So glad to see a renewed emphasis on proper wired infrastructure. It seems the "big boys" (Verizon, T-Mobile, etc) are heavily pushing wireless and not building out new wired areas, I assume because it's less capital intensive.
Hell if there's a way to invest in Prime-One, these guys seem to have their stuff together...
I've seen a few articles about folks who started an ISP and they always talk about the physical infrastructure. But in today's world where ISP ads are touting the speeds of their wifi, it really makes me wonder what the support burden ends up being like. What's the breakdown for actual ISP issues vs issues with customer equipment?
I once lived in a town with local high speed (although it was cable, not fiber). It really does make a world of difference in terms of what you pay and what kind of support you get.
It's disgusting that big telecom has been able to monopolize so much of the US for so long.
Still waiting for someone to do the same in Bay Area. Many parts of it don’t have any fiber optics options, even though Sonic does provide some in the north.
AT&T put an optic cable at my curb 10 years ago (most likely due to imminent competition from Google Fiber internet), but then never lit it (most likely because Google dropped their effort due to complications with cities)…
I am always baffled by these things. Say there’s a huge company with a monopoly in your area. My first thought is “How did they get that monopoly? What happened to all the other people who must surely have had the idea to compete with them?” But no, these stories are always treating “Hey, let’s start a competing company!” like some revolutionary idea that nobody has thought of before, and that success is assured.
If you ever have the chance to support a local ISP like this, do it! You can get some pretty sweet deals, the last time I had the opportunity to do this they threw in a /28 for "free" (agreed to two year terms)
I'm one of their customers. I often see that one green car parked down the road.
It's pretty good - their provided router is locked down to hell and they're on a cgnat, but not having to deal with Comcast's 1.2tb data cap is well worth it. Checking Comcast's site now, it seems that they now offer "unlimited" data. Interesting, that option wasn't there 6 months ago.
~100 customers seems too small for the amount of effort they have put in so far. They've been working along all the roads near me for about a year, and they're out there running fiber conduit every day. The houses out here are far apart. Hopefully, they can make it work.
This indicates that their local and state governments aren't (at this time) captured by the incumbent cable provider.
A captured state gov will pass laws to thwart new infra deployment, commonly written by ISP interests. A captured local gov will never approve deployment or slow-walk permitting in an attempt to bankrupt the upstart.
more explainers: New suburban fiber infrastructure means either trenching or pole hanging. The local gov issues permits for both but poles also require the cooperation of the pole owners. This last adds the PSC to the mix.
Recalcitrant pole owners are known to stall and kill infrastructure deployment - especially where going underground isn't an option. Some PSCs mandate that pole owners cooperate. Some PSCs abdicate that responsibility and are examples of regulatory capture.
This is why national ISPs like Comcast have fought/lobbied tooth and nail to prevent municipal based ISPs from being created in various states (ie, Texas). Next logical step is starting a small ISP like these people have but they have the advantage of learning the skills and process (permitting with municipality) of doing this for other ISPs. There's also the capital aspect of this, which they apparently have.
> Comcast seems to have noticed, Herman said. "They've been calling our clients nonstop to try to come back to their service, offer them discounted rates for a five-year contract and so on," he said.
go figure. their monopoly/duopoly has ended, profits dropping like a rock in area, and now they want to compete.
Only billionaires and people fooled by Peter Thiel think competition is evil.
I am in a rural area of Texas and I just recently got access to fiber. The other competition is ADSL and DOCSIS providers - AT&T and Optimum.
Optimum had their entire service area bought out by Comcast the day after I switched. Comcast has since broken every major utility at least twice and my fiber connection three times by working on the old infrastructure. I think Optimum won that trade. I can't imagine many residents are going to prefer Comcast over $80/m for no-bullshit internet, especially after the water main break they caused last week.
These FTTP providers have the game solved in Texas. I've seen them do 500-1000 homes in <30 days. Their directional drilling expertise and aggressive neglect for 811 seem to get things done very quickly. There are some areas with competing fiber providers now. I've got 5gbps symmetric for $110/m and I live in the woods. Trees go through power lines and the fiber infra is completely unaffected. The only utility left to bury is the electricity, and they're actively working on that in some areas now.
I wish these guys the best, but I've shifted more and more to Starlink. As long as their is a clear view of the sky, it works exceptionally well and is more than enough bandwidth. Plus, I can easily take it with me anywhere I go, which includes my campervan. This is great for when you're out in the middle of nowhere, with no reception, and you need access to maps.
I wish it was a bit cheaper, but someone has to fund that trip to Mars.
Wow the US really has it bad when it comes to home internet. In many European countries, you can get symmetric Gbit internet for 30-40 EUR (probably less in some places), and I haven't seen a data cap in forever.
I understand the need for independent fiber ISPs. But are gigabit speeds really necessary? For me, a 300 Mbps connection is way more than enough for a four-person family.
I mean the question is why limit it? I'm paying under $40/mo for 10 gigabit, bandwidth shouldn't be expensive, the expensive part is digging the last mile.
Every bit per second that a WAN connection is slower than a CPU interconnect is too slow and that's only half hyperbole.
But I'm a realist so I'll take what I can get.
As your remote resources get faster and faster you start using them more like local resources, which can change (often for the better) how you do things.
If all you're doing is watching netflix then 25mbps per user is probably fine.
If you're working or creating or earning, then you want your connection to be as fast as possible, your distant end to be as fast as possible, and the hardware in between to be fast as possible.
For anyone who doesn't know the area, Saline is adjacent to Ann Arbor, and along with Ypsilanti makes up a sort of greater Ann Arbor/UMich co-prosperity sphere. Saline is the kind of place you expect people to stand up a private fiber ISP; a place with an outer-ring suburb vibe, but far from any major metro, with lots of nerds.
I have to admit, everytime I hear the "Two guys hated x, so they built their own!" I see the XCKD cartoon https://xkcd.com/927/
It's not a fair comparison; competition can drive price down, but I pessimistically just see two guys who'll inevitably join the Comcast billionaires club. That's just where these "small guys" end up.
But kudos to them, that's the only way to break monopolies.
Although I do wonder how much they bet on people not using all that bandwidth based on their promises.
I'm kind of surprised how expensive this seems. I always thought NZ ended up paying through the nose for the internet but these prices all seem roughly in line with NZ except they're in USD which is about 1:0.6 right now.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 56.2 ms ] threadHell if there's a way to invest in Prime-One, these guys seem to have their stuff together...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg
2020 NANOG:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe6uTwOyJo
It's disgusting that big telecom has been able to monopolize so much of the US for so long.
AT&T put an optic cable at my curb 10 years ago (most likely due to imminent competition from Google Fiber internet), but then never lit it (most likely because Google dropped their effort due to complications with cities)…
It's pretty good - their provided router is locked down to hell and they're on a cgnat, but not having to deal with Comcast's 1.2tb data cap is well worth it. Checking Comcast's site now, it seems that they now offer "unlimited" data. Interesting, that option wasn't there 6 months ago.
~100 customers seems too small for the amount of effort they have put in so far. They've been working along all the roads near me for about a year, and they're out there running fiber conduit every day. The houses out here are far apart. Hopefully, they can make it work.
This indicates that their local and state governments aren't (at this time) captured by the incumbent cable provider.
A captured state gov will pass laws to thwart new infra deployment, commonly written by ISP interests. A captured local gov will never approve deployment or slow-walk permitting in an attempt to bankrupt the upstart.
more explainers: New suburban fiber infrastructure means either trenching or pole hanging. The local gov issues permits for both but poles also require the cooperation of the pole owners. This last adds the PSC to the mix.
Recalcitrant pole owners are known to stall and kill infrastructure deployment - especially where going underground isn't an option. Some PSCs mandate that pole owners cooperate. Some PSCs abdicate that responsibility and are examples of regulatory capture.
> Comcast seems to have noticed, Herman said. "They've been calling our clients nonstop to try to come back to their service, offer them discounted rates for a five-year contract and so on," he said.
go figure. their monopoly/duopoly has ended, profits dropping like a rock in area, and now they want to compete.
Only billionaires and people fooled by Peter Thiel think competition is evil.
Optimum had their entire service area bought out by Comcast the day after I switched. Comcast has since broken every major utility at least twice and my fiber connection three times by working on the old infrastructure. I think Optimum won that trade. I can't imagine many residents are going to prefer Comcast over $80/m for no-bullshit internet, especially after the water main break they caused last week.
These FTTP providers have the game solved in Texas. I've seen them do 500-1000 homes in <30 days. Their directional drilling expertise and aggressive neglect for 811 seem to get things done very quickly. There are some areas with competing fiber providers now. I've got 5gbps symmetric for $110/m and I live in the woods. Trees go through power lines and the fiber infra is completely unaffected. The only utility left to bury is the electricity, and they're actively working on that in some areas now.
I wish it was a bit cheaper, but someone has to fund that trip to Mars.
But I'm a realist so I'll take what I can get.
As your remote resources get faster and faster you start using them more like local resources, which can change (often for the better) how you do things.
If all you're doing is watching netflix then 25mbps per user is probably fine.
If you're working or creating or earning, then you want your connection to be as fast as possible, your distant end to be as fast as possible, and the hardware in between to be fast as possible.
It's not a fair comparison; competition can drive price down, but I pessimistically just see two guys who'll inevitably join the Comcast billionaires club. That's just where these "small guys" end up.
Whoa, they are laying cable just like that, in the open?