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AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

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Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#81

Post by wddkcs »

reaperducer wrote: post #77
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

You did it before for electricity and telephone. Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. Every six months or so there's an article in the Navajo Times about the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority managing to hook up another couple of dozen homes to electricity, but there are still many thousands to…

It's not a silicon valley canard to overwhelmingly expect electricity and running water in the US. The difficulties faced by the Navajo are not representative of the country at large. The major service providers have preferred to put in place regional monopolies, rather than extend their fiber capabilities, that is the root of the issue.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#82

Post by ipython »

reaperducer wrote: post #77
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

You did it before for electricity and telephone. Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. Every six months or so there's an article in the Navajo Times about the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority managing to hook up another couple of dozen homes to electricity, but there are still many thousands to…

When you have such large numbers I can’t expect that there are zero people without these services. So to me this is a specious argument- we certainly did blanket the country with electricity and phone service. There will of course always be households without. I hardly see this as a “bubble” view.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#84

Post by rconti »

h_tbob wrote: post #41
josh2600 wrote: post #30

I'm fine with AT&T no longer supporting landlines if they start supporting fiber to every household. US broadband is a joke compared to many other parts of the world.

I wonder if that's because the USA is that stupid, or if it's just not as population dense as other countries with faster speeds? According to this statistic, it's not very dense, meaning it's super expensive to build broadband. Because it's pretty much a question of physical area covered, not number of people serviced. This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.…

It isn't that dense, but also, the utilities are monopolies that just print cash for shareholders because they don't have to invest.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#85

Post by rconti »

I'm lucky that I am in Sonic's service area and get 10Gbps symmetric fiber service for $50/mo. It exposes the lie of the incumbents slow-walking new tech and bandwidth increases.

They _just don't want to_ because they _don't have to_ compete with anyone, and they'd rather print cash for their shareholders. They have the capital to build these networks far faster than a small regional ISP can. Multi-gig speeds, FTTP are profitable. There's just no incentive to innovate. They're just rent seekers. It's more profitable to charge more and deliver less.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#86

Post by rascul »

phpisthebest wrote: post #76
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

>>>You did it before for electricity I huge part of Rural America Electricity is run by Coop's today, often non-profit anyway. Various attempts have been tried for these Coop's to also provide internet services including using Internet Over Power Lines technology, they all fail for some reason. Also with Telephone and electric build out we did not have the levels of regulatory capture we do today. The US Tax Payer ha…

> I huge part of Rural America Electricity is run by Coop's today, often non-profit anyway. Various attempts have been tried for these Coop's to also provide internet services including using Internet Over Power Lines technology, they all fail for some reason.

They seem to be doing fine in Mississippi.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#87

Post by greendave »

I live less than. a mile from a mid-sized town (15k peopl), 25 miles from the heart of Silicon Valley. The only reliable internet access available is 8mbit DSL using copper and satellite (HughesNet). No cable, no fiber, dodgy cell service, and at last try Starlink was not remotely reliable. Last big rainstorm we lost service for 5 days.

I’d love to be able to ditch copper, but if AT&T is allowed to pull the plug, it means expensive, high latency satellite will be the sole option.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#88

Post by nfriedly »

phpisthebest wrote: post #76
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

>>>You did it before for electricity I huge part of Rural America Electricity is run by Coop's today, often non-profit anyway. Various attempts have been tried for these Coop's to also provide internet services including using Internet Over Power Lines technology, they all fail for some reason. Also with Telephone and electric build out we did not have the levels of regulatory capture we do today. The US Tax Payer ha…

Where my wife used to live, there was a telephone cooperative. At the time, they offered DSL internet, but it now looks like they offer fiber also: https://www.mdtc.net/services/internet/

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#89

Post by ben_w »

reaperducer wrote: post #77
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

You did it before for electricity and telephone. Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes. Every six months or so there's an article in the Navajo Times about the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority managing to hook up another couple of dozen homes to electricity, but there are still many thousands to…

> Not completely. There are still tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Americans who never got electric, telephone, or even water service available in their homes.

…

> Tens of thousands of American homes have no running water. I've visited many in Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico, and even California.

> Time to get out of the Silicon Valley bubble.

Only 10e4-10e5? Even writing as a Brit who chose Berlin over Silicon Valley when Brexit happened (so I don't think I'd count as "in the Silicon Valley bubble" in the first place), I'd call that a rounding error against the USA population.

Don't get me wrong, that ought to still be an embarrassment for the USA to leave anyone behind[0], and it feels like a bigger embarrassment the closer it gets to the last person; but also, that's a minority of even just the Navajo enrolled tribal members, who are themselves a minority of pre-European American groups in the USA, who are themselves a minority of the USA.

[0] I like the space program, but I can also empathise with all those that didn't care about the Apollo landings because of the rather more pressing issues they personally faced on the ground due to endemic lack of equality; I can't find the original quote I'm thinking of, but this has similar vibes: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/07/26/the-moon-hours

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#90

Post by dgfitz »

arcticbull wrote: post #42
h_tbob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's because the USA is that stupid, or if it's just not as population dense as other countries with faster speeds? According to this statistic, it's not very dense, meaning it's super expensive to build broadband. Because it's pretty much a question of physical area covered, not number of people serviced. This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.…

> This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density Yes, but America's population isn't evenly distributed across the entire dry surface area. The population is clustered tightly in cities like it is in many other countries, it's just that the cities are further apart from each other. [1] The better metric, IMO, is the percentage of people who live in urban vs rural areas. [2] The US is 85.8% urban, which is righ…

> For the record I don't think it's stupidity, I think deregulation

Corrupt legislation is 100% the problem. You have it completely and hopelessly backwards

https://baltimorebrew.com/2016/10/18/city-set-to-approve-10-...

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