[Gasp0de]

It is harder to install fiber in densely populated areas than in some backcountry farm. Imagine tearing open a busy street in NYC for a few weeks to install fiber vs. digging a trench in the dirt next to the farm road. Which one do you think costs more? For which do you think you need to jump through 1001 bureaucratic hoops?

[Terr_]

So wait, a good deal from an ISP requires just the right Goldilocks zone of not-too-rural and not-too-urban, and for some reason almost nowhere in the US qualifies even though it's more-common in other countries?

That doesn't really pass the smell-test, especially not compared to other explanations like national differences in regulation and competition.

[UberFly]

Just dealt with this. I'm square in suburb America. AT&T in my community can't run lines into established neighborhoods because they can't use existing conduits. They have to dig their own, but local regulations make it difficult and a lengthy process. Easier for companies to just give up and move on. Who's fault does your smell test point to?

[Hikikomori]

It's illegal in many states for the local municipality to do it. Here it's the norm, so our local power companies put down fiber when do power or other utilities.

[dmbrThnU]

I just commented this elsewhere. It does exist and is where the good internet is. Good internet being a few g, but still better than i've had downtown or rurally

[vineyardmike]

Nah it's BS. It's American-flavored capitalism that's the issue, and it's crushing the free-market.

I live in SF - the densest US city on the west coast, and the densest US city after NYC. We have city-owned "dark fiber" run through (most?) every street. Any ISP can offer service by renting the connection to my house, as long as they service "the last hundred feet" from pole to door and the billing.

I have about half-dozen ISPs that will give me from 1G-5G of service, all under $100/mo - (a great price in America). I pay for redundant >1g fiber connections to my house for less than the price of my parent's 50 mbps bill.

The issue is capitalism. In much of the US, the ISPs have lobbied and enforced "monopolies" by exclusive fiat of the jurisdiction, in some shape or form. 16 US states have laws that prevent the local government from maintaining or providing internet infrastructure like fiber lines, requiring private companies to maintain it all. Any free-market enthusiast will readily tell you that competition brings prices down, but capitalism is crushing the free-market, reducing competition for the benefit of the wealthy.

[hnlmorg]

I cannot comment on the cost in the US, but in the UK it would be the farm that’s more expensive because the cost is relative the distance. You still have to file the same government applications to close a dirt road as you would a busy city street. But you would have much more miles of road to file the application for, plus the actual expense of the engineering work, for rural destinations.

And that’s without factoring in that fewer subscribers are going to sign up in rural destinations vs busy urban hubs.

This is why the UK had to make subsidies available for rural fibre.

[dmbrThnU]

I've lived dense city to rural in the US, and it's suburbia that has the best internet. Can rip up the street for days no problem, but still a relatively dense population.

[laughing_man]

That's my sense, too. Companies seem to get permits really quickly where I live, and there are enough people around to make it worth their while.

AT&T, which already had cable here, ripped up the street a few months back and put in fiber. There are two other high speed providers as well.

[rbanffy]

> Imagine tearing open a busy street in NYC for a few weeks to install fiber

Or you can just run new fiber in the pipes that contained copper wiring that has most likely already been swapped out for fiber in the 1990s. Or just add better line equipment and use those same fibers already there.

[db48x]

In theory you would be right. In practice you have to ask all of your competitors for permission to change anything, and all the old copper is still there. They never actually swapped it out for fiber! You cannot take out any of their old copper, even though you’re sure it’s not in use by anyone, to make space for your new fiber.

[gjulianm]

I don't think you need to tear open busy streets to install fiber. In my area we got fiber (up to 10G now) and they didn't open any trench.

[throwaway27448]

Mamdani just mentioned yesterday that he was investigating streamlining permitting processes. I imagine this would be a perfect time to push to improve this.

[dalben]

And yet the root comment claims the opposite (the US is very stretched out, so it’s harder to connect all of it).

In my country, fiber is run to my apartment building and through the technical shafts. Very easy for the telco: to connect a unit, they only need to branch off from the technical shaft. I imagine the total cost to connect 200 apartment units is much lower than connecting 200 farms or 200 houses in the suburbs, even with the red tape.

[eloisant]

Don't you already have conduits, or undergrounds where old telephone lines are running already? That's what we used to install optical fiber everywhere in cities France. Really easy, nothing to tear open. And because it's dense, it's cheap per home.

On the other hand, rural areas require to digging a lot of kilometers of trenches just to connect a few houses. Much more expensive per home.

[Beretta_Vexee]

Public or shared technical ducts and technical galleries, available to all operators, are a distinctive feature of France. The law strongly encourages the leasing of, or joint investment in, telecommunications infrastructure. All operators have sharing agreements; as soon as a block of flats or a house is connected to the fibre network by one operator, it is possible to subscribe to any operator.

In many countries, the ducts belong to the operator, who is under no obligation to lease or share access with other operators.

It’s not perfect, as technicians from one provider tend to neglect customers of another, and it’s not uncommon to be disconnected by mistake. But it does mean there’s a wide range of options and genuine competition in the services and price. It’s not as if we’re left with ‘Verizon’s the only option here’.

[Foobar8568]

Imagine providing fibers in city such as London, Paris or Geneva. Oh wait.