Move over Obamaphone, get your Bidenet yet?

[IowaOffRoad]

Sure you've heard about the 42 billion and change that was earmarked in 2021 to build out rural broadband. Also sure you've heard that not one person has been connected with those billions yet. If you haven't, go search.

Locally, there's a telecom that announced rural fiber 2 years ago. They were supposed to break ground 18 months ago. I was still waiting on my Starlink when their first flier came around wanting us to sign up. The "introductory rate" was 2.4x what Starlink cost for similar performance. We had been waiting for starlink for almost a year, decided that I'd keep waiting at that price.

Fast forward to last month. Big announcement in a mailer: "We are extending our signup period thru the end of the month". They haven't even begun burying one foot of cable yet. The prices have come down, similar speed/data to starlink is now only 40 bucks higher, the entry level is 1/2 of starlink but has speed/data caps like many cell carriers.

Any of y'all 'benefited' from this .gov largesse yet? Anyone else have perpetually 3 months away projects in their area similar to what's described above?

 

[MuntCuffin]

We have fiber a 1/2 mile from the house.

They won't bring it down our road, guess there's no business opportunity from 3 houses in a half mile.

Got our starlink dish up, just gotta finish install so I can stop giving money to at&t. Not that I'm thrilled about giving money to elon, but wtf ya going to do?

 

[benw]

They haven't even begun burying one foot of cable yet.

Why would they bury it? Are your power, phone, and cable tv underground or on poles? Its not uncommon for FTTH to be aerial.

There are 3 providers in my area that have put in rural fiber that is online. IDK if they got fed money to do it or not.

 

[DuckTape]

I have a fiber line directly to my shop in a rural SW Kansas location. It was part of the state program to bring fiber to rural areas. They had to trench about a mile to my place from the main line and it didn't cost me anything out of pocket.

 

[AgitatedPancake]

It's just amazing. And last year the FCC cancelled over $800m in funding that SpaceX for Starlink in rural areas, saying "saying the company failed to prove it can supply high-speed internet to users in 35 states." Even though they've got multiple millions of customers (with many in rural areas) at this point.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-loses-appeal-to-receive-886-million-in-fcc-funding-for-starlink#:~:text=The%20FCC%20has%20denied%20SpaceX's,to%20users%20in%2035%20states.

And just some silly context on what that $42b could buy from Starlink (at regular pricing)

 

[RusM]

Why would they bury it? Are your power, phone, and cable tv underground or on poles? Its not uncommon for FTTH to be aerial.

There are 3 providers in my area that have put in rural fiber that is online. IDK if they got fed money to do it or not.

For whatever reason all fiber lines seem to be buried, Ive never seen any aerial?

Someone Google it and report back.

 

[Rustymofo]

For whatever reason all fiber lines seem to be buried, Ive never seen any aerial?

Someone Google it and report back.

Ours is aerial. We've had CenturyLink for the last 5 years, and they just recently forced us over to Quantum Fiber. Which kicks ass compared to CL at a cheaper cost (two plans available...$50 or $75 depending on speed). The line runs from a power pole to our house, nothing buried.

 

[ntaylor]

I work for a small ISP. We spent a lot of time working on applying for grants to service rural areas and have had very little success. Meanwhile some company from far away has received money to service the area that I live in and nothing has been done with it. I have contacted them and I get no response on when it may happen.

 

[rockota]

For whatever reason all fiber lines seem to be buried, Ive never seen any aerial?

Someone Google it and report back.

Areal all around here until last-line (pole to house)

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Ours is aerial. We've had CenturyLink for the last 5 years, and they just recently forced us over to Quantum Fiber. Which kicks ass compared to CL at a cheaper cost (two plans available...$50 or $75 depending on speed). The line runs from a power pole to our house, nothing buried.

The ICN (fancy .gov fiber strung 30 years ago). The phone company wants to bury it just like their current line. They did go around and “upgrade” everyone’s access in anticipation of the fiber 2 years ago. We don’t have a landline with them either

 

[Will Scarlet]

They've been dumping money to companies for decades for rural high speed Internet and nothing has really changed besides the definition of what "high speed" means.. No different than the charging stations money they're blowing in the wind. And if anyone is surprised by any of this, you haven't really been paying attention.

 

[Slander]

Doubt its connected to the inflation reduction print money and spending act, but they are burying fiber in my neighborhood/area which is pretty rural.

 

[rockota]

Doubt its connected to the inflation reduction print money and spending act, but they are burying fiber in my neighborhood/are which is pretty rural.

Quote to get Comcast to pull broadband from road to neighbor’s house: $24k

Electric co-op offers fiber… installed to the house for free.

 

[benw]

For whatever reason all fiber lines seem to be buried, Ive never seen any aerial?

Someone Google it and report back.

I bet you see aerial fiber every day and you don't realize it. Its going to be the lowest cable(s) on the pole. At every pole or every other pole there is probably an orange or yellow sleeve over the cable that has the owner's name on it. There are areas around me with 4 fiber cables on the same pole from different carriers. This is primarily business fiber, not residential and its mostly tier 3 providers.

 

[Lil'John]

We have fiber a 1/2 mile from the house.

They won't bring it down our road, guess there's no business opportunity from 3 houses in a half mile.

Got our starlink dish up, just gotta finish install so I can stop giving money to at&t. Not that I'm thrilled about giving money to elon, but wtf ya going to do?

I have fiber 100 feet from my house. It costs an arm and a leg to pay for it because it is only available as business class fiber I am breaking down and getting Starlink next month because I will save a BOAT load of cash over the fiber I'm paying for

If they would bring the cost down on the fiber, I'd stick with it. I have zero trust in Starlink and snow right now.

 

[Lil'John]

For whatever reason all fiber lines seem to be buried, Ive never seen any aerial?

It is aerial by my house. They wanted to keep it aerial and attach it to my house. I told them to piss off and ran ~150' of 2" conduit to the pole. No big deal.

 

[blthomas]

Here in Virginia they've been running conduit like mad all over back roads. Then going back and pulling wire. I started a thread in January about buying a rural home, and the ground vaults, what to expect.

Verizon ran wire through the conduit last month, we signed up online, few days ago.

Miss utility was here early AF, they buried the cable today midday, about 300' from front prop line to the house. Verizon comes to make the connection Monday.

 

[RusM]

I bet you see aerial fiber every day and you don't realize it. Its going to be the lowest cable(s) on the pole. At every pole or every other pole there is probably an orange or yellow sleeve over the cable that has the owner's name on it. There are areas around me with 4 fiber cables on the same pole from different carriers. This is primarily business fiber, not residential and its mostly tier 3 providers.

Could be? But working on utility jobs in state dot right of way (for the DOT) for 3 years I don't remember seeing one for aerial fiber, it was all underground.

 

[benw]

Could be? But working on utility jobs in state dot right of way (for the DOT) for 3 years I don't remember seeing one for aerial fiber, it was all underground.

Hmm I can think of aerial fiber locally that crosses DOT ROW but not that runs along it, haven't paid that close of attention though. Tons of it along county roads and city streets around here. Anywhere the other utilities are aerial there’s no reason the fiber can’t be aerial also.

 

[kschaper75]

I'm currently in charge of a 2100 mile rural fiber project in southern Virginia. We've put in about 500 miles so far with all of it being direct buried. It's for a coop that has their own power lines. They want it underground in case the lines go down due to whatever reason so they don't have to repair both.

Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[swtfman]

The rural electric co-op has gigabit fiber available in their entire service area just North of me. 2 different fiber companies just put in fiber all over town just South of me. So if you live in town or in BFE there's great options, but just outside of town = shit for internet.

 

[bgaidan]

My county got a bunch of grant money and Spectrum seemed to get most of the contracts....and they actually delivered. After 2.5 years living here and being on cellular/LTE, they ran gigabit fiber and fired it off a little less than a year ago.

I'm betting they have a whole bunch of money earmarked for small business and startups that have never touched fiber and probably never will, and probably won't have to pay any of the money back when they fail.

 

[NotmyJK]

It's just amazing. And last year the FCC cancelled over $800m in funding that SpaceX for Starlink in rural areas, saying "saying the company failed to prove it can supply high-speed internet to users in 35 states." Even though they've got multiple millions of customers (with many in rural areas) at this point.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-loses-appeal-to-receive-886-million-in-fcc-funding-for-starlink#:~:text=The%20FCC%20has%20denied%20SpaceX's,to%20users%20in%2035%20states.

And just some silly context on what that $42b could buy from Starlink (at regular pricing)

Lol, we were at the Hammers in remote pit 2 and watching the race via Starlink and an inverter. Pretty sure Starlink can get anywhere.

 

[Thatg9659]

Pretty sure an Obama campaign promise was high speed net for rural Americans. All I’ve seen since was signs promising free internet access for low income folks.

No surprise nothings been accomplished other than pissing money away.

 

[Wheelerfreak]

Over the last couple of years they ran lines out to our area out in BFE. It’s all aerial, they even had to put in some of their own poles and made a mess of it on our property ROW. It looks like they are done now but we still haven’t heard shit about who the provider is or any offers of service. As far as I know, nobody in the area has heard about or gotten the fiber service. Here I think aerial is cheaper than buried (nothing here is buried), but we often lose power in the winter due to snow and now I’d guess if they ever start offering service we’d lose internet too. We’ve been on Starlink since December of ‘21 with no regerts . Good thing too since we can’t even get signal on our phones for streaming etc.

We get a lot of snow in this area and haven’t had issues with it causing signal loss, it melts off and stays clear. The signal loss is usually only when we get a really heavy downpour like last night.

 

[AKnate]

I have ATT cell based internet. It's $50/month.

Has worked well. Way faster than the $110/month DSL.

 

[kschaper75]

Something else I should have noted. When we started putting this in, I checked the pricing. It was $249 a month for gig speed. The cheapest was I think $70 for 10 mb speed which I believe is considered high speed. Best part is as a consumer, you can apply for payment assistance which takes to bill down to $20-$30 a month.

For reference, I pay $70 a month for Google fiber gig speed.

As to aerial vs buried, ground conditions and outages dictate how the co-op decides to put it in. Aerial is faster but susceptible to storm damage. Hitting rock makes the price go way up when going underground.

Don't get me started on how Spectrum screwed over a lot of people.

 

[[486]]

quest has been plowing in conduit for fiber in the area, power co-op started hanging fiber from their poles immediately afterwords

maybe related?
Dunno. Communism doesn't ever work.

 

[bdkw1]

They did buried here. Ran it everywhere. Not sure anyone has signed up, prices are not competitive.

 

[kf4zht]

I was involved with several of these projects a couple years back. We did some OSP fiber work and they were getting quotes to help with the installs.

What was holding them up

• Permitting and Access Agreements take forever
• Backordered on fiber and equipment (you couldnt find a single plow setup for conduit available in the country)
• Trying to find out how to actually get the money from the govt

It was happening places. But the access agreements are killer, especially for a small ISP. And if you have to cross a railroad track anywhere. The ones that were moving back then were run under either Power Companies or the Town/City since they could cut a lot of that red tape. Even then we were working on one for a local city that was the poco and the internal politics were killer. Then a new city council got elected and scrapped the project. I've considered approaching the local EMC and offering my services to help them start up an ISP.

We did google fiber installs (both lines and drops) Even with their money it was still a giant pain in many areas. Then cable would get buried but pedistals or handholds get tied up and 8 months later your playing wackamole to find the previous fiber that got filled in.

As a rule of thumb anything OSP takes 4x as long as it should to happen. And any conduit you were told to use is completely crushed somewhere midspan