31–40 of 105 posts
It's a national embarrassment that we don't have this kind of access in more places.
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You say that like it's a bad thing. Wells and septic systems are so common that I would struggle to believe they're a "trade off". Where I grew up (on well water and a septic tank), people couldn't believe that city folk pay for their water, and what's more, that they pay to have it go down the drain! A septic tank costs ~$5k and will last for 40 years. Over the lifetime of a septic tank, my city water bill will have…
Yes, and occasionally, you might have to get a guy with a backhoe to come out and do some work. That's $1000. That's assuming that you don't need a new line, which would take a perc test and a new permit. All the while the guy with the backhoe is looking at your system and wondering how it ever worked or got signed off in the first place. It's several hundred to get it pumped every couple of years, I think I'm rememb…
I can rent a mini excavator for a weekend for > That's assuming that you don't need a new line, which would take a perc test and a new permit.
What permit?
> It's several hundred to get it pumped every couple of years, I think I'm remembering in the range of $600 and just shy of 3 years between pumpings.
I had my tank pumped last month, it was $160.
> Then the well needs power, and someone needs to do the generator in a power outage, or you get to chip in for a spiffy one with an autostart, and the only time the well head ever acts up is on national holidays when if you can get someone out, it's 3x overtime.
When I was on well water, our pump could (and did) run off a car battery and an inverter when necessary.
> You know, I kind of like city water now.
I just bought a home that's on city water, but has a septic tank. I'm prevented by ordinance from replacing the tank, but I'll do everything in my power to keep it as long as possible. It's far easier and cheaper than paying for city sewer even without including the costs of hooking up to it.
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I didn't realize DSL speeds were even possible above 7.1 Mbps, have things changed? ADSL is (or was) very much dependent on total wire distance and overall copper line quality from the nearest telco switching station. Top speeds were simply not possible above the 2-mile mark and that was pushing it. Rural areas, forget about it.
In my experience modern DSL (like AT&T Uverse) is fiber-to-the-curb and DSL from there. Meaning the amount of DSL line you have is incredibly short and then it hits a fiber line.
Verizon rips out the copper network interface from your home and replaces it with Fios gear all the way through, which always felt like overkill though I know they do it partly to suck you in to their TV offerings too. I wonder how much the extra expense of this last 100 feet of the deployment (from telephone pole to house) holds back more broadband penetration.
Surprisingly, in Myrtle Beach, SC we have multiple high speed providers choices: HTC (as in htcinc.net, a local telco cooperative offering gigabit fiber), or Spectrum, who just minutes ago I heard for the first time that their new default tier in our area is 100mbps. Not sure if they go much hiher though, because a few years ago TWC was going to offer 300mbps cable service, and then the Spectrum merger cancelled that…
>a few years ago TWC was going to offer 300mbps cable service, and then the Spectrum merger cancelled that expansion. Are you sure they don't offer that? I live in Charlotte, and that's what I have.
In my area (Midwest USA), you can only get 100Mbps or more from either A) Cable company. In my case Mediacom. B) Fiber, which is also offered by Mediacom as well as some rural providers to select locations. DSL is barely 20Mbps around here, and you can't even get 10Mbps service in some spots two miles off US 20. As someone who'd like to buy a home in the country, I find this lack of coverage a much bigger issue. Forg…
Much of my county doesn’t even have water and sewer pipes. People just spend the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars needed to build septic systems and wells and accept that is the trade off for living in the country.
I pay $75 for 7/0.768Mbps and $220 for 50/10Mbps for 2 business lines. My only option is Spectrum cable. They are offering 100Mbps fiber for $770/month if sign up for 5 years contract.
$770/mo for 5 years contract? I assume that's on your business lines and has a service level agreement with it?
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Much of my county doesn’t even have water and sewer pipes. People just spend the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars needed to build septic systems and wells and accept that is the trade off for living in the country.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Wells and septic systems are so common that I would struggle to believe they're a "trade off". Where I grew up (on well water and a septic tank), people couldn't believe that city folk pay for their water, and what's more, that they pay to have it go down the drain! A septic tank costs ~$5k and will last for 40 years. Over the lifetime of a septic tank, my city water bill will have…
And then you have the upkeep. Folks have already mentioned power issues (generator or stored water), pumping, and other things that can go wrong (including backflow into your house and testing water occasionally to make sure it hasn't been contaminated). Most folks where I lived (indiana) also needed a water softener just to keep their water from stinking of eggs. Clothes didn't last as long, and few white clothes stayed white for long without special caustic cleaners. Blonde hair turned orange and it took a beauty treatment to get it back and/or special shampoo. Some homes have a section of yard that stays pretty soggy, and folks need to know where the system is so they don't accidentally dig there or plant trees to closely. If you don't know this stuff, you gotta pay someone to come out and tell you.
Not to mention that at least with city water, the expenses are constant instead of sudden: city water is more like regular oil changes whereas a septic is more like a sudden flat tire or two that happens to stink up your car somehow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and occasionally, you might have to get a guy with a backhoe to come out and do some work. That's $1000. That's assuming that you don't need a new line, which would take a perc test and a new permit. All the while the guy with the backhoe is looking at your system and wondering how it ever worked or got signed off in the first place. It's several hundred to get it pumped every couple of years, I think I'm rememb…
You say that like city water never needs maintenance. My neighbor had roots growing into his pipes from a tree on city property, but since the pipes were on private property he had to have them replaced on his own dime, and also fix the flooding in the house from the backed-up sewer line. I'm not arguing that septic tanks are better, and I apologize that many people reading my comment seem to think I am. What I'm arg…
This reminds me of the former Romanian dictator's comment that his people simply just did not need color tv. I didn't think I'd ever see that kind of stupidity from the US Congress and regulators. Busting up monopolies is clearly no longer in fashion.
Сhaushesku considered that people doesn't need a TV at all, so blackouts became usual thing. By the way, I don't think it's all about monopolies. It's just expenses, companies should invest huge amounts of cash just to reach last mile. Who will take such risks after some company already built infrastructure which you can just double and hope for underbidding your opponents?
Unfortunately for us consumers, Comcast has lobbied pretty well and made it against the law for municipalities to start their own ISP.
I know and talk to enough people who knew, in advance of making a choice to move, that they were moving somewhere with absolutely no home terrestrial broadband, and did so anyway. Often mobile (or even satellite, which is generally quite limited in terms of upstream bandwidth and latency) internet is enough for them, or the pros of living there outweigh that con; many could arrange to bridge to a neighbour fairly cheaply through directional radio but neglect to because, again, it doesn't bother them all that much.
Home terrestrial broadband is a commodity, not a right, nor even a necessity (though some may like to frame it as such). It is more important to be employed, out of prison, fed, and housed, than it is to binge watch the last remaining bottom-of-the-barrel content on Netflix. As improvements to codecs roll out, even more people on the same slower connections will have access to high quality video (and the ability to share it), which is the major strain on those connections in the first place, and it won't take people forcing others to give a damn about broadband.