
A One-Traffic-Light Town with Some of the Fastest Internet in the U.S - fortran77
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us
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owenversteeg
"In the most rugged terrain around McKee, the crews relied on a mule named Old
Bub to haul the cable two or three miles a day. “We’ve got mountains and rocks
and not the greatest roads, and there were places we couldn’t get a vehicle
to,” Gabbard told me. “Farmers here have been using mules for centuries. It
just made sense that, if a place was hard to get to, you went with the mules.”
Old Bub, he said, was able to do the work of eight to ten men."

Laying fiber with a mule named Old Bub, now that's a story I never expected to
read.

~~~
tobmlt
Ha! It sounds like something out of cowboy be-bop.

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thathndude
I’m so delighted to see the promise (as in, potential) of the Internet playing
out properly.

So often, the stories of the Internet are how it failed to become what we’d
all hoped (open, naturally regulating, democratizing). Well, we all know that
didn’t happen.

Good Internet, coupled with adjusted attitudes towards employment will allow
the US to take advantage of the vast amount of land we possess. We don’t need
to crowd into cities. We can reconnect with a more natural way of living. And
semi-ironically, technology will be what allows that.

A boy can dream . . .

~~~
rayiner
Why do so many people believe that? Here in Maryland, there are towns with
municipal broadband in rural areas on the eastern shore. (Maryland has a
fairly extensive public fiber backbone to which rural towns can connect.)
There is no tech related business activity or jobs. The only economic activity
is farming and tourism. In fact, due to the way Verizon built out here in the
early 2000s, there are many quasi-rural areas that have had fiber since
2005-2006, but still have no municipal water or sewer. It doesn’t seem like
it’s done anything for the local economy.

We cannot even bring tech jobs to second tier cities, what makes anyone think
that technology will enable that for rural towns? Kansas City has had fiber
for almost a decade. Can we point to data showing that any of the economic
benefits have been realized? What about places like Chattanooga Tennessee? Are
they doing better than similarly situated small towns?

These seems like “build it and they will come” techno-Utopianism.

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scarface74
Chattanooga is not a “small town”. The Chattanooga MSA has almost 550,000
people. Its home to a lot of industries.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattanooga,_Tennessee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattanooga,_Tennessee)

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
When I visit relatives in “flyover” country, I definitely think about buying a
ranch and working remotely. It’s so weird to me that I can get Gigabit all
around the Wyoming/Utah/Montana area that’s better, faster, and cheaper than
what I can get in the Bay Area.

Traditional economics tells us it should be the opposite, which means it’s
probably a political issue and not a market one.

~~~
User23
Underground rated fiber cabling is around $1300 a mile on Amazon in 1000 ft
spools, and I bet you can get a much better deal than that if you buy in
quantity direct from Corning. At that point it's mostly labor and a mule is a
darn clever way to save on labor costs. Also, rural folks are used to physical
labor. Another advantage to laying fiber in a rural area, especially out west,
is that you need to negotiate with far fewer landowners than you would in a
more densely populated area, and many of them will probably let you lay the
cable for free in exchange for a connection.

~~~
inetknght
The real cost is in politics and labor. Materials are extremely cheap
comparatively.

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pjc50
British counterpart: [https://b4rn.org.uk/](https://b4rn.org.uk/)

There seems to be a sweet spot where there isn't enough existing
infrastructure or dense property ownership in the way of a rollout, and the
key obstacle is getting cost-per-mile down.

It also requires a small number of people committed to making it happen as a
public service.

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valiant-comma
EPB (the local power company) in Chattanooga, TN, has been offering 10 Gbps
residential[1] for some time, now.

[1] [https://epb.com/home-store/internet](https://epb.com/home-store/internet)

~~~
driverdan
For only $300/m too.

I'm seriously considering moving there. Costs are low across the board. No
income tax, inexpensive real estate, gasoline, and electricity. Biggest
downside I see is the humidity.

~~~
mindslight
I don't think Chattanooga has some special exemption from federal income tax.

~~~
driverdan
Sorry, I should have said no state income tax.

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chrisbrandow
Amazing story of government programs at work combined with local, individual
initiative. New Deal legislation making the co-op possible, Obama era $$ and
the leader of the co-op deciding to make it happen.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/lzwUD](http://archive.is/lzwUD)

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msufan
This is fantastic. So many times we try to address symptoms like opioid abuse
and poverty instead of attacking root causes like a lack of opportunity and
jobs. It's fun to see how infrastructure improvement like this can change
lives.

~~~
xenocyon
Opioid abuse is not a "symptom" created by lack of jobs. Where did you get
that from?

~~~
imgabe
It is. People with hope in their lives and something to work for don't try to
numb themselves with drugs.

~~~
caspper69
This is just not true man. I want it to be true. It looks good on paper. But
let me tell you... People will waste their lives on drugs, alcohol, sex and
all number of vices whether there's a good job available or not. Happily. And
they'll spit in your face, lie, cheat & steal all while telling you everything
you want to hear. Some people just suck, and there will always be this group
of people, opportunity & prosperity be damned.

~~~
vastoi
This paper indicates a relationship between a lack of economic opportunity and
opioid addiction:
[https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/259261/ASPEEconomicOpp...](https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/259261/ASPEEconomicOpportunityOpioidCrisis.pdf)

I understand that you may have strong personal feelings about individuals who
use drugs but I would encourage you to not make claims based exclusively on
those.

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saagarjha
Unrelated, but I’m perplexed by the use of “coöperative”–I’ve never come
across this spelling.

~~~
pen2l
The New Yorker is weird like that.

They also insist on misspelling 'ensure' as 'insure':
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-
univer...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-
research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein)

I think they're just abusing their poetic license at this point, with the
amount of times they choose to use archaic spellings and meanings of words,
and I wish they would actually stop.

~~~
Tomte
> They also insist on misspelling 'ensure' as 'insure'

M-W agrees, and not even marks it as archaic: [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/insure](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/insure)

~~~
everybodyknows
_Ensure_ and _insure_ carry different connotations, as detailed at the bottom
of the Webster link.

Likewise here:
[https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=assure](https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=assure)

~~~
Tomte
Though they differ only slightly, and in the concrete example in the article
"insure" still fits, IMO.

