tmiw

From what I can tell, it appears we've mostly given up on faster wireline internet and are pushing wireless internet (mainly via 5G) as the fix. I'm not sure it'll fix the availability problem but if 5G ends up fulfilling even some of its promises, it may give people at least one or two more viable competitors. Whether that'll materially affect pricing in practice is another question.

Honestly, I just want faster upload speeds. Even 100mbps would probably be enough for most people for quite a while.

lsquare

You're right to a certain extent. Fiber deployment is expensive. Even Verizon scaled back it's deployment in NYC if I remember correctly. There is no easy answer for a country as big as the US. Rural areas will likely never see widespread fiber deployment for the foreseeable future.

5G won't be the answer either as it depends on the frequencies used. MM-wave 5G in theory delivers very high speed, but not likely to be used outside of densely populated areas like Manhattan, NY. It's also very expensive. The 5G network that will most likely to be built will use lower frequencies which means the signal will travel farther, but won't deliver fiber like speed.

I suspect satellite will play a bigger role in the 2020s.

I agree. Upload speed is very important.

gfunkdave

Sure it can. It just chooses not to since it doesn't make money building out wireline infrastructure in sparsely populated areas. Verizon and Google have put their fiber to the premise plans (Fios and Google Fiber) on hold indefinitely once they realized how expensive it was. Ultimately, to really bridge the digital divide and make sure that anyone can get decent broadband, the only real answer will be massive government funding. This is also how they brought power to rural America in the 1920s-40s. New York State had one of the best programs, where the state allocated $500 million in competitive reverse auction funding to ISPs interested in building out their networks, with a preference for fiber and a minimum speed requirement in most areas of 100/100 Mbps. Exceedingly remote areas were allowed to get away with 25/3 (the FCC's current broadband definition).

javabytes

Hong Kong is about 1,000 square miles in size. Singapore is 276. The US is 3.8 million.

Hong Kong and Singapore have almost 20,000 people per square mile. The US has less than 100.

It’s no surprise that for-profit telcos see much less ROI building out infrastructure over huge distances to reach sparsely populated areas.

GadgetFreak

Really? We have Fios and they still seem to be selling it although I don’t know in what areas.

gfunkdave

Oh sure, they still sell it where they've built the fiber out but they aren't expanding the footprint beyond where it is.

GadgetFreak

I wasn’t aware of that. It makes sense, we are in an area where the cable company was also doing fiber so it was very competitive. We even upgraded to a gigabit connection which works really well.

st1575

It seems like it would have been relatively straightforward for Verizon to offer FiOS in a place like Manhattan where they already had tons of fiber running right into the buildings (and had for many years). I always wondered why they started in a place like Staten Island where the customer base is so much less dense and the service delivery seems more complicated (although negotiating with any NYC landlord or coop board is probably hell). Of course, this is also the company that bullied the PSC to grant state-wide franchises so it didn't have to negotiate with each municipality as is traditionally done for cable. They promised widespread availability, but largely haven't been delivered.

gfunkdave

The story of cable operators and ISPs everywhere in places where there's no competition. They fight like hell to stifle competition (look at how vociferously they oppose municipally-led solutions, for example) and then do nothing to improve service while jacking up prices. I have Spectrum at home (the only option for >20Mbps in my area) and they charge me 3x what they charge in places with Fios or Google Fiber for the same speed. Because they can.

I agree that it seems like it should have been easy to offer Fios throughout Manhattan. I don't know why they don't. I think dealing with coop and condo boards is probably the reason, or at least a big part.

A former colleague told me that when he was at Verizon the VP in charge of Fios deployment knew it was going to be a money loser and canceled the buildout in Rhode Island just after they finished building the network past his house...

lsquare

And I agree with you. There's just no way the digital divide can be solved without government subsidies. If Google can't make it work, I don't think anyone else can. So the government needs to continue to pony up. With each passing year, it's becoming quite apparent how important internet access is. If the federal government invest in internet infrastructure at the same scale as it does with the military, I'm fairly confident the problem will be solved pretty soon.

lsquare

A decade ago, 100/100 was considered to be fast and acted like some sort of benchmark where we needed to be. Now, in my opinion, it has to be at least gigabit. I think we should strive to get as many households with a gigabit connection as soon as possible.

lsquare

There's also pricing pressure and no one is going to invest in building a network unless there was a way to not only earn it back, but make a profit. The difficult part is pricing it in a way that will ensure they will make a profit, but not so prohibitively expensive that no one can afford it.

lsquare

The current strategy isn't working. I don't think a municipally-led solution is the answer either. Look at Australia's attempt to build a national broadband network. There is massive cost overrun and unless I'm mistaken, it's still not finished. I think the solution here would be a massive private-public partnership. The truth is that there isn't a problem that the US can't solved. If we can put astronauts on the moon and build the world's most lethal and capable military, we can surely build the world's best internet infrastructure. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that it chose not to. This puts us in a long term economic disadvantage relative to our peers.

TGarza

I am fortunate to have at least AT&T fiber and Spectrum as options for high speed connections. Spectrum is offering better pricing than the prices mentioned in this thread. Maybe it is because of the competition. When I signed up for for fiber a know it all in the office immediately replied it isn't true fiber because AT&T stopped adding fiber. Then I described the install with the fiber wall mount, he immediately responded you do...interesting.

gfunkdave

Yeah, I'm still not sure I buy the "everyone needs gigabit" argument. I would ordinarily be first in line for the fastest speed available but 100/10 has proven to be just fine 98% of the time. If anything I would just rather have faster upload speeds. We actually get around 15Mbps up, and I'd like to see at least 50. Our download is perfectly fine for multiple 4K streams and whatever we're doing on the phone/tablet/computer.

The FCC's official definition of broadband is still 25/3 as far as I know, which is laughably not enough.

The thing with telecom infrastructure is that, mile for mile, it's one of the cheapest kinds of infrastructure. Roads are 15x more expensive per mile, for example. We just don't have the political will to do anything about it. Cable companies usually won't build out in areas with fewer than 20ish premises per mile. The only reason the phone company provides universal service is because they are required to.