Why Isn't Good Cheap Internet Available Everywhere?

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

3. Starlink will probably be targeted at wealthier customers who purchase added packages. Just a guess.

Starlink is initially targeting rural areas (globally) that can't get decent internet service - as well as targeting commercial/military use. Rumblings are that it will initially cost in $70-$90 range but they could offer lower tier speeds cheaper in future. They won't initially target metro areas partly because most already have decent service but also it will take years to build up enough capacity to handle millions of streaming users within a region. But is plausible they might expand to metro consumers in future.

Also, in 3rd world countries, is possible that some may subsidize Starlink access.

My guess is that Starlink profit model will mostly come from biz/military/govt use and they eventually price to break even or small profit from consumers.

 

[audreyh1]

Planet Money did a story on this not too long ago. You can read/listen to it here: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114

To summarize, the town of Wilson NC successfully created its own high speed Internet service after Time Warner refused to provide it, even though the town offered to build and provide the infrastructure for them. Once Wilson succeeded in their project, NC passed a "Level Playing Field" law that prevented any other city from doing the same.

Other states, like UT and LA, have passed almost identical laws written by the same lobbyists. Basically any time a local government thinks about getting into the Internet business, the big guys come in and argue that this is unfair competition, even though they have no intention of ever entering the market in these areas. I don't see how government would be able to fund co-ops to provide better Internet without getting tied up in court for at least a decade.

I hope that Starlink will help, and I have signed up to get notified when it's available, even though it probably won't be in my area (too far south) for several years.

That is just tragic, really.

DH is counting on Starlink.

 

[sengsational]

Pricing models that try to get more out of those who have more, but still try to get every possible customer, combined with little to no competition.

I have found that the more time you're willing to spend playing chicken with them, the better the deal. But I've been fortunate in that I often had an alternative, and that I didn't/don't need/want the fastest speeds.

Right now Google Fiber is $55 and Speculum Cable is begging me with a rate of "$40" with no increases for 3 years. But it's TimeWarner by any other name, and they don't change their stripes. The $40 doesn't include $15 or more in junk fees. Even if the total was less, I still feel better enriching the supposed 'do no evil' company, since they made the fiber investment that forced AT&T to also put in fiber. There's actually 3 choices now...a first in the history of the neighborhood.

 

[Chuckanut]

I take this as a joke, right?

Mr. Musk has a solution for you - Starlink.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...-for-everyone-is-coming-very-soon/ar-BB1398pu

In the near term, however, Musk has said his goal for Starlink is to get to communities that have had almost no internet options until now. For these communities, Musk says, the “private beta” testing phase should begin in a few months, with public beta in six months.

Perhaps your community should volunteer for the test phase.

FWIW, I know several people who live in very rural areas. Not a one would give up the benefits of their lifestyle for the faster internet plus traffic, crowding and noise that people like myself have living near the metropolis.

 

[sengsational]

I forgot about starlink. That could be a game-chamger if it works well.

 

[John Galt III]

Remember in the 90's when dial up at 56K was only $5.95 per month AND yes, you could make airline reservations, check your 401K, make changes to your 401K, and do all sorts of things, for only $5.95 per month AND only using 56K bps max. You could do ALL that good stuff on a 56K dial up modem. Now, to do the SAME stuff, they force you to use 1000 times as many bits, and pay 10 times as much, for a faster connection you don't want or need. For more ads and more dancing clowns you don't need or want. Sure, dialup still exists, for about $10 per month, at 56K, but you can't even access an airline reservation website, or your 401K website. No 'bare bones' option. It's Cadillac or nothing today. That sucks.

 

[Sunset]

Even DSL would be an improvement over what exists in many areas and phone lines are strung just about everywhere.

DSL has serious distance limitations. The farther out you are, the slower it gets and the drop off is pretty fast.

 

[harllee]

There was an article in my local newspaper that said in our state (NC) there are about 20% of homes that do not have access to fast internet (mostly in poor rural and mountainous areas). That is just ridiculous in this day and time--how can you do schooling or business matters without adequate internet??

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

Remember in the 90's when dial up at 56K was only $5.95 per month AND yes, you could make airline reservations, check your 401K, make changes to your 401K, and do all sorts of things, for only $5.95 per month AND only using 56K bps max. You could do ALL that good stuff on a 56K dial up modem. Now, to do the SAME stuff, they force you to use 1000 times as many bits, and pay 10 times as much, for a faster connection you don't want or need. For more ads and more dancing clowns you don't need or want. Sure, dialup still exists, for about $10 per month, at 56K, but you can't even access an airline reservation website, or your 401K website. No 'bare bones' option. It's Cadillac or nothing today. That sucks.

I remember those days and recall setting up my first PPP connection and using Mosaic browser. Though was using Internet and Lynx text browser before that - as well as Compuserve and GEnie.

One of the cheapest ways to get internet now is via cellphone hotspot assuming you'd have a cellphone anyway, but with soft caps. Tmobile/Sprint has a 70GB/month mobile hotspot cap that may slow down after that but many say they don't really see a slowdown.

 

[Sunset]

I forgot about starlink. That could be a game-chamger if it works well.

I signed up for starlink, wanted to try it at our remote cabin, but now with covid-19 that plan has gone down the tubes.

So if anyone is interested in Starlink, signup , get in on the beta testing, cost will only be $1 /mo for the test period, good way to encourage them to service your area.

 

[harllee]

I signed up for starlink, wanted to try it at our remote cabin, but now with covid-19 that plan has gone down the tubes.

So if anyone is interested in Starlink, signup , get in on the beta testing, cost will only be $1 /mo for the test period, good way to encourage them to service your area.

Is Starlink available everywhere in the U.S. or just certain areas?

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

Is Starlink available everywhere in the U.S. or just certain areas?

Starting between 44 and 52 degrees north latitude for the first beta. Will expand across US through next year and then other latitudes globally over time.

https://arstechnica.com/information...tellite network,and 52 degrees north latitude

 

[harllee]

Starting between 44 and 52 degrees north latitude. Will expand across US next year and then other latitudes globally over time.

https://arstechnica.com/information...tellite network,and 52 degrees north latitude

Well NC is only at 35 degrees latitude so we are not included in the Starlink Beta but I would be interested in hearing from anyone doing the Beta testing.

 

[travelover]

DSL has serious distance limitations. The farther out you are, the slower it gets and the drop off is pretty fast.

Good point, but it seems like it could help bring low cost internet to urban areas.

 

[harllee]

I lived in a rural area a few years ago and I could only get Centurylink DSL at my house. It was awful. One of the reasons I moved from that rural area into town was to get better internet.

 

[travelover]

I lived in a rural area a few years ago and I could only get Centurylink DSL at my house. It was awful. One of the reasons I moved from that rural area into town was to get better internet.

I had it for years and was fine with it.

 

[pj.mask]

My experience has been the bigger local gov seems to do fine: there is a lot of hubbub about what to do, but when a decision is reached it gets done within reason.
Some of the smaller town gov have less oversight - hope you’re on friendly terms with leaders/police.

The fed has a lot more hubbub and with bigger projects there is always a change in leadership (congress or president) partway through that tries to change the system.

But my observation has been that when there is wide agreement on what we need to do - it gets accomplished just fine.

I’d like to see health insurance and internet (we need to call it a utility) backed by the government. I certainly don’t want to be scrambling for new health insurance if I get laid off from Covid RIF. Colbra is $$$

I’d rather more of the $90k+ I just paid in federal taxes would go more to improve welfare of citizens rather than destructive competition with other countries.

 

[RunningBum]

^ This, absolutely.

Our local Rural Electrification Co-op, after several years of pleading from many of their 30,000 members, did exactly this - started stringing fiber internet service to their customers. Thankfully the Co-op management finally realized it was a matter of self-preservation.

My electrical co-op is doing this too. I'm in a very rural area. Think "The Waltons", which was set in my county and in many areas hasn't changed all that much. The co-op needed to improve the comms of their electrical devices in the field. Fiber was not feasible for this, until they included providing fiber access as a service. They got a government grant to get access to everyone in 5 years. Not sure if they will make it but progress is good so far. Some areas are online and customers seem happy. Fiber has been run on my street and extended to the box outside my house, and I'm just waiting for the final installation. I think they are charging $50 for 100Mbps and $80 for 1Gbps.

 

[RunningBum]

I lived in a rural area a few years ago and I could only get Centurylink DSL at my house. It was awful. One of the reasons I moved from that rural area into town was to get better internet.

I had it for years and was fine with it.

It's very possible for both to be true. DSL has a limit of something like 18,000 ft without a repeater. I was at something like 17,950, and my signal often went out. People who were closer to the repeater had no such trouble. So it doesn't mean that harllee had unrealistic expectations that travelover did not.

 

[zinger1457]

I lived in a rural area a few years ago and I could only get Centurylink DSL at my house. It was awful. One of the reasons I moved from that rural area into town was to get better internet.

Live in a rural area and until about a year ago Cox cable was our only high speed Internet option. CenturyLink started offering DSL service in our neighborhood and I switched to them about 8 months ago, happy so far, no down time and been getting the advertised speed. Cheaper than the comparable Cox plan but a little skeptical about their advertised lifetime rate lock, will have to wait and see on that.

 

[jimbee]

Starting between 44 and 52 degrees north latitude for the first beta. Will expand across US through next year and then other latitudes globally over time.

Thanks for the link, I'm in the zone so I signed up.

 

[harllee]

I had it for years and was fine with it.

The first couple of years I had Centurylink DSL it was fine. As more and more people moved to our rural area the DSL got slower and slower. Finally in the evenings it just got so slow you could not even get your email. We and the neighbors made many calls to Centurylink and nothing was ever done. They just had too many customers on the line. It was so bad I finally moved into town and got Spectrum cable which is not great (goes out alot) but so much better than Centurylink DSL.

 

[REWahoo]

he co-op needed to improve the comms of their electrical devices in the field. Fiber was not feasible for this, until they included providing fiber access as a service.

This is the same scenario as my co-op. They installed "smart" meters but I believe were having issues reading the data from them over the electric lines. Running fiber allowed them to solve that issue and also provide a service to the members that was in high demand.

I'm really curious to see the co-op's financials this year to get an idea of how the numbers look on payback for offering broadband. The service area covers all or part of seven counties and has more than 4,000 miles of electrical lines, so even if they only run fiber to 80% the service area that's got to be a major up-front expense.

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

The first couple of years I had Centurylink DSL it was fine. As more and more people moved to our rural area the DSL got slower and slower. Finally in the evenings it just got so slow you could not even get your email. We and the neighbors made many calls to Centurylink and nothing was ever done. They just had too many customers on the line. It was so bad I finally moved into town and got Spectrum cable which is not great (goes out alot) but so much better than Centurylink DSL.

Yeah DSL is very susceptible to oversubscribing within neighborhood (as well a distance). Cable (DOCSIS) can be too but less of an issue now as most have upgraded to gigabit because most don't subscribe to it or use it all. However if you have a choice of Cable and DSL and you're fine with a slower tier for a lower price, DSL might not be oversubscribed in your area given most neighbors are probably using cable. So DSL can be worth a shot if looking to save and fine with a lower tiered speed. Can always go back to cable if it doesn't work out. And don't tell your neighbors if DSL works well because if everyone jumps then you may slow down.

 

[Red Badger]

Remember in the 90's when dial up at 56K was only $5.95 per month AND yes, you could make airline reservations, check your 401K, make changes to your 401K, and do all sorts of things, for only $5.95 per month AND only using 56K bps max. You could do ALL that good stuff on a 56K dial up modem. Now, to do the SAME stuff, they force you to use 1000 times as many bits, and pay 10 times as much, for a faster connection you don't want or need. For more ads and more dancing clowns you don't need or want. Sure, dialup still exists, for about $10 per month, at 56K, but you can't even access an airline reservation website, or your 401K website. No 'bare bones' option. It's Cadillac or nothing today. That sucks.

-1. I like the fast stuff. Also don't miss someone picking up the phone and crashing my connection. Also, surrendered our landline phone around 2004 - only used by telemarketers calling at dinner time.

Besides, boobs took forever to load.