franpipeman wrote: ↑Wed. Jan. 08, 2025 9:05 am
Come visit my area of pa south heidelberg township a rural area serviced by blue ridge cable. they have run the entire township with underground conduit ( where required) and it is for high speed internet . Next step the cable crews are coming in i anticipate in spring the fiber optic cable and home connection will occur .
Without looking it up they were granted a monopoly on the cable service and it may be subsidized by the Universal Service fee charge everyone see on their phone bill. The monopoly makes sense in rural areas in the past because two competing providers would cut each other throats and may not want to make the initial investment. Works out for the consumers as whole because the contract for exclusivity also dictates they provide service to everyone , they can't just pick the low hanging fruit along a main road.
That said If you are going to take advantage of the benefits of living in rural area you also need to accept the disadvantages. Today services like Starlink are available to anyone in these areas so there is no need continue with this practice of subsidizing service. It's more than double the cost but that will come down in the future. If anything when you are subsidizing traditional services with ground based infrastructure you are hindering expansion of satellite and 5g cell service into these areas that would lower costs as more people use the service.
ps they severed the underground phone line and it took two weeks for verizon to come and fix it .
Probably servicing a copper line. They don't give a *censored* and are providing the users a reason to stop the service. They want to get rid of it.
Government is like a huge ship it doesn't turn on a dime.
They are slow because there is no accountability, they are giving themselves job security. The bureaucracy will milk the taxpayer for every dime they can get.
