from the build-it-and-you-will-get-internet dept.
Jared Mauch didn’t have good broadband—so he built his own fiber ISP:
The old saying "if you want something done right, do it yourself" usually isn't helpful when your problem is not having good Internet service. But for one man in rural Michigan named Jared Mauch, who happens to be a network architect, the solution to not having good broadband at home was in fact building his own fiber-Internet service provider.
"I had to start a telephone company to get [high-speed] Internet access at my house," Mauch explained in a recent presentation about his new ISP that serves his own home in Scio Township, which is next to Ann Arbor, as well as a few dozen other homes in Washtenaw County.
Mauch, a senior network architect at Akamai in his day job, moved into his house in 2002. At that point, he got a T1 line when 1.5Mbps was "a really great Internet connection," he said. As broadband technology advanced, Mauch expected that an ISP would eventually wire up his house with cable or fiber. It never happened.
He eventually switched to a wireless Internet service provider that delivered about 50Mbps. Mauch at one point contacted Comcast, which told him it would charge $50,000 to extend its cable network to his house. "If they had priced it at $10,000, I would have written them a check," Mauch told Ars. "It was so high at $50,000 that it made me consider if this is worthwhile. Why would I pay them to expand their network if I get nothing back out of it?"
Not the first to have need to do it themselves, but an interesting story.
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Jared Mauch, the Michigan man who built a fiber-to-the-home Internet provider because he couldn't get good broadband service from AT&T or Comcast, is expanding with the help of $2.6 million in government money.
When we wrote about Mauch in January 2021, he was providing service to about 30 rural homes including his own with his ISP, Washtenaw Fiber Properties LLC. Mauch now has about 70 customers and will extend his network to nearly 600 more properties with money from the American Rescue Plan's Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, he told Ars in a phone interview in mid-July.
The US government allocated Washtenaw County $71 million for a variety of infrastructure projects, and the county devoted a portion to broadband. The county conducted a broadband study before the pandemic to identify unserved locations, Mauch said. When the federal government money became available, the county issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking contractors to wire up addresses "that were known to be unserved or underserved based on the existing survey," he said.
[...] Mauch's network currently has about 14 miles of fiber, and he'll build another 38 miles to complete the government-funded project, he said. In this sparsely populated rural area, "I have at least two homes where I have to build a half-mile to get to one house," Mauch said, noting that it will cost "over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served."
Previously:
Jared Mauch Didn't Have Good Broadband—So He Built His Own Fiber ISP
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 13 2021, @09:14AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday January 13 2021, @02:58PM (1 child)
I see your 1993 and raise you 1910: https://books.google.com/books?id=4OZMAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA364&ots=tkAGzF7aRt&dq=%22century%20magazine%22%20telephone%20line%20new%20england&pg=PA364#v=onepage&q=%22century%20magazine%22%20telephone%20line%20new%20england&f=false [google.com]
The Twentieth Century Magazine was a "Progressive" (socialist) publication. Keep reading past the article linked to get a feeling for their policies. I am particularly entertained by the campaign against the establishment of a government National Health Department. All of this is a reminder that present-day "capitalism" is not capitalism or free-enterprise at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:52PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Wednesday January 13 2021, @09:46AM
A friend of mine moved into a cabin near Missoula. The wiring was antiquated, with a rat's nest of old extensions all over. A few years back Blackfoot moved the property to 4 Mbps over several miles of copper. Had to go in and cut loose all the old, unused extension wiring, but it worked. Now the property needs even faster to handle FaceTime, Netflix, ... , so a fair amount of work to clean up more of the on-property wiring and carefully tune the feed. During a visit this summer, I noticed trenching along the road that passes the property, and large spools of fiber being installed. Blackfoot figures to have that whole stretch of road moved to Gbps to the premises (owner will have to foot the on-property bill) or, at least, reduce the run from the fiber to allow higher speed, sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. Up there a lot of that type of construction is difficult when there are a few feet of snow. Since the current copper on-property is encased in a tube, rather than just buried in the ground, it may be possible to reuse that feed.
I worked for an ISP equipment manufacturer many, many, many years ago. We pretty much used up the local switch's T1 lines for testing, but the end-point product was a bonded pair of 9600 lines and that was tricky enough back then. The DSP chips now can perform what would have amounted to magic back then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday January 13 2021, @09:52AM (30 children)
So comcast was going to charge hi 50k for this, and he ended up spending 150k. This tells me the 50k was a realistic number.
The real discussion here is if a government granted semi-monopoly semi-utility that receives tax breaks and taxpayer grants to build infrastructure is obligated to build service points at a loss, for demand that in his case appears to be 150 users.
What's going on here is the users in densely populated areas are subsidizing rural users. So same thing we're doing with the post office. I would argue no. There are savings in things like land prices for rural users. There are also costs for things like mail delivery and fast internet. His area gets 1.5Mb/s - that's plenty fast, in fact my old 3g cell card could stream 720p from youtube on that.
There are benefits to us as a country to get remote locations served with cheap mail service and internet. I personally don't believe that "good for society" expansion should be tasked via regulation to private companies, that in essence redistribute wealth from urban areas to rural areas. If we want to do that, that's a government effort and should be done with taxes. Then people can vote on whether or not they want it - our money, our choice. And surprise - the choice of the people is going to be not to do it. Routing this through private companies removes this voting choice from the people whose money is being spent - the ones in cities, and whose comcast bill is inflated to subsidize the rural areas.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday January 13 2021, @10:50AM (20 children)
The thing is, the subsidies for tackling the problem are a sunk cost. Now we have to meke the ISPs actually hold up their end of the agreement rather than lying on their broadband maps.
I certainly wouldn't mind regulations to make the ISPs play ball though. Some people are actually in a situation where they can't get service because they live on the wrong side of the street. The line passes right in front of their property but they can't get hooked up, but the home across the street can. Then there's the cases where an ISP doesn't serve an area but they will fight tooth and nail in court to block any attempt by anyone else (especially the municipality) from serving the area instead.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday January 13 2021, @11:07AM (19 children)
France did this right. I was paying I think 15EUR/month for gigabit there. They use taxpayer dollars to lay all the cable - which makes sense, since it's going through public and private land. Then anyone could become an ISP by renting that cable and hooking up their own equipment at the endpoints. The government made all their money back within a decade, served all the people it needed, and resulted in dirt cheap service for the consumers.
Here, we have a mess. We give monopolies free rights to dig up land they don't own and place their cable there, we give them money to do it, then bitch they don't deliver what we want. The better idea is to make it illegal for private companies to run their cable under land that's not theirs, do it ourselves, and rent it out to anyone who wants to use it to provide service.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:06PM (7 children)
> use taxpayer dollars to lay all the cable
Sounds like communism to me...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:23PM
We've done this, the problem is that the telcos don't live up to their end and the government just shrugs.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:30PM (5 children)
because of the few complete retards on this site, I actually have no idea if you're joking or not. that's a sad thing for me to say. it also means I won't make fun of you, because you're likely joking.
here is the reason it's not communism, but is capitalism. communism would be the internet provided by the state. capitalism is renting out dark fiber to private companies. why is running the fiber on tax dollars not communism? because the land where the cable is run is not owned by the ISP.
here's the reason the way it's done in america is not capitalism. we give private companies free access to run their fiber on land they don't own - we don't charge for it. in fact, we give them money to help them do it. this is the opposite of capitalism - giving tax dollars to corporations. this is however nazism. not in the bad kill the jews kind of way like fascism. communism is the state owning everything. nazism is private companies propped up by tax dollars, and directed what to produce. communism is on the left, nazism is on the right. neither is capitalism. guess what a large portion of the american system is - hint - it's not capitalism.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:24PM
I was joking.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:25PM
But the clarification is interesting nonetheless...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:42AM (2 children)
"nazi" is a jew slur.
"in the bad kill the jews kind of way" is Jew propaganda.
International Jewry declared war on Germany first and orchestrated the whole war. Killing ethnic Germans in Poland to force Htiler into the war. Hitler tried to avoid the war. The International Jew and race traitor whites forced the issue. The Jews that died in camps died of typhus and starvation caused by the Jew slave states (aka The Allies) bombing the supply lines. The only Jews that were actually executed in any coordinated numbers(there will always be some officers running rampant killing folks they aren't supposed to be killing) were Bolshevik operatives. The Final Solution was to transport the unwelcome, insurgent Jews out of the country (at Germany's expense). There were no gas chambers and body cooking ovens, you ridiculous fucks.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:47AM (1 child)
I'm gonna respond to ethanol-fueled, simply because i feel bored.
1. nazi is the name for the party, invented and first used by the very germanic minister of propaganda. he was not jewish. if it's a jewish slur, the germans would have to be quite mentally handicapped to name their party that.
2. you are partially correct. the poles did in fact kill a bunch of ethnic germans living in poland. starting the day after germany invaded them. you got your cause and effect backwards skippy.
3. there were no "supply lines" to concentration camps you idiot. supply lines go to the front, not deep inside the country, to itself.
4. there were no jew bolshevik operatives. you know why? because russia was killing, hating, and deporting the jews as well, so why would they employ them for top secret cleared prestigious positions?
5. if there were not gas chambers and ovens, how come there are now? I've literally visited a few. the ovens and gas chambers have to this day, human residue on them. did a magician build some pizza ovens after ww2, age them, and place some burned jew dna in them from the ww2 period, that we're able to examine literally today?
here's the actual final solution. jews on average have much higher iq than your ethnic background. this means jews as a people are smarter, more successful, and as a small group have a lot more power - due to being genetically superior to you.
there's nothing you can do about that but bitch about your inferior genes, showing how inferior they are with every word, by not being able to follow basic logic. the final solution is for you to do something. start with the center of power - the enforcers. go into the police station with a gun, and kill the people enforcing the jewish bidding. get really drunk first for courage, and call ahead to let them know you're coming, so they run away afraid. do it today, do it now, don't sleep on it or wait till the morning. you must act, you must lead the change and the world will follow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:16PM
due to being genetically superior to you.
maybe the jews haven't been marrying their sisters and first cousins for every generation going back centuries...?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:20PM
Agreed, that would be a good way to handle it. Or even one layer up, make it an ethernet service and you can run whatever you want over that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:53AM (9 children)
You're advocating for government, yet another monopoly, to do the same.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:58AM (8 children)
lolwut? the goverment represents and is elected by the people. the people own the land the cables go under, with the people paying for the digging, to get internet over the cables they paid for. if by "do the same" you mean "the public laying public cables on public land" then yes. boy, wait till you find out what roads are.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:30PM (7 children)
Except when it doesn't. Those very monopolies in telecoms indicate a lack of representation! And of course, it remains that governments are monopolies.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:40PM (6 children)
the government has a monopoly on some services. it is not a corporation that is a monopoly. i'm not sure what the hell you're actually arguing here. the telco monopolies indicate a government monopoly? what?
yes, I am suggesting that land owned by the public us utilized by the government representing that public. that is not changing one monopoly for another. not giving away a public good to a corporation is not "a monopoly" - it's "not giving away a public good to a corporation."
i do find it funny how you completely ignored my example of roads, which are not privately owned. yes, a government does not always do what the people want - that's irrelevant to it being the entity representing the people. the attorney in your pedo case may not do exactly what you tell him either - he still represents you to the court. 7 out of 8 of the last gop presidents in office did not get the vote of the people, yet still represent the people. "represent" does not mean what you think it means. it means "chosen to speak on behalf of." it does not mean "do what you want." literally a 5th grader knows this. you should try middle school - maybe you'll pass it now that you're 40.
but here, lemme help you. you actually don't have a point, nor enough coherent thought in your brain to hold a paragraph of text in memory at a time. you hence respond to snippets of phrases out of context, without any actual purpose or argument, just so you can argue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 15 2021, @03:05AM (5 children)
Actually, it is. After all, what is a corporation? It's a group of people that owns stuff, gets treated as a legal entity by law, and has internal rules and structure. Governments are just corporations with really advantageous market positions and captive revenue streams.
Still do. It's not relevant to my point.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:06AM (4 children)
>what is a corporation
you should look that up on wiki. then you'll stop calling elected officials a corporation. governments are not corporations - they're governments.
>It's not relevant to my point
you have made no point. you have however rambled on with your rant - i think the point of all of your comments has literally been to go on a pointless rant about nothing, since you lack the knowledge to talk about the subject matter at hand.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 15 2021, @05:28AM (3 children)
Elected officials are not a government any more than a CEO is a corporation (at least in the situation where the corporation has multiple workers in it). And most people in a government aren't elected.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:20PM (2 children)
the CEO is who represents the company. the goverment officials which at the top represent the government are indeed elected. having a couple of similarities between two things does not make them the same.
you have skin. a large portion of you is water. you have soft tissue and hard parts. you are made from cells, and regenerate tissue via mitosis, while reproducing via meiosis. you're an apple. an apple who claims apples and humans are the same thing. a very dumb apple.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 15 2021, @06:23PM (1 child)
By my count, we're up to four such similarities just in the last few posts.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @06:31PM
so, like you and the apple then. i did get the feeling reading your pointless rant that i was talking to some kind of fruit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Wednesday January 13 2021, @10:50AM (7 children)
Those aren't bad rates, and breakeven in less than 4 years. Thereafter he will earn about $40,000 a year. Seems a pretty decent investment really.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday January 13 2021, @11:02AM (6 children)
I agree, however I simply was pointing out that the price comcast quoted (50k) is probably at cost. He said he was willing to pay 10k, meaning someone else (people in cities or taxpayers) would have had to pick up 40k for this. The taxpayers or urban customers don't get that money back after 4 years - it's literally cash that has to be spent for the benefit of faster and cheaper internet for rural areas. I'm not ok paying for that improvement. Being in a rural area has extra costs, and we should not be hiding it or subsidizing it - the people living in those areas with cheap land should be paying those.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Wednesday January 13 2021, @11:38AM (5 children)
It shouldn't have cost Comcast more than it cost him, less really as they would have all the equipment already. If he can break even in four years why the fuck should Comcast need to be subsidized?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Touché) by looorg on Wednesday January 13 2021, @02:22PM
He doesn't have a CEO that needs a golden parachute, stock options and a hefty salary. Think of the poor CEO:s and MBA:s.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:01PM (3 children)
It costs Comcast more because of subsidies.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:05PM (2 children)
That comment makes my head hurt. Subsidies should make it cheaper for Comcost to build out. Not, cost more, because they can't pocket as much otherwise.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @09:15PM
Financial aid makes education more expensive?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Tokolosh on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:31AM
You poor, innocent child.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by helel on Wednesday January 13 2021, @05:30PM
I think the biggest thing you're missing is that "we" have already voted to subsides internet service in rural areas and have already paid for it. That's what those tax breaks, grants, and regional monopolies are paying for. The big ISP have happily taken our money and legal privileges and then refused to hold up their end of the agreement [huffpost.com].