Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 23:00:02 -0600
From: J
Subject: For once I don’t feel neglected and forgotten here
On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 7:22 AM, Chatham Chatlist wrote:
> Dreadpiratejeff wrote:
>
> ” I would just be happy if they could provide better than 10MB/s to my
> home as other areas get 40MB/s service on their aDSL circuits.”
>
> Sadly many of us in Chatham would be happy with 5mbps up and 1mbps down,
> seriously, the options here are that bad and many of us have tried
> everything from petitioning local ISP’s, attempting to work with Chatham
> Wireless(Formerly Blast) on building more towers with money out of our own
> pockets, going door to door for signatures, offering to dig fiber lines for
> free and much more but none of this ever came to be.
>
For once I don’t feel neglected and forgotten here in the Southeast quarter of Chatham.
Sadly, there’s really only one way to really get what you all want (and I want for you). Internet connectivity needs to be treated like a public utility and required much the same way electricity is. Until that happens, there will, for a very long time, be disparity because the Telcos and Cable companies are in it for the money and it’s just not worth it to them to update the lines and equipment. It will be, eventually, but even with subsidies and grants, it’s not worth it to them.
Its also a very expensive proposition to install or upgrade the equipment, and potentially the many, many miles of lines that have been hanging for years, the junction boxes with their rat nests of patches, jumpers and old phone cables, etc.
The reason so many places in Europe and Asia have nearly 100% broadband saturation (aside from the fact that in most cases they’re vastly smaller geographic regions is that in many cases the governments require the access and own the companies that provide it.
As for suggestions, someone else suggested a co/op. I had thought along those same lines, looking at pricing out a full T1 and then selling off subscriptions to my neighbors. Turns out, for me, that would have been
more expensive than you can imagine. Even for a partial T1. I have a friend out in the asheville area who has Point to Point wireless and gets great service. The problem is that he has to have a 60 foot tall antenna
in his back yard and the equipment is incredibly expensive.
Another thought is, if you can get 4G data, tethering a phone or using a my-fi kind of device. That can be a bit expensive though.