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| Seattle home with no internet | Login/Join |
Has Achieved Nirvana |
Quelle nightmare.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...et-would-cost-27000/
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana  |
That's awful. I'm wondering whether, if I were in their shoes, it would even occur to me to check. And, if I did check, whether the ISP would have said yes because every other house in the neighborhood is connected. I'm not sure when you call and ask if they service the address if they are actually looking up the address or just the neighborhood. | |||
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Beatification Candidate |
Gee, and I thought I had it tough. I finally got tired of my old telecom/internet provider because even with three DSL lines into my house, they couldn't provide reliable data speeds to stream video in particular. That company was the successor to the local independent telephone company. I switched to the only other provider available at my address. They were the local cable TV service and now provide telecom and internet as well. There was no installation charge and the service has been better than what I had before. The cost is about the same. The availability of service, even in what is essentially a suburban location, can be very limited. Before I switched, I inquired about service with all the major providers I could think of. None of them could or would serve my house, which didn't really surprise me because everything on my road is aerial and I could see whose lines were on the poles. Big Al
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity  |
Wow, what a nightmare! I don't really blame the home buyers, but
this just shows you really can't assume anything!! In full disclosure, I am pretty sure we did not do anything to double check internet access before we bought this house either.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Was told recently that 5G internet service for $25 a month was available in some places.
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Minor Deity |
That was just like my marital home..Only internet was satelite for years. The company Mr. BeeLady worked for paid for ISDN so that was better... Only after the divorce and I moved out (Mr. Beelady is still there), the cul de sac finally got the cable company to run lines to the 4 of the 5 homes..at a price of $30K each. We had been asking, demanding, attending meetings for 25 years! The one jerk neighbor refused to join in ...but he is a lawyer..I told the neighbors the deed states "majority rules" so they could have made him chip in.  I suspect he will hook up quietly without letting anyone else know...  Not sorry he is not my neigbhor anymore. One neighbor who worked for Cisco did move in without checking the internet status. She considered suing the real estate agent..But her company paid for her connection by satellite.
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Minor Deity |
Run a cable to an apartment complex, you get access to hundreds of prospective subscribers. Run a cable to a neighborhood of MacMansions, you get access to half a dozen of perspective subscribers. Even if the MacMansions are willing to pay for $200/month package of top tiered services each, it’s still only $1200/month over half a dozen MacMansions, while at the lowest tiered $40/month Internet only service, a 200 unit apartment complex can get you $8000/month of subscription revenues. The deployment economics favor higher subscriber density. If not for government regulations requiring services to be extended to rural areas, the folks in rural areas will most likely not get wired communications services at all.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
T-Mobile has fast 5G wireless internet service available in several areas now. More areas will become available over time - $50/month. Wired cable is about to go by way if the rooftop antenna.
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| Beatification Candidate |
The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) did something like this starting in the Depression era. Should we have such an organization today? I remember when cell service was much spottier that it is now, and there are still places you can't get reception. Will 5G come very soon to many areas? Big Al
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| Minor Deity |
About wireless broadband … Just like you have to connect a data cable to your Wi-Fi router, the cellular broadband company needs to connect a broadband cable to just about every cell antenna/tower. To actually transmit data wirelessly at high speeds, you need to be “close enough” to the cell tower. And each cell tower needs to be wired to a data cable. So to get high speed “wireless” Internet service to a rural area, you still need to pull a data cable pretty close to the subscribers. 
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Ax raises a good point. They've just started rolling out 5G in the Chicago area. We started seeing towers pop up in my town; one is half a block away from me. The next one down is maybe 5 blocks. It's a Verizon tower and I thought about trying it out, but unlike T-Mobile, Verizon isn't doing a free trial for a month. Both companies are giving away the hardware you need to connect. My Xfinity internet is pretty good so for now I'll stick with it.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Still more profitable than pulling cable in to houses, no?
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
"5G wavelengths have a range of about 1,000 feet, not even 2% of 4G's range. So to ensure a reliable 5G signal, there needs to be a lot of 5G cell towers and antennas everywhere. We're talking on every lamppost, traffic light, etc. because even trees can block 5G signals." Everywhere?
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