[Novalug] OT: Broadband penetration

[rarob at travelinglightfarm.net]

Done that dance.  A few years ago when living in Prince William had a
phone call that went something like:

Verizon: This is Verizon, would you be interested in ...oh....never mind. 
You can't get FiOS anyway.

I understand that Verizon probably farms these calls out to a third-party,
but you'd think they'd be able to do the due-diligence required to weed
out the phone numbers/addresses that an offer wouldn't apply to....
<sigh>

-R

> We live out in the sticks too.  The best we managed was DSL on a crummy
> copper line from Verizon (who kept asking if I wanted to see if I could
> get FiOS, then told me it wasn't available when I (knowing I couldn't get
> it) gave them the go-ahead to check).
>
> William Sutton
>
> On Tue, 6 Jul 2010, rarob at travelinglightfarm.net wrote:
>
>> I wish there were different options as well.  We're also out in the
>> sticks
>> (west of Leesburgh) and our internet options were:
>> - cell phone
>> - satellite
>> - dialup
>> - radio broadband (RoadStar Internet)
>>
>> Cell was a non-starter initially due to lack of signal (1 bar outside on
>> the porch, no-service in various rooms)
>>
>> Satellite doesn't work for me due to bandwidth caps (I was  downloading
>> linux distros multiple time per month at 4GB a pop [ cap was 5GB/month]
>> )
>>
>> Dialup is painful.  'nuf said.
>>
>> Roadstar is doable, and I'm very grateful that we have had that option.
>> We're running about 1Mb/s down (according to SpeakEasy).  Enough to most
>> stuff we do (even supported VPN [barely] during the blizzard).
>>
>> Neither Comcast nor Verizon indicated any interest in running a high
>> speed
>> line to us, even though I believe Comcast does now run cable to the
>> neighborhood immediately behind our house (and that only within the last
>> year or so).  I've been told though that the franchise agreement with
>> one
>> both of these companies requires them to run service to any
>> development/region with a high enough population density (and that we've
>> recently hit that number), but don't know for sure if the franchise
>> agreement actually was worded this way.
>>
>> When would get me highly irked is when I read articles on a
>> town/city/municipality that would plan to implement some sort of
>> broadband
>> for their residents and then get sued by a telco.  Seems to me that if
>> the
>> telco decides (for whatever reason) to not implement broadband in an
>> area
>> then they shouldn't be able to prevent someone else from doing so.
>> Ok, I'll get off my soapbox for the moment...
>>
>> -R
>>
>>
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>