Social media post on Mastodon by Dan Moren.
It reads, “ My son just got me out of talking to a door-to-door cable salesman so I guess parenthood was all worth it.”
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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I accidentally answered the door for salespeople ONCE.
I bought what they were selling.
They asked “do you want to save money on your internet?”
I said “no thank you, I’d rather pay more for no caps and faster internet.”
They told me “we just rolled out gigabit on this block”
fuckin shit… you got me. It was also STILL cheaper.
I wish that would happen to me. There's two big companies that service most of my area, one is cable, the other is DSL. The DSL provider, whenever I've checked, only offers 10Mbps download. Big nope from me. Cable has gigabit, but capped at 30mbps upload.
There's a third regional provider that operates in my area that does fiber exclusively (plus a bunch of resellers and wireless providers). The fiber company doesn't serve my address. Just me though.... Well, my side of the street. If I put in my neighbors address into their service form, it says they're capable of getting gigabit up and down for a very reasonable price. I put in mine, and "sorry, we don't serve your address" or whatever. I think that's because the utility poles are on the other side of the street, and they're on the poles, but don't have a permit to cross the street (generally by aerial lines)... Which is what the cable provider did when I finally purchased their service; they ran a line over the road to my house.
Upload is important to me, and 10:1 speeds are fine, but 30:1 or more, no thanks. The plan I went for was 300/30, which is the fastest upload they offer with the slowest download (the 200mbps plan was 20mbps upload or something, and the gigabit was 30mbps upload).... I want fiber.
If that regional fiber company knocked on my door saying that they service my area now, I'd ask where I sign.
And before anyone asks: I contacted them about it and they said something about the permits and blah, and blah. I've tried to contact them several times about how I can help get them the permits to operate in my area more broadly (including my address), but they have not responded. I'm happy to petition my town hall or regional governmental office to push things along or even canvassing for signatures on a petition to give them the required permits to serve the area.... Even paying for a portion of the permit cost if necessary.... Not a word from them.
Feels bad.
I’ve pretty much resolved to stay in my current house until I die because i cant go back to the time before fiber. How do people even live with cable, DSL, or the horror of wireless?
I'm holding out hope that the fiber provider figures it out and I'll never move again.
I'm fairly positive it's just a matter of time before someone brings in fiber to the neighborhood.
The DSL provider is running fiber to a new subdivision that hasn't even started construction about 1km from my house. Seems like a farmer retired and a developer bought the land. The power utility already put in a pad transformer for the new subdivision, there's no reason to put a transformer there unless you're putting in something significant, and the local DSL guys don't do copper for new builds. They've migrated to XGS-PON fiber, and won't install anything less than that in new areas.
My house is in the pre-existing town, so it will take a bit longer before I see it.
I'm rooting for the local fiber guys, but if they don't make a move soon, the DSL guys will beat them to it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm talking about years or decades here. It'll be a while before I can call up and get service dropped to my address from the DSL guys, so the local fiber company doesn't have to move fast, they just need to move faster than the DSL guys will.
Both companies have fiber on the utility post across the street. I can literally look up at the post and identify it. I don't think the DSL guys have the splitters set up to provide access to my neighborhood, they're just moving mostly dark fiber through, and they're serving a community center and a school up the road. So it's not all dark fiber. The local fiber guys are just missing an over-the-road aerial line permit... They're much closer to being done, they just need permission from the town to run the line across the road so I can get service. IMO, they're much closer to being done, but the DSL company is a pretty big operator. They could get everything done within a few months if they wanted to push for it. Clearly, my little community is small fries for them.
I survive on cable because I have to. It's not great, but it's also not bad.