Are we overpaying for internet?

Jesse Walser's rural home is 0.3 miles from a Time Warner Cable line. He wants broadband internet access. Time Warner is demanding a one-time payment of $20,000 to cover the expense of extending their lines 0.3 miles to his house.

In the old days, the government forced Ma Bell to do this for free, right? Surely in 2014, internet access is every bit as crucial as a phone line was 40 years ago.

Quote: reno

Jesse Walser's rural home is 0.3 miles from a Time Warner Cable line. He wants broadband internet access. Time Warner is demanding a one-time payment of $20,000 to cover the expense of extending their lines 0.3 miles to his house.

In the old days, the government forced Ma Bell to do this for free, right? Surely in 2014, internet access is every bit as crucial as a phone line was 40 years ago.

Not sure how free it was. Back in college I remember seeing an ad about a farmer had to have his phone in his barn because the phone company would not put a line the rest of the way to the house. It was some kind of political ad so I take it with a grain of salt, but there was probably some kind of truth to it.

Internet is tricky. When the Baby Bells gave up their monopolies the consumer lost this right to universal service.

.3 miles is like 1,500 feet. CAT5 cable sells for like $150 p/1,000 feet.

All he needs is a friendly neighbor, or at least one willing to make a deal.

$250 plus $70p/month and he's in business. Just string the line along the cow fence and run it through the culvert if need be.

20 years ago I got electric to my pole barn.
It's 100 feet to the other side of the road
where the lines are. They put up a transformer
and put a pole on my side of the road and
ran a wire to the barn. It had to cost them
a fortune and in 20 years I've hardly used
it. I pay $20 a month just to have it there,
but what they did had to cost thousands.

Quote: reno

In the old days, the government forced Ma Bell to do this for free, right? Surely in 2014, internet access is every bit as crucial as a phone line was 40 years ago.

Wireless internet . It is about twice the price as wired service, and speeds above 15 Mbps are not available, but there are options.

If broadband is reclassified as a telecommunications service by the Federal Communications Commission and universal service requirements are made, I am sure that they won't extend past wireless anyway.

Quote: Pacomartin

Wireless internet . It is about twice the price as wired service, and speeds above 15 Mbps are not available, but there are options.

If broadband is reclassified as a telecommunications service by the Federal Communications Commission and universal service requirements are made, I am sure that they won't extend past wireless anyway.

Maybe the answer is some kind of sub-station system with "super routers" that could be paces a quarter mile away or so. Not the best, but could be faster than wireless from cell towers.

For certain broadband internet customers with certain packages, AT&T offers a cheaper pricing plan if you allow AT&T to snoop and spy on all your browsing habits. They then sell your secrets to advertisers.

On the one hand, you could argue that it's not that much different from Google's targeted ads. C'mon, this is nothing new, we all know the rule of thumb is just to assume that you're always being spied on. I always laugh when Google mistakenly sends me ads for a product I'm no longer shopping for, or hotel ads for a trip I completed long ago.

But on the other hand, there's something creepier about your internet service provider doing the spying because you can't escape them the way you can escape Google. AT&T owns the pipes, they have more power. More power = more abuse of power.

The worst part is that even if you decide to cough up the extra dough for a bit more privacy, how does the consumer actually know that AT&T is honoring their end of the bargain? You just have to blindly trust them. But let's not be naive: you can't trust the phone company. Those guys all have a reputation for lying.