New minimum speed for US broadband connections

Tue Jun 1 09:40:51 UTC 2021

On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 2:27 AM Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net> wrote:

> No one's paying me anything except 15 years of practical experience
> building last mile networks for myself and my clients. I'd imagine that
> while a larger percentage than most venues, a minority of the people on
> this list build last mile networks. Even fewer do so with their own money.
>
> I have a fiber network where I offer gigabit bidirectional to the home.
>
>
> Few people have any sort of grasp of the cost and complexity of building
> what they want.
>
> Raising the the minimal definitions for everyone to what power users
> expect is a foolish venture.
>

Since you also replied to some of my comments, I will say that I am the
founder of a last mile FTTH provider in the greater Copenhagen, Denmark
area with thousands of customers. All built for our own money with zero
subsidies to customers that would pay good money to upgrade from DSL. I
planned, designed and built everything from the network, the outdoor plant,
the method we use to dig (directional drilling mostly), which pipes to use,
what cable etc. Also marketing, sales and funds raising - in short:
everything. We did this from nothing to a company with more than 100
employees today.

I claim to know the cost and complexity better than most.

I'm just trying to connect some of you to reality.
>
>
I could say the same. But maybe our reality differs. You seem to be very
hung up on what minimums are needed to do a certain job. But that simply is
not it. If a person believes his internet is slow, then it is slow, no
matter what some experts think would be enough for that persons needs. That
means he will buy my offering even though he probably already has VDSL with
speeds faster than what you propose. It also means he will consider the
available options when weighting pros and cons of a new home.

Here in Denmark we have a problem that people are moving away from rural
areas and to the bigger cities. There are many reasons for this, but one
often quoted reason is the lack of good internet.

Good internet in Denmark is 1000 Mbps for less than USD $50 per month. But
I accept that 100 Mbps at a somewhat higher price point is probably a fine
speed for rural US, where distances are huge and alternative solutions,
such as fixed wireless, may need to be part of the solution. Or maybe
Starlink is the solution.

Regards,

Baldur
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