Internet in the Country

paulharvey · Sep 25, 2015

The truth is everyone has Internet options, you can still get dial up, so it's not like anyone has No options. I want good service, but I'm not willing to say it's a "right" or "necessity" or the government's responsibility to make someone give it to you. It's a luxary, and frankly so is phone service.

Comparing the USA to Austria is kind of rediculas, heck, in Iceland the government provides Hot water to homes, in UK water isn't billed, it's "free" and payed by your rich neighbors taxes.

The Finns and Sweds where pioneers in cell phones because of there geographic issues, people are working on high speed Internet on power lines, and lots of other ideas. Service options will improve over time, but I think the best bet is free market.

kcflhrc · Sep 25, 2015

It will change a lot in the next 5 years as we become more dependent on the internet. But unfortunately, being dependent on a service has it's own set of problems. So to wrap up, stop blaming the Telco's for where you live.

ultrarunner · Sep 25, 2015

paulharvey said:
Comparing the USA to Austria is kind of rediculas, heck, in Iceland the government provides Hot water to homes, in UK water isn't billed, it's "free" and payed by your rich neighbors taxes.

None the less I have a steady stream of Austrian and German visitors and it is natural for people away from home to compare...

Austria is not really a pioneer in much... not a wealthy country in mineral or natural resources... much of the country is mountainous with little other than scenic value...

I spend the majority of my time in the SF Bay Area which is always at the top of the list for European visitors... San Francisco, Ocean, Cable Cars, Silicon Valley, Golden Gate Bridge... etc..

I field tons of comments from my engineering friends... they see old utility poles with multiple guy wire bracing or steel collars holding them up... low speed internet... homeless totally inundate much of San Francisco... crime... like auto theft and smash and grab thefts and pick pockets.

The point is the Holy Grail for most is Silicon Valley and California... the incubator for innovation and incredible technology not just in High Tech, but Bio Tech, Internet Startups... etc.

So it may be ridiculous... but it still happens and is an eye opener...

truckdiagnostics · Sep 25, 2015

Amazing, what happened to old fashioned american ingenuity? If the neighbors have high speed internet and you don't, why not figure out a away to get it from them to you, and on the way maybe you can sell it to a few of your other neighbors. Here is a cost effective way of doing it. https://www.ubnt.com/broadband/
That is how businesses get started.

RedNeckGeek · Sep 25, 2015

kcflhrc said:
It is still required to provide phone service to all customers. In each state you will have what's called COLR, Carrier Of Last Resort. You have to give them phone service. Why? Because it is still regulated. HSI is not regulated. So, until it is, and all HSI providers have to play by the same rules, you get what you get. No one needs home telephone service anymore. Almost all of my installs are pure broadband, no dial tone. However, since we are a regulated Telco, we also have to give them dial tone just for 911 purposes. Do the cable companies have to do this? Nope. Until everyone has to play by the same rules you will have issues.

Cell phone service is sporadic here at best, even with a Wilson amplifier and antennas. The closest cable is miles away, and there's no DSL for at least that distance. Line of site to the nearest microwave Internet antennas is blocked by mountains or canyon walls. The only Internet service available is satellite, and in '10 when I bought the place, the speed and latency issues with the HughesNet setup prevented VOIP. This house was built in '07, and it had phone jacks in every room, but no phone line connected to the house. AT&T charged me over $3K to run the line a mile from the closest service, and I had to trench the last quarter mile on my own nickle. Before agreeing to AT&T's charges, which granted fell far short of the actual installation cost, I contacted the California Public Utilities Commission and was told there was no policy or requirement for AT&T to do the installation for free. So either you're mistaken about COLR or somebody at the CPUC doesn't know about it.

ultrarunner · Sep 26, 2015

truckdiagnostics said:
Amazing, what happened to old fashioned american ingenuity? If the neighbors have high speed internet and you don't, why not figure out a away to get it from them to you, and on the way maybe you can sell it to a few of your other neighbors. Here is a cost effective way of doing it. https://www.ubnt.com/broadband/
That is how businesses get started.

We acutally did this... the nearest home was a rental and I bought the hardware and paid for their service...

Ran into two problems... the router would need to be reset sometimes as much as a couple of times a week and sometimes it would be OK for a few weeks... this always necessitated a call asking them to check it... not optimal.

That family moved out and a new family moved in... there son works for Microsoft in Redmond and said the bootleg set was illegal and that was the end of that...

dwhite · Sep 26, 2015

We are now on ATT. Works fine (compared to sattelite.) Have 30gb family plan. I bought an unlocked Samsung S4, activated it for $15/month and it serves as a permanent hot spot picked up by router then broadcast to other household devices. We got rid of DishNet after the contract b/c it was slooow, expensive and we always went over the 15gb limit. We were paying $80/month for that.

There is a line-of-sight company called High Speed Link in our area of Virginia. Their prices are high but unlimited data. 5MBs for $95/month.

To all those whining about "only" having DSL: suck eggs.

California · Sep 26, 2015

ultrarunner said:
... the nearest home was a rental and I bought the hardware and paid for their service...

the router would need to be reset sometimes as much as a couple of times a week and sometimes it would be OK for a few weeks...

BTDT.

When I got DSL at the ranch (slow!) I offered wifi to the college student in the granny cabin out back. I told her just reboot the whole house at the breaker box if you need to reset the modem/router and I'm not around. Occasionally I returned and found the kitchen stove's clock flashing.

Incidentally a Netgear WN3000RP (plug-in repeater) hung in my back window worked better than just my router to send signal to the other building.

TomSeller · Sep 26, 2015

ultrarunner said:
We acutally did this... the nearest home was a rental and I bought the hardware and paid for their service...

Ran into two problems... the router would need to be reset sometimes as much as a couple of times a week and sometimes it would be OK for a few weeks... this always necessitated a call asking them to check it... not optimal.

That family moved out and a new family moved in... there son works for Microsoft in Redmond and said the bootleg set was illegal and that was the end of that...

I suppose technically it is reselling the service if he profited, but it sounds like you paid his bill. Either way it doesn't seem neighborly.

Not much different than Xfinity where they create a separate public hot spot off of your wifi.