[interrupt_]

Here in my 3rd world country, fiber is getting pretty common. Small ISPs just rent space on poles and lay the fiber to the extend that I can choose from 4 different fiber ISPs in my home.

It amazes me how difficult it seems to get the same in more developed places like US/Canada.

[xhrpost]

I once looked into running a fiber cable on poles for 2,000ft. It has to be done by certified professionals. I got quotes from $25,000 to $75,000. Just to hang a wire on what would probably be 20 wooden poles.

[jaredmauch]

The pole owner controls what is attached.. There may be pole attachment agreements you can review, but depending on the distance and complexity of the route and how many poles may need upgrades the costs still sound a bit high, but maybe they're all much taller poles. A pole itself costs $800 to start for a 32' delivered, but you need someone with a truck crane, which also requires a crane license to set it. Figure a few people at $25-35/hr as well to prep and repair the ground and you can see why it's a big cost.

I'm a fan of one touch make ready rules, but when you get to rural areas many of the poles are old, and to get the 18' clearance on a road span requires moving everyone else up, which may mean a new pole.

[xhrpost]

Interesting, thanks for those details. I thought the whole point was to be cheaper/easier than HDD, at these prices, why not just drill?

[jaredmauch]

that's what i did. there also are not poles the whole way, so with some drilling, it's easier to just drill the whole way. plus if someone digs it up, i can go after them for repair costs.. hard to go after a tree for a wind/ice storm.

[sfifs]

I sometimes think the US functions as a giant experimental ground for the rest of the world to learn in which domains a combination of capitalism and devolved regulatory authority (which seems to drive rapid innovation) works and also DOESN'T work :-)

We've had fiber to home for years now in the East. Largely driven i think by governments seeing this was one area where it didn't work.

[ycombonator]

The politicians are paid off by big Telcos looking at you ComcastNbcUniversal. So much so cities and suburbs have laws on their books that they deal with only a single internet provider. Politicians and their empty talk of ‘competing with other countries in terms of technology infrastructure’.

[kube-system]

The East also has this:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/eb/48/45eb48b4c51715abecdf...

Somewhere in the middle is probably a happy medium.

[sfifs]

Yup that's capitalism and LACK of regulatory authority :-)

[kortilla]

That’s an example of government failure, not a failure of capitalism. The government is banning the easy installation from competitors.

[7sidedmarble]

And who is it that lobbies the government for favorable laws and treatment?

Almost like we... Live under a system that rewards and encourages that behavior.

[tomohawk]

Cronyism exists in all political systems. Doesn't matter whether it is a monarchy, dictatorship, socialist democracy, federal republic - it's always a concern.

But, cronyism is not capitalism. It's actually a subversion of capitalism.

[dangerboysteve]

I recall reading somewhere where Australia has a system where the government owns/runs all the common network infrastructure, even to the home, as a for-profit entity and then allows any entity to rent and provide services on the shared infrastructure. This seems brilliant to me. I think its called https://www.nbnco.com.au/

[enjeyw]

I mean the original idea was fantastic - the network infrastructure was going to be fibre to every household in Aus (with a few exceptions for ultra-remote locations) - 1 gigabit down/up.

Then the conservative gov opposition ran a campaign (bolstered by incumbent telcos and Rupert Murdoch of Fox fame) that fibre was unnecessary and it'd be much cheaper and quicker to provide a patchwork mix of different modalities, the idea being that fibre would never be necessary.

The reality is that the opposition just needed to run on a campaign that was "not what the Gov wants to do".

Long story short, opposition won government, and ended up buying back (at a premium) a whole bunch of old copper infrastructure from the major telco whom they'd sold the infra to decades earlier. The costs of mismanagement and using such a patchwork mix blew the whole project out and here we are 10 years later with the "quicker cheaper" STILL not finished rolling out.

Where it has been deployed, it's suffering under loads that it can't keep up with - I'm currently getting 1.5 Mbs down 0.72 up.

[mmerlin]

Plus we spent $31 Billion more than Abbott/Turnbull told the voters it would cost.

We would have saved $11 Billion if the original FttP rollout, which had just begun, was allowed to proceed.

The valuations of Murdoch's decrepit coax network and Telstra's ancient copper network have skyrocketed, now that they have been forced back in as the last mile delivery to the home.

I read recently that given better pricing of fibre rollouts nowadays, it would take $7 Billion to rectify this failure for most of Australia, by completing the FttP network that got cancelled.

Political lies and/or gross incompetence resulted in spending 20% more than fibre to the home, and ending up with unreliable much slower copper to the home, and harder to maintain mish mash of complexity via grab bag of mixed technology in use now.

[jiggawatts]

The politics of the NBN were an absolute travesty. It made me realise that as much as we make fun of the US and their orange baffoon, our politicians are far worse because they are competent at their corruption.

I did get one tiny bit of schadenfreude from the whole thing: I had lengthy debates with a coworker about whether the NBN is worth it or not. He said it's a waste of money. My position was that even if it improved the economy just 1%, it would pay for itself in no time at all.

Now, in the middle of the pandemic where everyone is working from home, I have gigabit NBN fibre-to-the-premises. He's on 2 Mbps ADSL v1 with 10% packet loss.

[throwawaynothx]

now when it rains the internet drops out. How greats that. espesh for the elderly who rely on landline phones

[solraph]

While I'm a fan of the single open network with multiple access model, I really wouldn't use nbn as an example of a government provided network, because of the politicking that went on during it's inception, the corruption that went on during it's build, the changing of horses midstream from fibre everywhere to a mix of less-capable technologies, and the way it was effectively built to be sold to the incumbent.

If you want to see how to build a national broadband network, look across the ditch at what the UFB gets you. AUD$89 for 100mbps, versus NZD$85 for 1 gigabit.

(Orcon in NZ, and TPG used in AU for comparison purposes)

[Atsuii]

It is hilarious to me as an Australian that anyone would call the NBNCO out as a 'brilliant idea'.

In theory yes but the 'national broadband network' has been nothing but a giant political mess and used as a tool to misinform and manipulate voters. It has resulted in ridiculous overblown budgets and a subpar below global standard product. I live 7km from Sydney CBD and I still have ADSL2 with 9mb down and 200kb/s up which gets 75% packet loss anytime it rains. The NBN was established/announced in 2009, it’s now 2020 and I am still waiting..

Anyone who is under the impression that the Australian government plans to maintain ownership has their head in the sand. This is a paid for tax payer network infrastructure project which will be packaged and sold off to private business in 5 years time so that private business can reap the rewards for the long term. This is what happened to our previous common network infrastructure provider Telstra.

[jiggawatts]

It was never a "political mess" until Murdoch offered Tony Abbott the prime ministership in exchange for hamstringing the NBN.

100% of the blame lies with those two men. Nobody else.

[AlphaSite]

BT is conceptually similar but works far better, because OFCOM is so strong.

[chrishacken]

It’s this way because of how regulated everything is. You have to jump through hoops to get permission to do anything here in the U.S. in other countries you just do it.

[interrupt_]

It's fairly regulated here. The regulation says that the companies that own the poles are obligated to sell that space to any other telcos that want to rent it.

[rhino369]

That’s how it is in many places in the USA, but they often make you pay their own service techs to do it.

In my city it’s pretty deregulated. But there are downsides. Sloppy techs will cut competitor cables due to pure laziness.

[dylan604]

It would be interesting to see someone just do it in the U.S. as well. A couple of guys with some amber flashing lights on their trucks. One with a bucket truck, another with big spool of fiber; guys with hard hats and safety vests. Cops aren't going to stop and ask questions. Maybe a telco guy driving by might ask a supervisor if they even cared enough about it. Just have guys that can actually do it correctly so the finished work doesn't look suspicious.

Once it is up, the regulations will work for you. Some day, some other "legit" installer will come by and look at the cable and basically shrug their shoulders at it, and then do their work around it. It would take weeks if not longer to find out nobody knows who owns it. Nobody's going to take the time to trace it back. And I'm guessing nobody is going to just take it down for fear of taking the wrong thing down. Maybe they cut the line and wait around to see who comes to splice it?? It would make for an entertaining story.

[EvanAnderson]

A municipality local to me (New Lebanon, Ohio) "just did it" and hung 150 banners honoring local veterans from power poles. The local monopoly power company threatened the municipality with >$300 per-pole hanging fees and demanded they be removed. There was some back and forth but eventually the power company gave-in to public sentiment (honoring veterans and all). I would suspect "just doing it" would put you on the business-end of civil, if not criminal, litigation.

[dogecoinbase]

I have done this! It's harder/more stressful than you might think, but it's absolutely possible. We installed relay radios powered off the photocell plugs to bring low-speed internet to a family friend's farm, so the actual installation doesn't even involve wires between poles, just shims under the streetlamp photocells. Presumably they'll get knocked out when the streetlamps are upgraded... but it's been six years so far with no issues.

[jaredmauch]

the issue with this approach is if you depend on it, it may just go away some day, either with the police called and if they track it back to you, you may be prosecuted under the laws that protect utilities. These are less forgiving than you might think.

It's a big deal to damage someone elses infrastructure, can result in bills and lawsuit to reclaim losses. If the pole owner notices, they may do something (or just ignore it). What you don't want is them tearing down your stuff without notice.

[the_pwner224]

> Maybe they cut the line and wait around to see who comes to splice it?

I can't pull them up now, but I've seen a number of credible stories on the internet of Comcast and AT&T technicians going to homes to do service and then intentionally cutting lines of the other company that service the building or nearby houses. Obviously this isn't super common or it would be bigger news, but it definitely happens.

[colejohnson66]

It also doesn’t help when the incumbent owns the poles and either delay letting you put your stuff, or outright refuse until you sue them.

[sonicggg]

How dense is your country though?

I feel that having fiber in big cities is a given nowadays. I don't think telcos have any plan on supporting those smaller remote towns with fiber. Maybe investment does not pay off in a reasonable amount of time.

Fiber may not be the only option though. Starlink should be becoming available soon in North America. Only time will tell if that will work out though. WiMax, for example, was a failed hard.

[vasilia]

I'm was born in small-town in Russia with 5k people. There was an area with private houses and 2-3 floors houses with 18-24 apartments. We have linked attics of buildings with apartments with cat 6e cables and cheap D-Link switches. In 2002 our telephone hub was replaced by a digital telephone switch station where we were renting five 2 Mbits ADSL channels. So users were connected to switches in attics for a small price and anyone who wants access to the internet could configure VPN to our FreeBSD "router". I don't remember the speed limitations, but the cost of 1 Mb was about $0.04(2 Russian rubles). In 2004 ADSL was upgraded to ADSL2+ with 20 Mbits per port. In 2006 all copper equipment was replaced by fibre channel cables/routers. And some people from private houses connected to our network(they were using dial-up). In 2010 huge Russian ISP Rostelecom bought our small network. At the end of 2006, I moved to Moscow because I went to college. And of course, me and 3 of my new college friends has built local ISP in university's dormitory :) The new dormitory was opened after two months after the start of the school year, so there was no any network. Officially it was not possible to connect this building to the internet. We rented a Wi-Fi router in someone's apartment in the building next after our dormitory. I don't know what happened with network because I was expelled from university :)

[cactus2093]

It's definitely not a given even in big cities. In San Francisco the only places I've seen it offered are big apartment buildings with 50+ units. At least from what I've seen, even in pretty dense parts of the cities if you're in a small apartment building with like 10 units or you're in a duplex or attached SFH you can't get fiber service.

The upside is we can still get gigabit service over cable lines through comcast for a fairly reasonable price (although with terrible upload speeds, data caps on the plan, and the need to fight with support every year to prevent your price from going up, as with all comcast plans).

[funkaster]

If you’re in the sunset you’re in luck: pretty much everywhere in there has Sonic coverage (iirc by renting at&t fiber, but could be wrong).

[mikeyouse]

Yep - I’m near 19th ave and I pay $60/month all in for 1gbps up/down fiber with no caps from Sonic. Pretty tremendous.

[jnathsf]

in the sunset they do their own fiber

[foxtr0t]

Way way off. North America is way behind in terms of residential internet speeds even in the most dense areas like NYC and San Francisco etc. Sonic just recently started ramping up around the Bay and if you're lucky enough to have service its great. Still, probably 90% of people in the Bay and 75% of the city are stuck with 30 Mb/s up max from Comcast.

Starlink won't be high a replacement for fiber for a decade if we're being optimistic. These projects have huge ramp ups, tons of expensive launches, especially if they're successful, tons of users means slower speeds for everyone. And that all assumes success.

[dylan604]

It's actually cheaper to install fiber than POTS or Coax. Little remote mountain towns with < 100 homes have fiber when they barely had POTS (and no way was it going to support ADSL). These guys went from 28.8kbps to Gigabit in one jump. It just took a few decades longer at dial-up than the rest of the country

[walrus01]

Go look at the isps doing last mile FTTH with $700 splicers and roof to roof fiber in central Rawalpindi, Pakistan for instance. The USA or Canadian construction methods are much more organized and engineered, but also costlier.

[jpollock]

The incumbents own the poles, which means they set the price and determine who gets access.

That prevents new entrants.

[jaredmauch]

Being on the poles can be more expensive than underground. Trees, cars and even bullets can damage the wiring. Underground is more expensive to start with but cheaper long term.

[AlphaSite]

Underground has a bunch of other issues as well, in the UK all records of the underground ducting have been lost in many areas in the 50-70 years since it was installed, which makes it a big headache.

Which makes fixing, replacing etc quite expensive and the quality can be suspect.

[geodel]

It only amazes if you think everything in first world has to better than third world. And IMO it is about as immature as first worlder who thinks that everything in third world has to be crap.