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

(arstechnica.com)
1135 points carride | 2 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.499s | source
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H1Supreme ◴[10 Aug 22 16:32 UTC] No.32414690[source]▶
> 1Gbps with unlimited data for $79 a month

Wow, sign me up. Comcast, which has a monopoly on my market, charges me a few bucks more per month, for 150mbps.

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capableweb ◴[10 Aug 22 16:38 UTC] No.32414803[source]▶
The costs for internet in the US still surprises me, how on earth can it be so expensive?! I understand some countries, but in the US, it seems high costs are because "because we can", not because it has to be like that.

In comparison, you get 1 Gbps symmetric fiber connection in most countries in Europe for under ~$30/month. In some, you even get it for under $10/month (like Romania, which has surprisingly awesome internet infrastructure).

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1. voidmain0001 ◴[10 Aug 22 17:04 UTC] No.32415246[source]▶
As much as I hate the high price where I live (Canada) I assume that Internet and wireless phone service is expensive because the country is so large that the build out cost is expensive. The USA is running 3/4 in the list of largest countries by land area and Canada is 2nd[1]. Maybe I'm naive in my thinking but I have family in a teeny tiny European country and they all have 1Gb fibre optic service for cheap-cheap.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

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2. qball ◴[10 Aug 22 18:56 UTC] No.32416821[source]▶
>because the country is so large that the build out cost is expensive

Nah, that's just their excuse; most of the country's population lives in urban areas and they don't even bother running fiber or setting up cell towers in more rural areas aside from maybe along the main highways.

Remember, SaskTel (and MTS, before the government sold it to Bell) doesn't have a problem with charging reasonable rates or building out fiber (and turning a profit at the same time) and those are the lowest-density parts of the country. So no, the telcos aren't telling the truth.