Comment by tonyarkles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tonyarkles | Hacker News Reader

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> ...jungles of Cambodia, trekked across Myanmar, stayed in villages of central Iran, driven across the deserts North Africa. Never have I felt deprived on good connectivity, even in the deserts of Iran.

That makes me even more grouchy about my current situation :D

You don't have to get too far off a major highway in rural Saskatchewan to have miserable connectivity. You can generally connect to an LTE tower, but between the distance to the tower and how oversold they are, it's a total crapshoot as to whether you'll actually be able to use it. Because the towns are too far away from the switches, the only wireline connectivity you're going to get is 56K dial-up (maybe only 33.6K...).

When they announced the "Better Than Nothing" Beta, I was very excited because "Better Than Nothing" is "Better Than What I've Got" at our rural spot most days.

Edit: I missed your comment in the middle there:

> How is it that in rural US there is no alternative to satellite internet?

Well, the RM (~= county) we're in has a land area of 336 sq.mi. and a population of 275 people (0.8 people/sq.mi.) I have no idea what the population density is like in the Cambodian jungle, but looking at a table in Wikipedia suggests that the least-dense province has about 6 people/km^2 compared to our 0.3/km^2. It's just really really uneconomical to build out wireline service.

> It's just really really uneconomical to build out wireline service.

Presumably these people are hooked up to the electrical grid, and if that is the case why isn't that equally uneconomical? Do they have phone lines?

Having people hooked up to fiber or at least DSL is in my experience often mostly a political issue.

Yeah, I never understood this either. If electrical lines, or phone lines offering dial-ups can be laid down, and the major cost is digging, then why can ADSL or Fiber be laid down too?

DSL slows over distance. If you're far enough out, you're basically back to dial-up speeds unless they are willing to build cabinets closer, which no North American carrier I've heard of is still doing for DSL.

BPL (Broadband over Powerline) also requires heavy investment [0]:

- Only low and medium voltage power cables can be used for access BPL. - Signals need booster equipment to make them travel long distances. - Transformers, circuit breakers, and surge protectors can interfere with broadband signals.

[0] https://www.explainthatstuff.com/broadbandoverpowerlines.htm...

> DSL slows over distance.

Again, can't the exact same argument be made for why some citizens shouldn't be connected to the electrical grid?

While I don't dispute that electricity is more vital than a fiber connection, the point I'm trying to make is that this is primarily a political issue and not an economical one.

I don't think anyone was suggesting BPL as an alternative.

Ok, I mistook your mentioning of electrical connection as suggesting BPL as an alternative delivery mechanism.

But again, no NA carrier I'm aware of is pushing out new DSL DSLAMs anywhere in the country or even building out copper capability at all in new neighborhoods. Its a legacy technology that isn't being invested in, for good or ill.

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