I am incredibly rural in Pennsylvania and pay about $.50 per megabit.
> On May 29, 2018, at 09:23, Lamar Owen <lo...@pari.edu> wrote: > >> On 05/28/2018 06:13 PM, Matthew Petach wrote: >> Your 200mbit/sec link that costs you $300 in hardware >> is going to cost you $4960/month to actually get IP traffic >> across, in Nairobi. Yes, that's about $60,000/year. > I live in the US of A, and this is what 200Mb/s roughly would cost me as well > here in Rural Monopoly-land. Rural ILEC also has the CATV business, and, > well, they are _not_ going to run cable up here. I've actually priced > 150Mb/s bandwidth from the ILEC over the years; in 2003 the cost would have > been about $100,000 per month. As of five years ago 10Mb/s symmetrical cost > roughly $1,000 per month, the lion's share of that being per-mile NECA Tariff > 5 transport costs. > > The terrain here prevents fixed wireless. The terrain also prevents > satellite comms to the Clarke belt (mountain to the south with trees on US > Forest Service property in the line of sight). I get 1XRTT in one room of my > house when the humidity is below 70% and it's winter, and once in a blue moon > 3G will light up, but it's not stable enough to actually use; it's the speed > of dialup. If I traipse about a hundred yards up the mountain to the south > (onto US Forest Service property, so, no repeater for me) I can get > semi-usable 4G; nothing like being in the middle of the woods with an active > black bear population trying to get a usable signal. > > I'm paying $50 per month for 7/0.5 DSL (I might add that they provide > excellent DSL that has been extremely reliable) from the only ISP available > in the area. > > I remember a usable web experience not too long ago on 28.8K/33.6K dialup (it > was quite a while before said ILEC got a 56K-capable modem bank). DSL > started out here at 384k/128k. On the positive side, we have a very low > oversubscription ratio, so I actually get the full bandwidth the majority of > the time, even video streaming. I also know all the network engineers there, > too, and that also has its advantages. > > (Yes, I am aware that rural living is a choice, and there are things worth a > great deal more than bandwidth, that it's a tradeoff, etc.) > > So it's not just '3rd-world' countries with expensive bandwidth. >
