I could only dream of having 10mbps upload... we are still stuck on DSL here, I am lucky to get close to 1mb upload, not enough to even watch my home camera feed reliably, especially with audio on.
During covid my local ISP got a grant to run rural fiber. We went from satellite to a full gig fiber connection. It has literally changed my home life.
Any more context on this? We've got copper AT&T DSL as our only option, besides Starlink. Have been trying to work with the county, look for grants, etc to present to a local ISP who's mentioned interest.
So I know part of the money was through the state. It was matching funds for federal dollars. I think it was through rural development, which is closed, but I'm not absolutely sure. I'll check with my neighbor (works for ISP) tomorrow to see if he knows.
To be honest, we approached the ISP, who was offering fiber in a town 45 minutes away. They said if we could get sign ups at least every half mile, on average, they would make it happen. We had the signatures when they got the grant, so it was sort of a wasted effort on our part.
I'll message here tomorrow if I figure it out though.
Thanks! Yeah, we have a local ISP that has laid fiber in other communities where they could get grants (namely native communities), but they are only doing WISP in our community right now, and it won't service about half the homes here.
I confirmed that the majority of the funding was through federal rural development grants that aren't open anymore. Sorry about that! Now it's just low interest loans that are available to isp's.
What state are you in? There are quite a number of state grants, depending on where you are.
For real though. Talk to one of their planners and see if they have a number of necessary sign-ups. We did a signature campaign and had what we needed before the grant existed. They had committed to our stretch of fiber before they had the grant, we just had to all sign contacts for services. It took a year or so of knocking on doors. And that was to run the line about 40 miles.
Why? Outside of disdain for the moron who owns SpaceX? The service is fantastic (for me, anyway) at a great price barely more expensive than a comparable fibre connection that I can't get anyway. Limits of geography are fair, but it seems that's not the primary reason.