Microsoft wants to improve internet in rural areas: High Speed Internet Over TV White Signal.

[LAwLz]

59 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

I work for a engineering company that does designs for underground eletric line replacement jobs. it cost between $2000-$6000 to replace a underground service line from a near by transformer.

 

so to add in fiber lines is going to cost a lot.

Underground things are always expensive, and it will be even more expensive to do it in cities (again, like the study showed, up to 80% of the cost of fiber rollout is civil engineering stuff which are mostly not relevant for rural areas).

Fiber cables on already existing telephone lines are not that expensive actually. The cable itself is cheaper than copper and the equipment is not that expensive either (compared to for example xDSL).

 

 

56 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

It's the exact same issue. The "the USA has terrible internet!" arguments is always one of those sort of hilarious ones, because it's actually made by ignorant Europeans, mostly. (And they really hate when you point out they're just being ignorant.) High-speed Internet is very infrastructure intensive.  When you have significant chunks of the country with under 5 ppl per sq km, there's just no way to square the cost to build out the systems.  Over time, you can, but you need measures to fit in between. 

Hello, Sweden here. We have a lower population density than the US and we are actually currently rolling out fiber to lots of rural areas. It is municipality funded.

 

"But a large portion of Sweden has next to no people in it!"

Yes, but the same is true for the US. About half of Sweden has very low population density (same for Finland, which also has a lower population density than the US), but about 1/3 of the US has very low population density too with the rest being high to medium high.

 

The US's shitty infrastructure (the concept of data caps on anything but cellular data is mind blowing to me) is not just because of population density issues. Your ISPs and government has a completely different mentality compared to a lot of European countries. I think that's a much bigger contributing factor than people per square km in some parts of the country.

 

I mean, your Internet connections sucks even in the areas with high population density.

 

 

Edit:

Some more statistics.

The city I live in has a population density of about 5500 per square mile when you only include the "dense" central portion (not the rural areas surrounding it).

That means that my city, when only including the dense portion, would not even qualify for a spot in the top 130 cities in the US with high population density (the list starts at a density of 10,065.4). If my city was a state, it would be the 28th most population densest state. Just behind Mississippi.

If this was was a population density issue (which you are implying in your post) then it would be reasonable to assume that those 27 more density populated states would have broadband comparable to my city. I get 500/100 for 30 dollars a month (although that was a special price, it usually costs 60 dollars per month).

 

When I looked up a random address in New jersey (one of the cities with the best broadband in the US according to speedtest) then Xfinity with up to 100Mbps would cost 88 USD a month, and that's with bandwidth caps.

That's pathetic.

[Unhelpful]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Hello, Sweden here.

Hello Sweden. When did you gain sentience? 

[The Benjamins]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Underground things are always expensive, and it will be even more expensive to do it in cities (again, like the study showed, up to 80% of the cost of fiber rollout is civil engineering stuff which are mostly not relevant for rural areas).

Fiber cables on already existing telephone lines are not that expensive actually. The cable itself is cheaper than copper and the equipment is not that expensive either (compared to for example xDSL).

 

on the cable is cheap, the cost to replace a overhead service is $50-$200.

 

also we require 3ft of clearance when installing new cable to any existing underground cables. sometimes it gets crowded in the right of way.

[MEC-777]

Of course Canada is left out.  

[d3sl91]

9 hours ago, Ithanul said:

Still far from taking the test (on chapter 3 of ARRL book).  Taking my time to understand all this material.

 

Internet can work across radio waves.  Ham Radio does it (have not got far into that side of my studying yet).  Also, in the military, we got these awesome little stacks that if all other ISP and cable internet is lost, we can push messaging, email, and even video across our radios.  Though, that not even huge stacks, but push some serious power.  Heck, we got these neat point-to-point bridge antenna that hook right up to our network.  No wires to lay out (thank god).  So, no worry about someone trying to cut wires or running over the things with heavy trucks.

Keep it up. As you can tell, the technology and understanding you can gain from the Ham Radio hobby is immense and helpful.

 

We actually use modified commercial 2.4GHz routers Linksys, Ubiquity, etc. Ham Radio has spectrum that overlaps with channels 1-6, which means we can use MUCH more power and larger antennas if desired to make these 2.4GHz links. Same story for 900MHz, 3.4GHz and 5.7GHz as well. 

 

http://hackaday.com/2016/07/02/ham-radio-wifi/

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/

http://www.aredn.org/

 

 

[Ithanul]

4 hours ago, d3sl91 said:

Keep it up. As you can tell, the technology and understanding you can gain from the Ham Radio hobby is immense and helpful.

 

We actually use modified commercial 2.4GHz routers Linksys, Ubiquity, etc. Ham Radio has spectrum that overlaps with channels 1-6, which means we can use MUCH more power and larger antennas if desired to make these 2.4GHz links. Same story for 900MHz, 3.4GHz and 5.7GHz as well. 

 

http://hackaday.com/2016/07/02/ham-radio-wifi/

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/

http://www.aredn.org/

 

 

Oooo, looks like I will have some fun with that.

[WkdPaul]

7 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

Of course Canada is left out.  

Since this is launched in only 12 states, I'm guessing it might spread elsewhere if it becomes viable!

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Underground things are always expensive, and it will be even more expensive to do it in cities (again, like the study showed, up to 80% of the cost of fiber rollout is civil engineering stuff which are mostly not relevant for rural areas).

Fiber cables on already existing telephone lines are not that expensive actually. The cable itself is cheaper than copper and the equipment is not that expensive either (compared to for example xDSL).

 

 

Hello, Sweden here. We have a lower population density than the US and we are actually currently rolling out fiber to lots of rural areas. It is municipality funded.

 

"But a large portion of Sweden has next to no people in it!"

Yes, but the same is true for the US. About half of Sweden has very low population density (same for Finland, which also has a lower population density than the US), but about 1/3 of the US has very low population density too with the rest being high to medium high.

 

The US's shitty infrastructure (the concept of data caps on anything but cellular data is mind blowing to me) is not just because of population density issues. Your ISPs and government has a completely different mentality compared to a lot of European countries. I think that's a much bigger contributing factor than people per square km in some parts of the country.

 

I mean, your Internet connections sucks even in the areas with high population density.

 

 

Edit:

Some more statistics.

The city I live in has a population density of about 5500 per square mile when you only include the "dense" central portion (not the rural areas surrounding it).

That means that my city, when only including the dense portion, would not even qualify for a spot in the top 130 cities in the US with high population density (the list starts at a density of 10,065.4). If my city was a state, it would be the 28th most population densest state. Just behind Mississippi.

If this was was a population density issue (which you are implying in your post) then it would be reasonable to assume that those 27 more density populated states would have broadband comparable to my city. I get 500/100 for 30 dollars a month (although that was a special price, it usually costs 60 dollars per month).

 

When I looked up a random address in New jersey (one of the cities with the best broadband in the US according to speedtest) then Xfinity with up to 100Mbps would cost 88 USD a month, and that's with bandwidth caps.

That's pathetic.

 

I think you have missed the point of the population density argument,  Sweden is only 1/2 a million sqkm.  Population density becomes much less of an issue the smaller the total country size. Especially if the less dense areas are likely to become more populated over time (pop growth and limited land).   The US by comparison is 9M sqkm 72% of which is rural (8M sqkm) and 15% of the population (from wikipedia).   Ergo the population density of Rural US is 0.21/sqkm.  While the US in total is 35/sqkm, this is directly becasue of the mammoth size of the USA.

 

Australia is even worse again with only 24 Million people total and 7.5M sqkm. 

[Yoinkerman]

If only isps had agreements with states and municipalities to have isps serve rural customers at a loss in exchange for regional monopolies in high density areas.

 

Oh wait

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I think you have missed the point of the population density argument,  Sweden is only 1/2 a million sqkm.  Population density becomes much less of an issue the smaller the total country size. Especially if the less dense areas are likely to become more populated over time (pop growth and limited land).   The US by comparison is 9M sqkm 72% of which is rural (8M sqkm) and 15% of the population (from wikipedia).   Ergo the population density of Rural US is 0.21/sqkm.  While the US in total is 35/sqkm, this is directly becasue of the mammoth size of the USA.

 

Australia is even worse again with only 24 Million people total and 7.5M sqkm. 

I think you misunderstood the point Taf was making, or the point I was making.

 

Taf: The US only has "terrible" Internet connections because most people in Europe lives in high population density areas.

Me: Here are a bunch of facts which shows that even in less densely populated areas, countries such as Sweden is still far better than the US in terms of Internet connections. I think that has to do with our government actually building the infrastructure rather than relying on private corporations which are trying to spend as little as possible, and make as much profit as possible.

 

Do you not think that the facts I presented and the explanation is far more logical than just "lol it's just because people in the US are more spread out! Ignorant Europeans!".

If Taf's argument was valid, then areas such as New Jersey should have the best Internet infrastructure in the world (since parts of it are some of the most densely populated areas in the world, thus the cost per user is much lower), but it doesn't.

[mr moose]

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think you misunderstood the point Taf was making, or the point I was making.

 

Taf: The US only has "terrible" Internet connections because most people in Europe lives in high population density areas.

Me: Here are a bunch of facts which shows that even in less densely populated areas, countries such as Sweden is still far better than the US in terms of Internet connections. I think that has to do with our government actually building the infrastructure rather than relying on private corporations which is trying to spend as little as possible, and make as much profit as possible.

 

Do you not think that the facts I presented and the explanation is far more logical than just "lol it's just because people in the US are more spread out! Ignorant Europeans!".

If Taf's argument was valid, then areas such as New Jersey should have the best Internet infrastructure in the world (since parts of it are some of the most densely populated areas in the world, thus the cost per user is much lower), but it doesn't.

 

I don't agree with the "ignorant" statement becasue that is irrelevant to the discussion.  However there is a difference between identical population densities when the total area of one country is below a certain point.   Pointing out that some area's of the US have shit internet whilst they have a higher pop density does not negate the significant difference in rural Pop density and the feasibility that ensues from it.   

 

To put it another way,  it is not comparing apples to apples to take a snapshot of semi populated areas and internet speeds.  When you compare land area that is literally 16 times bigger than your entire nation and has a population density below 1, because then the feasibility of building new infrastructure is hugely different.

[LAwLz]

Just now, mr moose said:

I don't agree with the "ignorant" statement becasue that is irrelevant to the discussion.  However there is a difference between identical population densities when the total area of one country is below a certain point.   Pointing out that some area's of the US have shit internet whilst they have a higher pop density does not negate the significant difference in rural Pop density and the feasibility that ensues from it.   

 

To put it another way,  it is not comparing apples to apples to take a snapshot of semi populated areas and internet speeds.  When you compare land area that is literally 16 times bigger than your entire nation and has a population density below ,1 then the feasibility of building new infrastructure is hugely different.

But then your entire argument relies on ISPs and/or governments thinking "if we can't upgrade an entire state/city at the same time then we should not upgrade it at all.

 

I really don't understand your argument. The total size does not matter when you're looking at cities or sections of cities. A city being large is no excuse for not having decent Internet anywhere in the city. You have to start somewhere.

Sure the same population density but at a 10 times larger area will be more difficult to build, but if you divide it into 10 sections then it becomes a 1:1 comparison. Having such a large area high density area also means that it is much easier to provide a large number of people with good Internet infrastructure.

In Sweden it might be easy to reach 1 million people, and then you got 1 million people that are spread out. In the US there might be 10 million people that are easy to reach, and then 15 million that are spread out. That should not be an excuse to not even provide 1 million of those 10 million easy to reach customers.

 

Do you get my point? I am not talking about averages across the entire country here. I am saying that even if you select comparable areas in Sweden vs the US, the US still comes out far worse. My city might just be as big (both in size and population density) as a district in a US city, but that's no excuse for not having decent Internet service in that district. You have to start somewhere, right?

 

If you take Google Fiber out of the equation, I don't think there is any part of the US which can most cities in Sweden in terms of broadband service. I am not even talking about rural areas here. Even rural areas in Sweden have better Internet infrastructure than large cities in the US. My parents live in a little village with about 800 inhabitants, and it's over 10km away from the city. They have FTTH and can choose between ~10 different ISPs, a lot of which will go as far as to end up in court in order to defend their users rights and privacy. My parents' area is not special either. The Swedish government has set a goal to provide 98% of the Swedish population with access to 1Gbps Internet connections by 2025. And believe me, you will not cover 98% of the Swedish population if you ignore very low density rural areas.

 

 

I think the whole "in Europe you can reach more people easier" argument is a load of bollocks. It makes far more sense to me that the reason why the US has worse Internet infrastructure is because of things like far less governmental support, and quite frankly more evil ISPs.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

1. But then your entire argument relies on ISPs and/or governments thinking "if we can't upgrade an entire state/city at the same time then we should not upgrade it at all.

 

2. I really don't understand your argument. The total size does not matter when you're looking at cities or sections of cities. A city being large is no excuse for not having decent Internet anywhere in the city. You have to start somewhere.

Sure the same population density but at a 10 times larger area will be more difficult to build, but if you divide it into 10 sections then it becomes a 1:1 comparison. Having such a large area high density area also means that it is much easier to provide a large number of people with good Internet infrastructure.

In Sweden it might be easy to reach 1 million people, and then you got 1 million people that are spread out. In the US there might be 10 million people that are easy to reach, and then 15 million that are spread out. That should not be an excuse to not even provide 1 million of those 10 million easy to reach customers.

 

3. Do you get my point? I am not talking about averages across the entire country here. I am saying that even if you select comparable areas in Sweden vs the US, the US still comes out far worse. My city might just be as big (both in size and population density) as a district in a US city, but that's no excuse for not having decent Internet service in that district. You have to start somewhere, right?

 

4. If you take Google Fiber out of the equation, I don't think there is any part of the US which can most cities in Sweden in terms of broadband service. I am not even talking about rural areas here. Even rural areas in Sweden have better Internet infrastructure than large cities in the US. My parents live in a little village with about 800 inhabitants, and it's over 10km away from the city. They have FTTH and can choose between ~10 different ISPs, a lot of which will go as far as to end up in court in order to defend their users rights and privacy. My parents' area is not special either. The Swedish government has set a goal to provide 98% of the Swedish population with access to 1Gbps Internet connections by 2025. And believe me, you will not cover 98% of the Swedish population if you ignore very low density rural areas.

 

 

5. I think the whole "in Europe you can reach more people easier" argument is a load of bollocks. It makes far more sense to me that the reason why the US has worse Internet infrastructure is because of things like far less governmental support, and quite frankly more evil ISPs.

1.  Breaking down into building sections versus the entire area only changes the overall cost of building (usually more to build more smaller sections than one larger), if the number of clients doesn't change then the feasibility  of servicing those clients by building in smaller sections becomes worse.

 

2. We are not talking about cities, again looking at parts of cities does not change the feasibility of building infrastructure in rural areas.  as far as dividing it into sections, again, does not change the feasibility, you still only have the same number of clients and the build costs exceeds the projected revenue. 

 

3.but your comparable areas in Sweden are literally next to (or surrounded by areas that aren't comparable.  You could literally traverse 16 Swedens before reaching a population density even close to Sweden worst in rural US.   This makes a huge difference to the feasibility of building infrastructure.

 

4. again we are not talking about urban area's, that is moot when it comes to determining the feasibility of new works in rural areas.

 

5. I don't doubt the US goivernment and corporate structure is playing it's own role in the problem, but this is a problem I have spent many hours researching as it is very analogous to the problems we have in Australia.  There is only so much government intervention and generous corporate altruism can achieve once you start getting population densities below 1/sqkm. (in most case well below 0.5/sqkm.

[LAwLz]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

1.  Breaking down into building sections versus the entire area only changes the overall cost of building (usually more to build more smaller sections than one larger), if the number of clients doesn't change then the feasibility  of servicing those clients by building in smaller sections becomes worse.

Ehm, what?

How is it more expensive to service the same amount of people, in the same amount of square kilometers in the US compared to Europe? A 10 square kilometer area with let's say 2 million people in it will cost roughly the same to cover with fiber regardless of if it's in Europe or in the US. The fact that the US has larger cities (with higher population density) is a reason why US infrastructure should be better than it is. Your text is a point against the US, not for it.

 

The "smaller sections" you are referring to which are costier to cover are the standard in Europe, while in the US there is the option to cover larger areas and thus drive the cost down.

 

 

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

2. We are not talking about cities, again looking at parts of cities does not change the feasibility of building infrastructure in rural areas.  as far as dividing it into sections, again, does not change the feasibility, you still only have the same number of clients and the build costs exceeds the projected revenue. 

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

4. again we are not talking about urban area's, that is moot when it comes to determining the feasibility of new works in rural areas.

You might not be, but the way I read Taf's post I interpreted it as including urban areas too. I doubt many Europeans are referring to rural areas when they say the US has shitty Internet infrastructure.

Nobody is shitting on the US for not having fiber out to individual farms in the middle of nowhere. It's the shitty infrastructure in urban areas Europeans laugh at.

The fact that my parents who live far from the city has much better Internet infrastructure than someone in the middle of New York is laughable.

 

 

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

3.but your comparable areas in Sweden are literally next to (or surrounded by areas that aren't comparable.  You could literally traverse 16 Swedens before reaching a population density even close to Sweden worst in rural US.   This makes a huge difference to the feasibility of building infrastructure.

Again, I am talking about urban areas in the US. Nobody is laughing at the US for not having fiber to desolated farms. It's the fact that Internet service in the US is universally shit regardless of where you live, with a few exceptions (hello Google fiber) that Europeans are laughing at.

 

 

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

5. I don't doubt the US goivernment and corporate structure is playing it's own role in the problem, but this is a problem I have spent many hours researching as it is very analogous to the problems we have in Australia.  There is only so much government intervention and generous corporate altruism can achieve once you start getting population densities below 1/sqkm. (in most case well below 0.5/sqkm.

Again, I am not talking about rural areas. I am talking about cities with high population density.

 

The only thing I have been arguing is that the US do have terrible Internet, and it is not because I am an "ignorant European" making a "hilarious argument". There are areas in the US where the shitty Internet infrastructure is justified, but the US has shitty Internet service even in areas which are very comparable or have favorable attributes compared to cities in Europe which have far better infrastructure.

"It's hard to build in US rural areas" is not an excuse for not having decent infrastructure in the cities. That was my argument. Nothing less and nothing more.

[Trik'Stari]

On 7/11/2017 at 9:39 PM, GoodBytes said:

As mentioned, they won't provide the service. You'll need to sign up with whoever company partnered with MS for the area you are in. Price will vary, hence why Microsoft has no pricing information either.

So basically no one in my area lol.

 

My ISP is Century Link, and I hate them.

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

So basically no one in my area lol.

 

My ISP is Century Link, and I hate them.

You'll have a new provider (assuming you are in the coverage area), unless Century Link jumps in to partner with Microsoft to provide that specific service over the current one.

[captain_to_fire]

On 7/12/2017 at 1:55 AM, GoodBytes said:

Unused TV white spaces operating in the 600 MHz frequency range

I think Microsoft should pair it with frequencies above 1GHz. 600 MHz is good for wider coverage and better building penetration but they carry less data and can be congested easily. I'm not optimistic that what they're offering is unlimited data*. It's more likely to be capped.

 

*by unlimited data, some ISPs mean:

1. We can call it unlimited data but in reality, it just has a very high data cap that no one is likely to reach in a month (e.x. 2 TB/mo).
2. If you are hogging everyone's usage like 100 GB a day, we'll start to throttle your speed to learn some manners. 

[GoodBytes]

7 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think Microsoft should pair it with frequencies above 1GHz. 600 MHz is good for wider coverage and better building penetration but they carry less data and can be congested easily. I'm not optimistic that what they're offering is unlimited data*. It's more likely to be capped.

 

I am sure they have done their research and balanced cost, distance and speed. Assuming providers actually provide the network full potential of 25Mbps. even if homes gets at worst 15Mbps, that is more than capable for 1080p video streaming, gaming, and, well, overall decent internet experience for many years to come.

 

Of course, ideally: put fiber everywhere, and be done with it once and for all. But sadly, this is not possible. I mean the government CAN go all in, spend billions/trillions to make this possible, and have a governmental institution provide internet service. But, convincing the population that rural areas will have better internet than them, at the cost of their taxes, and takes years to pay, isn't something that sales well, and votes for rural areas are not much per area, so political parties focuses more on pleasing big cities/states.

[captain_to_fire]

14 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

I am sure they have done their research and balanced cost, distance and speed. Assuming providers actually provide the network full potential of 25Mbps. even if homes gets at worst 15Mbps, that is more than capable for 1080p video streaming, gaming, and, well, overall decent internet experience for many years to come.

 

Of course, ideally: put fiber everywhere, and be done with it once and for all. But sadly, this is not possible.

I'm certainly not a networking expert but with frequencies above 1 GHz, they can do wideband connections meaning bandwidth allotted by the tower to the customer is higher. Kinda like how LTE-Advanced (aka true 4G) is a significant improvement over LTE (3.9G) because one of its features is wideband channels. 

 

My experience with wireless internet is kinda meh. Deploying fiber everywhere is nice but takes a lot of resources especially on rural areas. Does Canada have wireless internet solutions too for rural areas? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Michael McAllister]

On 7/11/2017 at 11:34 PM, mr moose said:

I agree, but like everything else, it comes down to feasibility,  who's going to pay for it if it presents real danger of making a loss. The institution with money that can afford a loss for a community service is government and even they have to win votes.

ISPs have had the ability to expand their infrastructure for decades now.  The United States should have been investing tax money into this as well.  Decades ago, government funds were used to expand telephone lines throughout rural areas.  The same needs to be done now.  Priorities need to be re-calibrated.  So much has changed since then that it may be a while yet.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, Michael McAllister said:

ISPs have had the ability to expand their infrastructure for decades now.  The United States should have been investing tax money into this as well.  Decades ago, government funds were used to expand telephone lines throughout rural areas.  The same needs to be done now.  Priorities need to be re-calibrated.  So much has changed since then that it may be a while yet.

This reminds me more than a decade ago, some politicians and investors are questioning the sanity of wireless carriers for investing on mobile broadband and they keep insisting calling and texting alone is enough.

[Michael McAllister]

1 minute ago, hey_yo_ said:

This reminds me more than a decade ago, some politicians and investors are questioning the sanity of wireless carriers for investing on mobile broadband and they keep insisting calling and texting alone is enough.

The government aspect of it would be good for the economy in general.  Huge infrastructure projects create sustainable jobs for the foreseeable future.  The ISPs share most of the blame.  Back in the 90s, ISPs were given money to expand, but they just pocketed most of it.  That's the TL;DR version anyway.

[GoodBytes]

12 minutes ago, Michael McAllister said:

ISPs have had the ability to expand their infrastructure for decades now.  The United States should have been investing tax money into this as well.  Decades ago, government funds were used to expand telephone lines throughout rural areas.  The same needs to be done now.  Priorities need to be re-calibrated.  So much has changed since then that it may be a while yet.

Yes, but you are in a country that has a large portion of population who don't trust their government, who don't want government beside the out most basic services to get a country running and be able to defend. Also, remember that back when telephone lines where installed for the first time everywhere, rural areas had a lot more importance than today in political sense. cities where smaller in population, 3 lane per direction highway was seen as overkill roads for the number of cars.

 

It can still happen however, but it would require the overall population to have the "greater good" mentality in place (that would also mean NASA will get its proper funding back), and ideally, an independently operated crown corporation Internet Provider as an option (not the best sales pitch after the NSA story, though.. not that it matters). This means that it will create jobs, sustain them, actually be profitable, and can expand to cities, create competition, and government on its sides for projects and protect consumer interests (although, it can push projects that can affect people.. like passing lines over people properties which they don't want to.. kinda like pipeline building, but here the affected people will get nothing back or low amount, and nothing can really stop it, unless a new route is found to be cheaper. An issue, although rare, and usually affect people in very small towns/villages, that is sees at times with electrical companies in Canada, as those are federal crown corporation).

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, Michael McAllister said:

The government aspect of it would be good for the economy in general.  Huge infrastructure projects create sustainable jobs for the foreseeable future.  The ISPs share most of the blame.  Back in the 90s, ISPs were given money to expand, but they just pocketed most of it.  That's the TL;DR version anyway.

Kinda like how IPv6 is made in order to future proof the the IP addresses of the future. In the case of my country, our government played a small part for deploying mobile broadband in early 2000s. Most of the hard work is done by the private sector. The only thing our government did is give licenses to wireless carrier as to which frequencies they can only operate. Not that much infrastructure upgrade is done by our government when it comes to advancing telecommunications. I mean, back in 2004 we still have to use 56K dial up modem. 

 

Thankfully now, my wireless carrier has started to deploy 700 MHz LTE.

[Michael McAllister]

6 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Yes, but you are in a country that has a large portion of population who don't trust their government, who don't want government beside the out most basic services to get a country running and be able to defend. Also, remember that back when telephone lines where installed for the first time everywhere, rural areas had a lot more importance than today in political sense. cities where smaller in population, 3 lane per direction highway was seen as overkill roads for the number of cars.

 

It can still happen however, but it would require the overall population to have the "greater good" mentality in place (that would also mean NASA will get its proper funding back), and ideally, a crown corporation control Internet as an option (not the best sales pitch after the NSA story, though.. not that it matters).

 

It's not a matter of whether or not people trust the government.  The government granted subsidies to these private companies to expand, and these companies chose not to.  If it weren't for the government in some sense, today's Internet would not exist.