Our home cable modem died over the weekend and when Robbie stopped at Charter’s office in Lakeville today to get it replaced, she was told that we could upgrade from 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps service for our internet connection. Better yet, especially for content producers like me, upload speeds double from 512 KB to 1.0 Mbps when you upgrade.
Did I upgrade? Is the bear Catholic? Does the Pope do it in the woods?
Of course, this is only 1/10th of the speed that I need, want and deserve since there is a fiber optic river of pure economic gold running through town. So let’s start the drumbeat for FTTx:
FTTP (fiber to the premises)!
FTTH (fiber to the home)!
FTTB (fiber to the business)!
FTGC (fiber to Griff’s condo)!
Not to say boo, but there’s been a number of reports demonstrating that the US is falling way, way behind other countries with internet connection quality.
Rather than build a strong infrastructure, companies have found it to be more profitable to nickel and dime us rather than laying FTTH.
Let’s see if I can find the stories…
Well, to be fair, we’re years behind in LGBT rights, workers’ rights, healthcare, and capital punishment too. Yeah, there’s always some way to make it political 😛
There are companies laying fiber though — I know Verizon is at least in large cities. I agree with Adam on some level, but we certainly can’t expect it to happen overnight, especially for us country bumpkins.
Here’s an article talking about how the Telcos have promised much, taken payment on the same, and delivered nothing.
Meanwhile, Northfield gets cut off from the rest of the world every six months and nothing is done about it.
I agree that this is an issue. But I must point out that the economic gold fiber that Griff refers to is privately owned (by the Colleges), and I think we should be careful about developing an entitlement mentality about it.
However….the City and Colleges are in active discussion about the possibilities, and we will have something concrete to report shortly after the holidays, I hope.
– Tracy (head of the City/EDA Fiberoptic Initiative Task Force)
P.S. I know both Griff and Ross are frustrated by the lack of apparent progress, but I think they’ll both be pleased when we finally come out with specifics.
10 MB would be nice, but…
I called, and I cannot see paying upwards of $70 a month for internet, especially with the “quality”, “reliability”, and “excellent” customer service that Charter provides.
For that price, I should be able to have much more, such as static IP’s and the ability to run a server. All of those are prohibited.
I will go back to my dream of City-wide WI-FI.
John (and others), if you’re looking for wi-fi, what speeds would be acceptable to you?
90% of my usage would be normal websurfing, e-mail, and working some online classes on my laptop.
I would more than likely keep my desktop “hardwired” for power user/work related VPN stuff…
What would be nice would be say, 1.5 down, 512 up? But of course, more is better.
I am not completely up to speed on the specifics. What would a City WI-FI be able to support?
There has also been rumors of a REGIONAL wireless project in the works, that would allow you to surf from Rochester to the Twin Cities. Again, this is rumor, but I have been hearing that there is some frequency acquisition going on over the last few months. This will be a commerical service, and probably at a high price point.
It would be kind of need to VPN in to the office, while doing 70 northbound in the vanpool. (not driving of course!)
I second John’s ideas of speed. When you say citywide WiFi, though, do you mean true open citywide WiFi or a subscription model like Minneapolis is planning?
In today’s Strib South section:
What are south burbs doing about broadband Internet?
http://www.startribune.com/332/story/866506.html
Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) is evidently soon arriving in Dundas and other rural Rice County areas.
http://www.jaguarcommunications.com/
Anyone know if the city of Northfield qualifies for the rural deployment?