 3y agoExactly. They didn’t do jack to improve their offerings until municipal fiber became a real threat. Now they are doing what they should have been doing for years: actually improving their product and competing. I hope it’s too little too late and people embrace municipal fiber!
- lokar 3y agoWho should they have been competing with?
- 0x6c6f6c 3y agoThe idea of a free market is that competition can enter the field. But, this has been an area that Issue have played every dirty angle possible to rig the game, including legislature and fees to setup the infrastructure. Now they're already settled in- there aren't any fees to pay for e.g. Comcast but new ISP Z is going to have a massive wall to overcome before seeing a penny back.
- tnel77 3y agoI see your point. I’m glad the city stepped in to give them some motivation!
- keep_reading 3y agoWhat if this just brings back healthy competition and we don't end up with the muni network languishing That would be the best scenario
- sgjohnson 3y agoPushing 2 gigabits through coax isn’t “actually improving their product and competing”. It’s a band-aid fix to offer faster speeds. I don’t even want to begin to think about how much power is needed to achieve that while minimizing noise etc.
- tnel77 3y agoMaybe this is just my ignorance, but I honestly don’t care how they get these speeds to me. If I’m actually getting 2Gbps symmetrical, I don’t care if it’s because they installed a hamster wheel outside my house and that little guy is losing his mind making it happen. Let’s give credit where credit is due.
- yojo 3y agoExactly. Municipal broadband is a potentially existential threat to Comcast. Comcast is highly motivated to see early high-profile municipal projects fail. Each household they siphon off with this service drives up the average cost per subscriber of the municipal option. If they can get enough, the municipal option will turn into a giant money pit with a bunch of disgruntled taxpayers. A few years down the road, when other cities are considering their options, someone will inevitably point to Colorado Springs. Comcast really, really, wants that data point to be a bad one.
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago[flagged]
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago[flagged]
- grepfru_it 3y agoI used to work on backend systems at both comcast and cox. Comcast’s engineering teams are stronk especially compared to Cox. One thing I took away from meeting their leadership team was that they were paying attention all of the questions an outsider was asking. The trouble that plagued them was set top boxes and they made an engineering decision over 10 years ago to git rid of them. Today I fully understand and appreciate how they are the number one cable isp. Food for thought: they pay their engineers FAANG salaries, which explains the high service costs. Their technicians can make 100k+. The costs are high but you pay for what you get, my issue with that is you are forced into that price which most municipalities must pay
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- freen 3y agoThis is precisely counter to everything I’ve read about municipal broadband. Frankly, your description of consistent incompetence reads much more like my local cable internet monopoly…
- api 3y agoThey’ll only do that after exhausting all lobbying options to block competition.
- jgalt212 3y agoTruth, but how many people must be in your household such that one would need 2 Gbps internet? For me, I think I'd need 20 people under my roof for this speed to have any chance of making any sense.
- p1mrx 3y ago> DOCSIS 4.0 is capable of supporting up to 10 Gbps downstream and up to 6 Gbps upstream speeds I choose my Comcast tier based on the upload speed, because that's the real bottleneck in the system. Making DOCSIS (almost) symmetric is huge.
- ksec 3y agoIt is not about having a consistent need for High Speed , or in this case 2Gbps Internet, it is about there when you need it. Things like uploading or downloading games, movies, patches that could be done in seconds instead of sitting there waiting for minutes.
- notnmeyer 3y agoexactly! this is the point that most people miss when this conversation comes up.
- refurb 3y agoWhat percentage of the population would ever see a benefit? I was on a ~200 Mbps connection for a while and to be honest, a 1 GB file takes less than a minute, which is crazy fast. I get that things will change in the future, but right now, I'd say 98% of the population would be happy with a 100 Mbps connection.
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoIt’s also a case of not knowing what you’re missing until you have it, like getting glasses for the first time. I would accomplish so much less if I had to consider a 100mb speed limit.
- grecy 3y agoSounds like someone should offer a "municipal broadband as a service" product. Cookie-cutter approvals and proposals, just enough to get the local monopolies to get off their backsides...
- seanp2k2 3y agoGood luck convincing every city in the US to rubber-stamp cutting up cement and closing roads, let alone all the private property owners that infra might have to go through. It’s some of the same reasons that we can’t build public transit. See https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2022/07/how-broadband-infrastructure-gets-built https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-shee... for a quick read summary of the issues. See https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc... for some of the legal chicanery that incumbent monipoly ISPs have put in place. See https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju... for other local government struggles. See https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywkn4b/study-throwing-taxpayer-money-at-giant-isps-hasnt-fixed-americas-broadband-problem https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywkn4b/study-throwing-taxpay... for some history on how these monopoly ISPs rob taxpayers without actually delivering. The fact that even today in Silicon Valley, the fastest internet I can get at home is through Comcast with a 45mbps upload cap (1200mbps down) is a disgusting failure of every level of government to actually do right by consumers instead of just stuffing our tax dollars into the back pockets of giant companies while our infrastructure rots, and I mean that quite literally looking at the telephone poles down our streets here that still carry the coax used to deliver internet service. There’s no fiber in our suburban neighborhood because many of the residents bought their houses in the 60s and 70s, pay 1/20th or less of the property taxes that new home buyers do because of CA Prop 13 (which is also a big reason California cities always have budget issues — schools here that are surrounded by >$1m houses for miles go underfunded because of Prop 13), and aren’t willing to pay a dime more for anything like internet service because they’re already struggling to make ends meet. They’ve already been priced out of the neighborhood long ago, but we continue to pretend that giving them a $20k/yr tax break on their property tax is making the world better by letting them continue to be in poverty while living in a million-dollar+ property. I feel much less sorry for the wealthy folks who own many Prop 13 tax-advantaged properties here and rent them out at $8k/month in pure profit. I feel the least sorry for large companies like Disney that get CA Prop 13 benefits, but even stuff like 2020 CA Prop 15 fails at the ballots because everyone pearl clutches their sweet sweet tax break, even when we just try to limit it for large companies, because they think they’ll come for them next (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_15 and https://calmatters.org/commentary/2020/08/how-prop-13-gave-californias-richest-corporations-a-multibillion-dollar-tax-break-they-didnt-want/ https://calmatters.org/commentary/2020/08/how-prop-13-gave-c... ) I see our infrastructure problems as just another example of the older generations voting only out of self-interest with no desire to build a better society for their children, NIMBYism, and the ever-reliable culture of profits over people at every level of government. Apply these over decades and you get what we have in this country today. I highly doubt we’re ever going to comprehensively fix all of our infrastructure issues in America.