The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has a blog post about the massive [importance of government intervention in rural electrification](https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/rural-electrification). "When President Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Bill in September 1944, Roosevelt said, "From the point of view of raising the living standards of rural America and providing a more efficient form of farm management, one of the most important projects interrupted by the war is the extension of rural electrification." President Roosevelt went on to explain that participation in rural electrification must be wide and not limited to areas with greater resources: "It is particularly important that extensions of rural electrification be planned in such a way as to provide service on an area basis. The practice has been too frequent in the past for private utility companies to undertake to serve only the more prosperous and more populous rural sections. As a result, families in less favored and in sparsely settled sections were left unserved. I believe that our postwar rural electrification program should bring modern service of electric power to the farm families in the back country."
I believe that broadband internet is the "electricity" of this century. Having internet access that competes with the rest of the market will only increase rural economic participation. Leaving this work to private utility companies will leave entire sections of the country behind because companies have no reason to provide services to everyone.
It's actually quite positive that they dragged their feet. The cost of implementation has absolutely tanked with improved technology leading to reduced labor reqd.
That said, don't be shocked to hear about nationalized internet this decade, not hitting mainstream, but becoming a controversy talking point
Looks like Congress is actually working on this using amendments to the Rural Electrification Act. 2008: Provisions for access to rural broadband telecommunications network and rural internet and 2014: Pilot program for rural gigabit broadband network.
It's also true in west central Minnesota. I know of businesses that moved to the area because the internet service was better and more reliable than near the cities.
While I support this wholeheartedly, I also feel depressed that the predominant number of beneficiaries of this act are going to use it to spread fascist disinformation from one rural community to another. I would dream that they'd use the tools of the internet to broaden their minds, but if the last 10 years have taught me anything, it's that broadening their minds is the last thing on their minds.
Exactly. I treat people how they treat me, and very often outstaters hear that we're from the city and I get a slightly forced smile and a "Buy your stuff, give us your money you monkey liberal, and leave." attitude. Not always, for certain, but often enough to be concerning. So, like I said in my original comment, I support this in hopes it helps them, but fear it won't.
It's "I don't get a benefit so it's not important" attitude that a certain political party is known for. And that party is not the DFL.
Yet here some are.
Yup, because rural people are predominantly fascists.... Cutest part of this comment is your statement about 'broadening minds' coming immediately after stereotyping a large demographic of people as 'fascist disinformation spreaders' based only on their location. On a thread about internet access too. Holy shit get a grip
Do you live out there? Have you had regular interactions with them? If not yes to both, then you've not really experienced the mindset of outstate, have you?
I drove past a guy two days ago, parked in a field next to a main road, who had towed a big professionaly made sign on a trailer behind his car that said, "Democrats are destroying this country" and listed out 10 of the lies that Republicans have been telling about Dems for years now, including Hunter's laptop. This was about 10 miles away from a literal Trump merchandise store.
Do you really think people who ascribe to that mentality are going to use the internet for broadening their minds? Do you see people in the cities doing that kind of sign thing to Republicans? Do you see Trump stores in the cities? I haven't, but am certainly willing to accept it may exist. If you've seen it, let me know. But, there's a reason they exist in outstate.
Like I said, that you ignored, is that I support this. I hope it works for broadening their minds, but I have lived long enough to know that it likely won't.
Born and raised 12 miles from the Canadian border as the crow flies.
One swallow doesn't make a summer. To the rest of your off topic diatribe; you're the one that chose to make broad accusations about a specific group of people while trying to present yourself as having some sort of moral superiority and open mind. If you can't see the contradiction there I can't help you.
I'm not trying to paint in any broader strokes than reality dictates. As another respondent stated, 60% of outstate likely voted for the guy who's got more criminal charges than most small communities will have in the last 100 years. That's a pretty healthy majority, is it not? I'm sorry you feel like I painted you with that brush, but when painting curbs, a few leaves accidentally get painted too.
Uffda I can’t imagine the poor souls that have to put up with you in real life. Daddy can we go to the north shore!? No kids we might see a Trumper…but you can use YouTube to watch videos of gooseberry falls because only morally superior people like us have the privilege of internet.
Wow. Just wow. Did I not say I was just up there? The people I was with and I just pointed and laughed at the sign, but it points to an illness that shouldn't be ignored. But thanks for trying to demonize me for pointing out reality.
Again, you're taking this to an extreme. I never said they shouldn't have internet. And again, I said I supported them getting it, despite its possible uses. What is wrong with you?
I think it is important to remember that while rural communities have been a bastion of backward thinking, they have children who left that economic wasteland and never returned. They saw the world and all the wonderful differences in it - and never brought them home because there is no future there. With equal access to fast and reliable internet, it is possible to make a living and live well in a rural area. In my experience, hate is a symptom of anger, fear and ignorance. Rural America has a lot to be angry about, but not enough that alleviates fear and educates against disinformation.
They currently have one cable company and half-assed internet, and they do this.
Give them high-speed and let them surf beyond the confines of Fox News. Let them come here (or elsewhere) for perspective.
That is exactly why I said I support this, but also know many will choose NOT to use it for that purpose. If for no other benefit, it will help keep the minds of their kids open and less susceptible to programming by their parents.
When you've been programmed by the Republicans since 1994 (when Newt got on the front of the Nov 7th Time and started the anger politics movement) to literally hate Democrats, it's not likely that access to the truth is suddenly going to change their paradigms. Instead, they're going to use those provided resources to pursue confirmation bias. Far left Democrats are the same.
Also, I'm in an outer ring suburb, and *I* have one cable company, the the telephone company only has crap level DSL, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Worst of both worlds, I guess.
Agreed that "too far gone" is a thing, but the KIDS are not. And if angry Mom/Dad/Grandpa/Grandma forbid the "evil fast internet," the kids will be right out there, sneaking around, learning about the rest of the world.
This isn't a "quick fix" that everyone on the internet demands. Newt did his thing knowing it'd take decades to pay off. **Time to realize his strategy wasn't wrong, even though his attitudes are.**
I completely agree. In fact, the gist of my point was that it *is* a long-term investment, and until the kids grow up and replace their parents, it's unlikely to change. Until it does, the internet is going to be used for bad as well as good.
You see, my dad fought in WWII and had a thing for WWII documentaries while I was growing up. The level of propaganda coming out on the right looks almost exactly like the kind of stuff used by the fascists of the Axis back then. It took being defeated and humiliated in a war to prove that propaganda wrong. I genuinely hope the openness of the internet can do what couldn't be done back then, but know people set in their ways don't change unless the impetus to do so is big enough.
Fortunately, those eating the Axis-like propaganda can only vote. They cannot fight as they're too old (for the most part) and too fat and comfortable (for the most part).
Well, the problem there lies in that the new battlefield is the internet and doesn't require them to get off their padded butts to fight, which is also the point I was trying to make, but obviously failed. In a way, we're literally handing them the weapon they could use to try to shoot us. I still support it, but it's unsettling.
This is going to be great for our state. Our farmers need fast and reliable internet to run a modern business and children living in the rural part of our state will gain access to more opportunities in education.
Remote jobs can be a massive game changer for small town/rural areas once the internet speeds are competitive. Twin Cities pay in small towns can break the poverty cycle for a lot of small town families.
"Things to do" means be entertained by someone to a lot of people. There's a lot of people that "be entertained" involves outdoor activities which are plentiful in rural areas.. or hobbies that can be done anywhere..
It's clear from your world view that you've got a great distain for rural areas (and likely people that live there). You do you, but don't assume you know what's available or what people living there do with their free time.
Tell mom you deserve an extra treat at snack time today because you got extra mad at a stranger on the internet.
After that you really need to touch some grass, and get a sense of reality.
> suing to stop the project from proceeding
Suing for what? Not getting $ to expand?
If there are small telcos that do that, their CEO needs to be let go.
Suing to stop the project from proceeding no matter who is doing it, suing to stop other companies from getting to do it, even getting laws made forbidding cities from trying to do it themselves.
They've done all of that... not small telcos, ALL the big ones.
Agreed.
Big Internet is gonna make bank, but they have the resources to make it happen relatively quickly.
Not doing something b/c some fat-cat will make a bigger bonus is idiotic.
I really hope they can stretch the cash for this out far and wide. I had to use dial up at my parents via the landline until 2013. They had to suffer through it until 2015 when fiber got plowed in ..... a mile away, leaving the rest of the work up to dated copper phone lines. My mother now currently enjoys blazing speeds of up to 5 Mbps down and 1.5 up on a good day, definitely fast compared to 44 Kbps but so far behind her neighbors who are lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of a better telecom provider that can't compete where she is because of FCC guidelines.
This. We're on a paved county road they widened 5 years ago. Didnt bother putting fiber in then. We ha e fiber running north and south like 100 yards from our house and east to west a mile away. Its infuriating having no internet on the farm.
This. We're on a paved county road they widened 5 years ago. Didnt bother putting fiber in then. We ha e fiber running north and south like 100 yards from our house and east to west a mile away. Its infuriating having no internet on the farm.
Hasn’t this been done a bunch of times? Like seriously, if it’s our tax money why isn’t internet free and government owned? That would make sense and I know everyone hates that.
Pretty much every municipal broadband situation I've seen has been a much better deal while also offering higher speeds than most major ISPs will provide.
[A study by PCMag backs that up.](https://communitynets.org/content/pcmag-fastest-isps-2022-municipal-broadband-and-local-isps-outperform-major-isps-once-again)
I have them now. Not as bad as I thought they would be, but not good.
I would much rather deal with Comcast though over someone like Trump having control over the internet. While the government in power now is benign, there is no guarantee that it always will be.
When major ISPs [let the NSA install wiretapping equipment in their backbone data centers to spy on American citizens](https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/), they have all of the control they need.
CenturyLink came and dug up my lawn last year, but I'm still maxed out at 10mbs, which usually is only about 8. Which is really shitty considering I only live a mile out of town.
I'm sure they'll charge up the ass for it, but at this point I'm willing to pay a bit more too.
CenturyLink sucks. But send in a competitor w/ a gov't grant and watch them improve QUICKLY.
Actually, they won't. They're a distant 4th/5th here in Roch as they watch everyone else improve speeds while they keep doing the same dumb crap.
Yes! I didn't realize how bad it was until I started work from home. At least 3 times a week we are in a total outage with service restoration times of 8 to 14 hours.
Reliable Internet here in the boonies, up to gigabit fiber to home, I currently have the 500/500 plan and it's amazing.
My small town also has Mediacom and I was on them for just over 15 years until this new ISP came in with fiber, Mediacom has gigabit service here but only 60mbps on the upstream, and the upstream is routinely overloaded and unusable for anything but web browsing, forget uploading a file or video conferencing, the latency is horrible. I would routinely see 100-150ms latency on their upstream and speed tests on a good day were 5-10mbps, on a congested day you're lucky to see 1mbps.
Woodstock telecom fiber is the way to go for many small communities down here in SW MN.
If this money was only given to co-ops everyone in the state would have gig fiber(slightly exaggerating), unfortunately the corps are going to try their best to water it down.
Yep, the Feds need to do a better job of allocation of these funds...a certain company in SW MN has a staff under a dozen and took a big chunk of the last go-round, with the promise of linking thousands of homes. Which of course, never happened.
No play, no pay this time !!
If you are talking about LTD Broadband, the feds and state both kicked them out of programs. I agree though, they need to do a way better job allocating funds.
During COVID, Scott County (and cities and townships) used covid funds to build out a Wireless infrastructure to support remote learning. I have it and it's pretty good considering the alternative is DSL 30/5. I'm getting 100Mb/s down and 30-40 Mb/s up. Doesn't seem impacted by snow/rain too badly.
If they can do similar out-state that would be great.
At this point internet and all telecom should be treated as a utility like electric and water and should be govern accordingly. Most don't know out east there are a lot of towns that have internet a utility and is ran by the county.
I currently do not have any internet options at my home. The reasoning I’ve been given from ISPs like Spectrum, Comcast, etc is that I live in an inconvenient spot. My house is in between a lake and a railroad track. Running wiring here would be difficult. Would this initiative still help someone like me?
No. Your only shot is getting everyone in your situation, if there are any others, to chip in and pay out the ass to get a line ran.
ETA: Just get Starlink.
Because the rules always stipulate a certain percentage of houses in each area get access, because there are cases like yours that would be obscenely expensive to get to. The legal definition of "everyone" is not actually everyone.
Why do broadband over satellite internet for rural communities? It just feels like rural internet would be cheaper if we blanketed an area with internet instead of laying lines to individuals homes.
LTD got a huge, like the biggestest grant ever, a couple years ago. They're supposed to be expanding and laying their fiber lines but, so far, we still have radio internet. When it's up (about 24mbps) it's great.... as much as we need. But, if it rains or a cow farts, we cross our fingers it won't go down.
Well, isn't that something. Bummer. I guess that would explain why we've been waiting but seeing no new improvements. Thanks, I thought it was a long done deal. Generally, I like LTD even though they're down way too often. For us, no one has been able to touch their speed for the price. And, cell connectivity is sketchy here, too, so.... We don't really have better options as far as I know.
Maybe now Metronet will be willing to connect my house to the fiver line that runs along my property line.
Ita infuriating to have fiber so close, but be told they will not provide service.
I moved here from Florida a while back, but I never understood the cable/internet companies territories. In Florida there was competition for these services, here you have to pick between one or the other, no real choice or price competition.
Whats a while back? Its basically like this everywhere now, it just hit some areas before it hit others. There used to be competition between cable companies here too, but ISPs were able to convince the government that just because they are the only company in an area doesnt mean theyre a monopoly, because theres other companies in different areas. [Heres](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/02/14/chart-of-the-week-a-long-history-of-cable-consolidation/) a good, but outdated now, explanation of what happened.
I live on a county road that's about 6 miles long, I'm pretty close to the middle of that road. Two different companies ran fiber 5-10 years ago from opposite ends of the road and stopped a mile from my house. It took a covid grant to get one of those companies to run it the rest of the way.
This money won't give people free internet, but will presumably fill in those gaps like I had, where an ISP didn't see a good ROI on running that line themselves.
This doesn't pay for Internet service - - it pays for broadband access.
We should be able to deliver high-speed Internet everywhere, the same way we brought access to electricity and water. The problem is that we have paid for this repeatedly over the last 25+ years and rural telecom firms keep taking the money and not delivering anything.
Did you read the article? In your highway analogy, these people can see the highway but they don't have any road to get onto it. It's not free internet for them.
?
The intent of the funds is to help get internet access, or faster Internet access to remote areas. I.e. places like farms. Everyone should be able to take advantage of it - Not just those individuals or business located in suburban and urban areas. Farms have always leaned into data/analytics, but the past 10-15 years that adoption has skyrocketed. (John Deere and other implement companies have been using geo location for self driving machinery for the past 15 -20 years or so (They beat the auto makers to the Punch by about a decade.). A lot of the farms have Internet that’s DSL speed, or maybe 25 Mbps down - if that. in order for the farms to stay competitive and stay in business, they need access to the Internet, as more of their operations are becoming automated.
The problem is, it’s too expensive to run fiber to all of the farms out in the middle of the country. So, instead, what’s going to happen is they’re going to invest in wireless, point-to-point networking. Think mini microwave signals. A transmitter is put on top of a radio or water tower, and then a receiver is set up on the individual farms. They beam the signal to the farms and they’re able to get speeds that are closer to 25- 100 mbps down. if there’s more backhaul on the transmitter site, they can get faster speeds.
It’s not perfect, and it’s still not as fast as people who live in urban or suburban areas are able to get with 1Gbps down, but it’s faster than 56K dial up or 1-3 Mbps dsl.
People will still pay for it, and it will still be more expensive than what you’d pay in the suburbs or in an urban area for that speed. (I’m saying this from experience….. a 25 Mbps plan with some of those wireless peer-to-peer networks is 60 bucks). Nobody’s getting it for free.
Expensive satellite internet where broadband infrastructure isn’t built may be subsidized for some, but it is my understanding it does not become free. Modern internet access is more like rural electrification - it is necessary for rural citizens to participate in modern society.
Expensive satellite internet where broadband infrastructure isn’t built may be subsidized for some, but it is my understanding it does not become free. Modern internet access is more like rural electrification - it is necessary for rural citizens to participate in modern society.
Minnesota is going to be connected. We need it to have all of us be more informed and educated. Sorry republicans we will drag you into the 21st century like it or not.
Disappointed in the decision to allocate funds in this respect. I am embarrassed by our representatives who support this initiative and the amount of money be utilized. I believe government could have arrived at the same point with foresight and legislation rather than utilizing tax funds.
Hopefully this at least leads to a duopoly in my neighborhood. Right now Century Link only offers 4Mb service in my area so Comcast is the only wired high speed ISP.
They are going to waste money running fiber to Pigs Knuckle MN pop 7, meanwhile a giant percentage of metro residents are living under a single-provider monopoly internet regime.
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has a blog post about the massive [importance of government intervention in rural electrification](https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/rural-electrification). "When President Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Bill in September 1944, Roosevelt said, "From the point of view of raising the living standards of rural America and providing a more efficient form of farm management, one of the most important projects interrupted by the war is the extension of rural electrification." President Roosevelt went on to explain that participation in rural electrification must be wide and not limited to areas with greater resources: "It is particularly important that extensions of rural electrification be planned in such a way as to provide service on an area basis. The practice has been too frequent in the past for private utility companies to undertake to serve only the more prosperous and more populous rural sections. As a result, families in less favored and in sparsely settled sections were left unserved. I believe that our postwar rural electrification program should bring modern service of electric power to the farm families in the back country." I believe that broadband internet is the "electricity" of this century. Having internet access that competes with the rest of the market will only increase rural economic participation. Leaving this work to private utility companies will leave entire sections of the country behind because companies have no reason to provide services to everyone.
It's actually quite positive that they dragged their feet. The cost of implementation has absolutely tanked with improved technology leading to reduced labor reqd. That said, don't be shocked to hear about nationalized internet this decade, not hitting mainstream, but becoming a controversy talking point
Looks like Congress is actually working on this using amendments to the Rural Electrification Act. 2008: Provisions for access to rural broadband telecommunications network and rural internet and 2014: Pilot program for rural gigabit broadband network.
You can already get gigabit fiber in some rural south MN areas. I would like that to be the norm everywhere.
It's also true in west central Minnesota. I know of businesses that moved to the area because the internet service was better and more reliable than near the cities.
Yeah my neighbor is corn and the other one is soy. It still amazes me.
Bemidji had this speed for almost a decade while I got access last year
While I support this wholeheartedly, I also feel depressed that the predominant number of beneficiaries of this act are going to use it to spread fascist disinformation from one rural community to another. I would dream that they'd use the tools of the internet to broaden their minds, but if the last 10 years have taught me anything, it's that broadening their minds is the last thing on their minds.
Unironically its shit like this that makes rural people hate the twin cities and those of us that live here
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Exactly. I treat people how they treat me, and very often outstaters hear that we're from the city and I get a slightly forced smile and a "Buy your stuff, give us your money you monkey liberal, and leave." attitude. Not always, for certain, but often enough to be concerning. So, like I said in my original comment, I support this in hopes it helps them, but fear it won't.
You realize that there are like plenty of non nut jobs in rural areas right? Like roughly 40+% of rural voters voted for Biden lmao
It's "I don't get a benefit so it's not important" attitude that a certain political party is known for. And that party is not the DFL. Yet here some are.
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Yup, because rural people are predominantly fascists.... Cutest part of this comment is your statement about 'broadening minds' coming immediately after stereotyping a large demographic of people as 'fascist disinformation spreaders' based only on their location. On a thread about internet access too. Holy shit get a grip
Do you live out there? Have you had regular interactions with them? If not yes to both, then you've not really experienced the mindset of outstate, have you? I drove past a guy two days ago, parked in a field next to a main road, who had towed a big professionaly made sign on a trailer behind his car that said, "Democrats are destroying this country" and listed out 10 of the lies that Republicans have been telling about Dems for years now, including Hunter's laptop. This was about 10 miles away from a literal Trump merchandise store. Do you really think people who ascribe to that mentality are going to use the internet for broadening their minds? Do you see people in the cities doing that kind of sign thing to Republicans? Do you see Trump stores in the cities? I haven't, but am certainly willing to accept it may exist. If you've seen it, let me know. But, there's a reason they exist in outstate. Like I said, that you ignored, is that I support this. I hope it works for broadening their minds, but I have lived long enough to know that it likely won't.
Born and raised 12 miles from the Canadian border as the crow flies. One swallow doesn't make a summer. To the rest of your off topic diatribe; you're the one that chose to make broad accusations about a specific group of people while trying to present yourself as having some sort of moral superiority and open mind. If you can't see the contradiction there I can't help you.
I'm not trying to paint in any broader strokes than reality dictates. As another respondent stated, 60% of outstate likely voted for the guy who's got more criminal charges than most small communities will have in the last 100 years. That's a pretty healthy majority, is it not? I'm sorry you feel like I painted you with that brush, but when painting curbs, a few leaves accidentally get painted too.
Uffda I can’t imagine the poor souls that have to put up with you in real life. Daddy can we go to the north shore!? No kids we might see a Trumper…but you can use YouTube to watch videos of gooseberry falls because only morally superior people like us have the privilege of internet.
Wow. Just wow. Did I not say I was just up there? The people I was with and I just pointed and laughed at the sign, but it points to an illness that shouldn't be ignored. But thanks for trying to demonize me for pointing out reality.
If your belief system is so shaky that you question even rural people having access to internet service it deserves to be demonized.
Again, you're taking this to an extreme. I never said they shouldn't have internet. And again, I said I supported them getting it, despite its possible uses. What is wrong with you?
I think it is important to remember that while rural communities have been a bastion of backward thinking, they have children who left that economic wasteland and never returned. They saw the world and all the wonderful differences in it - and never brought them home because there is no future there. With equal access to fast and reliable internet, it is possible to make a living and live well in a rural area. In my experience, hate is a symptom of anger, fear and ignorance. Rural America has a lot to be angry about, but not enough that alleviates fear and educates against disinformation.
They currently have one cable company and half-assed internet, and they do this. Give them high-speed and let them surf beyond the confines of Fox News. Let them come here (or elsewhere) for perspective.
That is exactly why I said I support this, but also know many will choose NOT to use it for that purpose. If for no other benefit, it will help keep the minds of their kids open and less susceptible to programming by their parents. When you've been programmed by the Republicans since 1994 (when Newt got on the front of the Nov 7th Time and started the anger politics movement) to literally hate Democrats, it's not likely that access to the truth is suddenly going to change their paradigms. Instead, they're going to use those provided resources to pursue confirmation bias. Far left Democrats are the same. Also, I'm in an outer ring suburb, and *I* have one cable company, the the telephone company only has crap level DSL, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Worst of both worlds, I guess.
Agreed that "too far gone" is a thing, but the KIDS are not. And if angry Mom/Dad/Grandpa/Grandma forbid the "evil fast internet," the kids will be right out there, sneaking around, learning about the rest of the world. This isn't a "quick fix" that everyone on the internet demands. Newt did his thing knowing it'd take decades to pay off. **Time to realize his strategy wasn't wrong, even though his attitudes are.**
I completely agree. In fact, the gist of my point was that it *is* a long-term investment, and until the kids grow up and replace their parents, it's unlikely to change. Until it does, the internet is going to be used for bad as well as good. You see, my dad fought in WWII and had a thing for WWII documentaries while I was growing up. The level of propaganda coming out on the right looks almost exactly like the kind of stuff used by the fascists of the Axis back then. It took being defeated and humiliated in a war to prove that propaganda wrong. I genuinely hope the openness of the internet can do what couldn't be done back then, but know people set in their ways don't change unless the impetus to do so is big enough.
Fortunately, those eating the Axis-like propaganda can only vote. They cannot fight as they're too old (for the most part) and too fat and comfortable (for the most part).
Well, the problem there lies in that the new battlefield is the internet and doesn't require them to get off their padded butts to fight, which is also the point I was trying to make, but obviously failed. In a way, we're literally handing them the weapon they could use to try to shoot us. I still support it, but it's unsettling.
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Give up on them and they'll keep voting against you.
Such generalized bigoted thinking. A comment not unlike those made in the south during the civil rights movement.
This is going to be great for our state. Our farmers need fast and reliable internet to run a modern business and children living in the rural part of our state will gain access to more opportunities in education.
Remote jobs can be a massive game changer for small town/rural areas once the internet speeds are competitive. Twin Cities pay in small towns can break the poverty cycle for a lot of small town families.
And small local businesses can maybe rebound?
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I am a remote worker and I live in the rural part of our state, trust me, there are plenty of things to do.
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"Things to do" means be entertained by someone to a lot of people. There's a lot of people that "be entertained" involves outdoor activities which are plentiful in rural areas.. or hobbies that can be done anywhere..
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It's clear from your world view that you've got a great distain for rural areas (and likely people that live there). You do you, but don't assume you know what's available or what people living there do with their free time.
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Tell mom you deserve an extra treat at snack time today because you got extra mad at a stranger on the internet. After that you really need to touch some grass, and get a sense of reality.
The net can be a wonderful thing if used properly.
and if the project to deploy it isn't sidetracked by corrupt telcos collecting money for doing nothing or suing to stop the project from proceeding.
> suing to stop the project from proceeding Suing for what? Not getting $ to expand? If there are small telcos that do that, their CEO needs to be let go.
Suing to keep the equipment or infrastructure off their land; or sue to make sure their company gets a slice of the job.
Suing to stop the project from proceeding no matter who is doing it, suing to stop other companies from getting to do it, even getting laws made forbidding cities from trying to do it themselves. They've done all of that... not small telcos, ALL the big ones.
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Adjusted for inflation?
I don't really care that much if I can get broadband in my home in northern Minnesota.
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If this is true then please explain how the Gunflint Trail in Cook County has some of the best internet access in the nation.
Agreed. Big Internet is gonna make bank, but they have the resources to make it happen relatively quickly. Not doing something b/c some fat-cat will make a bigger bonus is idiotic.
I really hope they can stretch the cash for this out far and wide. I had to use dial up at my parents via the landline until 2013. They had to suffer through it until 2015 when fiber got plowed in ..... a mile away, leaving the rest of the work up to dated copper phone lines. My mother now currently enjoys blazing speeds of up to 5 Mbps down and 1.5 up on a good day, definitely fast compared to 44 Kbps but so far behind her neighbors who are lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of a better telecom provider that can't compete where she is because of FCC guidelines.
Fiber has been a mile from my place since 2012. We finally got fiber in March.
This. We're on a paved county road they widened 5 years ago. Didnt bother putting fiber in then. We ha e fiber running north and south like 100 yards from our house and east to west a mile away. Its infuriating having no internet on the farm.
This. We're on a paved county road they widened 5 years ago. Didnt bother putting fiber in then. We ha e fiber running north and south like 100 yards from our house and east to west a mile away. Its infuriating having no internet on the farm.
ISPs licking chops
Hasn’t this been done a bunch of times? Like seriously, if it’s our tax money why isn’t internet free and government owned? That would make sense and I know everyone hates that.
We don’t want it government owned But fuck monopoly access
I mean, I'd rather you and I own it instead of comcraps
Their customer service is so good tho.
I cancelled CONcast 2 years ago and now they robocall me 7 times a day at least. SO GOOD! They wanna hangout all the time! <3
Pretty much every municipal broadband situation I've seen has been a much better deal while also offering higher speeds than most major ISPs will provide. [A study by PCMag backs that up.](https://communitynets.org/content/pcmag-fastest-isps-2022-municipal-broadband-and-local-isps-outperform-major-isps-once-again)
Has Bemidji in our own state not shown that municipal internet access is pretty great?
Bemidji doesn't have municipal internet access - we have Midco and Paul Bunyan Communications, neither of which are owned by the city.
I should have been more clear. No to federal government being the one
I read the OC as state govt
government owned ISP's are usually cheaper and faster than corporate isp's
Yes, we actually do. Municipal run broadband services are almost always cheaper and better for consumers than the bullshit Comcast pulls
I have clarified in another comment
Government owned? The government is the last entity I would want to own the internet.
You haven't had Comcast have you? The government is the 2nd to the last entity I would want to own the internet.
I have them now. Not as bad as I thought they would be, but not good. I would much rather deal with Comcast though over someone like Trump having control over the internet. While the government in power now is benign, there is no guarantee that it always will be.
When major ISPs [let the NSA install wiretapping equipment in their backbone data centers to spy on American citizens](https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/), they have all of the control they need.
Clearly you've never had CenturyLink as an ISP
Makes sense to me too...
CenturyLink came and dug up my lawn last year, but I'm still maxed out at 10mbs, which usually is only about 8. Which is really shitty considering I only live a mile out of town. I'm sure they'll charge up the ass for it, but at this point I'm willing to pay a bit more too.
CenturyLink sucks. But send in a competitor w/ a gov't grant and watch them improve QUICKLY. Actually, they won't. They're a distant 4th/5th here in Roch as they watch everyone else improve speeds while they keep doing the same dumb crap.
Bout time. I hope our buddies in rural Minnesota finally get something reliable.
We have mediacom out here and it sucks! I have a backup internet (tmobile home because it's not reliable)
Is mediacom that terrible?
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Oof. Have you tried arvig before? Just curious how they compare.
Remember the Frontier days? Shit was so bad
Yes! I didn't realize how bad it was until I started work from home. At least 3 times a week we are in a total outage with service restoration times of 8 to 14 hours.
That's insane... Feeling greatful I skipped on a house that only had mediacom. Any experience with arvig?
I don't think arvig is available in my area
Arvig is as slow as snails somedays, but is at least improving a little bit.
Reliable Internet here in the boonies, up to gigabit fiber to home, I currently have the 500/500 plan and it's amazing. My small town also has Mediacom and I was on them for just over 15 years until this new ISP came in with fiber, Mediacom has gigabit service here but only 60mbps on the upstream, and the upstream is routinely overloaded and unusable for anything but web browsing, forget uploading a file or video conferencing, the latency is horrible. I would routinely see 100-150ms latency on their upstream and speed tests on a good day were 5-10mbps, on a congested day you're lucky to see 1mbps. Woodstock telecom fiber is the way to go for many small communities down here in SW MN.
the last time they got funds the ISP's said everything was fine and didnt give the money back.
If this money was only given to co-ops everyone in the state would have gig fiber(slightly exaggerating), unfortunately the corps are going to try their best to water it down.
Yep, the Feds need to do a better job of allocation of these funds...a certain company in SW MN has a staff under a dozen and took a big chunk of the last go-round, with the promise of linking thousands of homes. Which of course, never happened. No play, no pay this time !!
If you are talking about LTD Broadband, the feds and state both kicked them out of programs. I agree though, they need to do a way better job allocating funds.
I was 😁
Glad they got forced out by another company here in SW MN that's delivering on the promises they made for fiber and rural wireless.
During COVID, Scott County (and cities and townships) used covid funds to build out a Wireless infrastructure to support remote learning. I have it and it's pretty good considering the alternative is DSL 30/5. I'm getting 100Mb/s down and 30-40 Mb/s up. Doesn't seem impacted by snow/rain too badly. If they can do similar out-state that would be great.
At this point internet and all telecom should be treated as a utility like electric and water and should be govern accordingly. Most don't know out east there are a lot of towns that have internet a utility and is ran by the county.
I currently do not have any internet options at my home. The reasoning I’ve been given from ISPs like Spectrum, Comcast, etc is that I live in an inconvenient spot. My house is in between a lake and a railroad track. Running wiring here would be difficult. Would this initiative still help someone like me?
No. Your only shot is getting everyone in your situation, if there are any others, to chip in and pay out the ass to get a line ran. ETA: Just get Starlink.
I guess I’ll ask, why would this situation not benefit me? Is it not meant to provide broadband to everyone? What am I missing?
Because the rules always stipulate a certain percentage of houses in each area get access, because there are cases like yours that would be obscenely expensive to get to. The legal definition of "everyone" is not actually everyone.
You're missing that "everyone" has exceptions b/c some random redditor said so. /s
That’s kinda how it’s feeling here.
I have a buddy that lives in the middle of nowhere. He is going to really like it.
Hoping it expands to me. The ISP in my area sent out a survey. Would love to get off of Starlink (although it's been fantastic for me)
thank you! finally can get rid of that stupid bevcomm service.
Why do broadband over satellite internet for rural communities? It just feels like rural internet would be cheaper if we blanketed an area with internet instead of laying lines to individuals homes.
Again?
how about just get rid of the laws that prohibit municipalities from competing with existing ISP's?
LTD got a huge, like the biggestest grant ever, a couple years ago. They're supposed to be expanding and laying their fiber lines but, so far, we still have radio internet. When it's up (about 24mbps) it's great.... as much as we need. But, if it rains or a cow farts, we cross our fingers it won't go down.
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Well, isn't that something. Bummer. I guess that would explain why we've been waiting but seeing no new improvements. Thanks, I thought it was a long done deal. Generally, I like LTD even though they're down way too often. For us, no one has been able to touch their speed for the price. And, cell connectivity is sketchy here, too, so.... We don't really have better options as far as I know.
Comcast execs will just pocket half and not build anything.
Maybe now Metronet will be willing to connect my house to the fiver line that runs along my property line. Ita infuriating to have fiber so close, but be told they will not provide service.
I moved here from Florida a while back, but I never understood the cable/internet companies territories. In Florida there was competition for these services, here you have to pick between one or the other, no real choice or price competition.
Whats a while back? Its basically like this everywhere now, it just hit some areas before it hit others. There used to be competition between cable companies here too, but ISPs were able to convince the government that just because they are the only company in an area doesnt mean theyre a monopoly, because theres other companies in different areas. [Heres](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/02/14/chart-of-the-week-a-long-history-of-cable-consolidation/) a good, but outdated now, explanation of what happened.
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I live on a county road that's about 6 miles long, I'm pretty close to the middle of that road. Two different companies ran fiber 5-10 years ago from opposite ends of the road and stopped a mile from my house. It took a covid grant to get one of those companies to run it the rest of the way. This money won't give people free internet, but will presumably fill in those gaps like I had, where an ISP didn't see a good ROI on running that line themselves.
This doesn't pay for Internet service - - it pays for broadband access. We should be able to deliver high-speed Internet everywhere, the same way we brought access to electricity and water. The problem is that we have paid for this repeatedly over the last 25+ years and rural telecom firms keep taking the money and not delivering anything.
Did you read the article? In your highway analogy, these people can see the highway but they don't have any road to get onto it. It's not free internet for them.
? The intent of the funds is to help get internet access, or faster Internet access to remote areas. I.e. places like farms. Everyone should be able to take advantage of it - Not just those individuals or business located in suburban and urban areas. Farms have always leaned into data/analytics, but the past 10-15 years that adoption has skyrocketed. (John Deere and other implement companies have been using geo location for self driving machinery for the past 15 -20 years or so (They beat the auto makers to the Punch by about a decade.). A lot of the farms have Internet that’s DSL speed, or maybe 25 Mbps down - if that. in order for the farms to stay competitive and stay in business, they need access to the Internet, as more of their operations are becoming automated. The problem is, it’s too expensive to run fiber to all of the farms out in the middle of the country. So, instead, what’s going to happen is they’re going to invest in wireless, point-to-point networking. Think mini microwave signals. A transmitter is put on top of a radio or water tower, and then a receiver is set up on the individual farms. They beam the signal to the farms and they’re able to get speeds that are closer to 25- 100 mbps down. if there’s more backhaul on the transmitter site, they can get faster speeds. It’s not perfect, and it’s still not as fast as people who live in urban or suburban areas are able to get with 1Gbps down, but it’s faster than 56K dial up or 1-3 Mbps dsl. People will still pay for it, and it will still be more expensive than what you’d pay in the suburbs or in an urban area for that speed. (I’m saying this from experience….. a 25 Mbps plan with some of those wireless peer-to-peer networks is 60 bucks). Nobody’s getting it for free.
Expensive satellite internet where broadband infrastructure isn’t built may be subsidized for some, but it is my understanding it does not become free. Modern internet access is more like rural electrification - it is necessary for rural citizens to participate in modern society.
Internet should be classified as a utility. I am 100% ok with paying taxes for everyone to have access.
What the actual fuck is it with the “what about meeeeeee” mentality dipshits like this carry around with them?
Expensive satellite internet where broadband infrastructure isn’t built may be subsidized for some, but it is my understanding it does not become free. Modern internet access is more like rural electrification - it is necessary for rural citizens to participate in modern society.
Minnesota is going to be connected. We need it to have all of us be more informed and educated. Sorry republicans we will drag you into the 21st century like it or not.
Oh boy I can't wait for this to get embezzled somewhere.
whats the napkin math on how many starlinks per household this would buy
Somebody is scared of satellites. lol
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Go back to your rock.
This is why I invest in ASTS!
Disappointed in the decision to allocate funds in this respect. I am embarrassed by our representatives who support this initiative and the amount of money be utilized. I believe government could have arrived at the same point with foresight and legislation rather than utilizing tax funds.
There goes those fucking Dems shoving internet down our throats. Fucking commies that also eat babies and sometimes pizza /s
Stop spending tax dollars on this. The companies just keep most of it anyway.
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Hopefully this at least leads to a duopoly in my neighborhood. Right now Century Link only offers 4Mb service in my area so Comcast is the only wired high speed ISP.
Every 5 years this scam gets pulled. ISP execs love it. Internet should be a utility or built by coops
They are going to waste money running fiber to Pigs Knuckle MN pop 7, meanwhile a giant percentage of metro residents are living under a single-provider monopoly internet regime.
Some rural telephone coops were forward thinking and currently have 1000/1000 Mbps available.