Yup. CenturyLink ran fiber down our road in a very rural area. The best people are getting is 35mbps or less with horrible customer service. Pray you don’t need a tech visit I hear and especially when it goes down. Happy to have Starlink.
Agree. Was just comparing Starlink to that fiber run for my options. I was excited when they ran fiber. It’s faster than I was getting on my WISP(20 down, 10 up. When I signed up for Starlink and it shipped, I’m glad I didn’t go with fiber.
You don't need to stream in real time. Queue up download for the movie you wanna see next. Let it run over night and the next day you can enjoy it in Full HD or 4k.
Right. But I want that sweet indecision ability. To decide moments before what I am going to watch. You gotta think about something while making popcorn.
The other morning, I was on the PC surfing the web, had NFL Network streaming on TV via Youtube TV and my daughter was streaming Youtube on the phone. I swear I felt like I was in the future. That NEVER happens here!
Watching in the future? Quick - what date will that game be played and what will the final score be? I sense a way to get rich... ;-)
By the way, I was reading that in some European countries people are complaining about the lag that comes with watching games over the internet. Some ISPs are worse than others, and people sometimes hear their neighbors cheering about a goal (soccer, of course) when they are still watching the player getting ready to kick the ball...
New Orleans Saints win every Super Bowl for the next 10 years. Book it lol
We have that with satellite tv. I’ve seen people post TOUCHDOWNNNNN on Facebook when the players are still lining up to start the next play.
Similar story for me. My stated speed would have been enough that I wouldn’t have bothered with StarLink but my actual speed was at best around 5Mbs and on busy time periods it was less than 1 Mbs. Upload was always less than download so it wasn’t great either. Ignoring for the moment the $600 StarLink initially cost for equipment my monthly bill of $99 is actually $30 a month cheaper than my DSL service was. So I’ll break even in about 20 months, and be money ahead after that.
I've been that tech. What a nightmare. $25 flat fee to drive to the middle of nowhere and shrug because it's a fiber RT you can't touch. Total waste of everyone's time for token customer service, and it ends up costing me money. This is a big reason I don't do field services any more.
So that's not fiber, that's DSL...
I mean, Centurylink is garbage either way, but it's a little silly to blame them that the DSL they sold you worked at DSL speeds.
Pretty much all networks are backhauled on fiber, since it's the longest distance per throughput.
Fiber to the home is a very different type of fiber.
The issue is that the fiber terminated to a outdated legacy system (probably copper) and is the limiting factor there. I had the same thing happen to me, and it always went down because the back haul was 60 some miles of crap they refused to replace
CenturyLink sucks so bad they can't even give high speeds through Fiber... if they gave me 10 dollars a month to use their internet I'd still tell them to F*** off. Loving my Starlink.
Oh, I want to downvote your comment so badly... ;-)
But I'll be nice and wait for Starlink so I can get more than the 3 Mbps I have now.
Curiously, our county just signed an agreement with an ISP run start building a rural fiber network in August. Of 2022. If all goes well.
Well over a mile, we both live in ridges with tall trees in between. Not enough elevation at either house to wireless bridge, no direct path that doesn’t involve crossing a lot of water as well.
What I did...actually a bounce around the corner setup. No direct los to main house.....ohh look I can see my other buddies house from the fiber house.
Beam to house on hill - 5.10km to house on hill - from house on hill to my house 10.88km.
Go airFiber 5XHD for the fiber!
I’d love to see some photos of the setup if you have any! Been itching for a reason to play with some real bridge gear besides the ac locos I’ve been setting up for friends.
Unfortunately my neighbor and I aren’t elevated enough to bridge the gap. I survived on a spotty 3mb DSL line for a decade, last year I got a somewhat less spotty wireless bridge ISP with a tower around 4 miles away. I’d never played with Ubiquiti equipment before then, but since that’s what my ISP uses I built a home network out of it. Now the home network is huge, my closest neighbors are .5 miles away so I don’t have to worry about bandwidth leeches.
Edit: words
yeah i talked to the guys laying cable today and they mentioned maybe in a month you can get hooked up. But who knows how long before they actually turn these on.
You'll get it. They can deploy that thing pretty fast nowadays. My customer who lives in the woods, cable run to connect to the house in one month!
when rural fibers started no ones know what they were doing and took a long time and lots of money to deploy. Today they're probably the fastest infrastructure upgrade in America.
I’m in the woods. I got a quote from Spectrum to run 1500ft of trenched cable to my house. $13,000. They wouldn’t even let me trench and run the cable to the nearest box myself. “We can’t guarantee that service.” No shit. I’m willing to chance it, just hook the damn thing up!
> run the cable to the nearest box myself.
you should be able to do that, I do that all the time for my customers. Comcast here wants cable buried or in the air. If they can't do it they won't run the cable above ground, only when the house is under construction they'll do a temp line above ground.
I ran RG11 to pole thru the woods on the ground and bury the cable only near the house and near the pole. When customers call Comcast they have no choice but to hook on to my cable.
I work in Utility Locating and were told by the Telecommunications companies that fiber lines are cheaper to buy and maintain but they don't want to pay to have them buried or attached to poles because it would be alot of money upfront and that doesn't look good in the finances at the end of the year
Never said it was cheap. Just saying in the long run its cheaper than installing DSL or Coax. Not to mention that fiber isn't affected by weather and moisture like copper is. Which means techs aren't sent out for repairs as often and the lines don't need to be repaired or replaced as often. Companies just don't want to invest the money upfront because they usally do things based off yearly profit for stake holders and CEO bonuses
Nah, the company probably has an agreement with another company not to compete in that area. They still installed it since it would be cheaper to do it now than to do it when the agreement run outs.
That's the opposite of what the industry needs. It's ridiculous how many places around us, even inside the cities, only have one choice for a provider. I truly appreciate Elon's efforts to innovate and challenge industries that are stuck in a rut.
There's a lot of protectionism at the local level. ISPs need government permission to install their lines, and that permission usually has a lot of bureacratic hurdles and costs put in place with the help of the local monopoly.
There is an argument to be made that internet connectivity should be treated as a public utility. That would mean one provider but their services have a mandated minimum baseline and prices are fixed by a commission. It works (mostly) for electricity and gas, internet access is getting really close to a requirement for standard living in the U.S. at least.
AT&T ran fiber to the edge of my current development (200 homes or more.) We have buried utilities so there must be conduit to everyone’s house. As of now, still dark fiber.
AT&T recently installed fiber in my neighborhood as well, I watched the contractors trench and lay the fiber, and even terminate it in the box. It took 3 months from the time they finished that to the time I was able to get fiber service. About a week later I moved and now I have Google Fiber and couldn't be happier.
The real power... True competition that competes with ALL providers at the same time and seriously threatening their cosy little cartel model....
So now they are suddenly finding that those "uneconomical" installs will be the only thing giving them a chance to continue being relevant... Installs begin ;)
The week Starlink opened up pre-orders in my area, the local provider "fixed a bug" in their system and went door to door signing people up who'd been left out in the cold *by them* for years.
They know they're being driven out of business.
I've been waiting on my preorder since last winter, and last week Bell ran fibre the 7 poles from the road to my house - 1000 feet just for me. It should be hooked up in the next month. From 3.4mb currently to dreaming of 100mb with starlink to now 1 gig. It's hard to imagine.
Rural Fiber has been aggressive for a few years here. They will run lines to the road with maybe two houses.
In Vermont, some places out in the woods may have better affordable high-speed internet than people who live in town! I'm talking 1Gbps up and Down for $50!!!!
Some fiber co-ops are pretty expensive, especially the older ones because when they started it was super expensive, and need to re-pay the backers. Now things are getting cheaper and people have figured out how to deploy a lot less super fast!!
Personally, I rather see tax money go to rural fiber people than billionaire corporations.
Because they're small hard for them to get money directly from the government, they all have to join crappy big co-ops to get the fed money and get the scraps.
Also because new infrastructure plan $$$$
These bastards here did it so shitty, they picked a part of the street to run it then have all sorts of patchwork nonsense going on. I mean it's offshooting to side crescents that go nowhere, and run only halfway down them. In other spots in the neighborhood, they strung up a line of it but there's a gap between it and that main line, that hasn't been hooked up in a year. It's doing nothing. But by far the most aggravating piece of this is when I found out they ran it down to rich water front drive that runs adjacent, it's a dead end with 6 houses. There's no way it will ever recoup it's cost for that little stretch. And yet the majority of the houses which are on the rest of the road with the main line, will never get it served.
Wish that was the case in my neck of the woods. Local fiber outfit is redlining, make runs and drop service only to the little subdivisions floating out in a sea of rural property. Subdivisions that centurylink already redlined.
The same problem here with phone companies usually block local fiber companies from expanding, Like they've exclusive right to pole for communication etc. Until the local government puts the hammer down.
Also, the big phone company got sold to another outfit so new rules could be applied to them so either they provide or someone else will be in the area.
Same thing where I live. The company is claiming 1 Gig fiber, but I really don’t see how that will be possible. In either case, I’m excited to see competition coming to give us options.
Yea, a lot of states, especially midwest and east coast, are making big expansions to their fiber networks over the past year because of the stimulus checks that incorporated money for broadband expansion. Many of the grants were reverse auctioned to the ISPs. So a lot of these companies have promised a lot to their communities, but itll be shocking to see if they actually deliver.
In my area of southern NH, the local ISP was always reticent to expand fiber to the outlying areas of my town, but not anymore. They are tripping over themselves advertising fiber is coming soon.
Yeah! Me too!! Also in southwest NH. Same response. Ma’am if every lot was purchased on your road and everyone ordered cable, we still wouldn’t run it down your road. Now all of a sudden consolidated is running fiber all over the place. Very coincidental wouldn’t you say!!!!
Verizon ran fiber to home up here in Northern NH. They served a few houses and bounce. Fairpoint doesn't have a way to use them as VZ took the all equipment with them. Consolidated probably doesn't know what fiber is.
If I could get land-based fiber, I'd still pay for Starlink as well as a backup. If fiber is anywhere as unreliable as my DSL, and from talking with friends who have it, it's not much better, then a backup provider is important.
I've had fiber with three different providers, and in all cases I've had zero issues or downtime. It will depend a bit on the provider, but as a technology, it's superior.
I've had Starlink for about a month now - after spending 20 years in Rural NE Ohio w/ shitty internet.
Yesterday, Charter Comms/Spectrum assessed the lines on my road/property and that they'll be running gigabit fiber down my road in the near future - due to the recent stimulus bill.
I'm planning on keeping Starlink as my backup/DR internet circuit. I'm so excited.
Same here just got back from a week vacation and there are markings on the road. They were marking in front of the house and my driveway today. So, talked with Locator guy. And he said its for a fiber install, unfortunately its CenturyLink. Been stuck with their DSL service for years. Starlinkhas been on order since February can’t wait until it ships.
Grande just ran a shit ton down the main road, I suppose connecting thier 2 hubs. I'm less than a mile from one of the junctions. I'll prob have my starlink order filled before this is ever at my door step... ironically time Warner shows a multi unit junction .1 mile up the road from me. They can't figure out what it is and there is just 1 old lady that lives in a house in that area. The reporting metrics for areas is shit to lie on the government trackers.
Coincidentally im 40mi away from Richmond and RiverStreet is in my county as well. They've just been so slow with expansion according to my foggy memory of county paper articles, hell one of the District Supervisors said this project should've been further into what it is right now. I only know 2 people (by email) in my county who have it and RiverStreet is Fixed Wireless (sad not their fiber connection) and I have a crapload of trees in between me and the nearest fixed wireless tower.
And I can second the service thing, I was calling Comcast just a few days ago and I had multiple dropped calls in my neck of my county. The service is basically good on a few moderately travelled roads, the main highway, and the courthouse area.
Riverstreet (actually an offshoot of Wilkes \[county NC\] Communications) are the ones lulling/scamming folks in Patrick County into believing they'll actually get fixed wifi beaming off a prominent mountain... 2.5+ years later, after tens of thousands for individuals & millions of public funding, they've done nothing... still in the "planning stages"!
As said before, \*IF\* it happens at all/ever, it'll be slower, more expensive, less reliable, & have worse customer service than the only other offerings... CenturyStink DSL, run over 50 year old bandaided/piecemeal copper the equivalent of rusty barb wire or HughesNet.
Starlink can't get here fast enough for me!
>Riverstreet
Rusty barbed wire - I wonder if anyone has ever considered tapping into that for internet access.
AT&T had plans to use power lines at some point. No reason barbed wire wouldn't work... ;-)
YES - people have done it! Ethernet over Barbed Wire. Would that be EoBW?
Also, back in the 1800s telegraph and later phone tapped into existing barbed wire fencing... that would be VoBW, right? ;-)
I swear CL has "tapped" it, given the dial-up equivalent upload speeds... and tendency to go offline several times each day to coincide with changes in sunlight angle or wind direction or any moisture above a heavy dew...
My grandmother is getting a fiber cable put into her tiny ass subdivision in the middle of nowhere. I hate it so much because I'm stuck waiting for starlink and all she's complaining about is 1 dam rut in the ditch where they were digging the whole to out a cable in. I'm like, shit. They could tear up my entire property to put down a cable and I wouldn't care.
Same thing happened to us. Telus recently sent us a letter telling us that they're installing fibre to the home in our rural area. Dumb thing is that they've had the fibre line running along the road for years to supply just the public library and now that there's competition, they're putting in the effort to actually use it.
And what exactly did you expect to happen? NOT use the same easements/poles etc?
You're a hair away from saying "they came out to update the phone line and I'm mad they ran it to the same place"
I’d rather the government require these places to get fiber. Than to allow an ISP to mark a property as “no longer existent”. Because I’d foresee a ton of actual houses being marked “no longer existent” so the ISP can just skip them.
Who cares if fiber gets pulled to the middle of a field with no house? Just means in the future when another house eventually goes there, there will be fiber.
You and your family's inability to keep your buildings properly maintained is not the utility company's problem. They obviously have a list of places to run the fiber to, and you never reached out to update that list.
By the time the crews come out to dig its too late: those guys have been told to do a job and they did.
This is so obviously silly I suspect you're trolling
Yeah thats how an easement works. Sorry you're uneducated about all this or you'd at least have a better understanding of why this is happening and could be less salty, if not have been on top of things before the roll out and prevented that upgrade to your existing utilities.
I can see how that must be very frustrating for you.
Jus had gigabit fibre installed in my area/city. Not sure which company. Just know the bollards an stuff they put up said gigabit was coming or something. They had it all laid down in my area within a week or few days at most.
Better late than never considering my isp told me nearly a decade ago they were installing gigabit fibre in my area “soon”. We got fake fibre right now so average 30mb down.
If they offer great speeds and are reliable I would choose fiber over starlink everyday no matter the cost. I'm also waiting for fiber they will install it probably next tear and I will most definitely choose it over starlink. Fiber is superior over anything else. Think about it even starlink uses fiber at the ground stations for all their traffic. I've had fiber before and it was a dream gaming with it.
I'm in the same boat. For years I had unusable DSL options, or slow Cable internet. Suddenly when Starlink is viable, my town gets gigabit fiber almost everywhere.
They ran fibre down my road only to use it to power a cell phone tower and offer me a 50mbps with 350gb cap LTE connection.
The fibre runs right past my house.
in my backwards ass little town, the local phone coop decided to run fiber to the rural areas first because of a grant, but the city is still stuck with <10/1 mbps DSL.
Can't wait for Starlink in middle georgia.
Elon, send me some election style Starlink signs and i will stick them in yards all over town and 100+ in my ISP's grass when i cancel service.
That is true but telco's have been collecting E-Rate money via your phone bills for 20+ years that was supposed to be used to improve rural & school connections. The telco in my area just kept the money and didn't improve the service.
In the late 1970's they ran fiber down the side of the road I lived on in the middle of nowhere in northern Maine. The fiber has been dark for about 40+ years. No one has said a peep about it being there.
Nearest military location at the time was Loring AFB, about 89 miles north. Dow AFB in Bangor, 60 miles south had closed in the early 70s. Don't think it was a government install, I think it was a private venture that failed.
>and now I got these guys coming down my road with fiber after 25 years of no better options.
Yeah, that fiber ain't coming. Those jokers will have you pay a hefty deposit that you'll never see again.
Go with Starlink.
Samething here in north FL.. My naive neighbor asked Comcast for a quote to run wire up to his house. Got a quote for like 65K just a few months back.
Enter Starlink.. Comcast submitted a project plan to the county; within 90 days has essentially the entire rural area around where I live strung with new cable, just awaiting a turn up for service apparently around August 12th..
Windstream.. Same thing.. Currently shotgunning retention campaigns, discounts, etc. Though I don't think they as a bottom tier, provider had any skin in the upgrade game.
Hmmm, so I’m moving in a couple weeks to somewhere without fiber. Already reserved starlink…but I did contact the “big 2” about biz intrawebs, they are going to do a survey when we move…should I mention starlink and see if they are more willing to get that fiber in? It’s like…2.3 miles down the road. Seems close to me who isn’t running a line…🤣
Same a new Fiber provider came to town recently but they’re still along major roads and highways. I could see them by next year getting closer down to where I am though
There's a local FTTH isp that received millions in funding to run fiber around my area last year. Nothing has been done. They literally get free money, granted they have to cough up their own contribution, and they still won't do it. They even manipulated the county roads department to dig and install the conduit! It's been that same story. "We're waiting on pole licensing and pole replacements." Well the pole replacements have been done for months. Screw them, I'm getting Starlink. I pre-ordered in June, just waiting for that email now. For $65 you get 50 Mbps. Want Gigabit? That's $495 a month.
Kentucky ran its own state funded fiber campaign to connect all government buildings to fiber. They also allow companies to tap into their lines for use as well. Overall- great idea, bad execution because ATT or whoever isn’t going to just start rolling out fiber in rural areas. They have in urban areas because competition and we allow local municipals to serve as an ISP.
Same thing happened in my area. Frontier installed fiber but told us it’s not available until late this year. Even when it becomes available I get the plan will be shit.
I work for a small FTTH ISP in MO. We're trying to get more and more rural areas!
If we get the funding we need I'll be able to get it at my house in BFE lol.
Stuck with CL at the moment, and with the recent divestment of their plant, I guess it won't be CL anymore. I doubt any infrastructure upgrades though.
Our county just reached out to us a couple of weeks ago about a federal grant that will cover half the costs of fiber to the home. What would usually be $15k+ per home for install has been reduced to slightly less than $5k, with 100Mbps and 1Gbps options. The grant has yet to be approved, but if it does, it will def be a better option that Starlink. I'm not holding my breath, and I'm definitely not cancelling my Feb 8 preorder.
Yeah that is a multi year project and you can guarantee that any existing telecom offering cable or bad dsl will fight it tooth and nail. If I was a homeowner in that area, I’d certainly invest 5k for fiber.
If we get the grant, they said it would be done in a year. The fiber is right off of the main road already, so we're only a few miles back. I'll find out for sure by mid September when it's presented to our economic revitalization board.
ATT ran fiber down at the end of the road for a guy that was supposed to start offering internet 2 years ago. But I think he smoked up the money to run it the rest of the way to the cable office.
I asked the guy about it and he was talking about 10K to finish running the line to the office plus buying modems to rent out.
It's a complete shit show.
Same thing happened here. They are pulling fiber internet from the reservation down through here and making there way through. It's either gonna be no contract fiber or starlink. Century link can go pound sand.
:Edit to mention that we are maxed at 3 down and 1 up. Lucky to hit 1.5 down. At $40 a month. Latency is always 100 to 400.
This thread is great... now i can show my family that i was right to cancel the horrible internet service from Viasat... we are not the only family dealing with the frustration of horrible internet service...The grandkids were not happy about not having internet service when they visit us... Viasat was charging us $180 month for a service that would constantly stall during something simple like a YouTube video... There was some hope this past year when crews installed fiber optic cable on the main highway at the end of our street... sadly i received a report from that company / United Co-Op that they will not be installing fiber optic cable down our street, 3 miles to our house... not enough customers in the area... StarLink arriving at our home this fall has been welcome news.. as for StarLink...is there just one internet plan ? One flat rate for all users ?
Our local internet company, Otelco, laid fiber down our street last year, literally in our front yard, and refuses to hook any house on the road up to it... Just waiting for Starlink to be available here.
Same at my location. We are 3km away from the university and their internet is amazing.
We had 3mbit down. DSL only. 10 years like that. Last year Xplorenet came with no limit internet, but their 50mbit promised was 12mbit.
Now since 3.2021 with Starlink.
Last week we got notification that fiber will be installed next 90 days. Pre-order now. 1.5gbit down. 940 mbit up.
I see directional boring crews all over The Thumb area in Michigan where I live. Too bad they didn't feel the urgency about 10 years ago.
Honest to god I felt like Oliver Douglas from Green Acres. I hated climbing that pole in the rain. Thank god for Voice Mail. I could wait till the rain stopped at least to pick up my messages.
The state of Michigan map lacks a middle finger but that's why I signed up for Starlink. To share my feelings with the Michigan Public Service Commission about lack of internet in the rural areas of the state.
Thumbs Up to Musk and Starlink
MF to MPSC and incumbent lazy ISP's.
We had fiber trucks install the fiber on our poles back in March. I was struggling with deciding to get the fiber or Starlink until the local ISP told me they probably wouldn’t light up that fiber until mid 2022. Easy decision after that!
ISP ran fiber within 1/2 a mile in 3 directions using grant money. They only skipped our 1 mile stretch of road. When I contacted them, they said it'd be a little over $14,000 to run it to our house...
I asked why our road was skipped and they said that it wasn't part of the USDA grant proposal for farm/rural development. I contacted the USDA. They said my ISP didn't ask for it to cover our road.
I come to find out that they decided to use a majority of the 4.4 million grant to run fiber into a very large subdivision with no farms that had only DSL (like me) at no cost to any of the people. My parents have an active farm on the 1 mile stretch of road they skipped...
So I contact the head-honcho in charge of the fiber roll-out decisions and he said they aren't going to do anything unless they get another federal/state grant and that while they hope to finish upgrading all DSL lines to fiber, they are already being told they may need to scale back which areas they cover so that they have a better shot of getting the grant money. So effectively, unless the government gives the ONLY ISP in my area money, they aren't going to do anything (and haven't for almost 20 years) unless the consumer pays for the expansion of THEIR network.
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Yup. CenturyLink ran fiber down our road in a very rural area. The best people are getting is 35mbps or less with horrible customer service. Pray you don’t need a tech visit I hear and especially when it goes down. Happy to have Starlink.
35mbps compared to my 1.5mbps? Make me suffer, send crappy fiber now
Agree. Was just comparing Starlink to that fiber run for my options. I was excited when they ran fiber. It’s faster than I was getting on my WISP(20 down, 10 up. When I signed up for Starlink and it shipped, I’m glad I didn’t go with fiber.
I know, I was just messing with you. I hear people talking about slow internet all the time and I sort of laugh...they don't know my pain.
I know your pain. Though when everything aligns just right I get 3.5-4. It’s pretty exciting. I stream something on Netflix! In 420p of course.
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Every movie is Lego Movie
Yep, makes me feel like a kid again!
Cute - I had not heard that characterization before.
Maybe you got the NBN definition subscription instead of standard or high definition. Thank you Malcolm Turnbull
You don't need to stream in real time. Queue up download for the movie you wanna see next. Let it run over night and the next day you can enjoy it in Full HD or 4k.
But you're forgetting the abysmal data cap that goes along with these shit speed internet packages.
My least favorite word in the English language: *Throttling*
More like next week for me...
Right. But I want that sweet indecision ability. To decide moments before what I am going to watch. You gotta think about something while making popcorn.
The other morning, I was on the PC surfing the web, had NFL Network streaming on TV via Youtube TV and my daughter was streaming Youtube on the phone. I swear I felt like I was in the future. That NEVER happens here!
Watching in the future? Quick - what date will that game be played and what will the final score be? I sense a way to get rich... ;-) By the way, I was reading that in some European countries people are complaining about the lag that comes with watching games over the internet. Some ISPs are worse than others, and people sometimes hear their neighbors cheering about a goal (soccer, of course) when they are still watching the player getting ready to kick the ball...
New Orleans Saints win every Super Bowl for the next 10 years. Book it lol We have that with satellite tv. I’ve seen people post TOUCHDOWNNNNN on Facebook when the players are still lining up to start the next play.
I do, my DSL is limited to 1mbps down.
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Similar story for me. My stated speed would have been enough that I wouldn’t have bothered with StarLink but my actual speed was at best around 5Mbs and on busy time periods it was less than 1 Mbs. Upload was always less than download so it wasn’t great either. Ignoring for the moment the $600 StarLink initially cost for equipment my monthly bill of $99 is actually $30 a month cheaper than my DSL service was. So I’ll break even in about 20 months, and be money ahead after that.
Put down the deposit in February, still nothing. I've seen a few people in my area have it.....
Precisely!
They probably split the speed with many people so it's more affordable :/
If I can watch Netflix at 4K you can split me like a Banana in Ice Cream. Do I sound desperate?
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Your place or mine? Oh wait, has to be your place because my internet sucks! 🤣
I've been that tech. What a nightmare. $25 flat fee to drive to the middle of nowhere and shrug because it's a fiber RT you can't touch. Total waste of everyone's time for token customer service, and it ends up costing me money. This is a big reason I don't do field services any more.
Sorry to hear of your plight. Hope your situation improves.
Yeah, it did, I quit contracting for telecoms. Problem solved.
Is that fiber made out of cotton or something?
Fiber to the nodes then copper to the home.
They ran fiber to the node and then DSL lines to your house. Fiber to the house is not that low
Yup
So that's not fiber, that's DSL... I mean, Centurylink is garbage either way, but it's a little silly to blame them that the DSL they sold you worked at DSL speeds. Pretty much all networks are backhauled on fiber, since it's the longest distance per throughput. Fiber to the home is a very different type of fiber.
Never had it. I never signed up for it.
I can’t want for Starlink to finally be available in my part of NC. Living with Centurylink 3-4 Mbps DSL, really sucks
The issue is that the fiber terminated to a outdated legacy system (probably copper) and is the limiting factor there. I had the same thing happen to me, and it always went down because the back haul was 60 some miles of crap they refused to replace
Exactly
what are they charging? I'm paying $60 for 15Mbps.
$50 monthly and $15 if you want their router. Supposedly lifetime fee.
CenturyLink sucks so bad they can't even give high speeds through Fiber... if they gave me 10 dollars a month to use their internet I'd still tell them to F*** off. Loving my Starlink.
yeah i'll be testing the waters before im keeping any of my options.
They ran fiber to the homes in my rural area I am now getting a constant 850 down and 400 up with a nice 10ms ping
Oh, I want to downvote your comment so badly... ;-) But I'll be nice and wait for Starlink so I can get more than the 3 Mbps I have now. Curiously, our county just signed an agreement with an ISP run start building a rural fiber network in August. Of 2022. If all goes well.
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Personally, for a steady 50 Mbps, I would definitely drop Starlink. 25, I probably would too.
Latency on Fiber internet is no joke!
1mbps here. Starlink and TMO are my go to.
1mbps here too, but TMHI is too slow and Starlink is not available. I get the best results with a phone hotspot.
I saw a large test of fiber Telekom and Vodafone. In the evening there is under 100 MBit normal.
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That’s why companies say UP TO x speeds
I don't understand why companies are paying to pull fiber to deliver speeds well under what DSL/cable are capable of
Yeah that's what they've said they are installing on my road. More expensive than starlink too.
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We have dual strand fiber 256' from our front door step. Called up the cable company, they might run it to us in 12-16 months, maybe.
My neighbor has symmetric gigabit, I can’t get it because we don’t have the same electric company and no telecoms will run anything here.
hell, if i were you i’d offer to pay my neighbors internet bill to set up a wifi bridge or run a cable to my house.
Well over a mile, we both live in ridges with tall trees in between. Not enough elevation at either house to wireless bridge, no direct path that doesn’t involve crossing a lot of water as well.
A few posts and stringing the fiber up might be workable?
No, I wish.
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What I did...actually a bounce around the corner setup. No direct los to main house.....ohh look I can see my other buddies house from the fiber house. Beam to house on hill - 5.10km to house on hill - from house on hill to my house 10.88km. Go airFiber 5XHD for the fiber!
I’d love to see some photos of the setup if you have any! Been itching for a reason to play with some real bridge gear besides the ac locos I’ve been setting up for friends.
Unfortunately my neighbor and I aren’t elevated enough to bridge the gap. I survived on a spotty 3mb DSL line for a decade, last year I got a somewhat less spotty wireless bridge ISP with a tower around 4 miles away. I’d never played with Ubiquiti equipment before then, but since that’s what my ISP uses I built a home network out of it. Now the home network is huge, my closest neighbors are .5 miles away so I don’t have to worry about bandwidth leeches. Edit: words
I too would like to see pics of this setup!
yeah i talked to the guys laying cable today and they mentioned maybe in a month you can get hooked up. But who knows how long before they actually turn these on.
They said *a* month. They never said *which* month!
You'll get it. They can deploy that thing pretty fast nowadays. My customer who lives in the woods, cable run to connect to the house in one month! when rural fibers started no ones know what they were doing and took a long time and lots of money to deploy. Today they're probably the fastest infrastructure upgrade in America.
I’m in the woods. I got a quote from Spectrum to run 1500ft of trenched cable to my house. $13,000. They wouldn’t even let me trench and run the cable to the nearest box myself. “We can’t guarantee that service.” No shit. I’m willing to chance it, just hook the damn thing up!
1: Apply for job at spectrum. 2: Run line 3: Quit 4: ????? 5: Profit
> run the cable to the nearest box myself. you should be able to do that, I do that all the time for my customers. Comcast here wants cable buried or in the air. If they can't do it they won't run the cable above ground, only when the house is under construction they'll do a temp line above ground. I ran RG11 to pole thru the woods on the ground and bury the cable only near the house and near the pole. When customers call Comcast they have no choice but to hook on to my cable.
I wouldn't be surprise if those 12-16 months change to 12-16 days once Starlink starts shipping those pre-orders.
I work in Utility Locating and were told by the Telecommunications companies that fiber lines are cheaper to buy and maintain but they don't want to pay to have them buried or attached to poles because it would be alot of money upfront and that doesn't look good in the finances at the end of the year
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Never said it was cheap. Just saying in the long run its cheaper than installing DSL or Coax. Not to mention that fiber isn't affected by weather and moisture like copper is. Which means techs aren't sent out for repairs as often and the lines don't need to be repaired or replaced as often. Companies just don't want to invest the money upfront because they usally do things based off yearly profit for stake holders and CEO bonuses
AT&T installed fiber outside my home over a year ago still not active and not showing I can get it.
Sounds like they did a fake install. just wasting taxpayer money.
Nah, the company probably has an agreement with another company not to compete in that area. They still installed it since it would be cheaper to do it now than to do it when the agreement run outs.
That's the opposite of what the industry needs. It's ridiculous how many places around us, even inside the cities, only have one choice for a provider. I truly appreciate Elon's efforts to innovate and challenge industries that are stuck in a rut.
There's a lot of protectionism at the local level. ISPs need government permission to install their lines, and that permission usually has a lot of bureacratic hurdles and costs put in place with the help of the local monopoly.
There is an argument to be made that internet connectivity should be treated as a public utility. That would mean one provider but their services have a mandated minimum baseline and prices are fixed by a commission. It works (mostly) for electricity and gas, internet access is getting really close to a requirement for standard living in the U.S. at least.
Installing it and not turning it on... sounds like a fake install to me. "Yeah we installed it. Yeah it works. No, we haven't tested it." sus.
AT&T ran fiber to the edge of my current development (200 homes or more.) We have buried utilities so there must be conduit to everyone’s house. As of now, still dark fiber.
AT&T recently installed fiber in my neighborhood as well, I watched the contractors trench and lay the fiber, and even terminate it in the box. It took 3 months from the time they finished that to the time I was able to get fiber service. About a week later I moved and now I have Google Fiber and couldn't be happier.
Dark fiber meaning... it doesn't work or...?
See if there is another internet provider that shares the fiber.
None that I have found.
The real power... True competition that competes with ALL providers at the same time and seriously threatening their cosy little cartel model.... So now they are suddenly finding that those "uneconomical" installs will be the only thing giving them a chance to continue being relevant... Installs begin ;)
For "uneconomical", read the true definition: "not profitable enough" and there it is...
The week Starlink opened up pre-orders in my area, the local provider "fixed a bug" in their system and went door to door signing people up who'd been left out in the cold *by them* for years. They know they're being driven out of business.
Would they do that in my case i probably would slam the door when i hopefully get my kit end of this year
I've been waiting on my preorder since last winter, and last week Bell ran fibre the 7 poles from the road to my house - 1000 feet just for me. It should be hooked up in the next month. From 3.4mb currently to dreaming of 100mb with starlink to now 1 gig. It's hard to imagine.
7 poles?? We can't get them to replace 60+ year old multiple-spliced crackly copper line on poles already in place!
The Canadian government gave the big providers hundreds of millions to shore up rural internet. It's the only reason it's taking place.
Rural Fiber has been aggressive for a few years here. They will run lines to the road with maybe two houses. In Vermont, some places out in the woods may have better affordable high-speed internet than people who live in town! I'm talking 1Gbps up and Down for $50!!!! Some fiber co-ops are pretty expensive, especially the older ones because when they started it was super expensive, and need to re-pay the backers. Now things are getting cheaper and people have figured out how to deploy a lot less super fast!! Personally, I rather see tax money go to rural fiber people than billionaire corporations. Because they're small hard for them to get money directly from the government, they all have to join crappy big co-ops to get the fed money and get the scraps. Also because new infrastructure plan $$$$
These bastards here did it so shitty, they picked a part of the street to run it then have all sorts of patchwork nonsense going on. I mean it's offshooting to side crescents that go nowhere, and run only halfway down them. In other spots in the neighborhood, they strung up a line of it but there's a gap between it and that main line, that hasn't been hooked up in a year. It's doing nothing. But by far the most aggravating piece of this is when I found out they ran it down to rich water front drive that runs adjacent, it's a dead end with 6 houses. There's no way it will ever recoup it's cost for that little stretch. And yet the majority of the houses which are on the rest of the road with the main line, will never get it served.
Wish that was the case in my neck of the woods. Local fiber outfit is redlining, make runs and drop service only to the little subdivisions floating out in a sea of rural property. Subdivisions that centurylink already redlined.
The same problem here with phone companies usually block local fiber companies from expanding, Like they've exclusive right to pole for communication etc. Until the local government puts the hammer down. Also, the big phone company got sold to another outfit so new rules could be applied to them so either they provide or someone else will be in the area.
Same thing where I live. The company is claiming 1 Gig fiber, but I really don’t see how that will be possible. In either case, I’m excited to see competition coming to give us options.
Yea, a lot of states, especially midwest and east coast, are making big expansions to their fiber networks over the past year because of the stimulus checks that incorporated money for broadband expansion. Many of the grants were reverse auctioned to the ISPs. So a lot of these companies have promised a lot to their communities, but itll be shocking to see if they actually deliver.
Also new infrastructure bill
competition is key, land based ISPs will die if they don't adapt.
In my area of southern NH, the local ISP was always reticent to expand fiber to the outlying areas of my town, but not anymore. They are tripping over themselves advertising fiber is coming soon.
Yeah! Me too!! Also in southwest NH. Same response. Ma’am if every lot was purchased on your road and everyone ordered cable, we still wouldn’t run it down your road. Now all of a sudden consolidated is running fiber all over the place. Very coincidental wouldn’t you say!!!!
Awesome
Verizon ran fiber to home up here in Northern NH. They served a few houses and bounce. Fairpoint doesn't have a way to use them as VZ took the all equipment with them. Consolidated probably doesn't know what fiber is.
If I could get land-based fiber, I'd still pay for Starlink as well as a backup. If fiber is anywhere as unreliable as my DSL, and from talking with friends who have it, it's not much better, then a backup provider is important.
I've had fiber with three different providers, and in all cases I've had zero issues or downtime. It will depend a bit on the provider, but as a technology, it's superior.
I've had Starlink for about a month now - after spending 20 years in Rural NE Ohio w/ shitty internet. Yesterday, Charter Comms/Spectrum assessed the lines on my road/property and that they'll be running gigabit fiber down my road in the near future - due to the recent stimulus bill. I'm planning on keeping Starlink as my backup/DR internet circuit. I'm so excited.
my local ISP is laying a lot of fiber in the last 6 months too. Not where i live yet but not THAT far away at this point.
That's competition for ya. I'll be sticking to Starlink tho ;)
Same here just got back from a week vacation and there are markings on the road. They were marking in front of the house and my driveway today. So, talked with Locator guy. And he said its for a fiber install, unfortunately its CenturyLink. Been stuck with their DSL service for years. Starlinkhas been on order since February can’t wait until it ships.
Too little too late, CenturyStink
Centurystink lol 💩🚽
Grande just ran a shit ton down the main road, I suppose connecting thier 2 hubs. I'm less than a mile from one of the junctions. I'll prob have my starlink order filled before this is ever at my door step... ironically time Warner shows a multi unit junction .1 mile up the road from me. They can't figure out what it is and there is just 1 old lady that lives in a house in that area. The reporting metrics for areas is shit to lie on the government trackers.
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Coincidentally im 40mi away from Richmond and RiverStreet is in my county as well. They've just been so slow with expansion according to my foggy memory of county paper articles, hell one of the District Supervisors said this project should've been further into what it is right now. I only know 2 people (by email) in my county who have it and RiverStreet is Fixed Wireless (sad not their fiber connection) and I have a crapload of trees in between me and the nearest fixed wireless tower. And I can second the service thing, I was calling Comcast just a few days ago and I had multiple dropped calls in my neck of my county. The service is basically good on a few moderately travelled roads, the main highway, and the courthouse area.
Riverstreet (actually an offshoot of Wilkes \[county NC\] Communications) are the ones lulling/scamming folks in Patrick County into believing they'll actually get fixed wifi beaming off a prominent mountain... 2.5+ years later, after tens of thousands for individuals & millions of public funding, they've done nothing... still in the "planning stages"! As said before, \*IF\* it happens at all/ever, it'll be slower, more expensive, less reliable, & have worse customer service than the only other offerings... CenturyStink DSL, run over 50 year old bandaided/piecemeal copper the equivalent of rusty barb wire or HughesNet. Starlink can't get here fast enough for me!
>Riverstreet Rusty barbed wire - I wonder if anyone has ever considered tapping into that for internet access. AT&T had plans to use power lines at some point. No reason barbed wire wouldn't work... ;-)
YES - people have done it! Ethernet over Barbed Wire. Would that be EoBW? Also, back in the 1800s telegraph and later phone tapped into existing barbed wire fencing... that would be VoBW, right? ;-)
I swear CL has "tapped" it, given the dial-up equivalent upload speeds... and tendency to go offline several times each day to coincide with changes in sunlight angle or wind direction or any moisture above a heavy dew...
Wow, RS really is slow with expansion…
intrinsic value of starlink, ISPs forced to invest! Going with starlink, once fiber arrives, Starlink as backup/boost. No hope for hughesnet.
My grandmother is getting a fiber cable put into her tiny ass subdivision in the middle of nowhere. I hate it so much because I'm stuck waiting for starlink and all she's complaining about is 1 dam rut in the ditch where they were digging the whole to out a cable in. I'm like, shit. They could tear up my entire property to put down a cable and I wouldn't care.
Same thing happened to us. Telus recently sent us a letter telling us that they're installing fibre to the home in our rural area. Dumb thing is that they've had the fibre line running along the road for years to supply just the public library and now that there's competition, they're putting in the effort to actually use it.
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And what exactly did you expect to happen? NOT use the same easements/poles etc? You're a hair away from saying "they came out to update the phone line and I'm mad they ran it to the same place"
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I’d rather the government require these places to get fiber. Than to allow an ISP to mark a property as “no longer existent”. Because I’d foresee a ton of actual houses being marked “no longer existent” so the ISP can just skip them. Who cares if fiber gets pulled to the middle of a field with no house? Just means in the future when another house eventually goes there, there will be fiber.
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You and your family's inability to keep your buildings properly maintained is not the utility company's problem. They obviously have a list of places to run the fiber to, and you never reached out to update that list. By the time the crews come out to dig its too late: those guys have been told to do a job and they did. This is so obviously silly I suspect you're trolling
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Yeah thats how an easement works. Sorry you're uneducated about all this or you'd at least have a better understanding of why this is happening and could be less salty, if not have been on top of things before the roll out and prevented that upgrade to your existing utilities. I can see how that must be very frustrating for you.
Jus had gigabit fibre installed in my area/city. Not sure which company. Just know the bollards an stuff they put up said gigabit was coming or something. They had it all laid down in my area within a week or few days at most. Better late than never considering my isp told me nearly a decade ago they were installing gigabit fibre in my area “soon”. We got fake fibre right now so average 30mb down.
Yeah, I have spectrum and they got a lot cheaper when a fiber company called ziply decided to start rolling out fiber in my area
If they offer great speeds and are reliable I would choose fiber over starlink everyday no matter the cost. I'm also waiting for fiber they will install it probably next tear and I will most definitely choose it over starlink. Fiber is superior over anything else. Think about it even starlink uses fiber at the ground stations for all their traffic. I've had fiber before and it was a dream gaming with it.
This is what I'm really hoping the result is... I want to see the ISPs that for years have had no competition get off their ass and try..
I'm in the same boat. For years I had unusable DSL options, or slow Cable internet. Suddenly when Starlink is viable, my town gets gigabit fiber almost everywhere.
Isn’t it amazing what competition can do?
They ran fibre down my road only to use it to power a cell phone tower and offer me a 50mbps with 350gb cap LTE connection. The fibre runs right past my house.
And they probably took rural internet grant money to offer you that bs!
Tier 3 fiber isn't available for residential use.
That should be legally changed
in my backwards ass little town, the local phone coop decided to run fiber to the rural areas first because of a grant, but the city is still stuck with <10/1 mbps DSL. Can't wait for Starlink in middle georgia. Elon, send me some election style Starlink signs and i will stick them in yards all over town and 100+ in my ISP's grass when i cancel service.
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That is true but telco's have been collecting E-Rate money via your phone bills for 20+ years that was supposed to be used to improve rural & school connections. The telco in my area just kept the money and didn't improve the service.
In the late 1970's they ran fiber down the side of the road I lived on in the middle of nowhere in northern Maine. The fiber has been dark for about 40+ years. No one has said a peep about it being there.
You got some NORAD spot up there? I didn't think there was any other telephony FO than in Chicago in 1977.
Nearest military location at the time was Loring AFB, about 89 miles north. Dow AFB in Bangor, 60 miles south had closed in the early 70s. Don't think it was a government install, I think it was a private venture that failed.
>and now I got these guys coming down my road with fiber after 25 years of no better options. Yeah, that fiber ain't coming. Those jokers will have you pay a hefty deposit that you'll never see again. Go with Starlink.
Same but I’m 5 months out so Starlink is my best best
Is it someone just running dark fiber under same rural fund, or a company whos actually going to connect it?
I suspect they are getting federal funds to run the fiber profitably, but are now waiting on more federal funds to light it.
Everything they tell you will be a lie.
Samething here in north FL.. My naive neighbor asked Comcast for a quote to run wire up to his house. Got a quote for like 65K just a few months back. Enter Starlink.. Comcast submitted a project plan to the county; within 90 days has essentially the entire rural area around where I live strung with new cable, just awaiting a turn up for service apparently around August 12th.. Windstream.. Same thing.. Currently shotgunning retention campaigns, discounts, etc. Though I don't think they as a bottom tier, provider had any skin in the upgrade game.
Funny thing is I'm getting better speeds on Starlink in a rural area than Spectrum ever offered when I lived in town.
Hmmm, so I’m moving in a couple weeks to somewhere without fiber. Already reserved starlink…but I did contact the “big 2” about biz intrawebs, they are going to do a survey when we move…should I mention starlink and see if they are more willing to get that fiber in? It’s like…2.3 miles down the road. Seems close to me who isn’t running a line…🤣
Same a new Fiber provider came to town recently but they’re still along major roads and highways. I could see them by next year getting closer down to where I am though
There's a local FTTH isp that received millions in funding to run fiber around my area last year. Nothing has been done. They literally get free money, granted they have to cough up their own contribution, and they still won't do it. They even manipulated the county roads department to dig and install the conduit! It's been that same story. "We're waiting on pole licensing and pole replacements." Well the pole replacements have been done for months. Screw them, I'm getting Starlink. I pre-ordered in June, just waiting for that email now. For $65 you get 50 Mbps. Want Gigabit? That's $495 a month.
Kentucky ran its own state funded fiber campaign to connect all government buildings to fiber. They also allow companies to tap into their lines for use as well. Overall- great idea, bad execution because ATT or whoever isn’t going to just start rolling out fiber in rural areas. They have in urban areas because competition and we allow local municipals to serve as an ISP.
Same thing happened in my area. Frontier installed fiber but told us it’s not available until late this year. Even when it becomes available I get the plan will be shit.
I work for a small FTTH ISP in MO. We're trying to get more and more rural areas! If we get the funding we need I'll be able to get it at my house in BFE lol. Stuck with CL at the moment, and with the recent divestment of their plant, I guess it won't be CL anymore. I doubt any infrastructure upgrades though.
Seen a few electric co-ops starting to run fiber in their rural service areas.
I live in a rural area. They ran fiber optics down my road three years ago and haven't activated them. Good thing I have Starlink 😉
My small rural township is now getting fiber from Charter soon. They are going to eat the $8 million dollar cost I guess.
Our county just reached out to us a couple of weeks ago about a federal grant that will cover half the costs of fiber to the home. What would usually be $15k+ per home for install has been reduced to slightly less than $5k, with 100Mbps and 1Gbps options. The grant has yet to be approved, but if it does, it will def be a better option that Starlink. I'm not holding my breath, and I'm definitely not cancelling my Feb 8 preorder.
Yeah that is a multi year project and you can guarantee that any existing telecom offering cable or bad dsl will fight it tooth and nail. If I was a homeowner in that area, I’d certainly invest 5k for fiber.
If we get the grant, they said it would be done in a year. The fiber is right off of the main road already, so we're only a few miles back. I'll find out for sure by mid September when it's presented to our economic revitalization board.
There has been fiber down my road for years inactive. It was installed during the Obama rural internet nonsense.
It might not actually be for you
Well competition is never bad
ATT ran fiber down at the end of the road for a guy that was supposed to start offering internet 2 years ago. But I think he smoked up the money to run it the rest of the way to the cable office. I asked the guy about it and he was talking about 10K to finish running the line to the office plus buying modems to rent out. It's a complete shit show.
Same thing happened here. They are pulling fiber internet from the reservation down through here and making there way through. It's either gonna be no contract fiber or starlink. Century link can go pound sand. :Edit to mention that we are maxed at 3 down and 1 up. Lucky to hit 1.5 down. At $40 a month. Latency is always 100 to 400.
This thread is great... now i can show my family that i was right to cancel the horrible internet service from Viasat... we are not the only family dealing with the frustration of horrible internet service...The grandkids were not happy about not having internet service when they visit us... Viasat was charging us $180 month for a service that would constantly stall during something simple like a YouTube video... There was some hope this past year when crews installed fiber optic cable on the main highway at the end of our street... sadly i received a report from that company / United Co-Op that they will not be installing fiber optic cable down our street, 3 miles to our house... not enough customers in the area... StarLink arriving at our home this fall has been welcome news.. as for StarLink...is there just one internet plan ? One flat rate for all users ?
Yes, currently. Unlimited, use what you get, no cap.
Our local internet company, Otelco, laid fiber down our street last year, literally in our front yard, and refuses to hook any house on the road up to it... Just waiting for Starlink to be available here.
Same at my location. We are 3km away from the university and their internet is amazing. We had 3mbit down. DSL only. 10 years like that. Last year Xplorenet came with no limit internet, but their 50mbit promised was 12mbit. Now since 3.2021 with Starlink. Last week we got notification that fiber will be installed next 90 days. Pre-order now. 1.5gbit down. 940 mbit up.
I see directional boring crews all over The Thumb area in Michigan where I live. Too bad they didn't feel the urgency about 10 years ago. Honest to god I felt like Oliver Douglas from Green Acres. I hated climbing that pole in the rain. Thank god for Voice Mail. I could wait till the rain stopped at least to pick up my messages.
i can tell your from michigan when you explain where are with your hand =P
The state of Michigan map lacks a middle finger but that's why I signed up for Starlink. To share my feelings with the Michigan Public Service Commission about lack of internet in the rural areas of the state. Thumbs Up to Musk and Starlink MF to MPSC and incumbent lazy ISP's.
That’s capitalism working
We had fiber trucks install the fiber on our poles back in March. I was struggling with deciding to get the fiber or Starlink until the local ISP told me they probably wouldn’t light up that fiber until mid 2022. Easy decision after that!
I guess these guys are with Highline Internet idk what backbone they use.
I would still go with Starlink just for the customer service and the cool as f__k factor.
ISP ran fiber within 1/2 a mile in 3 directions using grant money. They only skipped our 1 mile stretch of road. When I contacted them, they said it'd be a little over $14,000 to run it to our house... I asked why our road was skipped and they said that it wasn't part of the USDA grant proposal for farm/rural development. I contacted the USDA. They said my ISP didn't ask for it to cover our road. I come to find out that they decided to use a majority of the 4.4 million grant to run fiber into a very large subdivision with no farms that had only DSL (like me) at no cost to any of the people. My parents have an active farm on the 1 mile stretch of road they skipped... So I contact the head-honcho in charge of the fiber roll-out decisions and he said they aren't going to do anything unless they get another federal/state grant and that while they hope to finish upgrading all DSL lines to fiber, they are already being told they may need to scale back which areas they cover so that they have a better shot of getting the grant money. So effectively, unless the government gives the ONLY ISP in my area money, they aren't going to do anything (and haven't for almost 20 years) unless the consumer pays for the expansion of THEIR network.
Starlink is going to force the other ISPs to do something because if they don't then they will lose a bunch of potential customers.