[kbenson]

There are other ISPs in the states that are much more competitive (I work at one). Unfortunately, if you're not in a fairly dense area, the chances they can deliver to you is minimal, since building your own network is expensive.

For example, we offer $40 service, and if you're in our historical areas that's 1Gbit symmetrical, and if you're in newer areas we've turned up in the last year that's 10Gbit symmetrical.

We're expanding (as I expect most ISPs that can undercut the major players that much are), but it requires actually stringing fiber through neighborhoods on poles, so it takes a while (but that can be scaled...).

If you don't have telephone poles, it's much harder/more expensive to build out an area, so often those are skipped (at least initially) as areas cheaper to deliver to are prioritized. The is unfortunately a lot of new development, as they'll build neighborhood with underground utilities and pre-wire AT&T and Comcast, making it hard for others to deliver to the area without a lot of cost and work (trenching).

[hedora]

I have a sometimes 12mbit connection, but there's a Fiber POP about 1 mile down the road. There are phone poles (with fiber on them) between here and there. What does it cost to string fiber on poles, and what are the hopes of getting right of way? Alternatively, is there some way to pay / force the telco to build out FTTH?

Some people a few miles away have a fiber POP at the end of their shared driveway, and are trying to decide if they should pay the extra couple hundred per house to go from 1GBit to 25GBit symmetric to the houses.

[kbenson]

In the US I believe anyone can use the pole space as long as it's not taken, but I'm not an expert. I do know you have to fill out engineering documents per-pole to explain the load and propose (pay for?) fixing the load bearing attached cables.

At the ISP I work for, I believe we spec out the cabling we need to a neighborhood and then order a special bundle with breakouts at specific locations along the length to serve locations, and then string that along the poles. I'm not sure why we wouldn't serve a house with one of those, but those go back to a central point in a neighborhood, and it's possible the backhaul from the central office to that central point in the neighborhood passes houses that aren't served. Where to build is all about ease of wiring an area and housi g density. It's all about cost per houses passed. The good news is that maybe your area is slated to get fiber since it goes by there, and it's just a matter of the lower hanging fruit being picked first.

[hedora]

Thanks. The polls are ancient (1980's; most bow 10-20 degress under the tension of the existing tensioning cables.)

This street got sold off to a bankrupt telco (from what I can tell, their business model is to buy up unprofitable lines, then periodically file for bankruptcy).

There are a few local fiber providers. Maybe I could call and see what it would take to convince them to build out. (There is definitely demand here.)

Alternatively AT&T (who is not our local telco) keeps spamming us to get a business fiber to the home connection. They make it clear they'll ban customers that appear to be using it for residential traffic, but I think that sort of traffic discrimination falls afoul of California's network neutrality laws. Has anyone tried calling their bluff on that?

[kbenson]

It's a lot of work, but if you survey the area and get people to sign something saying they would buy pay up to $X for gigabit fiber or better, you might be able to approach some of those independent ISPs and lay the case out, you might get them to reprioritize your area (but it may or may not cover the same area you surveyed).

Be careful approaching incumbent major ISPs or letting them know if you got the signatures though. You might find they went out and offered sweetheart deals to the same people on two year contracts, but at existing service levels...

Regarding business fiber, I think they're more trying to keep people from reselling it as a micro ISP. If you're willing to pay business costs for personal use, I don't think they'll care. If you split the cost between 10 neighbors, they might. There may be other concerns they are dealing with that I'm not thinking of though.