

Ask HN: What's up with the state of pathetic business-class broadband in the US? - whalesalad

I work at a web agency in LA. We build lots of apps and hack on Django all the time. We just moved offices into a real sweet spot. Everything about this place is rad, but right now we're using horrible 4G wimax internet because there is no fiber or coax running into this building, and the CO for DSL is something like 12,000 feet away. The best thing we can get is something like 5mbps.<p>Why can I pay $40 a month and get 20mbit at home, when I have to pay $999 a month to get a symmetrical 5/5 or 10/10 line? I understand you pay more for a higher level of service... but when the bandwidth you're getting is barely enough for 1-2 people, it's not very useful?<p>I'd love to hear some of your stories, comments, and info from everyone. If you're close to the inside of the telcom/cable/internet world we'd all love to hear what you have to say about this too.<p>I'm a firm believer that there are certain expenses that you just have to cough up. There are certain things that you just <i>need</i> in certain professions, and for whatever the reasons, it means you need to also pay more than expected. In the web/dev/startup world... high-bandwidth and low-latency is something I can't personally live without.
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blakdawg
My office is in San Jose, which likes to call itself the capital of Silicon
Valley. The best connectivity I can get is either a consumer-grade DSL
connection for approx $60/month, or a symmetric T1 for approx $500/month. I
can't get Comcast "business class" unless I want to spend tens of thousands of
dollars trenching someone else's parking lot for the installation.

The same was true at my 2 previous office locations, so it's not like the
current setup is an anomaly.

If I wanted to be right in the middle of downtown San Jose, I could be in the
same building as MAE-West and could probably get sweet connectivity - but that
location would make my clients sad (parking is tough and not free) so I'm not
gonna do it.

I shared office space for awhile with a guy who had a fixed wireless install -
it was OK (the connection was fast but sometimes flaky) but it still amazes me
how tough it is to get meaningful connectivity in a major metropolitan area on
the West Coast. DSL in that building was nigh-impossible because the copper
wiring in the building was damaged in some way that the landlord and the phone
company collectively refused to fix.

