Why a Tennessee town has the fastest internet
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2ccgs2/we_are_the_gig...
I'd like to live in a variety of places throughout my life, but when I finally pick a more permanent place of residence, it will probably be something like Chattanooga. The low cost of living is one advantage over the bigger cities. While Oak Ridge is very cutting-edge in terms of science, the south isn't near the forefront of technology like California is, so it would be nice to see at least one city around here make a push in that direction, and it seems like Chattanooga is certainly working towards it. I suppose Atlanta is working on it as well, but both have a ways to go.
That applies exclusively to California. Oregon and Washington are abundant with trees.
And a little bit further and you have big forest areas. I used to work for a guy that lived in a house in the middle of the forest near Santa Cruz, surrounded by redwood. And the Santa Cruz mountains have large portions that are classified as temperate rain forest.
You don't. Under an hour on bicycle or bus will do it.
SF also leads the nation in greenspaces, park area per capita, and has the largest urban park in the US, if not the world. Get out of SOMA once in a while, people.
EDIT: BTW, this is an example of why SFians are terrified of the onslaught of tech folks. People new to SF tend to have a very narrow view of things, taking over a year to really get even a basic feel for the city, while typically financially supporting the sort of businesses that dilute what the draw is in the first place. Anyway go on enjoying TN and come visit sometime. Book a few days extra before or after a conference and see the redwoods, they are the largest and oldest living organisms on earth.
I found this list of largest city parks: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933260.html
I'm not sure what counts as 'urban' in your definition.
Also, redwoods might be the largest trees on earth, but not the largest organisms. And they're not the oldest trees on earth either.
Also I grew up in Chattanooga, whenever I go home to my parents house it blows my mind that they have gigabit to the house(and they don't live downtown) for something like $70/mo. I pay that for 50mbit in DC and my understanding is that I am getting a pretty good deal compared to others.
It's a great town with some cool tech initiatives going on(and awesome outdoorsy stuff if you climb or kayak or camp or hangglide or whatever) but the core of the city is still a shockingly violent place.
I miss it terribly though. Everyone is so nice, and it's really a beautiful town.
Small town in GA does the same. Cable is offered through CNS. Here is the About CNS:
In 1995, the City of Thomasville began building a fiber optic network to serve local schools, libraries, businesses and hospitals with telecommunications and Internet services. After seeing success in this limited offering, it was identified that the community at large would be able to benefit from access to high-speed Internet. So, in 1998, in order to better serve the community, the City of Thomasville began construction of a new high-speed, fiber-optic network and in 1999, CNS, or Community Network Services, was created. In 1997, the Cities of Cairo, Camilla, Moultrie and Thomasville joined forces in order to better serve the citizens of each community. This multi-city partnership, titled the South Georgia Governmental Services Authority (SGGSA), enabled CNS to further expand its services to communities that were in need of high-speed Internet, television and telecommunications services, and, in 2001, these services were provided to all SGGSA cities. The best part about CNS is that it is funded locally, by the cities which it serves. This means if you are a CNS customer, you are investing in your own communities, not a corporation headquartered across the country.
The problem is, we are stuck with dated hardware and software and NO competition from Comcast/AT&T, etc. I wish I could show screenshots of the cable TV on demand interface - it looks like DOS. The cable box itself is the size of those old school VCRs that took up the entire cabinet. The internet has reported speeds up to 35 MBS, but the service is totally unreliable. Tons of dropped packets, etc. I have never seen past about 20 MBS even though we pay for 35 ($59/month).
The big cable companies won't enter the market because CNS has the monopoly and CNS isn't motivated to keep up to date because there is no competition and because it probably doesn't have the money to truly invest. Mediacom does offer service in the area, but reported 3-4 weeks before they could install and reviews of the service are terrible too.
I guess the point is, any monopoly sucks, whether a government run one or a corporate run one.
As far as the cable service goes, though, what you describe is what we have with Comcast. At least it was the last time we looked at it. Now we have Netflix and cut the cord with Comcast. That's the beauty of network neutrality - buy best of breed services from a focused provider. All I want from my cable company is a dumb, fast pipe.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
If you look around that neighborhood more, you will see that many of the prices seem more typical for a city of that nature.
Hopefully working in SF a person is able to save more money, maybe enough to buy a house every year in Chattanooga =) I see people doing this a lot approaching retirement, they work in big cities and retire in cheaper states, even different countries.
Look at all the flags: for sale at 1/3 the estimated value, estimated mortgage is 1/10 the estimated rent value, 3 year listing, listing removed at least once, numerous price drops, no cooling, and 94 years old.
That is what we call a fixer-upper with problems.
Not saying it couldn't be fixed and could be a good home for the right person, but let's be realistic about the house.
anyone here against the idea that the last-mile/access network is a natural monopoly?
Working within what's realistically possible (a free market in telecom services is impossible in the US), I find the idea of the government owning the last mile and renting it out to competition to be interesting. The companies pay a toll to provide services over it (internet, phone, tv, whatever), the government is charged with then putting that money back into upgrading the infrastructure. It would be open to any company, and no law should be allowed to be passed barring open competition.
With Comcast now a government protected monopoly, deeply in bed with all the right politicians, much like Verizon and AT&T, this scenario is impossible at scale (it would take decades of local munis building out their own networks to dent the Comcast monopoly, and Comcast will fight them every step of the way).
When your market system is broken by regulation and entrenched lobbying, and compromised by an existing protected monopoly (Comcast), you only have two choices: either fight your way back to a free market system, or demolish the broken half-way system and institute a better managed system ideally with competition. This is the exact same scenario that was faced in the healthcare market, and for the exact same reasons in principle. Half-way systems are more often terrible than not in my opinion, you tend to get the worst of both worlds.