Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

(arstechnica.com)

1135 points carride | 3 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.707s | source

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qwe----3 ◴[10 Aug 22 13:35 UTC] No.32411651[source]▶

> over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served

This doesn't seem very efficient to me.

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toast0 ◴[10 Aug 22 13:53 UTC] No.32411955[source]▶

>>32411651 #

If utilities are underground, it can be pretty expensive to install anything. I have an estimate for municipal fiber that's about that much to get fiber a mile or two down the street overhead, and then about that much to go down my driveway underground 400 feet.

It's hard to justify when the local phone company is probably going to roll out fiber in the next few years without a direct charge, at least for the portion on the street. Of course, that'll probably be PPPoE, maybe asymetrical, likely limited to 1G, etc. Comcast won't even quote me to come down my driveway, even though they serve my neighbor across the street from the pole at the corner of my driveway.

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ericd ◴[10 Aug 22 14:01 UTC] No.32412083[source]▶

>>32411955 #

Wow, have you considered buying some conduit and renting a trenching machine and giving the driveway portion a go yourself? Might be worth talking over that option with the muni fiber people. Though sounds like the overhead portion would still be $$$.

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1. alistairSH ◴[10 Aug 22 14:15 UTC] No.32412340[source]▶

>>32412083 #

A friend did this at his farm in central VA, but for power line instead of fiber. It was previously above ground, unsightly, and occasionally damaged by trees. He dug the trench from the road and had the power company lay the wire in it and make connections at each end. I don't remember the total numbers, but he saved thousands by doing the dig himself (with rented equipment) vs paying the power company to manage it.

Of course, this assume you're comfortable with heavy machinery and can work around other utilities (most counties have a "Miss Utility" service that will mark existing services).

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2. bombcar ◴[10 Aug 22 14:28 UTC] No.32412566[source]▶

>>32412340 (TP) #

Yep, depending on the lay of the land doing the grunt work can save thousands or tens of thousands - if you have the company do it they'll almost certainly bring in a crew of 4 or 5 with a underground "hog" machine that's supposed to work perfectly but doesn't actually so the backhoe appears and then they cut into a buried utility line that was marked but backhoes can't read and then you wait for the power company to come out and then they fight over whose fault it was while the freezer slowly drips onto your floor.

Or you can rent a ditch witch and do it yourself and dig by hand near anything remotely marked by the marking crew.