Internet Org Says Rural Residents Just Don't Want Broadband

said by Sircolby45:

I STRONGLY beg to differ!!! "broadband deployment is active, vibrant and successful." Wrong again! Sorry but Satellite is a piss poor excuse for successful broadband deployment.

said by cscottm:

I agree unless that FAP thing didn't exist. Also people don't want to have to pay $80 (or whatever the price is now) for Satellite

said by Sircolby45:

..
Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 5, Received = 5, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1188ms, Maximum = 3506ms, Average = 1935ms

said by nasadude:

OUCH!

said by jc100:

Either way, satellite is a good backup, but nothing else.

said by major marco:

USIIA is a primary trade association for companies engaged in Internet commerce, content and connectivity.

I stopped read at the 2nd page of the report when I found the above-referenced. Taking at its word any association of, by and for any given industry is like asking the fox what he thinks the hens' opinions of his raids are. Of course, the fox will say the hens think its wonderful!

said by RR206:

spending millions to push broadband to rural areas for such a small subscriber base just isn't worth it. Sorry.

said by RR206:

Emotions aside (which is what this debate is almost always based on), spending millions to push broadband to rural areas for such a small subscriber base just isn't worth it. Sorry. Plus the definition of "rural" varies from state to state.

said by RR206:

Emotions aside (which is what this debate is almost always based on), spending millions to push broadband to rural areas for such a small subscriber base just isn't worth it. Sorry. Plus the definition of "rural" varies from state to state.

said by insomniac:

I don't really buy that argument. High deployment costs? Charge more for service and/or don't offer the highest speeds. Sounds pretty simple to me. Those who want it will pay for it anyway.

My parents pay $30/month for 256Kbps DSL from their rural telco, and even though it's 256Kbps, it still beats dialup. (3Mbps service would cost them $40/month, and my mom is not interested in paying that much.) In suburban Chicago, I pay $35/month for 6Mbps DSL from AT&T. Hell, a basic phone line costs them twice as much as it costs me. This is the way it works in rural areas.

said by RR206:

I'm just saying. Investment to return ration isn't hight enough. ISPs are businesses, public businesses at that. They are in it to make money, not friends.

Until a proposal is made for local government to subsidize deployment, and citizens vote up a tax increase for that purpose on a wide scale, it's not likely to change.

I'm not sure of the history of electricity & phone lines, but I'm pretty sure it didn't make it out to the rural areas until the government pitched in.

said by BF69:

Um...... USF.....cough...cough

Pays for telephone service infrastructure. No doubt there is heavy lobbying going on to create funds specifically for broadband. Internet access (broadband) is not telephone service.

Yep, but aren't we all better off( and so are the telcos ) it did.

said by Scatcatpdx:

There was a review who said despairingly about the film Patch Addams is every time there wanted a sentimental moment they roll out a sick child. In the same way when the gamer urbanite want to promote an new entitlement the roll out a farmer. Has anyone bother to ask the rural person?

said by NickD:

Latency isn't the fault of the satellite providers. It's only there because the speed of light is too slow. The satellite can't be lower than 23000 miles or else it won't be geostationary.

said by elios:

geostationary is ~half a sec up and half a sec back down
+ any processing the bird has to do and your looking at almost 1500ms right there + any lag once you hit land lines

said by dslwanter:

First off, how can rural residents adapt to something they've never been exposed to?

said by dslwanter:

My township has been fighting the no broadband battle for years, and thankfully it's about to come to an end as Armstrong Cable is almost done with our fiber optic network.

said by dslwanter:

If DSL or Cable was $69.95 a month, I gurantee you AOL would still be thriving today. Just because we live out in the country, doesn't mean we're filthy rich. We're not going to pay that much for broadband. If so, I wouldn't have tried every which way to finally get DSL back in 2004 when I was able to push SBC to give it to me. I would've said f**k it and went with satellite. I'm sorry but something in excess of 400ms can't even be considered "broadband". On a decent cable or DSL line you're not going to see more than 50ms.

said by dslwanter:

I meant township to describe the general area. It's not our officials that were blocking broadband from being deployed. We were stuck in a contract with a lame cable company and we have the country's most arrogant phone company. So we were shunned for broadband.

said by powerhog:

Every time this idiot writes a report, you can bet that it's chock full of "facts". But he includes only those "facts" that support his masters.

So once again, I offer up the services of the ILEC for my area:
»www.totelcsi.com/services/res/dsl.html

I bet most urban dwellers would pass up on a "Premium" 512kbs connection for $54 (+taxes & fees) too.

said by powerhog:

Yeah, some of us would/will/do pay for it. But you can't expect wide-spread adoption from the general public at those prices.

As an FYI, I pay $65 for my 1Mbps WISP connection since I live too far out of town for DSL. It's worth every penny to not have to suffer on satellite or dial-up again.

said by Jaakee :

I was trying to fix a T1 to a cellsite, when I pulled into a Remote Term (RT) site when a pickup truck stopped and asked if we could provide broadband? There was a fiber feed mux at the site and the DLC system could be converted to at least 1.5Mb service. Most of the land within sight was farmland except a house a few hundred feet away. I had to call him back after talking to engineering and tell him no more systems would be deployed this year. The equipment needed to upgrade is being taken out of RTs in the areas where Iptv is being deployed. The ROI must not be good enough. Tons of money is spent upgrading over and over in the big cities but semi rural areas get nothing. Even parts of small towns meaning more than 10 thousand people can't get BrdBnd if they are past the first load coil.