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

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, Michael McAllister said:

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.

The idea of private/public partnerships with these subsidies is that they split the cost, pleasing tax payers as the cost is minimal (but then they complain about tolls on bridges and roads... go figure... well in this case, costly Internet service), but the government doing a poor contract and poor follow up.

 

What is unique with Microsoft, is that it isn't the government trying to push carriers to do this, it is a private firm who really wants to build it.

 

But, yes you can argue that with all the money spent in all these failed programs, the government could have fully paid fiber lines to homes directly in teh first place, and allowing them to get insane speeds, but.. this is the government we are talking about.

[Doobeedoo]

Cool. Where I live ISPs only cover fiber if there are like large buildings with many people. And I'm in a part of town where there are just houses so not worthfor them to extend for now sadly. 

Another lame thing is it haves terrible copper infrastructure so limits even on that, was tested. 

[Trik'Stari]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

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.

I'd really like to see someone new do it. Century Link is complete and utter garbage. I get constant disruptions in service. which my browser claims is a "DNS error", and if I run Tracert I get "request timed out" no matter what I'm attempting to Tracert to. Even Googles Open DNS servers.

[GoodBytes]

3 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'd really like to see someone new do it. Century Link is complete and utter garbage. I get constant disruptions in service. which my browser claims is a "DNS error", and if I run Tracert I get "request timed out" no matter what I'm attempting to Tracert to. Even Googles Open DNS servers.

Sometimes, a new modem is needed. If you have one of those Modem/Router unit, use your own router, and disable the one in the modem. Those are jack of trade master of none units, as providers tend to buy garbage and over sale it to consumers (same with most TV setup boxes)

[MeDownYou]

On 7/11/2017 at 1:05 PM, Syntaxvgm said:

15 minutes south of me the DSL is so bad the speeds are near dial up and the ping times often exceed 1000 ms, causing dropped connections. Essentially good dial up is more useful than whats avaible south of me. 

Can confirm 48k is not acceptable when 56k modems aren't standard anymore. (Aka what ive been on the last few years) but I get new internet in a few months so I'm happy

 

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

I'm really only talking to the topic here, I interpreted Taf as only referring to rural too but I'll wait for him to clarify that. That is why I am only talking about rural instances.  Wiith regard to sections I thought you meant build a section at a time, which would cost more because to build a part, then stop then start again and build another part then stop etc, costs more than just to build out the whole project in one hit.

 

7 hours 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.

 

Agreed, we have had similar happen in Australia too (in fact that is exactly what our NBN is, but due to the rural nature of Aus, it has so far mostly failed both attempts in the last decade), however regardless of who pays for it, there still has to be an element of it being feasible before any private enterprise will touch it.   The fact it is not happen suggests the government can't get enough votes out of it or ISP's can't get a return on it.    It's interesting that MS are doing this, because in my mind they are the only company that  don't seem to be afraid to develop shit that fails.

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I'm really only talking to the topic here, I interpreted Taf as only referring to rural too but I'll wait for him to clarify that.

Yeah I will too, but I am pretty sure he was talking about broadband in general. I mean, I have never seen anyone say the US has shitty Internet and only referred to rural areas.

Seems like his statement was a very broad generalization about multiple things.

 

I just wanted to clear up the fact that the US has shitty broadband, and it is not related to population density. In some areas there are difficulties getting for example fiber to everyone and that's excusable, but those are not the areas people refer to when they say it is shitty.

 

 

32 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Wiith regard to sections I thought you meant build a section at a time, which would cost more because to build a part, then stop then start again and build another part then stop etc, costs more than just to build out the whole project in one hit.

Yeah that's not really what I was referring to. The only thing I meant by looking at sections of a city in the US was to make it it as comparable as possible to a European city in terms of population density and area.

But you will have to build things in sections. There is no way you can expect to for example lay out fiber to every single apartment in New York in just one massive project. You need to section it up to make it more manageable.

 

 

40 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It's interesting that MS are doing this, because in my mind they are the only company that don't seem to be afraid to develop shit that fails.

Pretty much all companies does.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

 

Pretty much all companies does.

I'm mean shit that even internet plebs  like us have good idea are doomed to failure, like trying to dethrone the iphone or make atom the next big mobile processor.  I'm convinced they do this stuff for shits and giggles more than any vain hope it will succeed.

 

 

[Jito463]

9 hours ago, Michael McAllister said:

If it weren't for the government in some sense, today's Internet would not exist.

not the government, just Al Gore.

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

13 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Sometimes, a new modem is needed. If you have one of those Modem/Router unit, use your own router, and disable the one in the modem. Those are jack of trade master of none units, as providers tend to buy garbage and over sale it to consumers (same with most TV setup boxes)

Been meaning to do that, just been too lazy to do it. Part of the problem being that if there is any trouble at all causing a disruption in service, I'll have to deal with my sister who has no understanding of technology and will automatically assume I'm "just trying to hog all the internet to myself and prevent her from using it".

 

God I need to move out.