Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??
I'll take low-speed high-priced DSL over satellite. That said, if the economics work out it's a matter of time before competition comes in ad makes things better.
competition in these markets? Are you kidding me? These areas only have phone service because of the Co-Op. The only customers they have DO NOT have a choice and never will. Non-Profits are NOT allowed to sell to a For Profit company so that is out of the question for many of these customers ever getting anything. Nobody is going to spend the money to run a fiber line out into some field 50miles from their "service area" to service 200 customers. Not counting the money it would cost to build out the network, etc. -- www.two-pugs.com www.2pugs.etsy.com
That's why I said "if the economics work out." If the co-op is in an area that truly is remote/unprofitable, you may not see competition for communications for another twenty years. If on the other hand they're a wireless hop (or two) away from somebody's fiber network an enterprising WISP could come in with AirMax and provide service. If the baseline is 768k DSL for $50 per month with no upgrades available, you can compete even with two T1s.
That said, there are co-ops in these areas because nobody wanted to wire them, if the reason being that someone has to think on a 30-year time scale before the areas are close to profitable. In that case you probably have a natural monopoly, and the best thing to do is to try and vote someone effective into the cooperative presidency.
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