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You did it before for electricity and telephone. Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, teleph

You did it before for electricity and telephone. Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. Every six months or so there's an article in the Navajo Times about the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority managing to hook up another couple of dozen homes to electricity, but there are still many thousands to go. There was a photo published during the pandemic of children gathered on top of a hill sitting in the dust and sun with their laptops because it was the only place they could get a cell signal to do their schoolwork. Tens of thousands of American homes have no running water. I've visited many in Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico, and even California. Time to get out of the Silicon Valley bubble.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wddkcs 3y ago
It's not a silicon valley canard to overwhelmingly expect electricity and running water in the US. The difficulties faced by the Navajo are not representative of the country at large. The major service providers have preferred to put in place regional monopolies, rather than extend their fiber capabilities, that is the root of the issue.
- the_arun 3y ago
  I did research in Silicon Valley, there is no optic fiber. We have expensive comcast, or ATT or now Starlink.. or now 5G. I wish we had more options(high speed internet) for end users.
  - simfree 3y ago
    This really depends where you are physically located, the infrastructure available varies neighborhood by neighborhood, and in some cases block to block. Some have two GPON fiber providers, others have one XGSPON provider, and yet other neighborhoods are served only with coaxial where it was easy to get to in the 1980s when the coax networks were built out, and copper services otherwise.
  - zaptrem 3y ago
    ATT and Sonic both have extensive fiber networks in SF.
    - the_arun 3y ago
      In South Bay there are only few options
ipython 3y ago
When you have such large numbers I can’t expect that there are zero people without these services. So to me this is a specious argument- we certainly did blanket the country with electricity and phone service. There will of course always be households without. I hardly see this as a “bubble” view.
ben_w 3y ago
> Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. … > Tens of thousands of American homes have no running water. I've visited many in Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico, and even California. > Time to get out of the Silicon Valley bubble. Only 10e4-10e5? Even writing as a Brit who chose Berlin over Silicon Valley when Brexit happened (so I don't think I'd count as "in the Silicon Valley bubble" in the first place), I'd call that a rounding error against the USA population. Don't get me wrong, that ought to still be an embarrassment for the USA to leave anyone behind[0], and it feels like a bigger embarrassment the closer it gets to the last person; but also, that's a minority of even just the Navajo enrolled tribal members, who are themselves a minority of pre-European American groups in the USA, who are themselves a minority of the USA. [0] I like the space program, but I can also empathise with all those that didn't care about the Apollo landings because of the rather more pressing issues they personally faced on the ground due to endemic lack of equality; I can't find the original quote I'm thinking of, but this has similar vibes: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/07/26/the-moon-hours https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/07/26/the-moon-hours
- josh2600 3y ago
  I'll never forget the story of Paul Bunyan telecom out in I believe it was Montana who used federal funds to build to cabins at a cost of like $10,000+ per cabin to lay copper (back when that was a lot of money) under the right to service clauses of the FCC. It turns out that servicing 100% of the population isn't practical when people choose to live in very remote areas. I agree that it would be onerous for carriers to have to service 100% of the population with any kind of service, but I disagree with the current standard on non-copper services which amount to something like 80% of population within a given metro zone. It biases too hard towards city living, especially as we are seeing more and more people move away from cities. Rural broadband in America is extremely difficult in most parts of the country, way harder than it needs to be. And don't get me started on WISP vs hardwire, hardwire is the only real internet and don't let anyone fool you otherwise. Source: 10 years in the belly of the beast of telecom.
  - 3y ago
SoftTalker 3y ago
It's way higher than thousands, at least for water. Millions of people in the US have their own wells for water and septic systems for waste water.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  That's still running water. I'm talking about homes with zero options for water. Not even a well. And sometimes (like in New Mexico), thousands of homes are cut off from water infrastructure because some rich guy doesn't want a pipe running under his golf course.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Where has this happened in New Mexico?
KerrAvon 3y ago
The point is that fiber penetration is still nowhere near copper/POTS penetration in the US. Not even close, despite decades of subsidies and tax breaks to the telcos to make universal fiber a reality.
onlypassingthru 3y ago
If people want to live in the hinterlands and avoid the conveniences of society, well that's up to them. Why should anyone else pay for their lifestyle choices? If they want to live off the land (and off sewer, water, electric and telephone utilities) they can go do it. Otherwise, these rugged individualists need to suck it up and move closer to town.
- simfree 3y ago
  There are plenty of places in Bellevue, Washington mere blocks from major Microsoft offices where only copper is available, and the VDSL2 on offer is intermittent due to the lead clad copper lines having water infiltration and being past their standard service life. Getting Lumen, Astound, Verizon, Comcast or any of the other vendors who have fiber under 100 feet away to even quote a directional bore is a multi-month process, then the number they give you is a "fuck you" 6 digit price, and they certainly won't let you pull a permit from the city, hire your own contractor to do the directional bore, then pull cable through your conduit.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wddkcs 3y ago

It's not a silicon valley canard to overwhelmingly expect electricity and running water in the US. The difficulties faced by the Navajo are not representative of the country at large. The major service providers have preferred to put in place regional monopolies, rather than extend their fiber capabilities, that is the root of the issue.

the_arun 3y ago
I did research in Silicon Valley, there is no optic fiber. We have expensive comcast, or ATT or now Starlink.. or now 5G. I wish we had more options(high speed internet) for end users.
- simfree 3y ago
  This really depends where you are physically located, the infrastructure available varies neighborhood by neighborhood, and in some cases block to block. Some have two GPON fiber providers, others have one XGSPON provider, and yet other neighborhoods are served only with coaxial where it was easy to get to in the 1980s when the coax networks were built out, and copper services otherwise.
- zaptrem 3y ago
  ATT and Sonic both have extensive fiber networks in SF.
  - the_arun 3y ago
    In South Bay there are only few options

ipython 3y ago

When you have such large numbers I can’t expect that there are zero people without these services. So to me this is a specious argument- we certainly did blanket the country with electricity and phone service. There will of course always be households without. I hardly see this as a “bubble” view.

ben_w 3y ago

> Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. … > Tens of thousands of American homes have no running water. I've visited many in Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico, and even California. > Time to get out of the Silicon Valley bubble. Only 10e4-10e5? Even writing as a Brit who chose Berlin over Silicon Valley when Brexit happened (so I don't think I'd count as "in the Silicon Valley bubble" in the first place), I'd call that a rounding error against the USA population. Don't get me wrong, that ought to still be an embarrassment for the USA to leave anyone behind[0], and it feels like a bigger embarrassment the closer it gets to the last person; but also, that's a minority of even just the Navajo enrolled tribal members, who are themselves a minority of pre-European American groups in the USA, who are themselves a minority of the USA. [0] I like the space program, but I can also empathise with all those that didn't care about the Apollo landings because of the rather more pressing issues they personally faced on the ground due to endemic lack of equality; I can't find the original quote I'm thinking of, but this has similar vibes: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/07/26/the-moon-hours https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/07/26/the-moon-hours

josh2600 3y ago
I'll never forget the story of Paul Bunyan telecom out in I believe it was Montana who used federal funds to build to cabins at a cost of like $10,000+ per cabin to lay copper (back when that was a lot of money) under the right to service clauses of the FCC. It turns out that servicing 100% of the population isn't practical when people choose to live in very remote areas. I agree that it would be onerous for carriers to have to service 100% of the population with any kind of service, but I disagree with the current standard on non-copper services which amount to something like 80% of population within a given metro zone. It biases too hard towards city living, especially as we are seeing more and more people move away from cities. Rural broadband in America is extremely difficult in most parts of the country, way harder than it needs to be. And don't get me started on WISP vs hardwire, hardwire is the only real internet and don't let anyone fool you otherwise. Source: 10 years in the belly of the beast of telecom.
- 3y ago

SoftTalker 3y ago

It's way higher than thousands, at least for water. Millions of people in the US have their own wells for water and septic systems for waste water.

reaperducer 3y ago
That's still running water. I'm talking about homes with zero options for water. Not even a well. And sometimes (like in New Mexico), thousands of homes are cut off from water infrastructure because some rich guy doesn't want a pipe running under his golf course.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Where has this happened in New Mexico?

KerrAvon 3y ago

The point is that fiber penetration is still nowhere near copper/POTS penetration in the US. Not even close, despite decades of subsidies and tax breaks to the telcos to make universal fiber a reality.

onlypassingthru 3y ago

If people want to live in the hinterlands and avoid the conveniences of society, well that's up to them. Why should anyone else pay for their lifestyle choices? If they want to live off the land (and off sewer, water, electric and telephone utilities) they can go do it. Otherwise, these rugged individualists need to suck it up and move closer to town.

simfree 3y ago
There are plenty of places in Bellevue, Washington mere blocks from major Microsoft offices where only copper is available, and the VDSL2 on offer is intermittent due to the lead clad copper lines having water infiltration and being past their standard service life. Getting Lumen, Astound, Verizon, Comcast or any of the other vendors who have fiber under 100 feet away to even quote a directional bore is a multi-month process, then the number they give you is a "fuck you" 6 digit price, and they certainly won't let you pull a permit from the city, hire your own contractor to do the directional bore, then pull cable through your conduit.