i live about 5 miles from the boundaries for cable and dsl internet access in my city and i’m just wondering why they can’t go that extra 5 miles for me and my neighbors? would it really cost them that much money? what exactly would need to be done to get me access?
It’s not cost-effective for the cable and DSL ISPs to extend their lines.
You want access? Move closer!
ye, that pisses me off too. people in freaking Alaska and Chile have Cable and i am living in NewYork city and i only was finally able to get it quite recently 
For DSL you need to be at least 10,000 feet from the nearest switching station.(those big green boxes located all around town)
I know they have added some signal boosters but you could still be to far away.
As for cable, your system has to be completly rewired and updated. IE running new cable all over town. You could always look into what it would cost to get a satellite conection if you really want broadband.
Vasy I live over in Fort Greene and after years we finally got DSL a few months ago. I was pretty annoyed that in the middle of the biggest city in the world, I wasn’t able to get broadband.
For DSL you need to live at most 13,000 feet away from the local CO. DSL basically takes advantage of the unused frequencies on your phone line, that’s why you can talk and surf at the same time. Voice uses the high frequencies and Data uses the lower (before DSL previously unused) ones. I would imagine that over distance the signal can degrade and is vulnerable to interference hence the 13,000 foot limit.
No cable or DSL here and bad view of the satellite - I’m waiting for ISDN (installed by Friday they said). Finding an ISDN “modem” was like trying to buy a computer with DOS. Don’t know why it’s so hard to find alternatives when cable and DSL supposedly only reach about 2/3 of Americans.
Probably because the 1/3 that they don’t reach are largely people not very interested in cable or DSL. (That’s part of the reason the companies haven’t rushed to install it in those locations.)
Like the 3/4 million homes in America (7% of homes in one state) without indoor plumbing – are they likely customers for DSL service? Or those without electricity?
Or like parts of Montana & the Dakotas, where the nearest neighbor can be 10-20 miles away – what’s the likelyhood of making a profit from installing DSL to those houses.
Companies selling this are always ‘cream-skimming’. They look to install their cables in locations where they will find the largest number of likely customers and the cheapest installation (shortest distance, easiest install). So they generally go for concentrations of people, like in big cities. But often the oldest part of the cities have installation problems, so newer suburbs will get these services earlier. Some companies have been so blatently discriminatory about this that the state utilities commissions have had to issue orders to force them to offer these services equally.
After having first dial-up, and then high-speed cable, no friggin way I’d go back. Not without a fight, anyway.
Perhaps you can console yourself with the smaller monthly bills.
Better yet, perhaps in the near future you will be hooked up. Hope so.
The standard has been at 18,000 feet from the C.O.
http://www.broadbandweek.com/news/010416/print/010416_news_range.htm
However, with repeaters or what many call “stingers” the distance can travel further. Almost five miles from the C.O. IIRC. However, that is an expensive proposition and most teleco companies want to know that people in the particular area are scrambling for DSL or it’s various flavors.
In addition, because of the way the phone numbers are set up now (you can, at least with Qwest carry your phone number to a new location in the same area) that also proposes a problem. I used to have two phone numbers and one would not qualify.
I am dealing with that with my father’s cable DSL as they seem to be down alot and while he’s within range to get DSL the people in his specific neighborhood aren’t scrambling for DSL so until the rest of his neighborhood wants to go with copper phone lines, it’s not going to happen.
As for cable ISPs. Our local cable company had been laying fiber all over the place in order to upgrade it’s digital services and to provide broadband. They would not release the broadband until the fiber optic was layed in certain loops. Fiber optic is not a cheap procedure and possibly (most likely) more costly than a teleco to install stingers.
I would have given you my USR Sportster 128k, I stopped using it when I got my Cisco 804.
Napier i know what you mean man…i do have isdn now but its still not even comparable to cable or dsl, although it is decent for online gaming (pings around 60 to 120 depending on server location) but when i was looking for router i called every single computer store in the kansas city metro area and nobody had one…at all
finally i got a hold of a company who used to have isdn service and they still had a few routers lying around gathering dust
also you could get what the phone company is offering but in my case it was about 400 bucks more than the deal i got, so my best advice is just keep looking and u’ll get lucky (hopefully)