Who really needs gig Internet?

Brons2 said:
The organization I previously worked for has about 500 T1s across the state. Reason being that AT&T will not put MPLS over DSL or consumer fiber. They will run "business fiber" at a cost of about $100,000 per mile. Usually it only has to be a fraction of that, but a typical fiber site install where there is no existing fiber to the building is usually in the $20-$40K range.

Experience with T1s similar in some locations, T1 goes down every time it rains. Thankfully in South and West Texas it doesn't rain much.
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Most midsize to larger office buildings around here seem to have a rack in the telco room which Verizon has installed that has fiber feeding it and which provides T1s. I've even seen this equipment installed in the telco room of a warehouse.

But small office buildings that don't get that, they get T1s fed (via HDSL2) from the nearest CO or remote. I guess it depends on the volume of T1s to be supplied to a particular location. Which is why I was surprised to see it in a warehouse.
 
I don't need 1 gig internet, but I still pay the $99 a month for it.

Why?

Because when I have to download a software image / or something that measures in the several GBs, I can surf the web and wait the few minutes (or whatever it is) for it to download-- instead of walking away and coming back. For what I use my internet for, I'm quite certain 100mbps service would leave me frustrated at times. So the extra $40 a month is well spent IMO.

So despite it being more expensive, it A) saves time, B) I don't have a cable bill and my 6-person household will never complain about congestion even in the rare circumstance that everyone is streaming something different @ same time.

Using Speedtest.net or whatever it is, I'm getting around 940-950mbps up and down at nearly any time of the day on any occasion. For living in a rural-ish area, I'm thrilled. Aside from when the corn combines / farm equipment drive down the main road by my house every spring and fall and knock the fiber optic line off the poles where it crosses the road (they have about a 50% success rate each year), I've never lost service.
 
brianl703 said:
Most midsize to larger office buildings around here seem to have a rack in the telco room which Verizon has installed that has fiber feeding it and which provides T1s. I've even seen this equipment installed in the telco room of a warehouse.

But small office buildings that don't get that, they get T1s fed (via HDSL2) from the nearest CO or remote. I guess it depends on the volume of T1s to be supplied to a particular location. Which is why I was surprised to see it in a warehouse.
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No telco wants to do T1s or PRIs (TDM) anymore. T1s may be delivered on fiber to an on prem mux, but there is also T1 equipment in the CO. It's ancient and breaking down. The T1s and PRIs delivered to the prem on copper are mostly unreliable. The whole TDM infrastructure needs to go and it's going quickly. Fiber and wireless will feed almost everything in a few years.
 
brianl703 said:
Why not? They were a huge money maker. Single copper pair, HDSL units at each end, charge $400 a month for it. That was the going rate for a T1 with both endpoints in the same wire center.
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Because the TDM infrastructure is old, slow, and very expensive to maintain. Try to find parts for the CO TDM gear, carriers literally buy used cards, because nobody makes new cards anymore. TDM is dying.

Corporate customers would rather be whipped than have a TDM circuit these days. Business has moved on to fiber based ethernet services, as they are orders of magnitude faster, easier to maintain, much more reliable, and cost per Mb/s has completely left copper/TDM in the dust.

Consumers have left POTS lines by the tens of millions. I don't know of anyone that has a POTS line at their residence. Can you imagine continuing to maintain the copper infrastructure for the few POTS lines and T1s that are left.

TDM was huge money maker. Now TDM is a huge money loser. It's dead.
 
wwillson said:
Consumers have left POTS lines by the tens of millions. I don't know of anyone that has a POTS line at their residence. Can you imagine continuing to maintain the copper infrastructure for the few POTS lines and T1s that are left.
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When Verizon's contractor damaged a 200 pair copper cable in my front yard last year, the guys repairing it said that there were still 20 active lines on it.

Someone clearly still has POTS lines at their residence. This is in a rural area that's getting FIOS.

There are still plenty of rural areas that aren't getting FIOS and don't have have cable. Maybe 5G is the solution for that. That's what it's been hyped to be.
 
I have a 1st cousin once removed who lives in Idaho that's in a very rural area (Riggins) and the only internet option is DSL. Cell isn't an option. No cable. No fios.

The area is served by Ziply Fiber.

Ziply predecessors were:

GTE
Verizon
Frontier

GTE didn't put the fiber in.
Verizon didn't put the fiber in.
Frontier didn't put the fiber in.

Will Ziply finally get it done, or will the service area be sold to yet ANOTHER company in 10 years, who will make the same promises and never deliver?

I see a pattern developing here, myself....

In the meantime:

1671500092377.webp
 
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As of August 2022 its up to the phone company if they want to continue service from what I read and they will be able to charge whatever they want.

" FCC Order 19-72A1 officially went into effect on August 2, 2022.

Notably, POTS lines may remain available at the discretion of the telco into 2022 and even 2023, but prices will be deregulated and thus may increase significantly (in part to force customers to migrate to alternative solutions)."

https://goziro.com/plain-old-telephone-service-fcc-deregulation-order/#what-is-the-fcc-order
 
BTW - VOIP phone service, just like your cable company offers is free +Tax if you buy the equipment, roughly $99 once time equipment charge and $6 ish dollars a month in taxes and line charges.
We maintain a landline and for the last half decade or more, even with tax increases our month unlimited cost is still under $7 a month. Voice quality is as perfect as any landline ever is, of course you need solid internet service.
We give out the landline number to anyone we dont want to give out our cell phone numbers too, that in itself makes it worth it but our security system also used it.
Best part is, if you ever move, unplug the device from your router and plug it in your new home and you're done.

https://www.ooma.com/
 
brianl703 said:
Someday I'm sure it will. Key word is "Someday", which may be another 20 years from now.
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Wilson is right - nobody wants to offer these TDM services anymore. The equipment to support it is becoming increasingly rare and very expensive to support.

It won't be 20 years. AT&T notified state government here shortly after the August deadline that Alarmguy mentioned, that POTS and T1s were going away, statewide.

Literally a T1 cost me the same as a 100Mbit fiber circuit at the organization I mentioned before, about $550 a month. Who in their right mind would choose a T1 in this situation unless there were no other options?
 
Brons2 said:
Literally a T1 cost me the same as a 100Mbit fiber circuit at the organization I mentioned before, about $550 a month. Who in their right mind would choose a T1 in this situation unless there were no other options?
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That's the point. There are many places in this country, rural areas, where there ARE no other options.

If AT&T did like Verizon did, they no longer serve those areas, having sold them off years ago.
 
brianl703 said:
That's the point. There are many places in this country, rural areas, where there ARE no other options.

If AT&T did like Verizon did, they no longer serve those areas, having sold them off years ago.
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Fixed wireless is available almost everywhere in rural Texas, why do you think my prior employer is going SD-WAN instead of continuing to fork over money to AT&T for MPLS over T1s? The speeds aren't as fast as what we're used to in suburban areas in 2022, but they really aren't that bad, 50Mbps being a common option for $50-$75 per month. I can't speak to rural Idaho as I've never lived there, but fixed wireless is a good option in lots of places in the US.

Low earth orbit Internet like Starlink and others is another option that's not quite as good as what we have in urban/suburban areas, but way better than TDM. Unfortunately due to some NDA's I signed, I can't mention the others yet, but Starlink is going to have competition in the same space.

Others mentioned 5G, it's definitely not there yet but UW/UC is getting more common in rural areas.

[edit]In regards to AT&T selling stuff off, there are smaller companies such as Frontier and Windstream serving the more rural areas of Texas. They too, are upgrading. I had their reps bending my ears for fiber circuits.
 
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brianl703 said:
That's nice. It's not available where I live, 40 miles west of Washington, DC.
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But you said you had Verizon FIOS? I would not use fixed broadband over FIOS, that's for sure.

FWIW: https://broadbandnow.com/Virginia/Nokesville

There are a couple of fixed wireless providers listed for your location but ability to receive signal is dependent on terrain with this type of connectivity.
 
Brons2 said:
But you said you had Verizon FIOS? I would not use fixed broadband over FIOS, that's for sure.
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I have access to FIOS, but I use Comcast. (There are places a few miles from here that have access to neither). I thought about Tmobile's 5G home internet, but it's not available here.

This is typical for areas even further west of here:
(I just went on Google maps and picked this address at random due it's location well out in the country, far away from any towns):

This means that this address has no access to:

DSL
5G
4G LTE
FIOS
Didn't check cable, but given it's rural location, no need to bother--it's not there.
1671645787187.png
 
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I guarantee you that given all the noises Verizon was making about FIOS back about 15 years ago, anyone back then would have expected it to be available at that address in 2022.
 
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