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> It's SO GOOD that our state (Tennessee) has actually blocked other municipalities from implementing similar municipal fiber ISPs It makes me so frustrated to

> It's SO GOOD that our state (Tennessee) has actually blocked other municipalities from implementing similar municipal fiber ISPs It makes me so frustrated too. Calling our state leadership incompetent would actually be a compliment considering how poorly ineffective and self-serving many of them are. About a decade ago, EPB called a friend of mine. The representative on the phone said, "Hello <insert name>, we noticed that your internet has been slower than what you are paying for. Do you mind if we send someone out to fix it for you?" We were both so surprised that a company would volunteer their services like that. EPB is all I ever had when I was there, and I still miss them everyday. Absolutely 10/10 company to work with. I worked at a place that had a 10gb connection and the hardware to handle it when it first was released. Nothing like downloading a full movie in mere seconds.

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
> Calling our state leadership incompetent would actually be a compliment considering how poorly ineffective and self-serving many of them are. Its not incompetence, just corruption. The large and ever growing bureaucratic apparatus of modern democracies are very vulnerable to this covert form, because responsibilities are unclear and diluted and at the end of the day, you need campaign money to win an election.
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
>Absolutely 10/10 company to work with. EPB's customer support is 24/7/365.25 (i.e. no holidays off). And the people working there, dealing with typically-grateful customer, aren't all burnt-TF-out. The rare call for support is thus pleasant and provides immediate resolution. If your house-mounted fiber/copper modem ever "burns out," a technician will typically respond within a few hours to replace the device (it is mounted outside, they don't even call first, they just fix it). I'm a retired electrician, and even when you "call in" a panel replacement, an ISP tech usually shows up to "fix" the "problem" (went offline because consumer meter/unit/main panel was being upgraded). It's actually kind of cute =P
- simfree 3y ago
  That is an incredibly tightly run organization. It might be reactive, dispatching a technician as soon as the ONT goes offline, or the router plugged into the ONT stops pinging, but this is first class customer service.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    They'll also run ethernet lines in your house, typically just to the inside router and one computer — FREE with installation (which is also FREE, just pay monthly no-contract bill). I am a retired electrician, and have worked along-side many techs in new-builds... never met an EPB worker who wasn't thrilled to work for their employer. I also know several of their backend techs, and despite hesitant gripes of "lower government pay," none of them apply for tech/opsec jobs at private companies.
  - Smoosh 3y ago
    My guess would be that it is being run/managed by engineers not MBAs.
    - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
      "You do not want your organization to be managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers." —Mark Zuckerberg
- m463 3y ago
  > burnt-TF-out. It probably helps that they are working for a company popular with customers. Also profit margins on ISPs are extremely high. comcast, verizon, at&t, etc... all ~60% gross profit if you look at financials.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
> It makes me so frustrated too. Stop electing people who block it.
- mikestew 3y ago
  Such an unhelpful answer. You assume parent is one of the ones casting votes for those politicians? You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    >You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue. Tennessee also recently enacted legislation OUTLAWING RANKed-CHOICE VOTING [after Memphis attempted such voting], thus ensuring only two-party electorate; and for the foreseeable future. This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes.
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      > This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes. Before you can say that, I think first you have to show that most of the voters in TN want ranked choice voting. In my experience many people do not want it, because they feel it is unfair and that it amounts to getting multiple votes. And before anyone argues at me about "that isn't what RCV means", you're preaching to the choir. I am 100% for using some form of RCV instead of FPTP voting. But if it turns out most of the people in TN favor FPTP, then their representatives are simply doing their job on behalf of the people. I don't know if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me based on past experience.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      That's a fair bit of rhetoric, but we're pretty much a single-party state. New York is about as hard blue as we are hard red, and they despise their citizens. At least here I have more freedom and less taxes.
joemi 3y ago
> About a decade ago, EPB called a friend of mine. The representative on the phone said, "Hello <insert name>, we noticed that your internet has been slower than what you are paying for. Do you mind if we send someone out to fix it for you?" We were both so surprised that a company would volunteer their services like that. Something very similar to this recently happened to me with Spectrum (cable internet) in NYC, which is not a company known for being nice to customers. The tech who came out explained to me that they were seeing unusual performance profiles on their end and that's why they do this. In my case, it turns out there was a splitter somewhere outside where there shouldn't be instead of the line going directly to some junction box, and that's why they were seeing the odd profile. After he removed it and made the line be direct, our service was indeed better, but I guess whoever installed the splitter stopped getting free internet/cable. (I'm not mad about that.) So while the service call was framed as "improving my service" and it did indeed, it was also an investigation into something suspicious they detected. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a similar situation for your friend.
- ploxiln 3y ago
  NYC is pretty good for internet, because there's Fios in many buildings, so the cable companies really try. There's competition here. I've lived here for about 11 years, and outside NYC for 20 years, and as a techy and heavy internet user my whole life, the difference in pricing, performance, and customer service _of the same company_ (actually a conglomerate which acquired other ISPs over the decades) is quite significant. I have an amazing deal on Fios right now, but had Time Warner for 6-ish years across 3 apartments here, and it was way way better than Time Warner in California, or Comcast in Delaware ... where they really just DGAF
emeril 3y ago
LOL @ "downloading a full movie in mere seconds" quite the legitimate use case for such bandwidth! :)
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  Typically this will be some sort of medical [imaging] business, with some errant technician barely utilizing any capacity (long-term basis). One of my "actually legitimate" uses of EPB Fiber (as an individual end-user) is hosting a bitcoin supernode, which is essentially a non-mining "verifyer of record" which allows other nodes to upload all-day-long. With me throttling locally to 10Mbps (specific to bitcoin blockchain upload traffic, only), we have mutual peace (and I am constantly maintaining >100 connections at pings as low as 3ms (typical non-fiber is >25ms; typical newnode is >80ms). All other fiber connections, worldwide, are single-digit-?ms.

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

> Calling our state leadership incompetent would actually be a compliment considering how poorly ineffective and self-serving many of them are. Its not incompetence, just corruption. The large and ever growing bureaucratic apparatus of modern democracies are very vulnerable to this covert form, because responsibilities are unclear and diluted and at the end of the day, you need campaign money to win an election.

ProllyInfamous 3y ago

>Absolutely 10/10 company to work with. EPB's customer support is 24/7/365.25 (i.e. no holidays off). And the people working there, dealing with typically-grateful customer, aren't all burnt-TF-out. The rare call for support is thus pleasant and provides immediate resolution. If your house-mounted fiber/copper modem ever "burns out," a technician will typically respond within a few hours to replace the device (it is mounted outside, they don't even call first, they just fix it). I'm a retired electrician, and even when you "call in" a panel replacement, an ISP tech usually shows up to "fix" the "problem" (went offline because consumer meter/unit/main panel was being upgraded). It's actually kind of cute =P

simfree 3y ago
That is an incredibly tightly run organization. It might be reactive, dispatching a technician as soon as the ONT goes offline, or the router plugged into the ONT stops pinging, but this is first class customer service.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  They'll also run ethernet lines in your house, typically just to the inside router and one computer — FREE with installation (which is also FREE, just pay monthly no-contract bill). I am a retired electrician, and have worked along-side many techs in new-builds... never met an EPB worker who wasn't thrilled to work for their employer. I also know several of their backend techs, and despite hesitant gripes of "lower government pay," none of them apply for tech/opsec jobs at private companies.
- Smoosh 3y ago
  My guess would be that it is being run/managed by engineers not MBAs.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    "You do not want your organization to be managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers." —Mark Zuckerberg
m463 3y ago
> burnt-TF-out. It probably helps that they are working for a company popular with customers. Also profit margins on ISPs are extremely high. comcast, verizon, at&t, etc... all ~60% gross profit if you look at financials.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

> It makes me so frustrated too. Stop electing people who block it.

mikestew 3y ago
Such an unhelpful answer. You assume parent is one of the ones casting votes for those politicians? You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  >You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue. Tennessee also recently enacted legislation OUTLAWING RANKed-CHOICE VOTING [after Memphis attempted such voting], thus ensuring only two-party electorate; and for the foreseeable future. This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    > This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes. Before you can say that, I think first you have to show that most of the voters in TN want ranked choice voting. In my experience many people do not want it, because they feel it is unfair and that it amounts to getting multiple votes. And before anyone argues at me about "that isn't what RCV means", you're preaching to the choir. I am 100% for using some form of RCV instead of FPTP voting. But if it turns out most of the people in TN favor FPTP, then their representatives are simply doing their job on behalf of the people. I don't know if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me based on past experience.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    That's a fair bit of rhetoric, but we're pretty much a single-party state. New York is about as hard blue as we are hard red, and they despise their citizens. At least here I have more freedom and less taxes.

joemi 3y ago

> About a decade ago, EPB called a friend of mine. The representative on the phone said, "Hello <insert name>, we noticed that your internet has been slower than what you are paying for. Do you mind if we send someone out to fix it for you?" We were both so surprised that a company would volunteer their services like that. Something very similar to this recently happened to me with Spectrum (cable internet) in NYC, which is not a company known for being nice to customers. The tech who came out explained to me that they were seeing unusual performance profiles on their end and that's why they do this. In my case, it turns out there was a splitter somewhere outside where there shouldn't be instead of the line going directly to some junction box, and that's why they were seeing the odd profile. After he removed it and made the line be direct, our service was indeed better, but I guess whoever installed the splitter stopped getting free internet/cable. (I'm not mad about that.) So while the service call was framed as "improving my service" and it did indeed, it was also an investigation into something suspicious they detected. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a similar situation for your friend.

ploxiln 3y ago
NYC is pretty good for internet, because there's Fios in many buildings, so the cable companies really try. There's competition here. I've lived here for about 11 years, and outside NYC for 20 years, and as a techy and heavy internet user my whole life, the difference in pricing, performance, and customer service _of the same company_ (actually a conglomerate which acquired other ISPs over the decades) is quite significant. I have an amazing deal on Fios right now, but had Time Warner for 6-ish years across 3 apartments here, and it was way way better than Time Warner in California, or Comcast in Delaware ... where they really just DGAF

emeril 3y ago

LOL @ "downloading a full movie in mere seconds" quite the legitimate use case for such bandwidth! :)

ProllyInfamous 3y ago
Typically this will be some sort of medical [imaging] business, with some errant technician barely utilizing any capacity (long-term basis). One of my "actually legitimate" uses of EPB Fiber (as an individual end-user) is hosting a bitcoin supernode, which is essentially a non-mining "verifyer of record" which allows other nodes to upload all-day-long. With me throttling locally to 10Mbps (specific to bitcoin blockchain upload traffic, only), we have mutual peace (and I am constantly maintaining >100 connections at pings as low as 3ms (typical non-fiber is >25ms; typical newnode is >80ms). All other fiber connections, worldwide, are single-digit-?ms.