Community Broadband Dominates List Of Fastest US ISPs
For years, a growing number of US towns and cities have been forced into the broadband business thanks to US telecom market failure. Frustrated by high prices, lack of competition, spotty coverage, and terrible customer service, some 750 US towns and cities have explored some kind of community broadband option. And while the telecom industry (and the lawmakers, regulators, and policy wonks paid to love them) routinely tries to paint such projects as radical socialist boondoggles that always end in failure, that's never actually been true.
The latest case in point: once a year PC Magazine offers a breakdown of the fastest broadband networks in the United States. And this year, as usual, the list is dominated by community-owned and operated broadband networks.
Three of the fastest ISPs are directly owned by the city (Longmont, Colorado’s Nextlight, Chattanooga, Tennessee’s EPB Fiber, and Cedar Falls, Iowa’s CFU). These same ISPs, not coincidentally, also tend to score really well on overall consumer satisfaction studies. And the fastest ISP in the country (Empire Access) makes heavy use of an open access middle mile fiber network funded in large part by the public.
How about: build the bestest, fastest, cheapest, big-dumb-pipe for the best consumer price possible while making a profit.
See also:PC Magazine: The Fastest ISPs of 2021
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @12:43AM (1 child)
Until they start taking citizens out back and shooting them. Support America... use corporate broadband.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @12:54AM
Yeah, freaking pinkos and their fast internet. They're building a information super highway to the GULAGS!!!
(Score: 2, Redundant) by aristarchus on Friday July 09 2021, @02:09AM (4 children)
The People, United, get better broadband internet!! Maybe commie-ism is not as bad as somehere think? Of course, anything beats Comcast.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Friday July 09 2021, @02:06PM (2 children)
I'm actually all for community projects like broadband access as long as it has no federal ties or control.
I think the federal government would vastly prefer to have internet access provided by a few very large companies that pay regular lobbying tithes. It also makes it easier for the NSA, so win-win all around.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 09 2021, @03:17PM (1 child)
I am for community projects like broadband if it really helps the community. And without government controls on it.
But ideally, I would rather that community projects like broadband not even be necessary.
The only reason this is a thang is because of the inability or unwillingness of ISPs to provide usable, acceptabble and/or affordable internet service.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @03:54PM
The only reason it's a thing is that we've given money to the current ISPs to build out the infrastructure and then let them use the money for profits without having to demonstrate that they've used the money for expanding access.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 09 2021, @07:38PM
It's a slippery slope. Next thing you know, they'll be believing in AGW. Then the shops will run out of toilet paper, just like Venezuela.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @03:15AM (2 children)
What on earth made the status quo ante look anything like a free market to anybody?
We've had sweetheart deals on everything from pole access to frequency blocks, promoted by every level of government from municipal through federal, we've had barriers to entry so steep that the CLEC boom twenty years back mostly started with them all going into massive debt, which, when things went pear-shaped, meant that they turned into so many dead ducks. We've had laws pretty much written by the demon spawn of Ma Bell and the cable guy - and that was supposed to be a market failure?
A better assessment: if you hand a wheelbarrow load of cash and power to governments, they will cheerfully announce the inevitable triumph of the lobbyist whose whores suck dick the best. The fact that the result will suck for the customer is meaningless to them, and the totally-not-officially-monopolists will laugh all the way to the bank while getting their blowjobs from their customers after kicking their teeth in, Comcast (sorry, Xfinity) style. At that point, their worst problem is people who are so tired of being repeatedly, flagrantly shit upon that they will actually rebel and do it for themselves, and the only way that those people have the power to do so is by pushing their will through their local governments.
Lesson learned: the government can fuck up the market so badly that the government can look like an okay option by comparison. Is this the playbook to argue for a new, brighter socialised world? Because I see a tiny flaw: it starts with giving the government power in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @03:37AM
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday July 09 2021, @11:52AM
This is another one of these headlines that needs to be prefixed with "Surprising exactly nobody...". Who would have thought that ISPs dedicated a providing a good service would outperform ISPs dedicated to maximising revenue at the expense of service?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @03:15AM (2 children)
I live in a place with two and a half broadband providers, and I have unlimited gigabit for $60/month. Funny how that happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @06:25AM
What ARE you? Korean?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stormreaver on Friday July 09 2021, @12:37PM
I live in a place with three Internet providers: Mediacom, AT&T, and now Quantum Fiber. In order of service quality:
1) AT&T. The service is unreliable (daily outages), the customer service sucks (frequent disconnects while they transfer me through their maze of so-called customer service), and download speeds max-out in the low 30 mbps range (upload speeds suck). The price is outrageous for such minimal service. Abusively low data caps, and outrageous overage fees. When I had it, I was paying about $90/month for this craptastic experience.
2) Mediacom. The service is largely reliable (a couple multi-hour outages per year), the customer service is good (but shouldn't be necessary nearly as much as it is), and the download speeds are good (the upload speeds are halfway decent). The price is high for barely decent speeds ($100/month for 200/50). Data caps at this tier or higher are low (1 TB/month at 100 mbps, 2 TB/month at 200 mbps, 6 TB/month for gigabit), and I suspect their data useage measurements are inaccurate in order to drive customers to higher-priced tiers. I've experienced deceptive advertising for speed upgrades.
3) Quantum Fiber. Private ISP over publicly owned fiber infrastructure. I've only had it for two months, but it's been rock solid fiber to the house. Customer service quality is an open question, as I haven't yet needed to use it. Download speeds and upload speeds are great (gigabit both ways). Free installation, free modem. No data caps or port restrictions. All for $65/month. This is easily the best broadband service in the region, and Mediacom is panicking.
Aside from the obvious assumptions that Mediacom is panicking, my experience with canceling leaves no room for doubt. The Mediacom customer retention agent told me that the only possible use for symmetrical gigabit is illegal file sharing. Obviously, they know that their service is inferior, and that they can't compete on any level with fiber.
There is nothing stopping both AT&T and Mediacom from joining the pool of ISP's using the municipal infrastructure to provide Internet service. I doubt they will, though, because of ego. Fortunately, both Mediacom and AT&T's futures as ISP's are bleak. But they did it to themselves through abusive practices.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @07:06AM (5 children)
Just like water, sewer, and roads, etc.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 09 2021, @12:38PM (3 children)
Careful now, that's Undemocratic Marxism. Before you know it you'll be short of toilet paper just like Venezuela.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday July 09 2021, @03:18PM (2 children)
The only reason communities are having to become ISPs is because the commercial providers are unable or unwilling to provide basic service that is acceptable, usable and affordable.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 09 2021, @03:20PM (1 child)
When inefficient bureaucratic government can do something better than the capitalist providers, something is very wrong.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @05:53PM
Exactly, and that "something wrong" is called a "monopoly".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09 2021, @06:12PM
Before we start jumping on the basic infrastructure bandwagon, let's ask whether it matches the case of, for example, roads.
A road is a way of moving traffic along a path. If is extremely expensive on many levels; even just dedicating 5m wide path from one place to another, 20km distance, loses you 10ha of space (about 25 acres). Laying another road surface next to the first has little incremental benefit until you get to high usage levels, and until you reach those levels it's not a naturally rival good.
A cable, or length of fibre, or similar medium for data, can coexist with many other cables along similar lines. Whether you're talking about buried conduit, or poles, or sewer access or similar options is mostly irrelevant. Yes, there are costs to each cable run but the incremental cost after the first is minute by comparison and unlike roads, while parallel runs aren't rival the actual use of any run is substantially rival.
If you want to make an argument about roads, your best parallel is cable conduit or analogous arrangements. So, great. Let's have nationwide poles, or cable runs or what-have-you, from sea to shining sea, with reasonable, non-discriminatory access.
If you want government to supply the internet, first make sure that the government is worth trusting. Would you have trusted Don Orange to run the net?