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Your list needs work on Colorado.

Longmont, where Mr Money Mustache is, has their own fiber network. 1 gig, symmetric. broadbandnow even listed longmont. https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m...

Fort Collins just voted to add in community owned fiber.

Alot of cities voters voted to allow their communities to consider their own networks two years ago. http://blogs.denverpost.com/tech/2015/11/05/44-colorado-citi...

Guilty - I got bored, I'm unlikely to ever need to buy broadband in any of those places.

I am pretty sure wireless is really going to change this in the next few years. Most of those locations probably already have LTE coverage and many times its better than the wired tech in the area.

Everyone is just waiting for a good unlimited plan and many will just move over to hotspots / LTE routers. It has the benefit of going with you when you travel or move and the carrier like it because last mile is so expensive to upgrade.

I know a lot of people working remotely in RV's moving around the country and it's only possible because of good wireless coverage that's getting better very fast.

I think with more remote work and better wireless coverage you could see floodgate open of tech workers moving to rural areas, I know I want to.

I live in a rural area (only 2 neighbors within a mile), and have a 50/5 Mb internet plan through a fixed wireless provider. The tower is about 5 miles away and is uplinked to another tower at least 20 miles away. This, along with Verizon LTE as a backup, allows me to consistently work from home.

Last year the best I could get was 15/5, and a few years ago 10/3. So it’s definitely changing for the better.

Warnings for those thinking about fixed wireless: they tend to turn off tower equipment to prevent damage during storms, your connection can be over saturated at peak times, you may have to pay overages (on non-business Plans, but significantly cheaper that overages by cellular providers), and line of sight and distance from the tower can prevent service.

> I'm not from the US, please correct me.

Surprisingly, San Francisco has pretty shitty Internet too and it's one of the most expensive place to live in the US.

Depends on where in the city you are. In a larger apartment or condo building you can usually get Webpass, which is very good (cheap for the US, fast up/down, low latency, good net neutrality policy, fantastic customer service).

I know someone who gets 800Mb/s with Sonic fiber now for less $$ than Comcast. So happy for them to be off Comcast too. Can't wait for Sonic to cover me and I think they were only a few blocks away last I checked.

Well, that is really a surprise. You are right, never would have thought that. Why is that, can you shed some light on this eventually? I would like to know some background here.

Genuine question: If your job is in programming (or heavily uses tech, such as an office worker etc.) why does internet speed in 2017 matter? Most places in my opinion have adequate bandwidth.

Here's what I'd imagine a remote worker's workflow:

1. Connect to your company's VPN

    Then for a programmer:  
  
    a. NFS/Samba mount a drive which has your code
    b. Log in to a remote VM with your development environment
    c. IM client for textual communication

    For a office worker:

    a. Remote Desktop: Either full remote desktop or dumb terminal/thin clients
    b. Google office suite/Office 365 etc.
    c. Sharepoint or some such (this maybe slow IIRC)
    d. A softphone for calls (this shouldn't be an issue with the bandwidths listed)

So the bottleneck can be your VPN, remote mounts or remote VMs, that's not something your internet speed can control.

> A softphone for calls (this shouldn't be an issue with the bandwidths listed)

As long as you have at least 64Kb/s up and down available for each call (depends on codec) bandwidth is largely irrelevant... what is really important is latency and packet loss.

Correction on Harmony. The phone company offers adequate DSL.

The article doesn't mention that the build-a-house rebate program has a "buy local" clause so you will pay more than if you buy materials at a major building center.

Jobs: Harmony is a reasonable commute to Rochester, home of the Mayo clinic, a huge employer of not just doctors and nurses but orderlies, clerks, etc, and then all the support businesses like medivans need drivers, etc.

(Source: Harmony is my wife's home town.)