7 ms·

> Chattanooga has the largest high-speed internet service in the US, offering customers access to speeds of 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than th

by sehrope 12y ago

> Chattanooga has the largest high-speed internet service in the US, offering customers access to speeds of 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average. The service, provided by municipally owned EPB, has sparked a tech boom in the city and attracted international attention. EPB is now petitioning the FCC to expand its territory. Comcast and others have previously sued unsuccessfully to stop EPB’s fibre optic roll out. I did a quick search to see pricing for EPB's internet service and wow is it cheap[1]. The two plans listed on the site are 100 Mbps for $57.99/mo or 1Gpbs $69.99/mo. Oh and both plans are symmetric so you get that for upload as well. I don't know of any city where the local cable co offers anything like that, let alone at those price points. No wonder they want to block this through legislation; competing in the market would not be pleasant for them. [1]: https://epbfi.com/internet/ https://epbfi.com/internet/

dobbsbob 12y ago
No monthly data caps either according to these reviews http://www.dslreports.com/comments/3492 http://www.dslreports.com/comments/3492
- beloch 12y ago
  Bandwidth is insanely cheap compared to last-mile infrastructure. Bandwidth caps are basically just a way to soak the customers who use the service more and are, hence, willing to pay more.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    Well if you have a lot of contention in your last-mile infrastructure bandwidth caps make sense. This applies to shared infrastructure like a coax cable network, or the connection up to a DSLAM. Fiber nicely solves that though.
    - p1mrx 12y ago
      Why would the connection up to a DSLAM have more contention than a fiber-to-the-home network? Shouldn't most DSLAMs be using fiber already?
      - dunmalg 12y ago
        Yeah, there's no contention AT ALL up to the DSLAM. DSLAM is DSL Access Module. Every DSL customer has their own dedicated copper pair from the DSLAM to their house--- it's their phone line. There may be congestion between the Central Office where the DSLAM lives and the rest of the internet, but in practice that rarely happens. The big limit on DSL is getting reasonable speeds a mile down the line over ancient copper pairs that were never intended for the purpose. Don't people remember the old Cable vs. DSL commercials, where the DSL companies were showing cable customers furiously calling each other bandwidth hogs and telling them "log off!"
        Nitramp 12y ago
        DSL seems to somewhat taper off at 100 MBit/s over here in Germany, but that's actually quite reasonable speed for non-business customers, with 1080p taking 27 MBit/s. I once had cable in a crowded neighbourhood, it was pretty terrible at peak times.
        snogglethorpe 12y ago
        Isn't the speed of DSL highly dependent on the details of the actual analog line? I have an ADSL line, and my contract says "50Mbps", but I rarely actually get over about 4Mbps. As far as I can figure, the reason is because my house is near the limit of distance from the central office... (the phone company actually has a calculator web app thing that lets you plug in your address and get the line length...and then a separate calculator that maps from line-length to expected speed) [I'm not complaining or anything.... It's a cheap line which I've had for ages, they're very up-front about the caveats of ADSL, and I could easily get fiber or cable (from multiple providers) for a bit more money. So far I just haven't cared enough to change it.]
sitkack 12y ago
Cable could easily offer these rates by using the bandwidth currently occupied by their tv channels. If comcast had a unified digital backbone it wouldn't be a problem. It is only because they have monopoly power. I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control. We need to clean out these bullshit laws.
- danudey 12y ago
  It's cheaper to lobby the government to prevent competition and maintain the status quo than it is to upgrade your networks.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control. Are you serious? Rent control laws are awful, destroy the incentive to maintain housing stock or build new housing stock, and ultimately raise rents for everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlled apartments. Municipalities are just organs of the state, and state legislatures are entirely justified in preventing them from enacting myopic legislation.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    I'm with you on rent control, but states banning municipalities from owning their own broadband networks is at least as myopic. Thea rgument is that publicly owned utilities crowd out competition, but we have abundant evidence for the argument that (unlike typical residential rent markets) utility markets are dominated by oligopolies who are easily able to engage in anti-competitive behaviors without having to form a cartel. Sure, in theory Comcast and AT&T might offer such competitive discounts/service upgrades that they cross some threshold and trigger an all-out price war that would be good for consumers, but I'd put the odds on that actually happening at close to zero. Now I'm not such a big fan of municipal legislation - as a European, I think American democracy may be too decentralized and exacerbate the public choice problem, but I don't see a clear organizing principle that will only prevent economically bad legislation while allowing economically good legislation. The proposals to ban municipal or county internet services in North Carolina are just as mypopic as rent control laws in many Californian cities.
sandstrom 12y ago
I agree it's cheap by US standards. My 100 Mpbs (symmetric, fiber) is $42. It's in Sweden though.
- kordless 12y ago
  I don't suppose you have a few servers laying around, do you? :)
  - monksy 12y ago
    They do. Infact there is a lot of fiber infrastructure built in germany and that has been taken advantage of by business. I.e. Hetzner.
  - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
    We ran our development server cluster from my basement on that type of 100 Mbps for a few years. It works.
    - kordless 12y ago
      I have something for you then! http://stackmonkey.com/appliance/new http://stackmonkey.com/appliance/new
jonknee 12y ago
My ISP in Seattle is similarly equipped/price and it's awesome. No contract, no data caps, no problems. Support is great too, a real person who knows their stuff answers instead of a machine. I got set up in about 2 minutes from hello to loading my first web page. http://www.condointernet.net/ http://www.condointernet.net/
zeroed 12y ago
"I don't know of any city where the local cable co offers anything like that" Any internet provider in Moscow. It's actually even cheaper.. US internet and phone service prices are ridiculously high.
- xeroxmalf 12y ago
  As a Canadian: It is unfortunately not just the US where internet service prices are ridiculously high, but all of North America.

by sehrope 12y ago

dobbsbob 12y ago

No monthly data caps either according to these reviews http://www.dslreports.com/comments/3492 http://www.dslreports.com/comments/3492

beloch 12y ago
Bandwidth is insanely cheap compared to last-mile infrastructure. Bandwidth caps are basically just a way to soak the customers who use the service more and are, hence, willing to pay more.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  Well if you have a lot of contention in your last-mile infrastructure bandwidth caps make sense. This applies to shared infrastructure like a coax cable network, or the connection up to a DSLAM. Fiber nicely solves that though.
  - p1mrx 12y ago
    Why would the connection up to a DSLAM have more contention than a fiber-to-the-home network? Shouldn't most DSLAMs be using fiber already?
    - dunmalg 12y ago
      Yeah, there's no contention AT ALL up to the DSLAM. DSLAM is DSL Access Module. Every DSL customer has their own dedicated copper pair from the DSLAM to their house--- it's their phone line. There may be congestion between the Central Office where the DSLAM lives and the rest of the internet, but in practice that rarely happens. The big limit on DSL is getting reasonable speeds a mile down the line over ancient copper pairs that were never intended for the purpose. Don't people remember the old Cable vs. DSL commercials, where the DSL companies were showing cable customers furiously calling each other bandwidth hogs and telling them "log off!"
      - Nitramp 12y ago
        DSL seems to somewhat taper off at 100 MBit/s over here in Germany, but that's actually quite reasonable speed for non-business customers, with 1080p taking 27 MBit/s. I once had cable in a crowded neighbourhood, it was pretty terrible at peak times.
        snogglethorpe 12y ago
        Isn't the speed of DSL highly dependent on the details of the actual analog line? I have an ADSL line, and my contract says "50Mbps", but I rarely actually get over about 4Mbps. As far as I can figure, the reason is because my house is near the limit of distance from the central office... (the phone company actually has a calculator web app thing that lets you plug in your address and get the line length...and then a separate calculator that maps from line-length to expected speed) [I'm not complaining or anything.... It's a cheap line which I've had for ages, they're very up-front about the caveats of ADSL, and I could easily get fiber or cable (from multiple providers) for a bit more money. So far I just haven't cared enough to change it.]

sitkack 12y ago

Cable could easily offer these rates by using the bandwidth currently occupied by their tv channels. If comcast had a unified digital backbone it wouldn't be a problem. It is only because they have monopoly power. I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control. We need to clean out these bullshit laws.

danudey 12y ago
It's cheaper to lobby the government to prevent competition and maintain the status quo than it is to upgrade your networks.
rayiner 12y ago
> I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control. Are you serious? Rent control laws are awful, destroy the incentive to maintain housing stock or build new housing stock, and ultimately raise rents for everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlled apartments. Municipalities are just organs of the state, and state legislatures are entirely justified in preventing them from enacting myopic legislation.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I'm with you on rent control, but states banning municipalities from owning their own broadband networks is at least as myopic. Thea rgument is that publicly owned utilities crowd out competition, but we have abundant evidence for the argument that (unlike typical residential rent markets) utility markets are dominated by oligopolies who are easily able to engage in anti-competitive behaviors without having to form a cartel. Sure, in theory Comcast and AT&T might offer such competitive discounts/service upgrades that they cross some threshold and trigger an all-out price war that would be good for consumers, but I'd put the odds on that actually happening at close to zero. Now I'm not such a big fan of municipal legislation - as a European, I think American democracy may be too decentralized and exacerbate the public choice problem, but I don't see a clear organizing principle that will only prevent economically bad legislation while allowing economically good legislation. The proposals to ban municipal or county internet services in North Carolina are just as mypopic as rent control laws in many Californian cities.

sandstrom 12y ago

I agree it's cheap by US standards. My 100 Mpbs (symmetric, fiber) is $42. It's in Sweden though.

kordless 12y ago
I don't suppose you have a few servers laying around, do you? :)
- monksy 12y ago
  They do. Infact there is a lot of fiber infrastructure built in germany and that has been taken advantage of by business. I.e. Hetzner.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  We ran our development server cluster from my basement on that type of 100 Mbps for a few years. It works.
  - kordless 12y ago
    I have something for you then! http://stackmonkey.com/appliance/new http://stackmonkey.com/appliance/new

jonknee 12y ago

My ISP in Seattle is similarly equipped/price and it's awesome. No contract, no data caps, no problems. Support is great too, a real person who knows their stuff answers instead of a machine. I got set up in about 2 minutes from hello to loading my first web page. http://www.condointernet.net/ http://www.condointernet.net/

zeroed 12y ago

"I don't know of any city where the local cable co offers anything like that" Any internet provider in Moscow. It's actually even cheaper.. US internet and phone service prices are ridiculously high.

xeroxmalf 12y ago
As a Canadian: It is unfortunately not just the US where internet service prices are ridiculously high, but all of North America.