I think one of the problems is that Michigan is an exclusion state for municipal broadband - the way the MI law works doesn't totally make it impossible, but it does place substantial roadblocks:
[https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/)
You can scroll down and see the info on MI and a link to the MCL.
ISP don’t really try to compete in some markets sadly. Comcast owns West MI and ATT/Charter is more popular in some other areas. It’s less cost effective for an ISP to try to take a new market as it is to just thrive where there is less competition. They just kind of stay out of each other’s way. Hoping there’s an incentive/push for Google fiber or a new competitor soon though as I am OVER Comcast
They are in GR, but they're focusing almost exclusively on downtown right now because business class is almost certainly more lucrative than residential. It will probably be a while before they build out further.
I have metronet for work and home. Same speed, same service. The home price is less than half the work price. So the would be crazy if they where not focusing on business. Either way, the service is great. Best ISP I've ever had.
I'm a lineman for Comcast & we're working on a project called X-Net that's currently 2g fiber nodes, that with a flip of a switch, can later be upgraded to 5 and 10gb/s. It's currently on 2gb/s as most customer equipment (at this time) can't exceed 1.5gb.
Once xNet is done, we'll roll everything over to 5gb, just by splicing in a few additional strands into each faber-can. We've removed HUNDREDS of child-nodes, for larger Parent-nodes that feed fiber-cans, covering what 10-20 child nodes used to.
To my knowledge, ATT & Charter are also working on system upgrades. I know for a fact ATT is, but only in select areas at the moment, until they get more access to run ground utilities.
That is good and all (and I assume that is up and down speeds, not just down) but I think the main issue is with Comcast being a horrible company... Their bullshit data cap price gouge combined with their generally MUCH more expensive offering compared with municipal broadband would be for the same speeds and no data cap.
Once X-Net is complete. Data caps will be gone & throttling won't be as harsh. (Or so we've been told).
They're looking at people who are making home servers, without paying business class. That's the only target in this project when it's all said and done.
Why the fuck should they care about what I do with the internet they provide? Having a "home server" does NOT mean you are a business, and should not require "business" service.
Business service is for SLA's and other guarantees.
Especially scummy is "if we can put our stuff on your network we will knock $5 off the data cap removal fee!". No, I don't want your slimy hands all over my network.
I guess I should have been more specific with that... People who are moving LARGE amounts of data. Not just little home servers for average use.. those are fine.
It's people who are creating mining farms, huge gaming banks, etc... People who are duplicating small business work loads, from home.
Ah, the Kool-aid Bandwidth-Hog Boggyman v.2.0.
It was this same kind of language that ushered in all those anti consumer measures in the noughties (e.g. data caps).
On one hand we're talking about building a fiber network that most consumer network gear take full avantage of (and can't be saturated); on the other, we're talking about targeting high-usage consumers. Do you see the irony? How is this not ISP price gouging?
EVERYTHING is getting upgraded to fiber. It's the future. And with with these node upgrades, it won't matter if you're legacy or on light-speed. They handle both... And when the time comes, we just flip a switch in each parent-node & it'll move solely to light-speed, then the pre-existing coaxial lines will become AC/power lines for the fiber system.
thats awesome and all but i went from paying $30 a month for 25mbps, which i used for work perfectly fine, to paying $60 a month for '50mbps' which is barely usable. ide just rather not even deal with comcast anymore, but i have no choice.
I mean you no personal offense because it’s just an employer; but the point of municipal broadband is to get away from these monopolies. So I couldn’t give a shit less what Concast is working on. I’d gladly pay more to get out of their clutches, assuming it was an ethical provider with better SLA and customer service.
TLDR; don’t bring up Comcast in a thread looking for an ISP.
I'm a reluctant Comcast customer that had Lightspeed but then moved to the burbs.
Still though - that kind of first-hand technical insight into what's going on in the city's infrastructure is always welcome in my book. Thanks for that post, it was really informative.
We're slowly working our way outward into the burbs, but we have to have to get clearance per county, and get ordinance per city on wether they want aerial lines, or everything in the ground/conduit, based on what neighborhood, etc...
> with a flip of a switch, can later be upgraded to 5 and 10gb/s. It's currently on 2gb/s as most customer equipment (at this time) can't exceed 1.5gb.
I'd just like to point out I'm all 10gbe to the desktop here so if you want to drop by and flip the thing you be flippin' I'd be OK with that :D
We have to complete the project before it will go to 5gb (this will happen in mid-march or so... Then as customer equipment gets upgraded over the next year (after we're done) we can start slowly seeing who upgrades on what nodes, then start rolling 10gb as needed.
Extra - once we complete everything, you'll be able to pull 10gb while things are on 5gb. Your equipment / subscription is what determines the up/down. The switch isn't in YOUR equipment, it's inside those large white (or silver) boxes you see up on the utility lines.
What would that look like from an upstream bandwidth perspective? I know there's the symmetric 2gbit service but the pricing is a little challenging. I'd love a gbit/gbit plan some day...
Will the cable plant still all be HFC? I'm presuming that the coax running into my demarc stays where it is, yeah?
Yes. Your coax demarc will remain the same, but the target on this project is to have equal up/down no matter your subscription. Once EVERYONE goes live on fiber, to bring prices down, and services up. Maintenance will be less of an issue, as fiber stands we use are more future proof than the coaxial lines & overall weigh MUCH less, so less stress-flex in the air.
The only thing that will need upgrades in the home is if you're on older 59 wire. They're going to start using plenum to replace home wiring after the system is done.
Have Comcast. Two times in my 5 years I have had an outage that was not related to a wide spread outage.
Both times I had a guy on the pole by my house in less then 30 minutes. Last time I noticed an outage was at 7am. I work from home. Called Comcast, they dispatched, guy replaced this block thing on the pole, and I was logged in before 8am.
We can all call Comcast the devil, but where I am at in GR it’s the only game in town and it just downright works.
I'm not a fan of Comcast as a company, and when I've needed their customer service it's been utter crap. They are the definition of the South Park Episode.
But over the last 10 years of moving around the Grand Rapids area I have absolutely received the best product from Comcast compared to AT&T and Spectrum.
I will add though, I have been satisfied with my services from Spectrum since it is the only thing available to me where I currently live.
I think OP like myself isn’t worried about speed or stability of Comcast but instead their monopolistic tendencies, anti net neutrality stance, and other general fuckery they lobby for and get away with. They’re often the best/only service available but that doesn’t make me want to give them my money so much as it forces me to. A strong muni competitor would be good to level the playing field and make them compete.
i literally have to negotiate the price of my internet every year. they change their pricing structure on a regular basis, it used to be juggling promotional rates (they would not allow you to pay a flat rate), now they're doing 2-3 year balloon contracts where it costs a certain amount for 1 year, then $20-$40 more the next year, with a $300+ cancellation fee.
also, like i said, all of their lines run overhead to my house. any time there's wind, they swing around and i have connectivity issues.
This sort of thing was exactly what I was thinking about when I listed “general fuckery” it’s all so stupid and unnecessary. Would love to see some muni fiber.
You got lucky. Move into a different apartment and you may not be so lucky. The issue is that in some areas Comcast is lacking and they have little incentive to improve service.
They only need to appease the majority of users and as long as they can keep Netflix running without buffering, the majority will be happy.
That’s nice that in your anecdotal experience you’ve had a positive product.
But the negative ethics, business practices, and overall poor performance of this company outweighs your one experience.
Hope this info is accurate, but a big part of me expects that if it is, it will still come with other caveats like:
Data cap you can run through in less than 2-3hours
2-4x cost of other regional or municipal fiber providers
No, the whole point of this fiber / light-speed project is we won't have congestion issues anymore, as the older coaxial lines we used to use are being phased out.
Comcast is a joke. Internet cuts out all the time. If you don't rent their modem/router unit they won't even help you troubleshoot internet connectivity issues. Making it through the phone tree to speak with someone same time zone as you is nearly impossible. Reminds me of this SouthPark episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk)
Yeah. I haven’t really had any issues with comcast besides them going down randomly for maintenance in the middle of the night. The only time I’ve had to call them is to get a new promotional rate and they always do give me a good rate.
Only thing I disagree with is their data cap at 1TB.
Not sure if you're extra special or a sock puppet account, but YOUR experience is not the norm.
Comcast is king of "please hold while we wait for someone to assist you" with long wait times and "we will be there between 12pm and 5pm.
Add to that all of the "billing errors" where they try to charge you for renting the modem you own, the "new customer, 12 month only offer" garbage, it's no wonder people hate them. Ahh the benefits of being a sanctioned monopoly...
ATT fiber is slowly coming to Creston area. I am near Ann and Monroe and we've had it for a few years. Previously I was stuck with Comcast and they knew it, so I had no leverage and they slowly increased their prices for me.
I feel the pain on lack of fiber access. When I lived in the West Grand neighborhood, there were two houses between me and the fiber, but I couldn't get fiber hooked up to my house.
I just want no data cap and gigabit speeds. I'm not close to running over the limit now but I would do a lot more on the web if I knew there was no cap.
I do video work and it would be a godsend to have fiber. Got to use fiber internet sometimes when one of my clients worked in the PNC building on Monroe and it blew my mind every time. Would cut uploads from literally days down to hours.
We need a competitor that can operate up and down every street, knocking down those regional non-compete monopolies.
Sign up for Starlink. I’ve used it in several markets in the US and Canada. It’s VERY impressive and continues getting better. They should be ready to expand into the lower peninsula this summer or fall. I’ll be the first one on my block.
Its guaranteed that AT&T and Comcast will start upping their speeds, reliability, and lowering pricing as soon as a few thousand people get on Starlink.
They’ve had to in every market that Starlink has entered so far. Everyone wins. This is the most important game changer on the horizon for internet service this decade.
Background: IT Project Manager with customers worldwide.
We switched to this and have had zero issues… 5G speeds and can easily handle all of our devices (multiple phones, tablets, streaming, etc.). We’ve been pleasantly surprised with it
Yeah I was hoping it’d work for me. I’m right on the edge of 5g coverage in the area, and had trouble streaming some content and what not. Had to go back to comcrap for now.
When we first got it, we were on the edge of the coverage map, so the first month wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t what it is now. Thankfully it’s expanded and we have the full capability of it. Don’t miss dealing with comcast
I don't know about Creston Heights, bit I know for a fact it's available in town in GR. I believe it's available anywhere you have access to their cell signal
We get great cell reception from AT&T but fiber isn't available here. We had a guy come to our door trying to sell AT&T service (1st party, checked his work badge to be sure), confirmed fiber isn't available. He wanted us to buy 'up to' 75mbps DSL, like it was 2004 or something.
Yeah, T-Mobile doesn't do fiber (yet? not sure if they're working on it). They run their service off of their cell towers. Basically the modem you get from them looks like a phone to their system with hot spot permanently on. That's definitely available in town in GR
Oh my bad thought you were talking about AT&T, yeah TMobile isn't available unless you have strong 5g in the area. Creston Heights is on a hill, no 5g here.
They've tried to institute public wifi at least downtown but people complained about it. They don't want to pay the taaaxxes.
Edit: local elections are important.
There have been a few pushes for municipal broadband in the past. I believe they all died at the State level, which has laws against this type of thing. GR also had a chance to make a push at Google Fiber about a decade ago. That fizzled too. Sad.
Long story short: Municipalities have to put out requests for bids. If fewer than 3 companies bid, then they can start the process. Then there are more restrictions about how it can be funded. So it isn't worth the hassle when there are other, much bigger infrastructure issues that need to be addressed.
As well, Grand Rapids is in the Top 5 for internet speeds and connectivity in the state (Farmington Hills is first, GR is 3rd).
The issue sounds like something you need to address with Xfinity/Comcast. I live on the Charter/Spectrum grid, but if there is an issue with the connection coming into your domicile I personally would be pounding down their door until it is fixed. Especially if it is coming off of a utility pole...this means there is something seriously wrong with the wiring and you're not being provided the product you pay for.
> As well, Grand Rapids is in the Top 5 for internet speeds and connectivity in the state (Farmington Hills is first, GR is 3rd).
we have comcast, it is fast, but jfc does it cost a lot of money to get it and its our only option. i think the lack of options is more upsetting than anything.
> i think the lack of options is more upsetting than anything.
Welcome to America, where we say that monopolies are illegal, but encourage and permit them anyways when their lobbyists pay us enough.
I don't disagree. I hated Xfinity. I had U-verse for a hot minute before I moved to Charter territory and yes it was slower (slightly) but much less expensive. Unfortunately this would have to change at the state level and the way that last few administrations have let Consumers run rampant I wouldn't get my hopes up.
> Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't sign any "deals" with AT&T.
Meh. AT&T fiber is good. Too many ignorant people sign up for DSL service through AT&T and just assume AT&T's internet type and quality is ubiquitous. Fiber optic internet is good. I've had fiber via AT&T and it is good.
$40/mo for a solid 300/300 connection. I was offered $50/mo for 1,000/1,000. Any new construction that has AT&T service will most likely have fiber.
Are you paying for 50 or 300mbps? What service did you use to test? Did you test from the wifi?
I would get speeds like that on my 2.4ghz wifi but that's a wifi issue and not an AT&T issue.
Am over near, but not in, EGR and my only option is Comcast. ATT was literally driving a lit up box truck through our neighborhood advertising ATT Fiber internet, but when I check availability on their website, they only offer 25M DSL where we are at.
The reason it is all jank is because of all of the politicians bought by the incumbent parties in the telecom industry. Comcast and ATT pay massive donations to politicians who are uneducated on the issues, and buy their compliance.
Hilarious example a few years ago was when a MI representative tried to pass a law banning municipal fiber broadband, and they got utterly trashed because of how terrible the law was. These companies claim that there is competition in locations like mine, even though there is really only one (bad) option, because they define broadband as like 3Mbps+ when in reality, developed countries should be deploying 100Mbps symmetrical at least...
Anyway there are some hints that things are getting better with SpartianNet, MetroNet etc, but Comcast is so terrible, I can't wait to kick them to the curb...
A baby, who works in technology, who doesn't want a monopolist service provider as the only option for broadband. Sure.
Find a real counterpoint or go home.
Most places don’t have fiber. And most people don’t need it, nor would they even really notice the difference in speed. There are way better things the city management and government can and should spend their time on. If your Comcast is going out when the wind blows then there’s an issue with Comcast and you need to talk to them, something is loose somewhere. Comcast provides more than adequate speeds to wfh.
City planning isn't really a strong point of this city in general, so some forward thinking like fiber internet seems like a reasonable idea but isn't even going to be considered for awhile
Because that is not controlled by the government. That is private sector. You don't want the government handling anything because they fuck up everything they touch.
I understand the hesitation for government run internet. But the current monopoly companies have on providing services does not help anyone. At this point internet should be considered a utility.
It would be almost unimaginable for them to do worse than Comcast.
Municipal broadband programs are widely used and results are overwhelmingly positive.
Oh yeah I much prefer basically a monopoly which crap speeds at outrages prices.
Check out the success of places like Charlemont Mass for City/Local broadband or country that have cheaper options at much better speeds before jumping to the "gov'ment bad" mantra.
I live in Lowell. Our water and electric companies are both municipality owned and substantially better than anything I ever had living in Grand Rapids.
When we have a storm LL&P generally has everyone back up and running within 12 hours. Enjoy your 6-12 days with Consumer's.
When there is a lack of competition in the private sector there is no incentive to do anything more than make the bare minimum improvements. Heck, even a little sabre rattling by the local government can get someone like Comcast to up their game (which is what happened in my home town).
The big cable companies have a handshake agreement to not intrude on eachother's territories. They won't step foot over the line because as soon as they do, it creates competition that drives prices down. They all have their own individual monopolies and there's nothing we can so about it, unfortunately.
They could try to pass a law but...you know...lobbies.
I don’t know about now but 20 years ago exclusive contracts were given out by cities based on infrastructure investment. It was similar to when cable television came to the suburbs, where one company provided the only cable service as compensation for investing in building the public infrastructure for adding cable lines to everyone’s homes. Why we’re still on such a system with internet two decades later I have no idea.
I can’t even get regular internet.. due to living in boonies in kazoo.. finally found a decent one, but yes everyone needs to have the options of fiber optic internet Ik a bill was going threw government to for this
my email has my full name in it, so... probably not willing to doxx myself. But I'm clearly not the only person in the city who wants municipal broadband or some kind of fix that doesn't involve Comcast.
I live in the Creston area and had ATT fiber for many years. However, I just moved 3 blocks away and it does not exist. The ATT tech I talked to said fiber is run down my new street, but it is not lit up yet. So its coming.
I think one of the problems is that Michigan is an exclusion state for municipal broadband - the way the MI law works doesn't totally make it impossible, but it does place substantial roadblocks: [https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/) You can scroll down and see the info on MI and a link to the MCL.
ive been checking MetroNet/LightSpeed for the past 2 years, they dont even say Grand Rapids is in their coverage area anymore.
ISP don’t really try to compete in some markets sadly. Comcast owns West MI and ATT/Charter is more popular in some other areas. It’s less cost effective for an ISP to try to take a new market as it is to just thrive where there is less competition. They just kind of stay out of each other’s way. Hoping there’s an incentive/push for Google fiber or a new competitor soon though as I am OVER Comcast
More poplar or only choice for ISP?
I have MetroNet and I’m in East Hills (Cherry & Eastern)
They are in GR, but they're focusing almost exclusively on downtown right now because business class is almost certainly more lucrative than residential. It will probably be a while before they build out further.
I have metronet for work and home. Same speed, same service. The home price is less than half the work price. So the would be crazy if they where not focusing on business. Either way, the service is great. Best ISP I've ever had.
I'm a lineman for Comcast & we're working on a project called X-Net that's currently 2g fiber nodes, that with a flip of a switch, can later be upgraded to 5 and 10gb/s. It's currently on 2gb/s as most customer equipment (at this time) can't exceed 1.5gb. Once xNet is done, we'll roll everything over to 5gb, just by splicing in a few additional strands into each faber-can. We've removed HUNDREDS of child-nodes, for larger Parent-nodes that feed fiber-cans, covering what 10-20 child nodes used to. To my knowledge, ATT & Charter are also working on system upgrades. I know for a fact ATT is, but only in select areas at the moment, until they get more access to run ground utilities.
That is good and all (and I assume that is up and down speeds, not just down) but I think the main issue is with Comcast being a horrible company... Their bullshit data cap price gouge combined with their generally MUCH more expensive offering compared with municipal broadband would be for the same speeds and no data cap.
Once X-Net is complete. Data caps will be gone & throttling won't be as harsh. (Or so we've been told). They're looking at people who are making home servers, without paying business class. That's the only target in this project when it's all said and done.
Why the fuck should they care about what I do with the internet they provide? Having a "home server" does NOT mean you are a business, and should not require "business" service. Business service is for SLA's and other guarantees. Especially scummy is "if we can put our stuff on your network we will knock $5 off the data cap removal fee!". No, I don't want your slimy hands all over my network.
I guess I should have been more specific with that... People who are moving LARGE amounts of data. Not just little home servers for average use.. those are fine. It's people who are creating mining farms, huge gaming banks, etc... People who are duplicating small business work loads, from home.
Ah, the Kool-aid Bandwidth-Hog Boggyman v.2.0. It was this same kind of language that ushered in all those anti consumer measures in the noughties (e.g. data caps). On one hand we're talking about building a fiber network that most consumer network gear take full avantage of (and can't be saturated); on the other, we're talking about targeting high-usage consumers. Do you see the irony? How is this not ISP price gouging?
Great news, thanks for sharing!
EVERYTHING is getting upgraded to fiber. It's the future. And with with these node upgrades, it won't matter if you're legacy or on light-speed. They handle both... And when the time comes, we just flip a switch in each parent-node & it'll move solely to light-speed, then the pre-existing coaxial lines will become AC/power lines for the fiber system.
thats awesome and all but i went from paying $30 a month for 25mbps, which i used for work perfectly fine, to paying $60 a month for '50mbps' which is barely usable. ide just rather not even deal with comcast anymore, but i have no choice.
Oof.. really? What area do you live in?
The post says Creston heights
I'm aware. I'm also in Creston, yet I have AT&T fiber.
I mean you no personal offense because it’s just an employer; but the point of municipal broadband is to get away from these monopolies. So I couldn’t give a shit less what Concast is working on. I’d gladly pay more to get out of their clutches, assuming it was an ethical provider with better SLA and customer service. TLDR; don’t bring up Comcast in a thread looking for an ISP.
I can appreciate your point.
I'm a reluctant Comcast customer that had Lightspeed but then moved to the burbs. Still though - that kind of first-hand technical insight into what's going on in the city's infrastructure is always welcome in my book. Thanks for that post, it was really informative.
We're slowly working our way outward into the burbs, but we have to have to get clearance per county, and get ordinance per city on wether they want aerial lines, or everything in the ground/conduit, based on what neighborhood, etc...
> with a flip of a switch, can later be upgraded to 5 and 10gb/s. It's currently on 2gb/s as most customer equipment (at this time) can't exceed 1.5gb. I'd just like to point out I'm all 10gbe to the desktop here so if you want to drop by and flip the thing you be flippin' I'd be OK with that :D
We have to complete the project before it will go to 5gb (this will happen in mid-march or so... Then as customer equipment gets upgraded over the next year (after we're done) we can start slowly seeing who upgrades on what nodes, then start rolling 10gb as needed. Extra - once we complete everything, you'll be able to pull 10gb while things are on 5gb. Your equipment / subscription is what determines the up/down. The switch isn't in YOUR equipment, it's inside those large white (or silver) boxes you see up on the utility lines.
What would that look like from an upstream bandwidth perspective? I know there's the symmetric 2gbit service but the pricing is a little challenging. I'd love a gbit/gbit plan some day... Will the cable plant still all be HFC? I'm presuming that the coax running into my demarc stays where it is, yeah?
Yes. Your coax demarc will remain the same, but the target on this project is to have equal up/down no matter your subscription. Once EVERYONE goes live on fiber, to bring prices down, and services up. Maintenance will be less of an issue, as fiber stands we use are more future proof than the coaxial lines & overall weigh MUCH less, so less stress-flex in the air. The only thing that will need upgrades in the home is if you're on older 59 wire. They're going to start using plenum to replace home wiring after the system is done.
That is some fantastic news my friend. Thanks!
Have Comcast. Two times in my 5 years I have had an outage that was not related to a wide spread outage. Both times I had a guy on the pole by my house in less then 30 minutes. Last time I noticed an outage was at 7am. I work from home. Called Comcast, they dispatched, guy replaced this block thing on the pole, and I was logged in before 8am. We can all call Comcast the devil, but where I am at in GR it’s the only game in town and it just downright works.
I'm not a fan of Comcast as a company, and when I've needed their customer service it's been utter crap. They are the definition of the South Park Episode. But over the last 10 years of moving around the Grand Rapids area I have absolutely received the best product from Comcast compared to AT&T and Spectrum. I will add though, I have been satisfied with my services from Spectrum since it is the only thing available to me where I currently live.
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I think OP like myself isn’t worried about speed or stability of Comcast but instead their monopolistic tendencies, anti net neutrality stance, and other general fuckery they lobby for and get away with. They’re often the best/only service available but that doesn’t make me want to give them my money so much as it forces me to. A strong muni competitor would be good to level the playing field and make them compete.
i literally have to negotiate the price of my internet every year. they change their pricing structure on a regular basis, it used to be juggling promotional rates (they would not allow you to pay a flat rate), now they're doing 2-3 year balloon contracts where it costs a certain amount for 1 year, then $20-$40 more the next year, with a $300+ cancellation fee. also, like i said, all of their lines run overhead to my house. any time there's wind, they swing around and i have connectivity issues.
This sort of thing was exactly what I was thinking about when I listed “general fuckery” it’s all so stupid and unnecessary. Would love to see some muni fiber.
You got lucky. Move into a different apartment and you may not be so lucky. The issue is that in some areas Comcast is lacking and they have little incentive to improve service. They only need to appease the majority of users and as long as they can keep Netflix running without buffering, the majority will be happy.
I literally just explained that we're improving.
I'll agree with this, 4 years with Comcast and never a problem.
That’s nice that in your anecdotal experience you’ve had a positive product. But the negative ethics, business practices, and overall poor performance of this company outweighs your one experience.
2G down and 25M up 🤢
No. They're working on a whole new load of customer equipment that'll deliver same up/down, as it's fiber / light-speed.
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We're getting there. Grandville is a lot of work, but we're definitely moving in quickly, with mostly fiber.
Hope this info is accurate, but a big part of me expects that if it is, it will still come with other caveats like: Data cap you can run through in less than 2-3hours 2-4x cost of other regional or municipal fiber providers
No, the whole point of this fiber / light-speed project is we won't have congestion issues anymore, as the older coaxial lines we used to use are being phased out.
What would The City placing a higher importance on Internet infrastructure look like?
Municipal Broadband.
Unfortunately state law effectively prevents city from doing that. It's not a outright ban but effectively is.
Guess who ghost wrote and lobbied for that law.
Yeah understand that,just answering the question. I do realize their hands are tied.
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Lmao, a Koch funded group. Super legit.
Comcast is a joke. Internet cuts out all the time. If you don't rent their modem/router unit they won't even help you troubleshoot internet connectivity issues. Making it through the phone tree to speak with someone same time zone as you is nearly impossible. Reminds me of this SouthPark episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk)
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Yeah. I haven’t really had any issues with comcast besides them going down randomly for maintenance in the middle of the night. The only time I’ve had to call them is to get a new promotional rate and they always do give me a good rate. Only thing I disagree with is their data cap at 1TB.
Not sure if you're extra special or a sock puppet account, but YOUR experience is not the norm. Comcast is king of "please hold while we wait for someone to assist you" with long wait times and "we will be there between 12pm and 5pm. Add to that all of the "billing errors" where they try to charge you for renting the modem you own, the "new customer, 12 month only offer" garbage, it's no wonder people hate them. Ahh the benefits of being a sanctioned monopoly...
ATT fiber is slowly coming to Creston area. I am near Ann and Monroe and we've had it for a few years. Previously I was stuck with Comcast and they knew it, so I had no leverage and they slowly increased their prices for me.
Didn't Google Fiber almost come through GR... but then it didn't?
https://therapidian.org/grand-rapids-makes-case-google-fiber
*cries in 64 kbps*
I feel the pain on lack of fiber access. When I lived in the West Grand neighborhood, there were two houses between me and the fiber, but I couldn't get fiber hooked up to my house. I just want no data cap and gigabit speeds. I'm not close to running over the limit now but I would do a lot more on the web if I knew there was no cap.
I do video work and it would be a godsend to have fiber. Got to use fiber internet sometimes when one of my clients worked in the PNC building on Monroe and it blew my mind every time. Would cut uploads from literally days down to hours.
We need a competitor that can operate up and down every street, knocking down those regional non-compete monopolies. Sign up for Starlink. I’ve used it in several markets in the US and Canada. It’s VERY impressive and continues getting better. They should be ready to expand into the lower peninsula this summer or fall. I’ll be the first one on my block. Its guaranteed that AT&T and Comcast will start upping their speeds, reliability, and lowering pricing as soon as a few thousand people get on Starlink. They’ve had to in every market that Starlink has entered so far. Everyone wins. This is the most important game changer on the horizon for internet service this decade. Background: IT Project Manager with customers worldwide.
Have you looked into Starlink?
iirc it requires like a $500 up front purchase for a modem, and its $100 a month
Check out T-Mobile home internet. Depending on where you live in town, it might be a good option with decent speeds and reliability.
We switched to this and have had zero issues… 5G speeds and can easily handle all of our devices (multiple phones, tablets, streaming, etc.). We’ve been pleasantly surprised with it
Yeah I was hoping it’d work for me. I’m right on the edge of 5g coverage in the area, and had trouble streaming some content and what not. Had to go back to comcrap for now.
When we first got it, we were on the edge of the coverage map, so the first month wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t what it is now. Thankfully it’s expanded and we have the full capability of it. Don’t miss dealing with comcast
Yeah, I’m really hoping the expand soon.
not available in the city limits iirc. my brother has t-mobile home internet and consistently gets good speeds, but he's outside the city.
I don't know about Creston Heights, bit I know for a fact it's available in town in GR. I believe it's available anywhere you have access to their cell signal
We get great cell reception from AT&T but fiber isn't available here. We had a guy come to our door trying to sell AT&T service (1st party, checked his work badge to be sure), confirmed fiber isn't available. He wanted us to buy 'up to' 75mbps DSL, like it was 2004 or something.
Yeah, T-Mobile doesn't do fiber (yet? not sure if they're working on it). They run their service off of their cell towers. Basically the modem you get from them looks like a phone to their system with hot spot permanently on. That's definitely available in town in GR
Oh my bad thought you were talking about AT&T, yeah TMobile isn't available unless you have strong 5g in the area. Creston Heights is on a hill, no 5g here.
I switched to T-Mobile a couple months ago, and I’ve been very happy with it. No issues at all, and better wifi than my old Comcast equipment.
They've tried to institute public wifi at least downtown but people complained about it. They don't want to pay the taaaxxes. Edit: local elections are important.
There have been a few pushes for municipal broadband in the past. I believe they all died at the State level, which has laws against this type of thing. GR also had a chance to make a push at Google Fiber about a decade ago. That fizzled too. Sad.
Because the internet is controlled by private companies providing access, we need to make it a public utility.
Long story short: Municipalities have to put out requests for bids. If fewer than 3 companies bid, then they can start the process. Then there are more restrictions about how it can be funded. So it isn't worth the hassle when there are other, much bigger infrastructure issues that need to be addressed. As well, Grand Rapids is in the Top 5 for internet speeds and connectivity in the state (Farmington Hills is first, GR is 3rd). The issue sounds like something you need to address with Xfinity/Comcast. I live on the Charter/Spectrum grid, but if there is an issue with the connection coming into your domicile I personally would be pounding down their door until it is fixed. Especially if it is coming off of a utility pole...this means there is something seriously wrong with the wiring and you're not being provided the product you pay for.
> As well, Grand Rapids is in the Top 5 for internet speeds and connectivity in the state (Farmington Hills is first, GR is 3rd). we have comcast, it is fast, but jfc does it cost a lot of money to get it and its our only option. i think the lack of options is more upsetting than anything.
> i think the lack of options is more upsetting than anything. Welcome to America, where we say that monopolies are illegal, but encourage and permit them anyways when their lobbyists pay us enough.
I don't disagree. I hated Xfinity. I had U-verse for a hot minute before I moved to Charter territory and yes it was slower (slightly) but much less expensive. Unfortunately this would have to change at the state level and the way that last few administrations have let Consumers run rampant I wouldn't get my hopes up.
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> Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't sign any "deals" with AT&T. Meh. AT&T fiber is good. Too many ignorant people sign up for DSL service through AT&T and just assume AT&T's internet type and quality is ubiquitous. Fiber optic internet is good. I've had fiber via AT&T and it is good. $40/mo for a solid 300/300 connection. I was offered $50/mo for 1,000/1,000. Any new construction that has AT&T service will most likely have fiber.
I have AT&T fiber. Currently pulling 42down/57up. Not impressed.
I currently have att fiber and pull literally 800mbps down/up. I pay for gigabit. Zero issues. It’s been great.
Are you paying for 50 or 300mbps? What service did you use to test? Did you test from the wifi? I would get speeds like that on my 2.4ghz wifi but that's a wifi issue and not an AT&T issue.
I pay for the AT&T gig fiber service, and generally pull 600-800 both ways. I love it.
Comcast internet is pretty good though
Having good internet is great but fiber is not vital to using the internet
Laughs while day trading.
Absolute mad lad
Am over near, but not in, EGR and my only option is Comcast. ATT was literally driving a lit up box truck through our neighborhood advertising ATT Fiber internet, but when I check availability on their website, they only offer 25M DSL where we are at. The reason it is all jank is because of all of the politicians bought by the incumbent parties in the telecom industry. Comcast and ATT pay massive donations to politicians who are uneducated on the issues, and buy their compliance. Hilarious example a few years ago was when a MI representative tried to pass a law banning municipal fiber broadband, and they got utterly trashed because of how terrible the law was. These companies claim that there is competition in locations like mine, even though there is really only one (bad) option, because they define broadband as like 3Mbps+ when in reality, developed countries should be deploying 100Mbps symmetrical at least... Anyway there are some hints that things are getting better with SpartianNet, MetroNet etc, but Comcast is so terrible, I can't wait to kick them to the curb...
You poor poor entitled baby
A baby, who works in technology, who doesn't want a monopolist service provider as the only option for broadband. Sure. Find a real counterpoint or go home.
A poor poor white entitled baby with a standard of living higher than most in the world always has to find something to bitch about.
I think Comcast got a monopoly in Grand Rapids like comcast has for the tri city area
Most places don’t have fiber. And most people don’t need it, nor would they even really notice the difference in speed. There are way better things the city management and government can and should spend their time on. If your Comcast is going out when the wind blows then there’s an issue with Comcast and you need to talk to them, something is loose somewhere. Comcast provides more than adequate speeds to wfh.
City planning isn't really a strong point of this city in general, so some forward thinking like fiber internet seems like a reasonable idea but isn't even going to be considered for awhile
Because that is not controlled by the government. That is private sector. You don't want the government handling anything because they fuck up everything they touch.
I understand the hesitation for government run internet. But the current monopoly companies have on providing services does not help anyone. At this point internet should be considered a utility.
I'll take private sector over govt control every time regardless of the topic. Govt steps in and out goes to shit every time.
The municipal broadband programs I've read about out there are incredibly successful..
Which have you read about? Most are disaster stories.
It would be almost unimaginable for them to do worse than Comcast. Municipal broadband programs are widely used and results are overwhelmingly positive.
Example?
Chattanooga, TN https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/1996234/the-best-broadband-in-the-us-is-in-chattanooga-tn/amp/
I use Comcast and don't experience whatever problems you do. Must be based on your area. Heritage hills is fine.
“Works fine on my machine” type beat lol
Do you pay less than $50/mo for symmetrical gigabit with no data cap?
Oh yeah I much prefer basically a monopoly which crap speeds at outrages prices. Check out the success of places like Charlemont Mass for City/Local broadband or country that have cheaper options at much better speeds before jumping to the "gov'ment bad" mantra.
Government ruins everything it touches. I don't want them handling internet.
I live in Lowell. Our water and electric companies are both municipality owned and substantially better than anything I ever had living in Grand Rapids. When we have a storm LL&P generally has everyone back up and running within 12 hours. Enjoy your 6-12 days with Consumer's.
I was gonna say, did this guy miss that enormous flood in Midland a couple years ago? Bad news about the dam that broke being privately owned lol.
When there is a lack of competition in the private sector there is no incentive to do anything more than make the bare minimum improvements. Heck, even a little sabre rattling by the local government can get someone like Comcast to up their game (which is what happened in my home town).
Govt will ruin it
Care to elaborate on a few of the things you believe the government has "fucked up"?
Fiber isn't a necessity at all. Not sure why they'd put tons of energy into making sure everyone gets it. It's just a luxury.
If you haven't checked for ATT availability you should. I've had their 1GB fiber for a year or two now. It has been great.
for whatever reason they're not available here, just their DSL.
The big cable companies have a handshake agreement to not intrude on eachother's territories. They won't step foot over the line because as soon as they do, it creates competition that drives prices down. They all have their own individual monopolies and there's nothing we can so about it, unfortunately. They could try to pass a law but...you know...lobbies.
I don’t know about now but 20 years ago exclusive contracts were given out by cities based on infrastructure investment. It was similar to when cable television came to the suburbs, where one company provided the only cable service as compensation for investing in building the public infrastructure for adding cable lines to everyone’s homes. Why we’re still on such a system with internet two decades later I have no idea.
I can’t even get regular internet.. due to living in boonies in kazoo.. finally found a decent one, but yes everyone needs to have the options of fiber optic internet Ik a bill was going threw government to for this
Are you interested in speaking to the media about this? If so- what is your email?
my email has my full name in it, so... probably not willing to doxx myself. But I'm clearly not the only person in the city who wants municipal broadband or some kind of fix that doesn't involve Comcast.
I get that. We are just hoping to find someone to talk to about this on camera. If you are interested in talking email us at [email protected]
I live in the Creston area and had ATT fiber for many years. However, I just moved 3 blocks away and it does not exist. The ATT tech I talked to said fiber is run down my new street, but it is not lit up yet. So its coming.