Originally Posted By: 3800Series
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
After seeing some of the rates you guys/gals are paying, I'd be happy having it. Up here in the N. Georgia mountains, we're stuck with Windstream as our provider for internet service only. It's DSL, and the monthly bill is a tad over $98 per month. My only other option is satelite internet, but you start paying for usage after your monthly allotment is used up and the cost can climb quickly. I thought about paying for unlimited cellular data, but that comes with it's own drawbacks and would be no less expensive than our current setup. Not much we can do. Our local power provder offers cable and internet in some of the more populated areas, but has so far refused to bring it up our mountain even though the infrastructure for doing so is in place.
That is rather high for internet alone. Our local provider offers 200mbps at $55 a month. Not amazing but at the same time not bad.
As for the infrastructure being set up it's more of a "maybe" then anything. The government offers cable, internet, and phone providers limited monopolies for the areas which the support due to the up front costs being so high. It's ultimately ends with the provider using the best option (within reason) available at the time.
Once it's done they do very little to improve the infrastructure. Comcast/Verizon is the shining example of it. They put down a lot of infrastructure in the early to mid 90's and did nothing more then maintenance what was necessary to keep it up.
The end result is a network so out dated and over used it effects everyone. Once they get the limited monopoly rights for that area they will fight tooth and nail to keep any and all competition out.
They will bring you to court over and over just to make the cost of entrance so high it wouldn't be very profitable to offer any service in the area. They will either pay significantly to use the infrastructure there or pay to have the network ran underground which is also very expensive.
So yes there is infrastructure in place but the probability they can even touch it is very very low.
Yes. It is high. At this point in time my options are to pay it, or do without. Honestly, from a pure service standpoint, the best service we've ever had came from Verizon's FIOS offering when we lived on the west coast of Florida. The internet was reliable and fast. Their cable was about the same as any other company. Customer service left something to be desired but the product itself worked fine.
Our current provider, Windstream, swooped in and took over when AT&T was getting out of the landline business. In the two years we've had them, we've been out of service probably ten times. Usually back in service in a day or so. It's either "the cable is bad", or "a card was bad". We've actually had lawyers from Alabama come to this area and sue Windstream for crummy service and falsely advertised internet speeds.
Sorry. I'm venting here. Thinking about it, even though $98 a month for what we have is a little steep, having the chance to live where we live now, it might be a small price to pay in the long run. Very little traffic. Low density, unless it's a holiday weekend. Just too many positives to mention them all. And to be fair, there are a few negatives as well. Maybe a topic for another day.
