
Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast - CrankyBear
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190904/08392642916/colorado-town-offers-1-gbps-60-after-years-battling-comcast.shtml
======
linsomniac
CenturyLink, in particular, but also Comcast, has brought this upon
themselves...

They are doing everything they can to protect their existing infrastructure
and do as little as possible to upgrade services.

I'm thinking of back in '98 when QWest was rolling out DSL, the would only
connect you to a central office. They refused to put DSLAMs in the pedestals,
because if they did that they had to allow CLECs to do the same and CLECs
could start "cherry picking" service locations for DSL. One very rural
community ("Ruby Ridge?") had to sue to get the right to put in DSLAMs. DSL
was dependent on how many wire feet you were from one of the two central
offices in town.

Compared to my inlaws up in Saskatoon Canada: Similar size city, they deployed
DSLAMs in the remote terminals and ran fiber to them and used the copper to
the house for the last mile and covered the whole city.

Remember, the telcos got a $2 billion rate hike to enable them to deploy fiber
to the home by the year 2000. Except for a few small trials (I used to work at
QWest), they just pocketed the money, no large scale fiber buildout was done.

Until Fort Collins passed the "we are going to build out our own fiber
network", Comcast was really dragging their feet on upgrades. You can get
gigabit now for around $100/mo, if you commit to a year. I'm just sitting on
120mbps for $90/mo, because people the next neighborhood over are getting door
hangers saying the city fiber is coming soon.

~~~
jyrkesh
I'm in a combo CenturyLink / Comcast market, and it's AMAZING what competition
between even just those two firms does to my offerings. Switched from
Comcast's $90/mo gigabit with a 1 TB data cap and only 90 Mb/s upload to
CenturyLink's $60/mo symmetric gigabit with no data cap. I have a contract-
less "lifetime price guarantee", they did free install (which included running
a fiber line from the pole to my house with a cherrypicker), and threw in a
free fiber endpoint box (I don't know what it's really called) and a
modem/router that's actually pretty good.

I get 980 Mb/s up/down with a 1ms ping in speed tests. Games are amazing,
downloads are amazing, hosting files to myself is amazing...all it takes is a
little competition.

~~~
linsomniac
I wonder why we are stuck with these options (in the town referenced in the
post): 1gbps Comcast and 40mbps CenturyLink.

~~~
peterlk
Colorado has laws that give monopolies on the infrastructure to whoever owns
it. But in order to get around anti-trust laws (or for some other cynical
reason), so in your case, there is really only one provider, but they share
their infrastructure with their competition and throttle them to nothing. So
your options are "whatever comcast offers" and "whatever comcast decides
CenturyLink can offer"

~~~
linsomniac
I don't understand. Comcast has their own infrastructure: a bunch of coax in
the ground. Century Link (previously known as: QWest, USWest, and Ma Bell) has
their own: Cat-3 coppter in the ground.

~~~
mperham
DSL/Telephone copper line has physical limits to the bandwidth it can provide.
It can't do anything close to gigabit and plummets very quickly with distance
from the telco box.

------
polpo
Longmont, just south of Fort Collins, was the first city in Colorado to build
out a municipal ISP, and it’s inspired surrounding cities to do the same. It’s
where I live and it was a not-insignificant reason why I chose to move here.
So far it has been a resounding success for the city. The buildout completed
on time and adoption rates are higher than initially expected (the city
planned for 37% but the last number I saw was around 54%). In my experience,
the service has been so good as to be totally invisible. And I know my $50/mo
rate will never rise. I wish Fort Collins the same experience. The fact that
they both cities have municipal electric service will help this significantly.

~~~
Ididntdothis
“And I know my $50/mo rate will never rise.”

Let’s hope they tie it to inflation or similar. Otherwise the system will die
slowly due to underfunding.

~~~
DrJaws
On Spain, I'm paying 25€ for 600/600, unlimited calls, a mobile phone line
with 3gb of data and 10 hours of calls.

$50 for just 1gbps, seems like they can even make profit from that.

~~~
nnq
with 3gb of data - maybe I'm a weird consumer, but I don't get it what's with
this insanely low data caps... while in France I had a 100gb / month 4G data
plan for ~20EUR, and couple times _I even exceeded those 100 gb!_

how/what are most people using internet for that they tolerate such small
caps?!

~~~
Bedon292
My phone is always on WiFi unless I am in my car driving from place to place.
I use under 2GB a month, closer to 1GB most months. I can't even comprehend
how you would use 100GB of data on a mobile device in a month. My primary
internet consumption is sitting at a computer all day long, or a laptop on the
couch. The mobile data is just for traffic, slack, email, and news. All my
podcasts are downloaded on WiFi, all my music is as well. There is just no
reason for me to use any real amount of data while not on WiFi.

~~~
novok
You live an urban lifestyle where you commute and travel by train and you
don't stay in your suburban palace most of the time when you're not at work.
Then you look at youtube videos during that time.

------
dfsegoat
Nitpicking title: 'Town' vs. 'City', bugs me as a former CO resident.

Ft. Collins is huge (~170k people compared to most CO towns which are 400-10k
ppl). The title sort of leads you to believe it was a folksy, rural community
effort. In reality Intel, AMD, Broadcom and a major State University are
located there and that probably helped the effort substantially.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Collins,_Colorado#Major_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Collins,_Colorado#Major_industries_and_commercial_activity)

~~~
smt88
I looked into this, and Ft. Collins is a "Home Rule Municipality" under state
law, meaning it can name itself either a town or city. It seems to have chosen
to be a city, so you're right.

Around the world, it seems that there's one consistent criterion for something
being a city: it must have self-rule and a certain amount of government
structure. Some places (notably not the US) have population requirements, but
those tend to be really low (100-1,000 people)[1].

I personally appreciate the headline saying "town" in a colloquial sense,
because I don't think of 170,000 as "huge" and it's significant that it's not
a large city doing this.

For context, Ft. Collins is not in the top 150 most populous US cities, and to
even reach the top 50, it would have to more than double in size.

1\. [https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-a-city-and-a-
to...](https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-a-city-and-a-town-4069700)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> it seems that there's one consistent criterion for something being a city:
> it must have self-rule and a certain amount of government structure.

What do you mean by self-rule? Singapore is autonomous, but that's definitely
not the norm for cities. Almost all of them belong to larger states.

No US city has self-rule even at the level below the federal government.
Washington, DC comes closest, but it is technically ruled directly by the
federal government (in a manner that is not true for cities that belong to
states). China has four "province-level" cities, but is generally accepted to
have many more than four cities.

~~~
lolwhatitis
Well, the concept of an independent city - that is, one that isn't contained
within any county - does exist in the U.S.:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_city_(United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_city_\(United_States\))

Of course, Washington DC could be considered one example, although the above
Wikipedia link begs to differ because DC isn't a state. However, there are a
few dozen more, most of which are in Virginia.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Such a city is still under two higher levels of government; it's hard to call
that "self-rule".

Also, this kind of administrative definition of "city" causes weird conflicts.
It's easy for a city, such as Los Angeles, to be much larger than the county
it's nominally located in, such as Los Angeles county. Conceptually, it's also
easy for a city to be its own county, which is a different status than "not
contained in any county" \-- but in practice where this is supposedly the
case, the city will not actually match the county boundaries, instead being
noticeably bigger or smaller.

I conclude that, in order to make the claim that cities usually have self-
rule, the people who would like to make this claim adjust their definition of
self-rule so that it covers the things they're already sure are cities, rather
than having a definition of self-rule in mind and observing that, by apparent
coincidence, most "cities" turn out to have it.

~~~
chimi
In the context of a city, self-rule means the place has a mayor and a city
council. It can pass local ordinances, have a local sales tax, and provide
services to the constituents.

Not all places start out with those things. The rules differ by state, but
generally, you need a certain population, a percentage of whom must petition
the higher authorities (which you mention), and then vote as a community to
create the create the infrastructure and take care of themselves.

At that point, they lose a lot of the benefits provided by those higher
levels, like the county and state service providers of fire, police, and
garbage disposal for example.

------
Donald
As a FoCo resident, Comcast sent me an email saying that they're "upgrading
our network" and "increasing your Internet download speed". Not really clear
what that means until I see an updated rate sheet.

I'm sure this is entirely a coincidence and has nothing to do with the fact
that they suddenly have some competition now.

~~~
jkilpatr
> "upgrading our network"

They actually where not doing this before because it's probably a bad idea.

Modern cable networks look like this.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fiber-
coaxial#/media/Fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fiber-
coaxial#/media/File:HFC_Network_Diagram.svg)

Fiber goes to copper which then splits out to a large number of homes. The
copper line near your home _can_ do multiple gigabit but that needs to be
shared with everyone else on the tree.

So selling higher speeds is easy, but reaching them for everyone requires
splitting trees with new fiber drops. Providers usually do the first and only
some or none of the second in order to sell bigger numbers and compete with
Fiber.

A similar thing happened to DSL trying to compete with cable, lets look where
that is now.

[https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/measuring-
broad...](https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/measuring-broadband-
america/measuring-fixed-broadband-eighth-report)

See chart 15.3, DSL across the ISP industry only provides advertised download
speeds 40% of the time. In any other industry this would be considered blatant
fraud.

~~~
josh2600
Basically every telecom network is built as fiber to the node not fiber to the
premises. The nasty truth of all communication and transportation systems is
that arteries are cheap and capillaries are expensive.

If I am building roads, it is WAY cheaper to just build highways than it is to
build the small roads to everyone’s homes. When doing construction for
telecom, the payback calculations are based upon “passings” which basically
says “if I lay this cable, how many potential subscribers will I get?” which
is a function of addressable users and sales modeling. Comcast used to believe
that in a new market, competing against att only, they could win more than 50%
of customers over just by connecting them to the Comcast network.

Please always remember, telecom, and transportation, are not technology
businesses, they are real estate businesses. Telecom’s real estate are
exclusive operation licenses, the most important of which being wireless
spectrum, and the second most important of which being the places where they
can exclusively tear up the earth to lay cable.

Circling back on my point at the beginning, if we laid fiber to every home, we
would not need to upgrade the network connection itself for a long, long time.
As it stands now, we have a lot of work to do if we want real high speed
options in the future.

More fiber to the home, less fiber to distribution nodes!!

~~~
kls
So we had this in the Florida Keys with AT&T who is the service provider of
our area. I live 2 miles out on a peninsula of an island named Summerland,
anyway I bought my house and AT&T assured me that I could get DSL but fiber
would not be an option. I knew it was copper all the way to my home so I
figured it would be the case.

Anyways, I buy said house AT&T comes out and tried to get DSL working, and the
lines have been so patched and spliced that they cannot even get 1mbps, so
they basically tell me I am screwed that it would not be cost effective to run
new copper down a 2 mile stretch and that my only option would be to pay (or
band my neighbors together to pay -- All 2 of them) for them to string fiber
the whole way. I think it would be something like 70k.

2 Months later Hurricane Irma hits and rips down every poll down our street,
and AT&T is forced to restring the whole street due to the fact that they are
legally required to provide phone service to every customer in their
"exclusive" area or they loose said exclusivity. Fortunately for me they opted
to string it with fiber, and provided fiber to the home.

My point is, I don't see how allowing these "exclusive" coverage monopolies
does anything but harm the consumer. I imagine a community based provider like
the one in the article would be met with a host of legal challenges here.

~~~
millisecond
Without the exclusivity agreement, it sounds like you wouldn’t have been
reconnected. A community provider probably wouldn’t allocate 70k in capital to
bring 3 (potential) customers online.

So you’re benefitting by the subsidy of users in denser areas being forced
into exclusivity.

~~~
snowwrestler
Consider what the community is already investing in these people. The street
along which those lines were strung probably cost a lot more than 70k to
construct and maintain; why would the municipality draw the line at Internet?

------
hanklazard
After many years of using Comcast because it was my only option, I recently
had my breakup call with them. We have Verizon Fios as an option and at their
lowest tier speeds, we get 100 mbps symmetric (and every time I've checked the
speed over the past week, it has been as advertised). Our overpriced Comcast
plan was giving us "up to 60 mbps" but we were getting, wait for it, 1 mbps in
the last few weeks of our plan. We could barely load modern web pages in a
reasonable time and streaming anything was a mess.

Glad to see that Colorado cities and towns are at least being given the option
of building their own high-speed infrastructure. If successful, it should
provide a great example for the rest of the country.

~~~
robohoe
Speaking of poor cable speeds, were your downstream/upstream signals poor? Did
you have an upstream filter installed on your line by any chance?

I too had a similar issue but a tech visit to disconnect a noise filter fixed
it.

~~~
hanklazard
Hmm, I'm not familiar with that hardware so I certainly didn't install one.
Rather than talk to them about troubleshooting, I took the more blunt
approach: dump Comcast! (Hint: if you're moving from one big ISP to another,
the new one will likely cover your termination fee)

~~~
hanklazard
I used to live in a building where Comcast payed for the ethernet wiring in
the walls throughout the entire building when it was built. Needlesstosay,
they were the only ISP option for all residents who lived there. With newer
wireless ISPs, there may be some hope for situations like that and maybe for
you.

------
godelmachine
I remember watching in Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj how greedy monopolistic
ISP corporations like Comcast are trying hard to outlaw town based internet
offerings.

Must watch -

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xw87-zP2VNA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xw87-zP2VNA)

~~~
pulse7
Such business attempts should be punished by the law!

~~~
metalliqaz
hahahahaha, good luck with that

such business creates its own law!

------
iamsb
It is incredible how similar electricity utility and internet utility delivery
is happening. For first 30-40 years, governments and private enterprises were
competing quite a bit over who can have the monopoly in providing electricity.
I recently read a book which deals with impact of electricity from social,
political, industrial perspective. [https://www.amazon.com/Age-Edison-
Electric-Invention-America...](https://www.amazon.com/Age-Edison-Electric-
Invention-America/dp/0143124447)

~~~
Teknoman117
Then they all started freaking out when people could generate their own power.

------
maitredusoi
For 60$ you have a Freebox delta in France (sorry only in French
[https://www.free.fr/freebox/freebox-
delta/](https://www.free.fr/freebox/freebox-delta/) ) . It includes 10 Gbps
(via fiber cable) + a sound system ( from Devialet, an equivalent to Bose
system) + Alexa on the remote controller + 500 Go HDD for video recording or
music playback + 200 (international) TV channels + Netflix SD , all inclusive
?!

For the little story, french people said 60 $ for all of this Freebox delta
was sooooo expensive. After reading the Colorado Town news, I stay amused.

~~~
wuliwong
Prices vary from country to country on lots of things. How much does gas cost
in France vs the USA?

~~~
sydd
he was not trying to get into a pissing contest, just showing what real
competition can lead to.

Another data point: I live in Hungary and pay $10 for a 1000Mbps up/200 down
internet (plus I think they threw in a landline too, wasnt bothered to check)
and could choose from 3 providers.

~~~
eigenloss
Adjusted for $ per Mbps-month, Coloradans under the Comcast monopoly pay ~100x
what you do.

------
akouri
I find it so hard to grapple that much of SF / Silicon Valley (supposedly the
"innovation hub of the world") is subject to near-monopoly by Comcast. AT&T's
offerings are 40mbps/5mbps in 2019. So that's obviously not an option. Even
Comcast only has 250mb/10mb. In _silicon valley_. In 2019.

I had WebPass in one building I was in in 2014, and had symmetric gigabit for
$40/mo. Nothing like that has existed in any of the other buildings I've lived
in.

It's gotten to the point where I'm seriously considering relocating away from
the Bay Area due to the lousy internet here.

~~~
firefwing24
This also confuses me as a resident of South Bay Area...

I've been researching ISPs every once in a while to see if new ISPs are able
to provide decent deals to where I live... As of right now, here seems to be
my options...

\- AT&T used to charge maximum 5mbps/512kbps (for like something ridiculous
like 60$/month), until Sonic came around and started using their
infrastructure. Now Sonic & AT&T both provide something like 75 or 50
mbps/5mbps internet (for again.. 60$/month)

\- Unfortunately, Sonic only reaches me through AT&T so its basically the
same.

\- Comcast is what I use for 150mbps/5mbps (around 70$ a month). Recently(and
currently) getting episodes of massive uncorrectables. Technician came and
found that a coax connector outside was fried, and replaced it.... 5 days
later, I'm still getting uncorrectables, so clearly that wasn't the only
problem. Fortunately, I'm getting free 20$ every time i complain, so it's sort
of worth? lol...

\- I can technically request comcast for their 2Gbps, but I'm not down to
spend a massive amount of money for the installation costs w/ the overpriced
monthly price tag.

\- Common Networks shows most promise, but they can't reach me (despite my
city being listed as one of the primary areas).

Even just having symmetric 100mbps/100mbps would be a godsend to this shit ISP
situation.

Edit: formatting

------
jmspring
The small town where I live in North Eastern California gets it's internet
from a local co-op that provides both electrical and internet services to the
local community. Part of where I chose to purchase when I moved up here was
based on getting fiber. It's been rock solid, but it's about $110/mo for
(recently updated) 100/20 fiber. Previously, people were stuck with line of
site wifi (can be problematic with a lot of trees) or satellite.

Their roll out has been interesting. In some areas, they have taken advantage
of legacy cable feeds (cable companies pulled out awhile ago). Sometimes they
were successful, some needed repair, and some just flat out didn't work.

The service got kick started with grants for rural internet service.

~~~
webo
Similar story here in Fayetteville Arkansas. I’ve been enjoying a truly
gigabit internet for $80/mo since 2017. AT&T and Cox still don’t have anything
remotely close to the gigabit speed in residential areas.

[https://www.ozarksgo.net/internet](https://www.ozarksgo.net/internet)

------
sbarre
I pay 75$ CDN for 1Gbps with no cap in Toronto, and I used to think we had it
bad in Canada..

"Fighting" with a local cable company (monopoly I assume?) to offer a 1Gpbs
service in 2019 is depressing.

~~~
vincnetas
One more data point. Vilnius, Lithuania 1GBs for 19.90€ (22.00$) /month

[https://www.telia.lt/privatiems/kur-veikia-internetas-ir-
tv/...](https://www.telia.lt/privatiems/kur-veikia-internetas-ir-
tv/tag?customerType=P&pageType=&p_address_id=1027794#/)

~~~
swebs
For what its worth, average salary in Lithuania is around 10,000 euros per
year.

~~~
robohoe
And it's also little over the size of West Virginia.

~~~
tehlike
Why does it matter? Because populous cities have to subsidize sparsely
populated ones, and that is why prices are high?

~~~
mynameisvlad
Because it costs a whole lot more to lay down fiber across the US than it does
to cover a fraction of it.

The sheer distances between everything makes it incredibly difficult to build
infrastructure like high speed rail, fiber across the country, etc.

~~~
scarejunba
Right, if you're looking at the entire country, but if you can draw a
Lithuania shape that's got Lithuania-like properties, you should expect
Lithuania performance within that shape.

Here's one:
[https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTI4MDE3Nzc.MTIwNDM0NDM...](https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTI4MDE3Nzc.MTIwNDM0NDM*NzExMDMxNw\(NTI2NDYxNA~!LT*OTQ1NTUwMQ.MTQ4MTg4MTQ\)NA)

Naturally, the big thing is that labour costs dominate costs of everything, so
we won't have gig fibre available for Lithuania costs. But the fact that we
don't have gig fibre for any price universally in that region is mostly
because they have the leapfrogging effect in Lithuania - they were later to
the Internet than America. i.e. the size argument is a facile false
explanation for the absence of the things because _within_ the areas that have
similar properties we'd expect similar performance.

In time we'll see gigabit fibre come to America, not because there is an
absolute cost concern, but because as it comes time to upgrade aging infra
we'll just put what's best at the time in, something that would be impossible
if there were true geographic barriers.

~~~
fulafel
Do labour costs really dominate ai ISPs?

------
mooreds
So excited for Fort Collins. Internet access, particularly last mile "in the
ground" access, seems like a natural fit for a utility model.

------
unsined
I'm taking this thread as an opportunity to pay Comcast a review I owe them as
I recently became a first time customer with them:

Comcast may have the best deal in most areas by virtue of monopoly, but I can
guarantee you that the average customer ends up paying more. I agreed with a
rep on $60 per month for just internet, nothing else. The bill comes and it's
$83 with basic TV and a service charge. How they did this was they sent me a
text message with a link to an agreement and asked if "everything looks
right". Being on my cell phone and on my lunch break I just wanted to get it
over with and said yeah.

They also assume you want somebody to come over and plug in your modem and
rent you a router. I explicitly said no to this, but they signed me up for
installation anyway.

I'm convinced Comcast institutionally trains reps to steer sign ups in this
way.

I was refunded eventually, but it still cost me time to dispute billing.

~~~
cwkoss
File complaints with any state and local govt agencies that will listen. SOS,
ATG, UTC, etc.

The more complaints they have, the more regulators are empowered in taking
action.

------
gok
The business plan is interesting:
[https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/files/broadband-business-
pla...](https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/files/broadband-business-
plan.pdf?1555622083)

Key points: they're expecting this effort cost $130-$150m, not pay for itself
until 2033 or so, and only get around 28% market share. If Comcast/CenturyLink
drops their prices slightly, uptake might be substantially worse.

~~~
a_wild_dandan
Comcast now (surprise, surprise) offers 1Gb lines for $90. I jumped on it. But
when the city's fiber rolls out to my location, I'm sprinting toward
Connexion. Cancellation fees be damned.

~~~
bproven
You will also get gig bi-directional with the city - afaik comcast is only
offering 20-30Mbit uploads for their gig service.

But yeah surprise! City announces city internet service and comcast slashes
gig from $200-300 a year ago down to $70-90 lol

------
unwary_querier
Centurylink and Comcast are a little skiddish around here (Northern Colorado).
Prices have dropped, advertising with headlines such as "best customer
support" are ubiquitous and Centurylink even upgrades my linespeed for $0 two
years ago.

Competition is working, though I'll jump ship to Connexion (muni ISP) as soon
as I can.

------
post_break
ATT brought 1gig fiber to my neighborhood (probably because I'm in NASA's
backyard). I have gig symmetrical unlimited for $70 a month. Comcast of course
tries to offer the same but with cable and you and I both know it wont be
symmetrical, or anywhere close to the speed you pay for. It's funny how
quickly Comcast will bend when there is a competitor in the area. Just down
the street where there is no fiber they will gladly charge you $100 a month
for 50 meg down.

~~~
tehlike
A few months back, i switched to att fiber for 70$, and called comcast to
cancel it. They said they will match the price, and that my att installation
has 30 day free cancellation period and i should really take that. Give it to
me for 35, then i would consider.

~~~
post_break
I'd rather pay more money to a competitor than stay with comcast at this
point.

------
zer0faith
ya know... it's past time that they declare internet access a utility (like
water, power, electricity) and tell garbage companies like Comcast to shove
it.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Will never happen as long as "Government bad!" is the predominant thinking in
our culture.

------
Etheryte
Could someone please explain the background to someone not from the US? Why is
competition so scarce in this field in the US? Is it just the cost of
infrastructure over large distances, or is something else at play here?

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
In addition to the cynical everyone-is-corrupt answers you've been getting,
I'll add:

ISPs, like mail delivery or electricity, are classical examples of "natural
monopolies" where the fixed price of installing infrastructure is high, while
the marginal cost of each additional customer is low.

Such environments are tricky to manage: You want some market forces, because
otherwise there's one lazy government-owned provider with bad service at high
prices because they have no pressure to be better. At the other end of the
spectrum, you have a private company with bad services at high prices that
makes a ton of profit because competitors cannot afford the initial
investment.

To balance these competing forces is tricky, and some countries manage better
than others.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I really like how it is done in Sweden where the city provides the fibre but
doesn’t run any service over it. We can choose from 5-10 ISPs. Much like the
road.

~~~
thekyle
If all the ISPs are using the same infrastructure how do they compete on
internet speed?

~~~
toast0
Unlikely, but if the ISP gets to terminate the fiber at the head end --- one
ISP may be willing to run 10G and others only 1G.

More likely, the last mile provider does termination, so line speed isn't
negotiable by provider. Instead you're competing based on peering and transit
connections, oversubscription ratios, availability of static ips, other
policies, customer service, etc.

------
baybal2
Where America stands out in Internet deployment is that it never had a period
of copper Ethernet being deployed in the last mile. And I think this is why
most American's still don't see 100mb/s speeds as something normal these days.

On other hand, quite a few places in the world saw 100mb/s Ethernet as their
_first_ Internet option, and never seen a rationale to fall back to slower
alternatives. For them, the speed been only growing up for the last 20 years.

------
Jnr
I live in EU. I pay 15 EUR per month for 1 Gbps.

~~~
pmjordan
The EU is a big(ish) and diverse place. We pay about twice that for 40Mbps
VDSL and about 2.5x that for 50Mbps LTE. To be fair, we could get something
slightly (~20%) cheaper as we've got a "business" deal to get static IP
addresses on each connection. The fastest consumer package we could get at
this location (cable) is 500Mbit/s down, 40Mbit/s up for €80/month. (Their
business level contracts top out at 300/40 Mbps and €200/mo)

~~~
josh2600
The EU is also smaller and dramatically denser than the US. Nationwide service
in the US is categorically different than servicing a nation in Europe. The
rollout costs are dramatically higher.

~~~
kalleboo
Why do services have to be nationwide? Sweden didn't get wired by nationwide
services, there are tons of local fiber ISPs that only service one city.

Case in point: _The article_. The US needs more of that. Do that in every town
and you're sorted.

~~~
clinta
Part of this is the legacy of the federal government promising monopoly status
to telcos in exchange for them bearing the cost of providing services in rural
areas.

If the market had been allowed to work, and rural Americans did not get
service until it was profitable we'd have a much different market in the US
today.

------
kbumsik
I pay <$20/mo (22,000 KRW) for 2.5Gbps with a free modem having a 10Gbps
ethernet port in South Korea, with a 4-years contract.

I know it is very unfair to compare it with such a small country but $60 still
sounds too much.

~~~
metalliqaz
it's pretty damn good in USA

------
dub4u
I'm in the Philippines and I pay $200 for 10Mbps :-(

~~~
achow
In India..

~$20 for 100Mbps (data capped at 400GB)

~$85 for 1Gbps (data capped at 2.5TB)

~~~
inapis
~$12.4 here for 300 Mbps symmetric and unlimited. Literally unlimited. Last
month I used 1TB+.

~~~
pingyong
Isn't 1TB / month fairly average for heavy users? AFAIK many US data caps are
at 1 TB. At 30 TB I'd say it is "literally unlimited".

------
marviel
Another datapoint is Chattanooga, TN, with their municipal 1Gbps / ~$65 plan.
[https://epb.com/home-store/internet](https://epb.com/home-store/internet)

They had plans to expand the service to the surrounding area, but Comcast
lobbied to prevent it... [https://www.techspot.com/news/68941-residents-rural-
chattano...](https://www.techspot.com/news/68941-residents-rural-chattanooga-
almost-had-10-gbps-internet.html)

~~~
Scottopherson
$67.99 exactly. My bill has always been the exact price that they list on
their website; no extra fees or taxes randomly popping up on the billing
statement.

------
js2
I'm glad the telecoms weren't able to buy the legislature in CO like they did
in NC in 2011: _Under H129, municipal broadband programs like Wilson 's
"Project Greenlight" would be pretty much impossible to replicate if a cable
company serves just 50% of the households in the area with "high-speed"
internet._

[https://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/9625657/](https://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/9625657/)

Fortunately, NC is now considering loosening the restrictions: _House Bill
431, the FIBER NC Act, would allow counties or cities in areas with little or
no broadband service to spend taxpayer dollars to build their own
infrastructure for it and then lease the network out to a private service
provider._

[https://www.wral.com/plan-to-allow-municipal-broadband-
syste...](https://www.wral.com/plan-to-allow-municipal-broadband-systems-in-
rural-nc-clears-first-hurdle/18555959/)

That said, I'm fortunate in my town to get AT&T 1Gbps for $70/mo. The
alternative, Charter (which I had for years when it was TWC), is awful on both
pricing and service. I think it was the threat of Google Fiber that got AT&T
to move its feet. Years later, still no Google Fiber anywhere near me, though
supposedly they are still expanding in the area. A few miles away in a
neighboring town, folks have access to Ting Internet (1Gbps for $89/mo) and
seem happy with it.

------
AngeloAnolin
I wonder if it is a well established knowledge that ISPs are a profitable
business model, why is it that local governments take the cudgels of offering
their constituents? Are there legal restrictions in place that would prevent
government organizations from doing so? Or is it more on the technical
perspective on why this is not being explored?

I see that public services at some point would include providing internet
access as something vital alongside use of technology for services.

------
wonderwonder
Sigh, guess its time to move to CO. If it means getting away from spectrum its
worth uprooting my life. /s ... maybe

But really the inconsistent speeds provided by cable companies, crazy pricing
structure that often include things such as bundling a land line that I will
never use and the clear area specific monopolies they run are outrageous. If
ever an industry needed to be investigated for price fixing and running
monopolies its the cable industry.

------
leesalminen
I live in the rural part of this county. We don’t get access to this service,
so we rely on a small locally operated WISP for internet at our house.

I was chatting with this guy recently and he mentioned that getting bandwidth
in between Denver and Fort Collins (Greeley, CO) is now insanely expensive. He
thinks it correlates with this move by the city and they bought up a whole lot
of data to backhaul down to Denver. As a result, his costs have increased a
good bit.

I currently pay $79/Mo for 5/2mbps. I inquired about getting more of a 50/10
plan and he’s now quoted $250/mo. Ouch. According to him, he has to buy
additional bandwidth in order to upgrade my speeds (some other neighbors have
also inquired). I don’t think he’s pulling a fast one on me- he’s a neighbor
and German and extremely serious at all times ;).

------
thorwasdfasdf
We really need to start voting against politicians that are in bed with
comcast and At&t. Is there some kind of list or online database where we can
see which of our local politicians are supporting comcast and at&t with these
horrible regulations that prevent open competition?

~~~
shmerl
Some details here:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/)

~~~
tryptophan
Net neutrality is a completely difference issue. It has nothing to do with why
its hard to make an ISP competitor.

~~~
shmerl
Related though. Anti-competitive ISPs also don't like net neutrality, since
it's essentially aimed at curbing anti-competitive network behavior. Quite
unsurprisingly, the same bad actors are usually opposed to direct ISP
competition.

I.e. if they oppose net neutrality, high chances are they oppose municipal
networks as well. To put it differently, once they have monopolist mentality
and anti-competitive behavior, it spills out to everything.

------
mmanfrin
Today, in one of the four cities that birthed the very first connections made
to the proto-internet (Berkeley), I am finally getting a second broadband
option other than Comcast.

I'm an hour in to a 4 hour window waiting for my Sonic install. I am so happy
to finally be have a choice.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
Sonic fiber is great. It's been over a year, and zero service interruptions or
degradations since the day it was installed.

Any network issues I now automatically assume are due to my home network or
the server I'm trying to access.

------
sshanky
In Phoenix, CenturyLink's gigabit service has finally arrived in my
neighborhood. At $65/mo, no contract, I get fiber right to the house and 1 gig
up and down. I was glad to stop paying almost $100/mo for Cox's 300 megabit
service.

------
chebureki
Auburn, Indiana has been offering municipal internet since 2005[1]. The town
needed fast internet to keep companies from leaving to big cities. So, the
town decided to build on its municipal public utilities to proide also fast
internet. Naturally, it ran into resistence from Verizon. But when the town
council has asked the company to provide fast internet service to the
community, the company said it was too expensive to do that. I remember that
because I attended the town council meetings on this issue.

[1] -
[http://www.auburnessentialservices.net/about/](http://www.auburnessentialservices.net/about/)

------
mikorym
Interesting is that both Verizon and AT&T are in the top 10 of the Fortune
Global 500 if you sort by profit. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500#Fortune_Glo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500#Fortune_Global_500_list_of_2017).
Scroll up one table for 2018 profits top 10. Note that the reason why BAT is
at number 2 seems to be related to some kind of acquisition if you read their
wiki page, but the wiki is not complete enough to reference it as useful. If
one looks at Comcast's net profit it also looks quite high, but I am not sure
where it would place.

------
orblivion
After a long period of my life not having the fastest in speeds at home, I
ended up going all in and telling Comcast "give me the fastest Internet you
have". So I'm paying for 400Mbps.

...what do I need all this speed for? What could someone possibly do with 1
Gbps? It's not as though web pages will load faster, they have their own
throttling. I don't think I need 400Mbps to stream 4k video. Torrents don't
seem to take advantage of the full bandwidth.

I could see the benefit if I were doing 10x as much stuff _at the same time_.
So is this for large families or businesses? I'm considering going down to
about 100 and saving a few bucks.

~~~
Strom
Faster speeds help with downloads. Yeah you won't notice the difference when
downloading a selfie, but when you buy Gears 5 on Steam and want to start
playing, you will notice the difference between waiting ~1h45m @ 100Mbps /
~11m @ 1Gbps to get that 80GB game.

~~~
nickjj
That's true but don't forget that downloading stuff isn't sequentially related
to what you can do in real life.

Your body won't be blocked for 1 hour and 45 minutes. You could choose to
download a huge file before you goto sleep / work / etc. and by the time
you're back it's go time.

~~~
ssully
I have the option for gigabit speeds but I stick to around 350Mbps mainly for
this reason. My current speed is already more then I need. The few times I
download something huge, it's usually a game, and most modern games allow
preloading. If they don't, then I start the download before I leave for work.

------
vvpan
This is terrible, but let's not forget that this is actionable. Last
presidential election Lawrence Lessig got onto Democratic ballot only to bring
up the issue of influence of big money on the democratic process. Which is at
the root of the Comcast issue. The Democrats barred him from participating in
debates. The issue is not debated even by Democrats and I'm not even talking
about Republicans! Support the candidate who will bring up limiting campaign
spending, campaign contributions and lobbying - only then things will change.
Again, no party so far has done much meaningful on the issue.

------
rb808
The first year it seems great. The real issue is 10 years down the road when
people are using 5G and giving up their internet connections, who is left
paying for the infrastructure and the union jobs?

~~~
move-on-by
I don't think you understand how limited 5G is. The range is basically the
same has your home WiFi router. Without a fiber infrastructure to back it, 5G
is nothing. If the city is no longer able to sell direct internet, then it
will just sell/rent the infrastructure to whatever to 5G provider there is.

~~~
rb808
I brought up the 5G as an example of something that could change in the
future. The problem is no one knows what is going to happen in 10-20 years.
Its easy to spend public resources and have a great cheap service, maintaining
this for decades is a different problem and it'll be interesting to see how it
pans out.

~~~
ilikehurdles
How is that different from the infrastructure the private industry (allegedly)
maintains?

~~~
rb808
The difference if the network loses money, or few people use the network in 10
years time it wont leave the residents with big bills.

~~~
ilikehurdles
Someone has to pay to clean up the unused or derelict infrastructure in either
scenario. The private company can declare bankruptcy and skip town much easier
than the town government can. A town can also choose to ignore infrastructure
maintenance the same way that private entities do. They can also choose to
change the funding or price model or level of service, same as the private
entity.

------
nosequel
I live in Fort Collins and use Comcast Business (because I depend on my
internet for work) and 1 GB internet (only downloads) is $499.95 / month in
comparison.

I cannot wait for my municipal account.

------
rudolph9
I don't understand why the upload speed is so slow for all the comcast
packages. I reside in Portland, OR and Comcast seems to be the only descent
option. However, the fastest upload speed I could get without springing for
$300/month fiber was 35Mbs. I wound up paying $70/month for a package that
provides 1000Mbs down and 35Mbs up despite only having modem that supports
upto 283Mbs down just so I could get the faster upload speed.

~~~
rudolph9
Ok, just got done with the Comcast technician at my home and and unfortunately
Comcast is not able to provide my router with a boot config to support higher
upload :( I just get the default we is still giving me 5Mbs upload and
somewhat ironically I now get 300Mbs download (previously 70Mbs).

Has anyone put a custom boot config file on a home cable modem? Any resources
you would recommend? Is this a fools errand?

------
s09dfhks
This is great. Upsetting to be locked into a comcast contract in the bay area,
paying $145/mo for 220/10\. I can only hope the fight continues

------
fossuser
In the Bay Area (Palo Alto) you can get 1 Gbps Comcast service and it works
well, but getting it is hard because everything else about Comcast is bad.

\- It's hard to order the service because the price online is a stupidly high
price no one should pay if it's listed at all.

\- When you call two thirds of the sales reps don't know what gigabit is and
will tell you it's not in your area (even though it is) rather than finding
out. I've had them tell me it requires a $300 installation fee (it doesn't) or
that they'll email me when it's available (it was already available and they
wouldn't have). You have to call until you get someone who can do their job.

\- The upload is capped to 35mbps

\- I was able to get 1gbps for $89/month, but it required a two year contract.
It's also not listed on the bill as this, but as 'performance plus' with a
gigabit add on which makes things confusing.

\- There's a 1 terabyte/month data cap and it's $10 per 50GB after that capped
at a max cost of $200. You get two 'courtesy months' of this, but then you get
charged. You can pay $50 to have 'unlimited'. After months of using 700GB or
so per month suddenly my usage spiked to 2TB so now I have to pay this - it's
very hard to determine why (nothing on my end appears to have changed and my
ubiquity software shows no massive increase in usage).

\- Comcast also has a gigabit pro plan which is real fiber to the house (no
modem/coax cable) - it's 2gbps up and down, but requires a $1000 installation
since they're actually bringing fiber to your house and special hardware to
make use of it (also good luck finding a rep that will let you actually buy it
- none of them know about it, twitter is best option to find a good support
person).

While the service once set up is good (except for upload) everything else
about interacting with them is terrible. After the two years runs out they'll
drop my speed to 25mbps and double the price and I'll have to call and
negotiate the plans with a rep all over again. Any interaction with the public
website or billing is also pretty bad.

All I want is to pay a reasonable price for faster service. I'd even pay more
(potentially a lot) if I didn't have to deal with all of this.

Even in a competitive market Comcast has problems.

~~~
kstrauser
> There's a 1 terabyte/month data cap

In other words, you're allowed to use your service for about three hours per
month.

I worked for an ISP and I completely understand the idea behind
overprovisioning, because you build your network for average traffic and not
the maximum theoretical capacity needed to serve 100% of customers using 100%
of their connection 100% of the time. But here Comcast is overprovisioning by
a factor of 240:1 -- that is, you can only use your connection at 1/240th of
your theoretical capability. That's insane, and demonstrably unnecessary.

I use Sonic.net which is a relatively much tinier ISP, but who offers
_uncapped_ gigabit for much less than Comcast's capped joke offering.
Therefore, people who really want to use their connection heavily are much
more likely to go to Sonic.net than Comcast, meaning that Sonic.net probably
has a much higher average per-customer usage than Comcast does. And yet,
they're still cheaper, still uncapped, and still growing. If Sonic.net can do
it, Comcast is just being greedy.

~~~
fossuser
Sonic.net's gigabit option is extremely limited - they only have DSL in most
of the bay area. I think they also force a phone on you?

I agree in general though, it's even more annoying when you try and find
details about the cap and have to keep reading copy from Comcast about why
"those who use more should pay more".

------
AnnoyingSwede
Meanwhile in Sweden, 10Gbe broadband for home consumers priced at ~30 Euro.
[https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-
releases/2018/10/17/varld...](https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-
releases/2018/10/17/varldspremiar-bahnhofs-10-gbit-s-router-for-hemanvandare-
snabbast-pa-marknaden)

------
bogomipz
Congrats Fort Collins!

The only other successful municipal broadband offering I'm aware of it
Chatanooga, TN which is sited regularly when discussing municipal broadband.
So its nice to have two examples to hold up to other municipalities
considering similar.

I hope the Fort Collins rollout receives the attention it deserves and perhaps
inspires other municipalities to take the same initiative.

Kudos to everyone who got this done!

------
mac01021
I have no sense about network infrastructure or what it costs but, FWIW, I
would much rather have 100Mbps for something like $10 per month.

~~~
cptskippy
The cost difference between infrastructure for delivering a 100 or 1000mbps
capable connection is negligible. It's delivering it sustained to multiple
people that's hard.

There are arguments about whether it's better to divide 1000mbps of bandwidth
equally between 10 people or giving them all the ability to consume the full
1000mbps. It really depends on the traffic load, most people will never keep a
1000 Mbps connection saturated but as soon as someone finds a way it will
negatively impact everyone else sharing the bandwidth.

The reality is most ISPs don't split 1000 Mbps between 10 people to give them
each 100 Mbps, they'll split it between 20 or 30 people and give them 100 Mbps
max because those provisioned customers are all unlikely to demand their full
100Mbps simultaneously.

------
linsomniac
Aside: I can't figure out what I'd even do with 10gig symmetric at home for
$300/mo. I'd be tempted to run a distro mirror for the city, the last time I
ran a mirror I had 30mbps I could give to it. I'd push for 10gig at the office
when it comes, but we'd have to upgrade everything except a few dev servers...

~~~
lonelappde
How is running a distro mirror from home better than running it from a colo or
cloud service?

~~~
tzs
If that is $300/month is for uncapped 10 gig symmetric, he could serve up to a
bit over 3 million gigabytes of data in a month.

That would cost something like $100k in outgoing bandwidth costs if at a cloud
service.

------
akouri
I don't understand why Comcast has such unbalanced offerings. In the Bay Area,
a top tier package (over $100/mo) is 250mbps down / 10mbps up. They claim that
most people don't need to upload things, so they allocate "more of the pipe"
to download. This seems like bs to me. I upload things all the time.

------
auiya
These anecdotes may be a moot point when 5G wireless rolls out. The wireless
carriers are going to eat the landline providers for lunch as long as their
plans are structured correctly. I'd be happy to own a WiFi router with only a
SIM card.

------
homerhomer
I can get 1Gbps where I'm at but since it's price capped at 1Tb, I don't see
the point of upgrading to a faster speed. I want faster but if it's just going
to lead to some fees then I guess i'm stuck at slower speeds.

------
ineedasername
I like that they're doing this, but is broadband really more expensive than
this? The article didn't give current costs in the town, but I pay about $65
right now (east coast heavily populated suburb, maybe that makes a
difference?)

------
microcolonel
As somebody who really dislikes the idea of being forced to subsidize a
municipal network, I like that they have some success. The cost of competing
with Comcast should not be so great that people find this necessary.

~~~
rtkwe
Democracy, if you don't like it vote for people against it and if it wins
still that's the breaks sometimes. Some things work better with collective
action than private enterprise especially things that require large build outs
of infrastructure that you don't want duplicated: eg roads, you're paying to
maintain a lot of roads you never drive on because their existence benefits
everyone.

~~~
microcolonel
In that sense, I would not be against a municipal government installing a
system of conduits and/or dark fiber, and charging ISPs and other fiber users
for it (provided they had some reasonable obligations to conduct the whole
business transparently).

I think conduits and dark fiber are both more similar to roads (and utility
poles and the structural cables between them) than actual internet service;
and the nice thing is that new private entities, provided they are not
preempted by rigid bylaws, are then enabled to seek out a better standard of
service without duplicating the whole infrastructure.

~~~
rtkwe
The big question in the municipality as network layer only is how do companies
actually compete?

They could offer certain services I guess like IPTV but then why are they an
ISP/Cable service provider instead of just a streaming platform separate from
being an ISP.

Could they do any better on speed by getting better interconnects to the wider
internet or is that also part of the community infrastructure?

The options for differentiation seem rather slim so I'm wondering how much
actual competition there would be in this model.

~~~
microcolonel
> _The big question in the municipality as network layer only is how do
> companies actually compete?_

This is why I am more interested in the dark fiber or conduit services. The
major _technical_ risk of municipal networks is that they will not keep up
with new backhaul equipment innovations. Australia maintains a national
"broadband" service which is haunted by stagnation, and while it is easy for
people to say they simply didn't try hard enough, I think it's more likely
that this risk is endemic to government-operated telecommunications
infrastructure.

I would set the system up so that vendors can compete by installing better or
more interesting routing infrastructure in the dark fiber network, or on their
own fiber in rented conduit space. Possibly they could also offer edge
computing, peering at substations, wireless services, private networks, and
probably all sorts of things you or I have not thought of yet.

> _Could they do any better on speed by getting better interconnects to the
> wider internet or is that also part of the community infrastructure?_

They are empowered to do whatever makes sense, they could even do hard private
networks if they wanted.

~~~
rtkwe
It seems to me the dark fiber approach will wind up just having one ISP for a
given region of the network because to have multiple ISPs running along the
same piece of fiber you need shared equipment at each end which is basically
the "municipal network layer" model I described. How do you get regional
competition with a dark fiber model?

Also I think the government upgrade issue so often boils down to just lacking
the money to do it because defunding upgrade budgets is an easy target for
budget games to make room for the latest tax give away or social program. Make
it self funding and put protections against raiding it's budget into the
charter.

------
sandwall
THIS, so much of this. We've moved beyond telecommunications as a luxury, it
is a necessity in this day and age. IF competition can't make it accessible,
we the people deserve the option to do so.

------
jrochkind1
In Baltimore City, your only choice for broadband is Comcast.

They charge $75/month for 25Mbps down.

I believe that's about double what they charge for the same speed in places
where they have competition.

~~~
paco3346
I sure hope you mean Mbps otherwise I'm moving there!

~~~
jrochkind1
Yes, you're right, corrected!

------
beauzero
Sylacauga, AL in the US also has very cheap housing and municipal internet.
This is just an FYI as we looked there when we were looking to move to
facilitate remote work.

------
droithomme
I pay for a 100mb line. I consistently get on average 1.3mb.

Broadband in the US is extremely poor quality and massively overpriced, and
also fraudulently advertised.

------
lukeramsden
Wish I had that here in N/W Britain. I pay £45 a month, or $56, for 40mbps
down and 7 up, and that's just for broadband. Nothing else.

------
sebringj
wow, i hope this creates a movement to buck the trend of telecoms as they were
only there to keep the status quo so they didn't have to keep costs low and
profits high for themselves without care of how it affected progress at such a
fundamental level of internet bandwidth and the innovation that can come out
of having incredible speeds. F* the telecoms and F* comcast.

------
linsomniac
Notes: The $60/mo gigabit in Fort Collins is symmetric, gig up and down. They
also have a $300/mo 10gig service.

------
breatheoften
Denver internet is remarkably bad — very expensive for 10-20mbps service with
not great reliability.

Very jealous of Ft Collins ...

~~~
bproven
Denver is very much in bed with Comcast. It is after all Comcast's major
headquarters. I would bet DEN is that last domino to fall once all other CO
cities implement municipal internet.

------
segmondy
Where's the blueprint on how to do this. I really would love to see my city do
this. I hate Comcast.

------
adonnjohn
Not getting my hopes up but oh do I wish that Denver could/would follow their
example....

------
joshuaheard
I pay the same with Cox: $60/mo for gigabit internet (with bundle). There's a
Cox store in my neighborhood with helpful service. I don't see the issue here.
Why can't the town just invite competition instead of doing it themselves? My
experience is that government is the least efficient method for delivering
services.

------
fortran77
> "Ideally we will capture more than 50% of the market share, similar to
> Longmont,"

vs

> These ISPs don't want to spend money to improve or expand service into lower
> ROI areas,These ISPs don't want to spend money to improve or expand service
> into lower ROI areas,

I love competition, of course but they're both doing the same thing.

------
cuttie018
I just wonder what will happen when 5G will show up on the market. And it
will.

------
ajs1k
1Gbps for $60 ? What a rip-off! Here in Switzerland you can get 10Gbps for
$40...

fiber.salt.ch

------
papaver
funny, comcast tried to do the same thing in longmont, CO and lost. we've had
fiber unlimited 1gb up/down for $50 (i think $70 for new customers now) w/ no
contract for over 3 years.

------
lo_fye
Start.ca just offered my friend 1Gbps for $50 CAD/mth (~$35 USD).

------
fullstop
I have never been more envious of my brother until now.

------
readhn
Love it! Congrats to internet users of Colorado!!!

------
faebi
Is anybody getting 10Gbps already?

------
baby
That is still quite expensive!

------
bojo
We pay $165-175/mo for unlimited 1gig plans here in Alaska. I have no idea why
:(

~~~
metalliqaz
> Alaska

------
dbuder
I pay $60 aud for 8-9mbps. I'm in Sydney, 3km from the city and I cannot
connect to our 100mpbs if you're super lucky NBN which has been "running" for
8+years - $90aud from a cheaper ISP. Malcom Turnbull messed up our internet
infra, became Prime Minister, didn't do anything to fix it and walked out on
the job last year. I can't connect to the NBN because it hasn't rolled out in
my area, I've lived in or near the city cbd the whole time the NBN has been
going on and I have never lived on a street that was connected.

------
srbby
En el cielo las estrellas, en el campo los arados y en el medio de tu culo mi
chorizo Colorado.

~~~
martin_a
Speak/Write English on here please, so anybody can understand you. Thanks.

~~~
bencollier49
Is that actually a rule on here?

~~~
martin_a
Es ist einfach eine Frage der Höflichkeit, dass wir in der "Quasi-Weltsprache"
Englisch kommunizieren. Ich denke das trägt im Internet allgemein zum
Verständnis bei und sollte dementsprechend auch hier zum guten Ton gehören. Ob
man es in irgendwelche Regeln schreiben muss weiß ich nicht, ich dachte ich
kann ja trotzdem mal danach fragen.

Better this way?

~~~
bencollier49
Why not? Spanish and German are widely spoken; if people want to use them to
communicate, then let the market decide by virtue of the number of upvotes and
responses they get.

~~~
14
If you see my comment below in pig Latin clearly the downvotes indicate people
do not like it. Despite pig Latin to English translators existing and really
there is no difference then any other language I was down voted. As far as I
was aware HN is an English site and we should all try and communicate in that
language when possible. Websites don’t automatically translate and don’t
always do a perfect job of doing it so if we came to HN and had to try
decipher all the posts it would quickly become tedious.

