[HN Gopher] The War on Upstart Fiber Internet Providers
___________________________________________________________________
The War on Upstart Fiber Internet Providers
Author : joecool1029
Score : 303 points
Date : 2020-06-26 00:55 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chrishacken.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chrishacken.com)
| client4 wrote:
| This is 100% accurate. Add in hostile/lazy city utility offices,
| litigious competitors with infinite pockets, and people who just
| hate change and you're starting to understand the uphill battle
| that is bettering internet infrastructure.
| zahma wrote:
| There's also intergenerational change. Many older folks don't
| care about the benefits of high speed internet and fiber. Add
| in resistance to change and that can create some startling
| traction against progress.
| kayoone wrote:
| Reading this I am very happy that my hometown state in Germany
| runs a state funded fiber project now. My mom had max 3Mbps for
| the last 18 years or so and will soon have 1Gbps for the same
| money.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Which state/city is that?
| whatsmyusername wrote:
| > I remember my brother and I fighting over the computer day in
| and day out to play games like Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory,
| which was released in 2003. (I'm convinced that this will be the
| all-time best FPS game ever created.)
|
| The author is correct.
| mjevans wrote:
| The "last mile" (couple KM) of physical infrastructure should be
| owned by the people.
|
| This is the way that it works best for walkways, roads, and even
| utilities like power and water where (at least I've only ever
| seen) one single option exists and is highly regulated. In the
| case of power that's true for 'transmission' but there have been
| times I've had options for generation.
|
| IMO laws like the ones in Washington State that were put in place
| by entrenched and abusive commercial monopolies (like the cable
| companies and telephone companies) harm competition, by
| restricting existing and new utilities from partnering with the
| people to create these last mile platforms, and allow competition
| on top of them. Just as how there is competition in package
| delivery service on top of the roadways.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| _Widespread public infrastructure_ rented /leased to _private
| companies_ is the only way to solve net neutrality, long-term.
| Otherwise it 's just going to ping pong back and forth in the
| legislative/executive system for the next 50 years while a
| bunch of useful idiots argue that we should let companies turn
| internet access into tiered cable TV plans.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Back in 2016 in Toronto, I chose a condominium specifically
| because it had Beanfield fiber (it was $50CAD/mo for 250 Mbit
| symmetric, no cap). Other buildings had Bell or Rogers at
| double the cost, with caps, and sometimes asymmetric. Those
| other buildings signed agreements with either Bell or Rogers
| and for the rest of the life of the building, those residents
| will be stuck with inferior, more expensive service.
|
| When we moved to SF a few months ago, Sonic wasn't available in
| our building so we had to get AT&T. I'm paying almost double
| what Sonic charges for basically the same service.
|
| In both cases, where buildings had exclusivity agreements or
| had the fiber providers lay the fiber themselves, residents are
| worse off. Buildings should be running their own fiber and
| letting residents hook up to whoever they want.
|
| Same thing with residential house internet; cities should own
| the last mile infrastructure (sure, pay providers to dig it and
| run it if you have to).
|
| Especially since we're migrating off of copper and onto fiber;
| this is the chance to get it right for the next few decades!
| jnathsf wrote:
| FYI SF has legislation in place that allows tenants in multi-
| units to choose any ISP provider (1). This was part of a
| broader effort to deploy internet as a utility that I was
| fortunate to have been a part of (2). Unfortunately the Mayor
| passed away and we lost political sponsorship (and of course
| the constant and expected lobbying from incumbents didn't
| help)(3)
|
| (1) https://medium.com/@MarkFarrellSF/supervisor-farrell-to-
| intr...
|
| (2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/12/amer
| ica...
|
| (3) https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190401/08232241919/te
| lec...
| strig wrote:
| Beanfield is especially amazing. They recently reduced (!)
| the rates of their gigabit service to $50/month from $100,
| and increased everyone's service to gigabit if they weren't
| already on it.
| vzidex wrote:
| > Back in 2016 in Toronto, I chose a condominium specifically
| because it had Beanfield fiber
|
| I'm in Toronto, thank goodness this is becoming more common,
| not less. I was recently condo hunting and I noticed most new
| buildings had Beanfield or their competitor, FibreStream. The
| building we ended up with has the latter, so we're getting
| 500Mbps symmetric/no cap.
|
| Yay for not having to annually fight with Bell for a
| "promotional" rate anymore!
| nikon wrote:
| I'm looking forward to this when I move next. I currently
| have Rogers 1Gbps on a promotional rate, which is pretty
| good, but 30Mbps upload cap. Also double what you're
| paying!
| ls65536 wrote:
| The asymmetry between download and upload speeds on cable
| connections is really awful in recent years. I see
| advertised download speeds like 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps
| available in many places, but the upload speeds seem to
| never exceed 30 Mbps around here (which is just 3% of the
| download speed at 1 Gbps!). Having something like 250/250
| Mbps symmetric available would be overall more preferable
| than 1000/30 in all but the most extreme download
| situations, in my opinion.
|
| I suppose maybe the cable networks are more optimized for
| average user behaviour (far more download than upload),
| but maybe there's also a fundamental limitation with the
| cable infrastructure that prevents faster uploads,
| perhaps to do with cable's legacy delivering television
| broadcasts? Whereas with fibre, almost everything I've
| seen available comes with symmetric speeds by default.
| selectodude wrote:
| The major reason that upload speeds tend to be far lower
| is that they are the lowest part of the spectrum on a
| cable network. As everything on a shared cable network is
| receiving everything else, encryption and noise filters
| are imperative. The higher the frequency of your noise,
| the more likely it is to cause issues on the rest of the
| hardware. There are high-pass filters all over the coax
| network to ensure that nothing over a certain frequency
| is able to get out on the network and screw things up for
| other customers. In order to expand the bandwidth by
| making the coax frequency pie larger, CATV providers
| would not only need to replace everybodys equipment to
| ensure it could handle the increased noise but also check
| every single meter of cable to find and remove all the
| high-pass filters.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| A high-pass filter removes low frequencies, I think you
| mean there are low-pass filters.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _In both cases, where buildings had exclusivity agreements or
| had the fiber providers lay the fiber themselves, residents
| are worse off._
|
| This is an opportunity for wireless. I've lived in buildings
| with exclusive internet agreements. I was able to bypass
| those in some cities back when WiMax was still available. I
| got double the speed for half the price when I was living in
| an AT&T building, and the same speed for half the price when
| I was in a Qwest building.
|
| I'm not a fan of the new breed of satellite internet
| startups, but if they put fear into the wired/fibered
| carriers, then at least some good will come out of them.
| post_below wrote:
| _when I was living in an AT &T building_
|
| The dystopian future is here.
| tracker1 wrote:
| You're largely right... local ISPs (cable, telco) have serious
| entrenchment. They received public funding and easements to
| roll out infrastructure and pulled up the ladders behind them.
|
| Often localities are hindered by their state governments thanks
| to lobbying from the incumbents. I would prefer to see more
| local governments actively rolling their own telecom
| infrastructure to inter-city/state endpoints (should they
| choose to). From a security standpoint I feel that most
| locations should have two options at the least.
|
| I'd also like to see any civil funding start and end at the
| local municipalities. The feds don't do well managing these
| things as noted in TFA.
| elcomet wrote:
| In france, last miles are not owned by the people, but usually
| by the biggest ISP, Orange (which was state-owned before). But
| all other operators have the right to use the lines. And Orange
| has the obligation to sell this service without making any
| benefits (charging only exactly what the costs of maintaining
| lines).
|
| To ensure that the prices are fairly calculated, we have a
| public authority which checks that the prices are correct.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| This used to be the case in the US for DSL. It still is the
| case in Canada.
|
| In 2003 and 2005[1] the market was deregulated and all the
| tiny independent ISP's went under as they were unable to
| throw wires up on the poles nor able to use the incumbents.
|
| [1] https://transition.fcc.gov/meetings/080505/sharing.pdf?mo
| d=a...
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| This type of rule is called local loop unbundling.
| dsr_ wrote:
| We used to have a similar situation in the US: ILECs (the no-
| longer-monopoly telephone companies) were required to make
| lines available to CLECs (competitors) for a particular cost.
|
| What happened was that the ILECs all managed to come up with
| the same excuses: sorry, no lines available in that office.
| And, mysteriously, working CLEC lines would stop working, and
| it would be blamed on a "bad cable", but there wouldn't be a
| spare cable to switch to... and the ILEC had just installed a
| customer.
|
| Regulation needs to be enforced.
| ipnon wrote:
| Mesh networking is a great solution here.
|
| NYC Mesh puts a fiber connected node with a laser receiver on a
| tall building. You install a laser receiver on top of your
| building. Anyone with line of sight to the node now has fast,
| affordable internet access. They don't have to deal with mega
| telecoms anymore.
|
| [0] https://www.nycmesh.net/
| 293984j29384 wrote:
| A wireless mesh network is not an alternative to fiber based
| internet. It's a great idea and has many useful applications
| but it's slow. Loop Internet sells symmetrical gigabit for
| $65/month. The laser receiver on the top of your building
| (NYC Mesh has been known to use a Ubiquiti LiteBeam AC Gen2)
| typically has less than 350-450 Mbps of bandwidth total and
| that's for the entire building to share. I have 30~ units in
| my building. How well is that mesh networking going to scale?
| Is it better than say, dial-up? Sure. Is it better than
| basically any other type of broadband? No.
| xxpor wrote:
| >The laser receiver on the top of your building (NYC Mesh
| has been known to use a Ubiquiti LiteBeam AC Gen2)
| typically has less than 350-450 Mbps of bandwidth total and
| that's for the entire building to share. I have 30~ units
| in my building.
|
| If you already have line of sight I don't see a reason this
| couldn't be replaced with a 60ghz 802.11ad link, which
| should give you 4.6 gigabits.
| GordonS wrote:
| Hadn't come across 802.11ad, but Wikipedia seems to think
| it's range is "just a few meters"[0]?
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ad
| xxpor wrote:
| That range is true in a typical household setup with an
| omnidirectional antenna and things like... walls.
|
| If you have line of sight though and a fixed point to
| point link the range is much greater, since there's
| nothing in the way and an dish antenna gives you huge
| gain.
|
| https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-
| switc...
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| From the linked page:
|
| "Ideal for high-throughput connectivity with a range of
| up to 500 m".
|
| For reference, that approximately two blocks in NYC.
| generatorguy wrote:
| presumably you can have more than one laser link using the
| same frequency and bandwidth of light since it is a laser
| beam just put the next link a couple meters over and they
| should not interfere with each other at all.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I wonder how well it works during a blizzard, when you _want_
| your internet to be working since you 're stuck inside.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Who provides that fiber connection?
| save_ferris wrote:
| This is great for urban areas, but connectivity in more rural
| parts of the country is shockingly bad, and doesn't seem to
| have as many elegant solutions as densely populated urban
| areas do. I live "out in the country" now during COVID and
| I'm now paying $60 for 250MB/s down, as opposed to paying $70
| for gigabit a couple months ago living in the city.
|
| It cannot be understated how badly the more rural parts of
| the country are being screwed by big telecom right now.
| cheerlessbog wrote:
| > $60 for 250MB/s dow
|
| I'm going to guess that 80% of the US can't get that.
| beezle wrote:
| Can I switch with you? I pay $88/mo for what is rate as
| "25 Mbps" high speed service. Reality? 20-22 Mbps down
| and 6-8 Mbps up in the local area, falling off
| significantly with distance (10.5 down just now to SF).
|
| This is asymmetric with no disclaimer on their
| advertising page from an entrenched local monopoly in the
| north east (a small one)
| gbrown wrote:
| I'd happily switch with you lol. $60 for 10/0.5. American
| broadband infrastructure is a sad joke.
| freeopinion wrote:
| I live in a rural area where the incumbent is building
| out FTTH as fast as they can. For all residences that
| have fiber, the price difference between 50M, 300M, and
| 1000M is significant.
|
| The actual bandwidth used by a 300M customer and a 1000M
| customer is usually the same. The provider's upstream
| contracts would not change much if they put every one of
| their customers on 1000M.
|
| But their pricing is regulated. The arm and a leg they
| charge for 1000M service is largely a function of that
| regulation, even though it hardly affects their costs
| otherwise. You might think that if the infrastructure
| costs are the same for 1M or 1000M and that the
| infrastructure costs are 90% of all costs, 1M and 1000M
| could be priced within 25% of each other. It might seem
| that a price jump from $100/50M to $1000/1000M is
| unreasonable. But the U.S. government right now is
| handing out $billions to rural providers to build out
| fiber, then requiring them to charge ridiculously high
| prices.
| shadowoflight wrote:
| I pay $70 for 175/5, and I'm technically in the biggest
| city in my state.
| notJim wrote:
| > I'm now paying $60 for 250MB/s down
|
| LOL. My mom lives in an older house in a formerly-rural
| area where she's now surrounded by suburb-style new
| development. She wanted cable internet, and it cost her
| about $8000 and endless hours of haranguing Cox and chasing
| down service vans just to get a hook up. Literally she
| would see a Cox van at a construction site and stop and ask
| the person, because no one would talk to her on the phone.
| She eventually found one guy who gave her his business card
| and cell number, and knew a few people in the construction
| department who would help. The woman who took her credit
| card number over the phone to charge for the service told
| her she knew absolutely nothing about the process, and
| could make no guarantees about when it would happen. My mom
| was so desperate, she gave her her credit card number
| anyway. It took nearly a year to run maybe 100 yards of
| cable down her driveway from the street to her house, but
| she finally does have broadband now.
| dpoochieni wrote:
| Meanwhile in Mexico... my dad's closest ISP switch was
| fully saturated by his neighbors. Somehow, he convinced
| the guys to run a full fiber run (about 300 ft) to his
| house from the next link for a good tip (20 USD). Even
| then the service is not particularly expensive around
| 30USD for 50MB+ symmetric. I was surprised it is more
| expensive in the US after many years of being quite
| expensive in Mexico and basically having a monopoly.
| mtwshngtn wrote:
| We pay $50/mo for (up to) 10 Mb/s down, 1 Mb/s up (that's
| megabits, so just over 1 MB/s down, and 0.125 MB/s up). Our
| only alternative is bundled service from Comcast that's
| $130/mo not including fees (at up to 300 Mb/s, with a 1TB
| data cap).
| gbrown wrote:
| I'm paying $60 for 10Mbps down and 0.5 up.
|
| It's a weird situation. Windstream lies to the federal
| government and says they offer broadband to my area, when
| they don't offer any service at all. The only actual
| provider (South Slope), which offers fiber elsewhere, is
| therefore shut out of the usual federal programs to finance
| upgrades to the completely antiquated and over-provisioned
| DSL lines. I'm 3 miles line of sight from their
| headquarters.
| rnicholus wrote:
| I'm out in rural Wisconsin with 3 choices for high-speed
| Internet. With my current provider: 1Gbps down/400Mbps up
| for $75/month.
|
| My parents live in the near Chicago suburbs, have 1 choice
| for high speed Internet, and pay $80/month for 100Mbps down
| and 6Mbps up.
|
| So, rural internet options are actually better than urban
| in some areas.
| knjoy wrote:
| Totally agree here. I live in a building that only has Time
| Warner (ya, didn't think about the ISP before renting my
| apartment.....). Every week I lose internet for a day or two.
| Internet is a public good and should be treated as such...
| freeopinion wrote:
| I don't think internet is a public good. But I do think there
| is a public interest. This is how I see it:
|
| Communication must be transported through some medium. That
| could be air, copper, fiber, etc. For the sake of this
| discussion, let's focus on fiber.
|
| To connect everybody with fiber, the utility has to bury
| fiber under property it doesn't own. (Or it could run it
| arial over property it doesn't own.) For the little section
| that runs from the street through my property to the network
| interface device attached to my house, I am more than happy
| to give the utility permission to trench and bury fiber. But
| they own the fiber and are responsible for its maintenance.
|
| If there is ever any maintenance issue with that small
| portion buried in my yard, they don't have an easement to dig
| it up and service it. They need my permission. Because it is
| directly affecting my internet connection, I'm usually happy
| to grant permission. But when it runs under my driveway, I
| don't want them digging up my driveway. We work together to
| find some option that isn't too expensive, but doesn't
| involve the destruction of my driveway.
|
| Let's say I want to switch providers. The new provider can't
| just reuse the fiber in my yard because it doesn't belong to
| them, nor to me. So each potential provider has to bury their
| own across my yard without disturbing the others.
|
| Because this seems suboptimal to me and because I take the
| long view, I have my network interface device moved to the
| curb, and I own the fiber in my yard. But now the burden is
| on me to have the right kind of fiber and the right type of
| fiber connects and to fix any issues.
|
| Now let's say that my neighbor's connection also runs through
| my yard. Neither my neighbor nor the utility want to be
| beholden to me for maintenance. They will want an easement
| that gives them the right to do whatever it takes to fix the
| fiber in my yard. But if my neighbor ever wants to switch
| providers, the new provider will need another easement.
|
| Generally most of the property across which the fiber is
| installed is publicly owned. Each utility has their own
| easements through that property. Aside from the obvious
| duplication of infrastructure with its associated price
| inflation, there is another problem. There is only a limited
| space for easements. If there are multiple water utilities
| and multiple power utilities and multiple gas utilities and
| multiple telecom utilities, the easement corridor gets pretty
| crowded and could conceivably even be exhausted. How do you
| decide which private company gets a free easement and which
| doesn't. Should we start charging for the easements?
|
| Also, it stands to reason that if there are 25 utility
| easements under main street, there is a much higher
| probability on any given day that one of them will dig up
| main street for maintenance than if there were only 5 utility
| easements.
|
| So in the end, I think all private utilities should have
| equal access to easements on public land. You can do that by
| auctioning those easements every set interval. Kind of like
| we do with spectrum. But I'm not very satisfied with how that
| has worked in the past. It is impossible for any little guy
| to get a foot over that hurdle. The only acceptable
| alternative I have encountered is to deny easements to them
| all.
|
| We still need transmission lines and those will still need
| easements on public property. One obvious solution is to have
| those lines be publicly owned. Just like I took ownership of
| that hypothetical fiber running through my yard.
|
| In the case of fiber, you could run 144 x 144 fiber in very
| nearly the same space it takes one utility to run 144 fiber.
| So you could conceivably rent out fiber to utilities. But
| that doesn't work as well for water utilities. With telecom,
| we can mingle data on the same fiber. That doesn't work so
| great for water. It is probably practical to have a different
| solution for water or gas than for telecom. Power may require
| a solution of its own.
|
| Through this line of reasoning I have come to believe that
| public ownership of transmission lines across public property
| is the best arrangement for telecom. Any provider that wants
| to buy up private property or buy up easements across private
| property is still free to do so.
| mjevans wrote:
| Making kickbacks and other freebies illegal would help, as
| would requiring all contracts entered into by such middle-
| management public records.
|
| I recall hearing something about a former apartment complex
| mentioning how costly (letting an additional provider) in was
| for them; but I never did learn the details of _what_ was
| costly about that. Having said data out in the bright
| sunlight of public records would make planning a beneficial
| change to the status quo much easier.
| [deleted]
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| - I live in a building with 180 units. Our options are AT&T and
| Comcast. Copper is mandatory and old. Want to guess how Comcast
| is them the only option for fast broadband?
|
| - When I upgraded my plan the first person to notice it was my
| mom in India. Her internet is so much better that the increase in
| my upload speed was visibly apparent to her. I realised I was the
| bottleneck.
|
| - I appreciated the local control in the US a lot. But I now know
| it's a huge detriment to develop and improve basic
| infrastructure. The goal is to keep things the way they are. In
| that sense even San Francisco is extremely conservative.
| lwhalen wrote:
| This is what is preventing my move from suburban Washington State
| to rural Montana or even Idaho. Getting ANY information from
| wired ISPs is like pulling teeth. Each address has to be called
| in, and no ISP can say something helpful like "we don't service
| that, but try ISP X", they all say "that's not on our service
| area... today".
|
| I have high hopes for Starlink, personally, but my first choice
| would absolutely be gigabit fiber to the homestead.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Whatever you do, avoid Ziply. It sounds like a great deal but
| when they bought out Frontier in our area they cancelled our
| auto-pay and then wouldn't refund the late fee. I think we
| spent more than 16 hours total on the phone with them. They
| still haven't mailed out the return label for their MoCa
| bridge. The first time we tried calling them the CSR would "put
| us on hold to be transferred" and then hang up on us. This
| happened about 3 times over the course of 2 hours. Nothing any
| of their CSRs say can be trusted.
|
| It is absolutely the worst company I have ever had the
| displeasure of doing business with, and I'm so happy I had the
| option of switching to Comcast.
| slivanes wrote:
| Just be aware that Ziply inherited the Frontier customer
| support team and the supposedly poor software as well.
|
| My last call with Ziply 2 weeks ago to upgrade my 50/50 to
| 100/100 was a great experience. I'm not saying every call is
| going to be great, just that it can be.
| alteria wrote:
| Funnily enough, I was doing research one day and came across a
| local ISP co-op in one of the Dakotas that was selling rural,
| symmetric 1/1 for $70 per month. Much better service at a lower
| cost than in SF (been trying to get ATT to finish their fiber
| install for the past 2 months).
|
| Unfortunately I don't remember the name, but you could probably
| find it on one of the FCC maps.
| proverbialbunny wrote:
| Sonic in SF is a better deal, no?
| CliffStoll wrote:
| You betcha! I live in the East bay and Sonic gigabit fiber
| to the house delivers 1Gb/s up and down. No data caps. $62
| per month includes taxes, fees, and a VOIP phone line.
| Dynamic IP address, but you can't have everything.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| I'm guessing they didn't mean 1 gigabit :(
| driverdan wrote:
| You can use the FTC Broadband Map[1] to find areas that already
| have fiber. It's not that precise, especially in rural areas,
| but can be a good starting point to know if there's at least
| one fiber install in the general area.
|
| 1: https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/
| cure wrote:
| > It's not that precise
|
| I think you're being too kind. That map is a disgrace. The
| 'latest public release' is from June 2019, a whole year out
| of date. One self-reported hookup in a census block is enough
| to mark the entire block as 'having service', which is a
| ridiculous metric, particularly in rural areas as you said.
|
| This map was designed by the incumbents as something to point
| at when they are criticized for the sub-par and overpriced
| services they provide. And the FCC went along with it, which
| is just regulatory capture.
|
| A real broadband map would
|
| a) not rely on self-reporting or have really serious fines if
| companies deliberately provide incorrect information
|
| b) give an indication of what is actually installed (1 house
| out of the 100 in this census block has fiber from Verizon?
| Great, 1% actually installed).
|
| c) give an indication of what is actually available. 95
| buildings out of 100 can't get the Verizon fiber service?
| That's 95% of the census block that _does not have service_.
| The telcos have this information (they all have a way to look
| up a physical address on their website to see if you can get
| service), they are just not sharing it.
|
| The FCC broadband map is about as bad as the cell phone
| carrier's coverage maps, which are also a complete joke.
|
| For those, though, there are crowdsourced and way more
| accurate alternatives (e.g. opensignal.com, cellmapper.net).
| zbrozek wrote:
| Yeah the FCC thinks I have 19 options for broadband. I most
| assuredly do not.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| There are a few cities in Idaho that have municipal broadband.
| Might not be locations you're looking at, but worth noting. I
| believe Ammon and Idaho Falls are two of them.
| ethagknight wrote:
| In Memphis, TN, we have hideous overhead power lines running
| along most streets, usually with a combination of high voltage,
| low voltage, communication lines, and untold abandoned cabling.
| Im amazed that citizens will tolerate a very poorly maintained
| network of power poles vs arguing with cities and utilities to
| begin the admittedly long, expensive, and slow work to clean ups
| the more egregious and prominent locations, like along major
| thoroughfares. These overhead distribution networks require
| significant mutilation of trees (ugly) and are vulnerable to a
| variety of accidents including cars striking poles, trees falling
| on wires, squirrels exploding, etc.
|
| A city-led effort to install underground conduit duct banks could
| be federally funded while also allow new ISPs to come along and
| lease empty conduit. Thats where I would focus my grass roots
| efforts.
|
| In Memphis, its rumored to cost some $3B to bury all overhead
| power lines (estimated by the local public utility), therefore
| infeasible. I say, excellent, get to work on the easiest 50% of
| the scoop that over the next decade!
| rayiner wrote:
| That's the city's entire budget for 4 years. Even if you spread
| it out over a decade it's over 40% of the city's budget each
| year.
| jrockway wrote:
| New York City looked like that in the late 19th century. A
| blizzard destroyed everything and the wires moved underground:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_City_Subway
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I would strongly encourage you to run for local office. You're
| on the right track, and the path to success is more leverage.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| More people need to do this! There is so much that can be
| done by getting involved in local office. Earlier this year I
| successfully got a seat on the board overseeing my city's
| public utilities. One of my goals is to get municipal
| broadband.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Thank you for your efforts!
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Same in San Francisco, it's pretty ugly, my dad said "it looks
| like third world country cabling" when he visited.
| smoyer wrote:
| > Recently, the FCC and USDA, among others, have created massive
| funds in an effort to deploy broadband in underserved areas.
|
| The Universal Service Fund was established mid-'90s to get fund
| telecommunications connections to schools and libraries in rural
| areas (in the same way the Rural Electrification Act did in the
| early 1900s). Funds were paid out through 2000 or so but I
| haven't heard of any contracts being built using USF funds since
| then. I will however point out that you can still see this
| surcharge on your phone bill. I also agree that these contracts
| tended to favor huge CLECs (versus huge cable companies back
| then) and that more consideration should be given to "mom and
| pop" shops.
|
| EDIT: The focus on schools and libraries was an effort to get
| service into these geographic areas with the idea that once it
| was there, consumers would be targeted as customers who could
| then "just connect". That's when we also learned that the "last
| mile" was way more expensive (often politically) than
| anticipated. In the cable industry, the response was to upgrade
| plant equipment and create/adopt the DOCSIS standard for data
| transmission over coax.
|
| DISCLAIMER: I was a member of two of the committees that helped
| write specific portions of the DOCSIS 2.0 specification.
| whatsmyusername wrote:
| Yeah PA this doesn't surprise me. It's Pittsburgh and Philly with
| a 3rd world country in between.
|
| The entire state is basically those two islands, and 4 highways
| to get back and forth from the northeast. The rest is mountains
| and nothing filled with people fighting over scraps while getting
| snooty about the, 'dangerous high tax cities.'
|
| Source, grew up in the nothing part of the state. Hit the road
| for Pittsburgh as soon as I could afford it and never looked
| back.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| i have two choices in my area. ATT DSL or Comcast cable. the
| phone line system is so old in my neighborhood. it just barely
| better than dial up so i'm left with Comcast as the only option
| for high speed.
|
| i'm hoping Elon Musk's Starlink will give us the high speed that
| we hope for that is not control by monopoly like Comcast and ATT.
| pyryt wrote:
| There's probably a good explanation, but let me ask the question:
| why do we need to have men cutting hard road surfaces?
|
| If a city extends their subway network, they dont demolish all
| buildings on top, lay the tracks, and then rebuild. They do it
| without any major interference to the surface. Similarly for
| mountain tunnels, you dont start by demolishing a mile of rock.
| We just dig the tunnel.
|
| Couldn't someone invent a robot to dig fibre tunnels? Then we
| wouldnt need to bother any shop owners or neighbours with noise
| and inconvenience?
| agakshat wrote:
| I would guess it's a matter of cost and how deep the tunnel
| needs to be dug.
| pyryt wrote:
| It could be. Otoh, if you were able to have less workers on
| the job, avoid having to repave entire streets, and avoid
| having to wait for 6 months to get started... youd think itd
| be worth it
| cnorthwood wrote:
| In the UK, I have a "full fibre" provider (Hyperoptic) which
| pretty much exclusively serve apartment blocks. They run fibre to
| a switch they install in the building, and then ethernet cabling
| from that switch to every apartment. Targetting dense buildings I
| suspect gives them a really good cost/customer upfront ratio (in
| some cities they own their own fibre, in others they use other
| commercial providers, including Openreach which was spun out of
| the former state monopoly BT and has to provide fair rates to
| competitors). The latter seems like a reasonable trade off of
| government regulation and free market to encourage competition, I
| suspect the lobbying culture in the US wouldn't allow it though.
| greesil wrote:
| There's a good Planet Money podcast on this
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...
| edraferi wrote:
| House Democrats just proposed $100B to fund last mile fiber. The
| bill includes thinks like a "Dig Once" provision and supersedes
| state laws against municipal fiber.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/100-billion-univ...
|
| https://www.majoritywhip.gov/?press=clyburn-rural-broadband-...
| tryptophan wrote:
| ugh, that bill is horrible. 0 talk of deregulating things which
| allow the ISP monopolies(which are responsible for the terrible
| service) to exist. Literally just another tax-payer handout to
| private companies.
| xenospn wrote:
| If I remember correctly, in Israel they forced the telcos to
| open up their infrastructure to everyone and the sky didn't
| fall down.
| proverbialbunny wrote:
| In most of Europe too.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Here in the US, AT+T was ordered to allow independent DSL
| operators to share its twisted pair to households. Worked
| okay for a while, but AT+T found ways to get the shared
| equipment e.g. at the local office, misconfigured for those
| customers. Source: I was such a one, with a year and a half
| of intermittent service.
|
| My fear for open access is where the open market ISPs and
| the natural monopoly fiber demux meet -- we should fear
| attempts at collusion and market manipulation.
| kitteh wrote:
| It was the 1996 telecom act and it was implemented poorly
| and the telcos made it super difficult to operate within.
|
| Note that cable companies were exempt (which is because
| they had better politicians) and telcos had a lot of
| runway to put up barriers for a clec to provide services.
| In the end, the telcos moved the goal posts, could
| subsidize customer equipment better and could delay your
| installs.
| seph-reed wrote:
| So, right now is a terrible time for this logic given we live in
| an oligarchy with very little representation, but if we lived in
| an actual functional government, services like this seem like
| they should be socialized.
|
| I don't want 3 different sewage companies ripping up my block to
| put in 3 different sewage lines. Similarly, I don't want a bunch
| of different internet providers having to do that.
|
| Once again, this only makes sense in a functional government. Not
| in a lobbyist hacked representative democracy turned oligarchy.
| mulmen wrote:
| Government dysfunction is a matter of perception. This
| defeatist attitude is toxic. Our government is functional. Your
| vote does count. You do have input, especially at a local
| level.
| 1_person wrote:
| This is perhaps one of the most offensive things I have ever
| read.
|
| Please tell some felons who have been wrongly convicted or
| convicted of victimless "moral" crimes about how the vote
| they don't have counts.
|
| Preach to Syrian refugees about their defeatist attitude,
| perhaps. It's their fault for voting for the wrong warlord, I
| expect?
| seph-reed wrote:
| DUDE. They got root.
|
| If this was a computer system, then they managed to leverage
| lobbying until they were able to move enough pieces to be
| able to turn money into real systemic changes, and at this
| point they've reached the top. They've also reached the
| bottom in the sense that if this was a pure democracy, they'd
| still get majority vote through manipulating non-experts.
|
| The government is a system, and you're a "hacker." Honestly,
| how much further could the wealthy escalate their privileges?
|
| P.S. Go vote anyways.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Most of the policies like this are set at the state and local
| levels. You absolutely can make a difference at this level by
| showing up.
|
| Especially if you can show up with some like-minded people in
| the same jurisdiction, and keep after it until the change has
| actually happened and is too late for the incumbents to undo.
| seph-reed wrote:
| While I really appreciate the democratic aspect of showing up
| at meetings, I would much prefer proper representation.
|
| Representation such that someone says: "Hey what about people
| who are too busy to show up to these meetings? How do we get
| _their_ input? "
|
| At this point, the lobbyists have very, very, very obviously
| gotten root. The steps involved with reversing this (without
| beheadings) are unprecedented afaik.
| mulmen wrote:
| That's exactly how it works? You show up, make a bunch of
| noise about what you want and eventually everyone can vote
| on it. The value of representative democracy is that you
| _don 't_ need to take the time to go to every meeting.
| 1_person wrote:
| Yes, I find it very convenient for legislators to
| represent my interests for me by professing their
| platform to be whatever is electorally expedient at the
| moment while gerrymandering districts and rigging
| elections in a couple key counties then legislating
| whatever gets them paid the most with no regard for their
| professed platform or my interests whatsoever.
|
| It's great that I don't even have to be aware of how my
| rights are being gradually eroded and sold off to the
| highest bidder. It allows me to fully abdicate
| responsibility for the atrocities and enjoy my carefree
| lifestyle of mindless consumerism. Fuck me harder, daddy!
| seph-reed wrote:
| We don't have a "representative democracy," we have an
| oligarchy.
|
| Our representation was lobbied away, like, 2 decades ago.
| Now they're just mocking us.
|
| Go vote anyways.
| surajs wrote:
| The answer is a no, now and forever so get it over with at your
| own sweet pace.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Last year we were installing conduit for our fiber optic
| network. There were countless instances where people would
| literally stop their cars, roll down their windows, and yell
| profanities at us. In what world is that acceptable behavior for
| an adult?_
|
| In a world that highlights individuals, and where everyone has
| been taught their time is more valuable than other people's.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| I think it really sucks when you try to do good by everyone
| (community, business owners, ordinary citizens) and encounter so
| much friction. I think I can understand the author's point of
| view. Many areas seem to have dismal internet access in the US (I
| live in Canada).
|
| However it seems to be a much better outcome for all compared to
| the 'wild-west-shoot-from-the-hip' method where anyone digs
| anywhere with minimal regulation and oversight.
|
| Not having an infrastructure and building it slowly is better in
| my opinion than degrading public infrastructure and then having
| citizen foot the bill to clean up the mess left by some fast and
| loose startups.
|
| I mention this in this particular context of building and
| transforming physical installations who affect the general
| public.
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| I think we need to make it a lot cheaper to run cables like this:
| I don't understand why we have to dig up roads to lay cables. Why
| can't there be a shared conduit for cables underneath or beside a
| road? It can be included in the initial construction of the road,
| for example.
| monocasa wrote:
| > I don't understand why we have to dig up roads to lay cables.
| Why can't there be a shared conduit for cables underneath or
| beside a road?
|
| Because the city doesn't want to pay for it. And the companies,
| having the money to dig the road up don't want to make their
| competitor's jobs easier. So pretty classic market failure.
|
| What needs to happen, IMO, is that the last mile should be
| utility infrastructure, and ISPs should connect to that. Then
| the ISPs pay the city for use of the last mile on a endpoint by
| endpoint basis. Lowers the barrier for new ISPs since they
| don't have to dig up new last mile, and the city is encouraged
| to upkeep the last mile since it's a revenue stream with a few
| high paying representatives of customers (so no tragedy of the
| commons), but the low barrier to entry for ISPs means that the
| city won't get too connected to individual ISPs.
| rayiner wrote:
| Okay but who is going to do that? My county is still working
| on bringing water and sewer to most places, and I'm less than
| 10 minutes outside Annapolis. Especially places that already
| have cable or fiber that was privately installed?
| monocasa wrote:
| When there's a clear revenue source coming out of it, bonds
| make sense to pay for it.
|
| And yeah, if you're in barely first world conditions where
| you're struggling to hook sewer up to your residents near a
| major municipality, you obviously have systemic issues that
| get in the way of proper utility work of nearly any scale.
| rayiner wrote:
| 20% of the country doesn't have public water or sewer,
| including many fairly wealth areas. In vastly more of the
| country, existing water and sewer infrastructure is
| crumbling and needs replacement. Sure, you can pass
| bonds, but how do you get people to vote for those bonds
| when you also need to issue bonds for all this other
| higher priority infrastructure?
| monocasa wrote:
| > 20% of the country doesn't have public water or sewer,
| including many fairly wealth areas
|
| Almost entirely rural. These people aren't digging up
| roads, but it's purely a right of way issue on the poles
| (if they're getting real high speed internet either way).
|
| > In vastly more of the country, existing water and sewer
| infrastructure is crumbling and needs replacement.
|
| Yes, the united states is devolving into a third world
| country when it comes to infrastructure. My scheme is
| obviously predicated on not being in one of the
| municipalities that are actively trying to run the
| concept of government into the ground.
|
| > Sure, you can pass bonds, but how do you get people to
| vote for those bonds when you also need to issue bonds
| for all this other higher priority infrastructure?
|
| So you don't get to have works like this until you have
| the basics of potable water covered.
|
| Like for real, 10 minutes outside of Annapolis should be
| able to have sewer covered.
| jrockway wrote:
| One of my secret fantasies is an "Uber for ISPs". That is where
| someone ignores all the laws, rules, and regulations, and just
| builds a fiber ISP without anyone's permission. String fiber in
| through people's windows. Instead of burying them, put them in
| those temporary cable trenches (that you see all the time for
| construction or film crews), or run them beside sidewalks and
| cover them with cement. Hell, maybe a really sticky piece of duct
| tape is enough.
|
| It would be totally illegal and you'd probably go to prison
| forever if you started a company to do it. And annoying people
| with scissors would be cutting them every day (not to mention
| glass-eating wasps! a real thing!).
|
| But I'd pay for it.
| winrid wrote:
| Where can I read about glass-eating wasps? Google is failing
| me.
| smoyer wrote:
| I don't remember the name of the operator but there was a small
| telecom in Houston TX that ran cable/fiber illegally all over
| the city. We worked hard to get permits for everything but it
| was tough seeing his infrastructure duct taped to the underside
| of I10 bridges. Very hard to compete with that!
| g_p wrote:
| I've seen something not too far from this done in rural areas
| in the UK. It's not illegal - in fact, it receives public money
| via broadband vouchers!
|
| Direct-burying of fibre in the countryside is cheap, doesn't
| require permission (beyond getting access to the land etc.)
| Landowners are generally hugely supportive, as they get better
| internet too (and being rural, have useless connectivity to
| begin with).
|
| You can get street works permits fairly easily, for the "last
| half-mile", through access to "code powers" [1]. That also
| helps you bypass certain planning rules. And you can just do a
| regular premises installation - nothing cloak and dagger here!
|
| [1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-
| internet/inform...
| smoyer wrote:
| In Nebraska we could direct-bury fiber up to eight feet
| underground with what was essentially a vibrating knife
| (pulled through the earth by two large Caterpillers) along
| the gravel paved county roads that were established when the
| railroads sold off land to finance their grade/track
| construction. It's incredibly cheap compared to any other
| means of installation and the right-of-ways are consistently
| available - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vibration+cable+plough&
| t=ffab&iar=....
|
| A tiny fraction of our fiber was mounted above ground (eight
| miles out of over 700 IIRC) but it was taken down by
| tornados/wind shear twice in the first three years after it
| was lit.
| war1025 wrote:
| Here in Iowa, I see these "Ditch Witch" things [1]
| everywhere they do utility work. Seems like they can do
| pretty quick work with them.
|
| [1] https://www.ditchwitch.com/directional-drills
| dmckeon wrote:
| See also "micro-trenching"
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9Cmicro-
| trenching%E2%...
| smoyer wrote:
| Those will go through much tougher ground than a
| vibrating plough, but they're also much slower and you
| can see the trench when it's done. With the plough, we'd
| typically go through the gravel berm along the road and
| you'd have a hard time telling that it had just buried
| the cable even if you were looking for it!
| jbuzbee wrote:
| Our fiber ISP, Ting, used those in our neighborhood to
| lay new lines. It was interesting to watch. For the most
| part, the only place where you could see any disturbance
| was when they had to pop up for a junction box.
| dublinben wrote:
| That's pretty similar to how broadband developed in Romania,
| and a significant reason why they have some of the best
| Internet speeds in the world.[0] It's also more or less the
| model that successful community mesh networks have followed,
| like NYC mesh[1] and Guifi[2].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYC_Mesh [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guifi.net
| rubber_duck wrote:
| You would probably end up with something like this :
| https://miro.medium.com/max/2048/1*ZeyDyk8VYEY8-3Npb7Gw4w.jp...
|
| They do have good service tho, not sure about the esthetics
| h2odragon wrote:
| i had a ~500 meter campus link in a rural area i maintained for
| 10 years, with fiber and coax when necessary. wire is _right
| out_ , but fiber is such a bitch to work with. The tools are
| expensive and hard to use, to the point that we replaced our
| fiber lines with pre-made cables as the economical alternative
| to repairing breaks. This _was_ a decade+ ago and I hope things
| are easier now.
| gopalv wrote:
| > It would be totally illegal and you'd probably go to prison
| forever if you started a company to do it. ... > And annoying
| people with scissors would be cutting them every day
|
| That is probably why the wireless packet mesh networks are more
| popular since there's no physical infra in other people's
| property (spectrum as "property" sounds odd, but even that is a
| commons for some fraction of it).
|
| It only exists when it is used and just disappears when it
| isn't & is easily moved around.
|
| I assume the illegality would be its own reward sometimes.
| Didn't El Chapo run his own cellphone network?
|
| There's a whole plot line in "Person of Interest" about this
| happening in NYC, hiding in plain sight as regular TV antennas
| (the Panopticon episode).
| wuliwong wrote:
| The wireless mesh projects was the first thing that came to
| mind as well.
| novok wrote:
| Uber worked like that because governments are far less hesitant
| in fining / moving / removing stationary objects vs mobile
| objects which contains multiple voters inside of them.
| jedberg wrote:
| I did this on a small scale in college! Back then the only way
| to get internet was via dialup, unless you paid $300+ a month
| for a DSL line (which was about 5x the speed and always on).
|
| Since my friends and I had all just moved into a brand new
| apartment building together, I picked up a spool of ethernet
| and some ends and we literally strung the wires from window to
| window (wireless was far too expensive). The building was blue
| so I used blue wires and the owner either didn't notice or
| didn't care, because no one said a thing about it.
|
| We all split the cost of the initial supplies and then everyone
| paid me whatever they could for the internet and I covered the
| rest. We had 10 people and I ended up paying about $40/mo for
| it personally.
|
| On the plus side, since I controlled the gateway (and old
| computer the University threw out) I could do fun stuff like
| traffic shaping and setting up a web server to be a bulletin
| board for us. Also I got everyone to install one of those
| enterprise notification things on their Windows machines so we
| could send blast messages to each other about going to the city
| or down to the local cafe for dinner.
|
| Good times.
| nobleach wrote:
| This is what I did in college! Ethernet cable under the
| carpet and along the wall for me. I had DSL piped into a
| Freesco Router (a floppy disk running Linux 2.0.36). I
| remember finally upgrading to an ethernet based ADSL modem
| that had the ability to flash it with router firmware. All I
| had to do was plug that thing into my 10baseT 3Com switch!!
| MartijnBraam wrote:
| This would be a great test for how reliable you can make a
| network if you add in a lot of redundancy. if you have enough
| routes it shouldn't matter if a few fibers get cut or
| destroyed.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| In San Francisco, everyone along streets with underground
| utilities are denied fiber due to Public Works disallowing
| microtrenching.
|
| Additionally, AT&T has not upgraded their lines in these areas,
| so we're stuck with Comcast or DSL...
| driverdan wrote:
| Also the NIMBYs and ridiculous permitting requirements, such as
| needing environmental studies to add distribution boxes.
| parineum wrote:
| How do NIMBYs play into this?
| driverdan wrote:
| NIMBYs put laws in place that makes it harder to install
| fiber.
| kitteh wrote:
| They've fought the installation of CEVs (controlled
| environment vaults) which are used to put in
| network/telecom gear to extend broadband services.
|
| One town decided they didn't like this beige box on a main
| street so they painted over it with a color that fit
| better. Turns out, that paint was important for cooling it:
| within a few days gear overheated and hundreds were out of
| service.
| ggm wrote:
| Public utility functions are best run by regulated processes and
| it's just rubbish to say market forces help here. Prices for
| internet are now decoupled from true underlying cost in almost
| all markets. Fibre is a fifty year plus investment in the ground.
| Do it once.
| swiley wrote:
| Am I weird for not wanting fiber run into my apartment?
|
| Sure it makes sense for ISPs to use it for infrastructure but the
| link from their switch to my equipment should be made of copper.
| It's so easy to mess those cables up and having a contracted fish
| around in your walls just so you can have your <1Gig connection
| back is stupid.
|
| When I first got a connection here it took the guy an extra few
| hours to deal with exactly this kind of problem.
| 1_person wrote:
| Weird? No. Objectively wrong? Yes.
|
| The link from their switch to your equipment should not be made
| of copper, because copper does not provide electrical isolation
| between the endpoints and is susceptible to interference.
|
| Fiber does provide electrical isolation between endpoints and
| is not susceptible to interference.
|
| Fiber also supports significantly higher throughput.
| maxsilver wrote:
| The problem is that your going to have a contractor fish around
| in your walls and mess cables up _anyway_. If they aren 't
| doing it for fiber, they'll be doing it for coax or ancient
| copper DSL lines.
|
| So, if you have to have a person punch holes and fish around in
| walls anyway, you might as well get a nice fiber connection out
| of it, right?
| TrackerFF wrote:
| With 5G, I think there's even less motivation for ISPs to provide
| fiber to those out of range. To the point where they'll just jack
| up the installation prices until no-one bothers them anymore.
|
| At least that's the feeling I'm getting now. A friend of mine
| recently moved into a new building, which isn't too far from a
| fiber central. It's also out in the suburbs, so no extensive
| infrastructure like you'd find in the middle of a city...well, he
| requested a quote, and the company said - "hey, it'll cost you
| around $20k for [short stretch], but we're also offering wireless
| broadband for only [2-3 times the price of fiber, and 1/5th the
| speed)"
| driverdan wrote:
| 5G requires more fiber runs since towers have to be closer
| together. Less fiber than running to every home but more than
| we have now.
| tracker1 wrote:
| How long is "[short trench]" specifically? You may be able to
| find a third party contractor that can run the trunk cheaper,
| but it will vary by city/state. If it's even a mile in a city,
| $20k is probably about right. If it's a block with no
| intersections, it may be overpriced... that will really vary a
| lot.
| Tagbert wrote:
| What is the price of an unlimited 5G connection? If it is being
| provided by a telco I imagine that it will expensive and have
| limited data caps.
| snisarenko wrote:
| The writer forgot to mention the most important barrier - Basic
| economics.
|
| Last mile infrastructure is always a winner takes all market.
|
| Even if all the barriers to entry are removed, you won't have 20
| different providers competing in a single city. Only 1 or 2
| providers will survive. This is because operational costs for
| running your own lines will be constant, but you will always have
| only a fraction of the customers if you are competing with 20
| other providers.
|
| I've commented on this topic in a previous HN thread. But I
| believe the solution to the problem is a bidding system.
| Companies bid to build infrastructure. And companies bid to
| maintain it for short period of time (3 years).
| knjoy wrote:
| I think the solution is what the developing countries have
| done: the national government just install the cables, then
| rent out the infrastructure to private companies to
| compete/service.
| foobarian wrote:
| > the national government just install the cables, then rent
| out the infrastructure to private companies to
| compete/service.
|
| And in fact both of these things can be done the same way: by
| obtaining some bids and giving the task to the best bidder.
| knjoy wrote:
| The issue is profitability (similar to the post office
| problem) -- if your house is in a rural area with low
| density, it's not worth it for a private industry actor to
| bid on your linkage. In many parts of the US, the only ways
| to get mail is through USPS (FedEx & UPS just don't service
| unprofitable routes). However I think internet access is a
| human right and a public good no matter where you live or
| can afford to live (imagine raising children who would
| never have access to at least broadband-level speed -- how
| would they function in a 21st century economy?) - and the
| infrastructure can only be provided equitably if the
| government steps in and subsidizes away the profitability
| problem.
| snisarenko wrote:
| That's a good point. The law can have an exception for
| communities that get less than 5 bids. If that happens
| the gov't builds the infrastructure.
| foobarian wrote:
| I don't follow. How do you propose that the gov't build
| the infrastructure? A: get bids, award the task to
| highest bidder... :)
|
| Profitability should be automatically part of the bid. It
| doesn't mean the bidders pay the government, it could be
| the other way around too.
| snisarenko wrote:
| I think the government involvement should be minimal. They
| should create a law that requires bidding on local
| infrastructure, and enforce that the bidding process is fair,
| and the selection/voting process is fair.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| Several cities in the United States have implemented
| municipal fiber. There are a few different models [1] but my
| favorite is "open access", where the city owns the fiber and
| allows many providers to use it. (See more here [2].)
|
| UTOPIA, a consortium of cities in Utah, operates under an
| open access model. You pay a $30 fee to the city for the line
| and then choose from 12 different ISPs [3]. A symmetrical
| 1Gbps plan is around $50, so $80 total. You can even get a
| 10Gbps plan for $200. If you're having problems with the ISP
| you're using, you just go online and change it.
|
| [1] https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files
| /20... [2] https://muninetworks.org/content/open-access [3]
| https://www.utopiafiber.com/residential3pricing/
| tracker1 wrote:
| The problem lies in states where they've been successfully
| lobbied at the state level to block municipal telecom.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Last year we were installing conduit for our fiber optic
| network. There were countless instances where people would
| literally stop their cars, roll down their windows, and yell
| profanities at us. In what world is that acceptable behavior for
| an adult?
|
| People hate infrastructure. That's the only explanation.
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