"Try and find that in the middle of Iowa corn country! "
Well Jim, that's pretty close to home in Cornhuskerland. :-) I guess my
company's entire service area is probably considered rural then, even
though it includes the largest city in Nebraska. Most of it is very rural
outside of Omaha area. Broadband is not as easily found here outside of
Omaha. I have cable, but when I asked about DSL, then said not
available-must be too far from the CO. I can throw a rock from my roof and
hit the CO bldg without trying, so I don't think that's the reason. We do
have two cable companies in this part of Omaha though so we have the
duopoly here with DSL in some spots somewhere.
So if Omaha is considered rural, then I guess I can see where Powell and
Bush are coming from when they said they want Broadband in "rural" areas.
500,000 folks in abut a 500 sq mile area are a lot of rural folks. That
doesn't include the folks across the river in C.B. IA.
-----Original Message-----
From: jimjarvis
Ed, K0IL wrote:
snip>Sure, some small percentage of customers today now have cable modems,
DSL, and the like, but not ALL of them. Not even most of them. Most of
them have no reliable or easily accessed data link into the home.<snip
Sorry, Ed...not even close. In 1996, the cable industry announced that
they had fiber to the curb in 88% of the standard metropolitan statistical
areas...and would be at 97% within two years. They estimated that was 80%
of the US population at that time. The remainder is in largely rural
areas. Of the major metro areas, most are served by both cable and dsl,
and many have multiple cable providers.
The reality is, if someone doesn't have wideband service today, there are
only three reasons. 1) they live in an area which cannot be economically
serviced by either phone or cable systems, or 2) they don't want it, or 3)
they can't afford it.
Studies of the economics of BPL service have shown that there must be 5
homes served by a wifi link across the residential drop transformer, in
order for service to be provided for under $40 a month. Try and find that
in the middle of Iowa corn country!
N2EA
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