What if we rebuilt the US's network?

[Derpologist]

This is completely hypothetical and probably will not happen for many many years, but, what if the US (and maybe even Global) tech community got the ISPs to, well, basically deal with their shit and give us some decent internet. Other countries and running extremely fast network connections. This is all just question asking, but do you guys think that the tech community could reform the networks? 

 

Completely random question but I wanna see what you guys think!

 

Cheers!

[_ASSASSIN_]

lots of digging would have to be done to convert everything to fiber from places that use copper wire to allow for the infrastructure of high speed internet..'

Google fiber here in Austin is taking a long time to spread just because of this.

[thekeemo]

All the americans will go crying communisim because the government would have to force the ISPs

[The Sociologist]

Awesome idea. I hope heaven gets here faster, though.

[Knaj]

This is completely hypothetical and probably will not happen for many many years, but, what if the US (and maybe even Global) tech community got the ISPs to, well, basically deal with their shit and give us some decent internet. Other countries and running extremely fast network connections. This is all just question asking, but do you guys think that the tech community could reform the networks? 

 

Completely random question but I wanna see what you guys think!

 

Cheers!

 

Some companies have already started this.

 

They started with large cities, and for us country people that sucks

[Juanse]

I don't think so, some companies overcharge you and don't even bother to expand the line

[AlwaysFSX]

Costs money, pipe dream.

[Oberon.Smite]

Some companies have already started this.

 

They started with large cities, and for us country people that sucks

Well yes, but then again when it's your turn to get fiber it will take very little time.

[LittleCarrot]

The US network is probably is already fiber, BUT It is not for civilian use.

[LukeS]

Why? Just have Canada rule the US if we were to do that.

[.:MARK:.]

The costs are way to high. And I don't get your first question? Are you saying what if the US had a full fibre rollout? The answer to that is in the question, they would have a full fibre rollout and you would have decent internet, but you knew that didn't you? If your question is whether that could happen, It will happen in the future, impossible to tell when, due to the interests of the companies who are in charge of infrastructure.

[skywake]

The previous Australian government tried to do this.... before a new government was elected which tore it all up and started again. Which was interesting. Politics ey?

 

The thing about it is that things like internet infrastucture are natural monopolies. Even if you allow competition odds are that eventually you will end up with only one competitor in a given area. Because the price can't go down when you add more competition, the cost goes up the more competitors you add because they all have to run cables! So it's a game of chicken. So ideally what you want is one entity who doesn't sell a service running the cables and then a bunch of ISPs ontop of that selling you data. That would be the best result. If the government is the one rolling out the cables? Then that's fine by me.

 

......... but good luck getting it to happen. Because politics. And as an Australian I know that all too well when it comes to this topic

[schizznick]

If you look at most countries who are ahead of us in next gen internet networks they are substantially smaller in area and have a majority of urban areas. In the United States we have lot's of open land and are spread out requiring much higher costs to deliver fiber. But not only does it cost to deliver those connections to the customer, but usually it comes with an increase in usage. This increase requires upgrades to network transport from 1gig to 10gig to 40gig to 100gig. These infrastructure changes are also costly and time consuming. It also causes an increase in bandwidth costs for the ISP to acquire that bandwidth. All of these increases mean that the cost to deliver these speeds requires that the customers pay more. However many of our customers, rural customers especially, do not increase the speed they are paying for, so our profit margins drop substantially. To the point where some customers actually cost us money. So as a company we now have to stage our deployments and reduce the speed we deploy so we do not go bankrupt. The fact remains that a majority of internet customers are happy with crappy slow service and even when they have the option to get faster speeds do not pay for them. Just so you understand the average to deploy fiber to a rural customer is around $16k. 

 

So where does an ISP get the money to continue to build out. Well many ISP's have done things like bandwidth caps and such to charge heavy users more for the service. We have also worked deals with Google and Netflix to host caching servers to reduce our upstream costs. However customers have complained about bandwidth caps and Netflix and Google will not work with all ISP's because they require a certain size. 

 

The Government has used money in the past to help deliver service to rural areas, this currently applies to Dial-Tone and in the future may apply to broadband. I this happens then you will see an increase in deployment. Ultimately we are heading this direction but it will take time. Some ISP's are better than others. For example the company I work for is a Cooperative meaning it's not about profit but delivering services. This allows us to focus more funds on enhancing our network and not lining the pockets of investors. 

 

I hope this helps you understand a little as to why it's not an easy proposition. 

[Wombo]

As the video states Oligopoly is petty much the reason why. They have everyone paying for services and they are making insane money as is. By essentially agreeing to not compete with each-other they can do whatever the hell they want. They just keep the ire of the public and government at bay by saying they are working on things, that it is expensive and complicated. Don't forget that a lot of these carriers receive incentives from the government in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars per year for "upgrading infrastructure and providing telecommunications services to rural citizens".

 

Also if anyone truly believes that these large carriers don't have the money to set out a 10 year plan (VERY lenient) to get fiber to every house in at least the major cities... I'm sorry but that's just ignorance. Comcast alone reported PROFITS of 2.1 BILLION in the first quarter of 2015 alone.

 

Hell there are countless examples of cities saying "fuck you" to the big companies and just developing their own fiber networks. Even small rural communities of only a couple thousand can make it extremely profitable. Notions that outfitting any large center with fiber infrastructure to offer higher speeds "isn't profitable" is just plain not true.

[skywake]

 However many of our customers, rural customers especially, do not increase the speed they are paying for, so our profit margins drop substantially. To the point where some customers actually cost us money. So as a company we now have to stage our deployments and reduce the speed we deploy so we do not go bankrupt. The fact remains that a majority of internet customers are happy with crappy slow service and even when they have the option to get faster speeds do not pay for them. Just so you understand the average to deploy fiber to a rural customer is around $16k. 

Other than the "not wanting higher speeds" bit this is very much true of the infrastructure the Australian government is rolling out. They made a point of doing it all at once under one banner because they knew the market wasn't going to deliver services to the bush. It's just not possible to make money out of those connections. But under one big banner? Those rural connections aren't making them money but the entire system is still profitable. Effectively urban users are subsidising the rural service. And you could complain about that until you remember that with urban competition urban users are subsidising the ISP's game of chicken. Naturally the new conservative government hates the idea of cross subsidy.... because "socialism".... even though it mostly impacts their own constituents.... 

 

The problem is that even under this banner there is no way to justify a full fibre service to that last 10% of the population. It just can't be justified because the costs per user go up exponentially. 90% is pretty good but obviously some people miss out. So what they did is deploy an upgraded satellite service and out a fixed wireless solution for that last 10%. With much complaining from the bush who do want a significantly better service. Really, people in the bush rely on a reliable internet connection far more than people in the city do. There were literally some small towns that were willing to pay to cover the rollout of fibre in their town just so they could get a better service. They had a bundle of cash on the table ready to go.... and even that is up in the air under the new government...