5 ms·

How good is internet access there?

by rjsw 2y ago

tunesmith 2y ago
The brochure says "95% broadband", whatever that means.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Presumably the last 5% is the bit that connects to your computer.
- CuriousCosmic 2y ago
  That generally means most properties will have decent broadband/>25mbps internet, some will have ADSL <25mbps, and a few won't have internet or you'll have to run it to the property (costs a few thousand USD generally).
- speed_spread 2y ago
  The missing 5% was stolen by copper thieves.
reducesuffering 2y ago
70% of households in the county have internet speeds >25 Mbps. Is that metric meaningful to you? What would ideally mean "good internet access?" I'm working on a project[0] where I sourced this from the FCC Broadband data and am curious about what people are looking for in that respect. [0] https://www.exoroad.com/us/Maryland/Allegany-County/housing https://www.exoroad.com/us/Maryland/Allegany-County/housing
- Barrin92 2y ago
  > What would ideally mean "good internet access?" For someone who relies on a internet connection for their professional work I'd say 100 Mbps is the floor of "good" in 2024. I think that's what the FCC updated their definition of broadband to earlier this year.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
    ROFLMAO. I dream of 100Mbps. The only thing my ISP can guarantee is that it will be "at least" 10Mbps. Unfortunately, knowing that fiber is a mere 0.5 miles from my house doesn't help me in the slightest.
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Thank you! Turns out I was missing 'Urban' category, so Cumberland itself still has 99% of households with >100 Mbps available.
- kavok 2y ago
  Upload, download, latency, and how many options to choose from are what I looked for the last time I bought a house. I actually asked some of the neighbors about it and called local ISPs.
- kjellsbells 2y ago
  First, if you aren't already, look into what the FCC is doing with BEAD funding, and consequently what all the states are doing with mapping broadband provision to try and capture some of that money. Tennesee for example. More generally, there is a little funkiness with the exoroad site. I guess this project is still in the assembly stage? - When I search for a US county, say Culpeper or Fairfax in Virginia, I get the map and then some very stock images. The images are on things that don't exist in the specific county. E.g. Fairfax doesn't have a cathedral and a giant stately home. - The crime stats are also a bit weirdly presented. If a county is "9 of 10" for crime that makes it sound terrible...but I think you render it in green to show that it's good? And what does the statistic actually mean? "out of 10 equivalently populated counties?" say, or something else?
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Yes it's a scrappy MVP right now. Images have quality problems, like you described, as I haven't got accuracy figured out across the 3k+ counties. Crime stat is awkward because everything else 9/10 (schools / snow) sounds like good or a lot. But with crime, it's a feature that people want less of. Since there's so many features I went with 10/10 is consistently good, but I do keep getting feedback about this that maybe I should change it. Out of 10 is a percentile: 10/10 = top 10%, 9/10 = top 20%, 1/10 = bottom 10%. I'm trying to figure out the right granularity between showing the most important info for quickly figuring out the stat, vs. showing all the details about it, because there's 50 features, with another potential 50, and many have multiple ways of thinking about it. So it can quickly become a deluge of info without the right UI to surface <-> deep. I really appreciate the feedback and my email is eric@exoroad.com in case this is off topic.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  When I looked at the claimed coverage map from providers it was a joke - they just played "color inside the lines" for our region. Ask anyone who has spent more than a couple days here and they can tick off all the areas you don't get any coverage.
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Are you in Cumberland? Would you say 99% of households having the possibility of > 100 Mbps is wildly inaccurate?
jhawk28 2y ago
You can get always get starlink if the fiber/cable is bad.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  Sure, if you don't mind regular drops while you're handed off between satellites, and many areas being oversubscribed so badly that people are getting performance worse than DSL.
  - al_borland 2y ago
    I only know one person with Starlink, but they seem happy with it. With the previous local provider they paid for 30Mbps, but were getting 15. With Starlink it’s around 230Mbps. While that’s slower than my cable service in the city, for him, it’s a significant improvement and a big quality of life upgrade.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    My brother had it for a while in fairly rural Maine. Eventually got fiber but the Starlink was pretty good if not 100%. I used Starlink on an Atlantic crossing a few months back and it was pretty solid. It's not perfect--or probably as good as my Comcast is these days--but it's pretty good in my experience. But then I'm old enough to remember both pre-broadband and really unreliable broadband.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Stop living in the past. All that is fixed. No one's getting worse than DSL performance in the US especially not with regards to speeds
xeromal 2y ago
With Starlink, this question is getting less important. Loads of my family in N. Georgia have started using it and it's crazy how much better it is than the local competition
- op00to 2y ago
  Starlink still sucks for remote work. Every time the satellites switch there is a slight disconnection, causing interruption to Zoom meetings.
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    Our company uses it for entire construction job sites, it's perfectly fine.
  - caymanjim 2y ago
    I've been using Starlink while RVing around all of North America for four months every summer. This is my third summer doing so. Historically, I've bashed on it a fair bit, because it's not the panacea people think it is for on-the-go Internet. It's gotten way better, though. The main problem with using it on the go is that campgrounds have trees and Starlink hates trees. If you're in one place, that problem doesn't exist, so long as you have a clear northern sky view. The disconnection thing is a non-issue. I use it for video meetings every day at work. It never disconnects for more than a second or two, and I almost never notice it. Connections always recover on their own and almost instantly.
  - rpdillon 2y ago
    I've got a couple people on my team in remote parts of Canada and Chile and they both use Starlink to work remotely with my teams every day (zoom, slack, github, etc.). It's been great for the past year or so. Haven't seen any issues with our Zoom meetings. I wonder if it's geographically variable. How often do satellites switches happen?
  - xeromal 2y ago
    I'm sure but for people who haven't had any better, it's like the second coming of Christ. lol
fasa99 2y ago
If you're in cumberland proper, your main option is cable, which is fine, fast and stable. since the culture is blue collar, their lineman due a perfectionist tier type guys who pride themselves in their craft. they have a guy there who does fibre and is pretty chill but ironically he only runs line rurally (not in the main urban core of cumberland). they have a startup-ish grass roots wireless based internet which is cool but kind of hard to plug into. They also have various speakeasies fully in the classic unlicensed since but for obvious reasons I won't say where. I would call it a "deregulated" region. Whereas in most of MD you have vehicle emissions and all that redtape, none of it in cumberland. there are methheads about but police force and community are hand in hand and highly functional if you're in cumberland proper all you could want is walkable, including an amtrak station that links you directly to DC and chicago, walking distance there is an aspect of xenophobia but generally if you live there a while, well, if you're willing to live in cumberland that's good enough for most people to welcome you. it does have a small town vibe as far as saying hello to everyone on the sidewalk as such the other point people who visit may miss about appalachian culture (it is appalachian culture very much so, not maryland culture) is everyone dresses like a methhead, even people who aren't methheads, so take appearences softly.

How good is internet access there?

by rjsw 2y ago

How good is internet access there?

tunesmith 2y ago

The brochure says "95% broadband", whatever that means.

bee_rider 2y ago
Presumably the last 5% is the bit that connects to your computer.
CuriousCosmic 2y ago
That generally means most properties will have decent broadband/>25mbps internet, some will have ADSL <25mbps, and a few won't have internet or you'll have to run it to the property (costs a few thousand USD generally).
speed_spread 2y ago
The missing 5% was stolen by copper thieves.

reducesuffering 2y ago

70% of households in the county have internet speeds >25 Mbps. Is that metric meaningful to you? What would ideally mean "good internet access?" I'm working on a project[0] where I sourced this from the FCC Broadband data and am curious about what people are looking for in that respect. [0] https://www.exoroad.com/us/Maryland/Allegany-County/housing https://www.exoroad.com/us/Maryland/Allegany-County/housing

Barrin92 2y ago
> What would ideally mean "good internet access?" For someone who relies on a internet connection for their professional work I'd say 100 Mbps is the floor of "good" in 2024. I think that's what the FCC updated their definition of broadband to earlier this year.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
  ROFLMAO. I dream of 100Mbps. The only thing my ISP can guarantee is that it will be "at least" 10Mbps. Unfortunately, knowing that fiber is a mere 0.5 miles from my house doesn't help me in the slightest.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Thank you! Turns out I was missing 'Urban' category, so Cumberland itself still has 99% of households with >100 Mbps available.
kavok 2y ago
Upload, download, latency, and how many options to choose from are what I looked for the last time I bought a house. I actually asked some of the neighbors about it and called local ISPs.
kjellsbells 2y ago
First, if you aren't already, look into what the FCC is doing with BEAD funding, and consequently what all the states are doing with mapping broadband provision to try and capture some of that money. Tennesee for example. More generally, there is a little funkiness with the exoroad site. I guess this project is still in the assembly stage? - When I search for a US county, say Culpeper or Fairfax in Virginia, I get the map and then some very stock images. The images are on things that don't exist in the specific county. E.g. Fairfax doesn't have a cathedral and a giant stately home. - The crime stats are also a bit weirdly presented. If a county is "9 of 10" for crime that makes it sound terrible...but I think you render it in green to show that it's good? And what does the statistic actually mean? "out of 10 equivalently populated counties?" say, or something else?
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Yes it's a scrappy MVP right now. Images have quality problems, like you described, as I haven't got accuracy figured out across the 3k+ counties. Crime stat is awkward because everything else 9/10 (schools / snow) sounds like good or a lot. But with crime, it's a feature that people want less of. Since there's so many features I went with 10/10 is consistently good, but I do keep getting feedback about this that maybe I should change it. Out of 10 is a percentile: 10/10 = top 10%, 9/10 = top 20%, 1/10 = bottom 10%. I'm trying to figure out the right granularity between showing the most important info for quickly figuring out the stat, vs. showing all the details about it, because there's 50 features, with another potential 50, and many have multiple ways of thinking about it. So it can quickly become a deluge of info without the right UI to surface <-> deep. I really appreciate the feedback and my email is eric@exoroad.com in case this is off topic.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
When I looked at the claimed coverage map from providers it was a joke - they just played "color inside the lines" for our region. Ask anyone who has spent more than a couple days here and they can tick off all the areas you don't get any coverage.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Are you in Cumberland? Would you say 99% of households having the possibility of > 100 Mbps is wildly inaccurate?

jhawk28 2y ago

You can get always get starlink if the fiber/cable is bad.

KennyBlanken 2y ago
Sure, if you don't mind regular drops while you're handed off between satellites, and many areas being oversubscribed so badly that people are getting performance worse than DSL.
- al_borland 2y ago
  I only know one person with Starlink, but they seem happy with it. With the previous local provider they paid for 30Mbps, but were getting 15. With Starlink it’s around 230Mbps. While that’s slower than my cable service in the city, for him, it’s a significant improvement and a big quality of life upgrade.
- ghaff 2y ago
  My brother had it for a while in fairly rural Maine. Eventually got fiber but the Starlink was pretty good if not 100%. I used Starlink on an Atlantic crossing a few months back and it was pretty solid. It's not perfect--or probably as good as my Comcast is these days--but it's pretty good in my experience. But then I'm old enough to remember both pre-broadband and really unreliable broadband.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Stop living in the past. All that is fixed. No one's getting worse than DSL performance in the US especially not with regards to speeds

xeromal 2y ago

With Starlink, this question is getting less important. Loads of my family in N. Georgia have started using it and it's crazy how much better it is than the local competition

op00to 2y ago
Starlink still sucks for remote work. Every time the satellites switch there is a slight disconnection, causing interruption to Zoom meetings.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Our company uses it for entire construction job sites, it's perfectly fine.
- caymanjim 2y ago
  I've been using Starlink while RVing around all of North America for four months every summer. This is my third summer doing so. Historically, I've bashed on it a fair bit, because it's not the panacea people think it is for on-the-go Internet. It's gotten way better, though. The main problem with using it on the go is that campgrounds have trees and Starlink hates trees. If you're in one place, that problem doesn't exist, so long as you have a clear northern sky view. The disconnection thing is a non-issue. I use it for video meetings every day at work. It never disconnects for more than a second or two, and I almost never notice it. Connections always recover on their own and almost instantly.
- rpdillon 2y ago
  I've got a couple people on my team in remote parts of Canada and Chile and they both use Starlink to work remotely with my teams every day (zoom, slack, github, etc.). It's been great for the past year or so. Haven't seen any issues with our Zoom meetings. I wonder if it's geographically variable. How often do satellites switches happen?
- xeromal 2y ago
  I'm sure but for people who haven't had any better, it's like the second coming of Christ. lol

fasa99 2y ago

If you're in cumberland proper, your main option is cable, which is fine, fast and stable. since the culture is blue collar, their lineman due a perfectionist tier type guys who pride themselves in their craft. they have a guy there who does fibre and is pretty chill but ironically he only runs line rurally (not in the main urban core of cumberland). they have a startup-ish grass roots wireless based internet which is cool but kind of hard to plug into. They also have various speakeasies fully in the classic unlicensed since but for obvious reasons I won't say where. I would call it a "deregulated" region. Whereas in most of MD you have vehicle emissions and all that redtape, none of it in cumberland. there are methheads about but police force and community are hand in hand and highly functional if you're in cumberland proper all you could want is walkable, including an amtrak station that links you directly to DC and chicago, walking distance there is an aspect of xenophobia but generally if you live there a while, well, if you're willing to live in cumberland that's good enough for most people to welcome you. it does have a small town vibe as far as saying hello to everyone on the sidewalk as such the other point people who visit may miss about appalachian culture (it is appalachian culture very much so, not maryland culture) is everyone dresses like a methhead, even people who aren't methheads, so take appearences softly.