fne8w2ahInternet providers have left rural Americans behind. One county is fighting back
FranklinWhy anyone ever thought it was a good idea to let private industry take care of a utility is beyond me, internet should be treated like water and power and handled by the city.
If anyone has any trouble with this why don’t you go check out the Texas power grid
FenrirIIIThe biggest problem in Texas is greedy politicians (Republicans) making it worse.
cellular based internet is a thing, not sure why everyone wants to focus on dsl/cable
Because usable cellular Internet is relatively new, the cable/dsl/etc providers should have upgraded their systems literally decades ago and didn’t, funneling federal money intended for that purpose to CEO bonuses instead.
cable/dsl/etc providers should have upgraded their systems literally decades ago and didn’t, funneling federal money intended for that purpose to CEO bonuses instead.
So why look to them now like the other person was downvoted for asking? Nothing has changed and they still have no reason to run cable out to these communities.
The short answer is lobbyists.
TrickDacyWell I tried it for home Internet and it was mostly fine but was a little less reliable than wired. I think reliability is important.
oh, I agree - but if I had choose between 3mpbs on a good day and a service that cuts out occasionally but has 4g data speeds then I’d choose 4g in an instant.
Yeah, same
If they are so rural ISPs won’t take them, why would a cell company deploy 5G in a super sparse area?
For example TMO and VZW will only hand out home cell modem if you live within half mile of a major interstate. If not out of luck aside from Starlink.
And not a mention about Starlink? To me it seems like the obvious solution compared to digging cables to an individual rural homes. Personally I use cellural but not everyone lives within the coverage of these towers. Satellite internet on the other hand is global.
I tried Starlink, had high hopes, but unfortunately due to living sort of in a valley and being surrounded by numerous 100+ foot trees, service would cut out every 10-15 minutes. Wasn’t viable for video conferencing or large downloads.
Cellular was OK, but the speeds could vary wildly and really only peaked at maybe 100/30.
Ultimately, I ended up paying a local provider to bury a line directly to my house for me (well into the 5 figure cost). Worth it.
Before I moved back to the city, I used to use T-Mobile Home Internet in a very rural area and it was the absolute best internet you could get out there. It was about 70 MBPS down while the DSL in the area was max 10.The only other choices for the area was dial up, which was obviously even slower or satellite through HughesNet, which was super expensive and extremely data limited.
PriorityMotifI currently have T-Mobile. I cracked their unit open and attached an external antenna which is installed on the roof. I’m getting about 250 stable. Fiber just became available in my area, but the price is more than what I’m paying now.
I have T-Mobile too. Would you mind explaining the process of adding an external antenna? I’d like to get 250 Mbps stable.
You have to open the unit and disconnect at least two of the internal antenna and plug in antenna adapters. Then you can run the coax from the exterior antenna to the unit and plug them in. Then you use an app to locate your closest tower and point the antenna towards that using the T-Mobile app to see your connection strength.
It’s actually really good, isn’t it? It makes me hopeful that maybe one day in the future we won’t need to run a wire to our houses for the internet just like how we don’t run wires to our houses for phone service anymore because nobody fucking uses landlines.
Edit: btw, check out my community i mod [email protected]
I wish I could get tmo home internet. My only option is starlink and Verizon LTE, and Verizon has managed to ruin my credit multiple times over their own incompetence.
The area I was in did not officially support it but I knew it would work so when I moved before I just brought it with me and turned it on and it worked fine and after I left I told the new residents to just go in and purchase it and if need be give a different addressAnd it would work. And they did.
My signal is weak due to obstructions.
Our signal was pretty weak about minus 108 dBm at all times, but it was still enough to be functional and be better than everybody else’s internet in the area.
Where I live in Canada everyone thinks they need gigabit internet. My internet sales person was so sure that I needed at least 1 gig internet because I work from home and have a couple of people using YouTube at the same time . But I haven’t had a single issue with my 500 megabit internet . That was the lowest I could go , probably would of been fine with 200 - 300 .
theludditeVermont has several towns with as little as a thousand people that have fiber internet thanks to municipal cooperatives like ECFiber. Much of the state is a connectivity wasteland but it’s really cool to see some towns working together to sort it out.
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Check out "Connected: Vermont's Grassroots Effort for Rural Broadband" the full film produced by Well Told Films, in association with the Vermont Community Broadband Board. This 35-minute documentary film tells the story of Vermont's Communications Union Districts (CUD's); ECFiber, CVFiber, DVFiber, NEK Broadband, NW Fiberworx, and Maple Broadband's efforts to bring
Aren’t local ISPs essentially banned in a lot of places due to lobbying from the big players? Less abandoned and more actively stomping on its throat.
Snot FlickermanIt was like that in all of Washington State from 1999 until it was repealed in 2021.