Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The Institute For Local Self Reliance (disclosure: I have done writing and research for them) has released an updated interactive map of every community-owned and operated broadband network in the U.S.
All told, there’s now 400 community-owned broadband networks serving more than 700 U.S. towns and cities nationwide, and the pace of growth shows no sign of slowing down.
Some of these networks are directly owned by a municipality. Some are freshly-built cooperatives. Some are extensions of the existing city-owned electrical utility. All of them are an organic, popular, grass-roots community-driven reaction to telecom market failure and expensive, patchy access.
[...] Data routinely notes that community-owned broadband networks provide faster, cheaper, better service than their larger private-sector counterparts. Staffed by locals, they’re also more directly accountable and responsive to the needs of locals. They’re also just hugely popular across the partisan spectrum; routinely winning awards for service.
[...] That’s not to suggest community-owned broadband networks are some mystical panacea; they require smart leadership, strategic planning, and intelligent financing. But if done well, they not only drive significant fiber improvements directly to local markets, they incentivize lumbering regional private sector monopolies — long pampered by federal government corruption and muted competition — to actually try.
Widespread frustration with substandard U.S. broadband drove a big boost in such networks during COVID lockdowns. Since January 1, 2021, more than 47 new networks have come online, with dozens in the planning or pre-construction phases. Many are seeing a big financial boost thanks to 2021 COVID relief (ARPA) and infrastructure bill (IIJA) legislation funding (the latter of which hasn’t even arrived yet).
In response to this popular grass roots movement, giant ISPs have worked tirelessly to outlaw such efforts, regardless of voter intent. 16 states still have protectionist state laws, usually ghost written by giant telecom monopolies, prohibiting the construction or expansion of community broadband. House Republicans went so far as to try and ban all community broadband during a pandemic.
Lumbering regional monopolies like Comcast, AT&T, and Charter could have responded to this movement by lowering prices and improving service. Instead in many cases they found it cheaper to lobby politicians, sue fledgling networks, or create fake “consumer groups” tasked with spreading lies about the perils of community-owned broadband networks among local communities.
But based on the growth rate of such networks, these efforts have backfired, and locally-owned and operated broadband networks appear to be more popular than ever.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 08, @09:35PM (4 children)
There's fiber right across the road from me, but might as well be on Mars... for 13 potential customers (maybe half that, realistically) they're not gonna get the permits to cross the four-lane highway and the railroad track and the natural gas pipeline, even tho they could do it at the existing RR crossing.
Anyway, very interesting, and sounds like it would be a lot less net maintenance than copper. But first you gotta get it there.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 09, @12:44AM (1 child)
Maybe organize a smallish ISP to set up, pulling service from the fiber, and providing service via DSL? Yeah, DSL sucks for the reasons you've already pointed out, but if you're that close to the server, service should be decent.
Alternatively - fiber can be strung on existing electric power line poles. That's how the electric company did ours. The only permits needed involve the electric company, natural gas and railroad companies can both pound sand.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday October 09, @01:41AM
The fiber is owned by CenturyLink, who have become all about not providing service. (Have already talked to them about it, back when they actually had humans with clues, and you could get to one with less that four hours hold time).
And... I'm about to jump ship now that fixed wireless has gotten decent enough, and it's a lot faster for the same money. And they have a .local office I can march into at need....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday October 09, @07:46AM (1 child)
Ah yes, crossing major roads is ... difficult. The traditional way is very expensive and disruptive, as you have to dig a ditch across the road, put the fibre in (in conduit) below the lowest level of the foundation of the road (they are surprisingly deep) and reinstate the road to the standard it was before (which is impossible - there's always a weak-point at the joints). It's also very disruptive of the traffic, so if the road is at all busy, getting a permit for diversions can take months/years. You can tell I used to work in the industry.
The non-traditional way is horizontal drilling. You can get steerable drill-bits/moles - but they only work in certain soil/ground conditions (done it once going under a river to build a diverse route to a data-centre). Worst case is to sink two vertical shafts and drill/blast your way from one to the other. Not cheap.
If there is a bridge or someone else's conduit nearby that you can share, that's usually better, even if you have to go some way away from the direct route. You pay to rent that bit of someone-else's property.
The railway track has similar problems.
If there is a crossing, then there is likely conduit that could be shared/reused. If the ISP can be bothered. If the profit they can make from you is too small (e.g. if it doesn't cover the costs), it won't happen. I guess you live on the wrong side of the tracks.
If you can get line-of-sight, a short microwave link acting as a bridge across the road, railway, and gas pipeline could work. You might need a high mast/towers, which likely would building permits. If you are lucky, you can use IR-laser, as you likely do not need a radio-frequency permit for that; or use a licence-free radio band (with associated possibility of interference) - actual telecomms microwave requires permits and frequency-planning.
Of course, you need somewhere to connect to: a wayleave on a neighbours property. In theory, you could share their fibre connection, but ISPs usually have contracts that prevent you from re-selling or sharing their services.
I have a fibre connection, but with a maliciously incompetent ISP - I would dearly love to be able to choose a different Internet Service Provider that delivers service over the same infrastructure - all that is really needed is putting a port into a differant VLAN on a switch somewhere. But that is too easy - so I suffer catastrophically poor service.
I am very sympathetic to your situation.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday October 09, @08:35AM
Yep, yep, yep, and that's the pile of apparently insurmountable problems with reaching that fiber across the highway. And given how high the roadbed is, even at the RR crossing (which is built up about 10 feet, and the highway slopes to an overpass) for transmitter-and-dish you'd need a serious tower (assuming Montana weather didn't largely nix the transmission).
My sister's place has fiber to the mailboxes, but for some unknown reason not to the lots. (A bunch of rural 10 acre lots in a hilly clump.) Would need to be trenched long way around to each lot and that quickly gets ridiculous. Of course no one thought to do it when they put in the buried power and natural gas lines, tho the fiber was there years before the development!
I'd cheerfully host a tower on my pasture hill if someone wanted to do it.....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.