Internet in the Country

[RedNeckGeek]

By the way, the FCC updated the map today on all of the areas in the U.S. where the carriers accepted Connect America Fund $$, Phase 2. Link: https://www.fcc.gov/maps/caf-2-accepted-map

You can zoom in and check your area. What it actually means who knows? And they have six years to implement.

Thanks for publishing that map.

Most of Northern California is white, in Butte County, specifically southeast of Paradise, there's nothing. Not holding my breath...

 

[kcflhrc]

I'm still running the 1995 Nortel System here at Hospital... have to say it has been relatively trouble free.

Nortel made very reliable equipment. Their downfall pretty much began in conjunction with VOIP. They seemed to struggle with this new technology. I personally maintain several large hospitals that have 20+ year old Nortel PBX's.

 

[dmccarty]

Internet for rural America is going to change a whole lot in the not too far future.

Today, CenturyLink reconfirmed our commitment to rural America by accepting 33 statewide offers from the Federal Communications Commission to deliver fast broadband speeds to more than 1.2 million locations through the Connect America Fund (CAF). CAF is designed to accelerate the build-out of broadband to rural areas where the costs of deploying service are high through financial partnerships with broadband companies. By accepting approximately $500 million a year for seven years from CAF, CenturyLink will be able to bring Internet service with speeds of at least 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload to more than a million people who do not currently have the broadband access that many of us enjoy today.

I saw this report and Century Link in NC is going to expand their network. Believe it when I see it at my house. We have 1.5 Mbps down and 750 Kbps up. Neighbors to our west and south, along different roads, have 10 Mbps down even though they are farther from town and the central office. Century put up boxes out their way to get Internet and faster speeds but Century will not upgrade our lines at all. We have tried several times over the years.

There are at least two fiber lines that running down the major road where our access road ends.

A small rural phone company, might be a Coop, has been installing fiber to areas on the other side of the county. Last night I read that the fiber was getting closer to us. I would pay double our current DSL cost to get fiber and get rid of Century Link. Nothing but problems with them over the years, multiple service calls and constant service interruptions. But they are a monopoly and they know it.

Later,
Dan

 

[kcflhrc]

All I can say is most that are not in the Telecom Business have no idea what it takes to make it all happen, keep that in mind when you are bashing the local Telco's. And on another note, while we are talking about it, keep in mind the technician is doing the best he can do with the tools he has. Unfortunately, we, the technician, are at the front line of the pissed off customer. It's not uncommon in my area for a technician to have 18 trouble tickets to do before he gets to go home for the evening. So when you are doing your 8 to 5 and the tech arrives at 8:00 PM, just remember, he has already been working for 13 hours and the last thing he wants to hear is more crap from the customer.

 

[dmccarty]

By the way, the FCC updated the map today on all of the areas in the U.S. where the carriers accepted Connect America Fund $$, Phase 2. Link: https://www.fcc.gov/maps/caf-2-accepted-map

You can zoom in and check your area. What it actually means who knows? And they have six years to implement.

Interesting. Our neighbor hood is not colored in on the map so it does not appear our service will improve. However, the farm to our east, with two houses on it, will have improved access. I would think they already have DSL speeds at least as fast as ours since the service passes right in front of their land going to the central office. This farm ain't rural either, it is right next to town....

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

All I can say is most that are not in the Telecom Business have no idea what it takes to make it all happen, keep that in mind when you are bashing the local Telco's. And on another note, while we are talking about it, keep in mind the technician is doing the best he can do with the tools he has. Unfortunately, we, the technician, are at the front line of the pissed off customer. It's not uncommon in my area for a technician to have 18 trouble tickets to do before he gets to go home for the evening. So when you are doing your 8 to 5 and the tech arrives at 8:00 PM, just remember, he has already been working for 13 hours and the last thing he wants to hear is more crap from the customer.

We have only had one bad tech show up at the house. The rest have just done what they can do but the reality is that the network has issues and Century is not spending the money at our place to improve speed or reliability to our neighborhood or to other areas in the county. This has been a long term problem with Century in many parts of the county that managed to have DSL service. A Century tech actually got on our local county website and validated what people where seeing. Surprised he kept his job.

I don't work a 40 hour work week and I don't get paid OT either.

We have never given crap to the tech's but I sure do have to take at work.

Later,
Dan

 

[sleepybozo]

I'm glad the FCC is keeping the citizenry updated, but, ironically, I'm on a really crappy dial-up connection (the only one available that I can afford) and don't have the bandwidth to see the map.

 

[rekees4300]

By the way, the FCC updated the map today on all of the areas in the U.S. where the carriers accepted Connect America Fund $$, Phase 2. Link: https://www.fcc.gov/maps/caf-2-accepted-map

You can zoom in and check your area. What it actually means who knows? And they have six years to implement.

Looked at the map. Totally useless for my area ... street view only shows major roads so can't tell for sure exactly what is or isn't covered. :thumbdown:

 

[ultrarunner]

Just looked at the map and even being 10 minutes from the State Capital there area is not included.

A week ago I returned from the little country of Austria and it is virtually all fiber... even to little mountain "Villages" with a couple of homes...

Back in 2000 the country decided it was in their best interest to commit to high speed internet and pulled fiber to just about every outpost...

It was amazing being in a mountain hut that required a 2 hour hike and is only occupied in summer to find High Speed Internet and Wifi... Cell Phone and Free Satellite TV are also excellent...

Austria was an early adopter of Satellite TV because the mountainous terrain made line of sight problematic for those down in the valleys...

As they say... we have the technology.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I used to work at a company that had two installations located about 1500 miles apart. Back in about 2000, the smaller site where I worked replaced the copper network infrastructure with glass fiber, spending a significant portion of that year's IT budget to do it. They've never looked back. The other site, about 10x the size, is still limping along on copper even though they also have 10x the users. Portions of the network have been replaced with fiber, but only as a last ditch effort. Different sites, different management philosophies. Same between the USA and the rest of the world I guess.

BTW, I checked my records and the last time I talked to the local WIMAX Internet service provider was over 18 months ago, so I tried again just now. This time I was able to sign up and schedule an installation for next week, but with the proviso that there would be no charge if they couldn't get line-of-sight to a tower. I'm not optimistic they'll have success, but at least there will be a tech with a meter on site to make the call, not someone on the phone looking at a Google map. But you can bet I'll have my fingers crossed!

:thumbsup:

The service will cost the same as the current satellite connection, but have a 150Gb data cap, 15x what I have now. It won't be as fast at 6Mbps down/1.5Mbps up, but there will be no latency to speak of and it compares favorably to the DSL service I had back in the city, which was satisfactory for my needs. If that's not good enough, I can upgrade to faster services with higher data caps anytime at no charge other than a higher monthly fee. On the down side, there's a $250 equipment fee and it'll cost me $60 to cancel the satellite contract. I'd pay ten times that if it actually works and consider myself lucky!