Ask Slashdot: How Do You Convince an ISP To Bury Cable In Your Neighborhood?

The basics... by Kjuib · 2014-01-20 10:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Money

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Re:The basics... by aaronmd · 2014-01-20 10:54 · Score: 5, Informative

Comcast in our area was willing to run the line to an office if we paid for the cost of running the line. At the time they needed a new distribution hub with it so the cost was $60k+. 2 years later they changed their tune and did it for free in return for a 2 or 3 year business class internet contract.
Chances are good you'd need a hub in your subdivision so it isn't like running a single cable and daisychaining the houses will work. If you can get commitments from enough of the neighbors however, you may be able to get somewhere with the company. 10 homes wanting $100/mo cable+internet adds up to $1200/mo and $14,400/yr. That might get them interested. 5 of you wanting $40/mo Internet only isn't likely to get them interested.
Re:The basics... by Frobnicator · 2014-01-20 10:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Very much true. Money.
Also, if you are paying for it yourself, why go with cable? Normally the cable companies just go in with an underground torpedo (yes, just like in the ocean, a big projectile that rockets through the ground) and shoot the thing toward the destination. They occasionally hit water lines, power lines, and other infrastructure. Then they hunt for it on the other end and hook things up.
If you are serious about doing it, avoid cable. Hook up the neighborhood with fiber to each home. It isn't that much more expensive if you are going to tear up the streets anyway, and is far more valuable in the long run. You will still need someone to hook up the neighborhood to the grid, but once the fiber is in place, connecting the neighborhood's hub to a CO is pretty easy.

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Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:01 · Score: 0

Why not start a mini-ISP and co-location facility in the area?
Run your own cable, teach your own classes from intro to computing to technical repair, and make a mint of of paid cable/internet/wi-fi and perhaps even cellular data services.
Money again, but with a return down the road.
There must be a how-to guide somewhere about running a small ISP. If not, write it as you go along.
It is the American way.
Re:The basics... by ChrisSlicks · 2014-01-20 11:13 · Score: 1

Money is it. They need to have a return on investment, and since the life-cycle cost of buried cable is about 2-4x of overhead cables it would be difficult for them to recoup those costs without charging you all an extraordinary up-front connection fee. If your sub-division offered to pay up-front for the cabling costs I'm sure they would do it, but good luck getting the neighbors to sign on for that one.
Re:The basics... by Krojack · 2014-01-20 11:16 · Score: 2

Because all the big dogs on your borders will do everything they can to make it a living hell for you. The big dogs would see what you're doing, move into the area and crush you. In the end you will have lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A few years back my company use to resell AT&T DSL. AT&T would charge us ~$30/month for each account. Now how could we get customers and make some sort of profit on that when the customers can go directly to AT&T to get the same, if not faster, service for $15/month.
Re:The basics... by Aighearach · 2014-01-20 11:24 · Score: 1

Covenants are there to restrict what you can do with land you... long-term lease from the neighborhood association under the guise of land ownership.
If you don't like the restrictions... don't like on snooty restricted land. If you're not rich enough to just bring your own fiber in underground, why are you living in wannabe snootyville?
Re:The basics... by Aighearach · 2014-01-20 11:29 · Score: 1

And by "crush" you mean, what? AT&T is going to come in with a backhoe and dig up his lines? Derp! If they wanted into his neighborhood's market, it is currently open, it would cost them less now than if there is local competition. You can't just make DSL cheaper to compete for the customers that want faster connections. Obviously if you're just trying to re-sell what is already available in the neighborhood, you're in a bad position. Totally different than running your own cable.
Re:The basics... by Entropy98 · 2014-01-20 11:31 · Score: 1

If you know someone nearby with decent internet point an antenna at their house and use theirs. With the right antenna on each end you can get a decent connection over a mile away.
If not you could pay to have fiber run to your house and charge the neighbors for wireless access.
Re:The basics... by Cryacin · 2014-01-20 11:35 · Score: 1

1. Order 1 metric ton of gravy.
2. Pour said gravy onto train
3. Make phone call to cable company
4. Profit?

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Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

Money
This, and access requirements. The article says "our subdivision covenants require all utilities to be underground, " that's not a normal subdivision, it's controlled by an HOA and they control access from the edge of the development to the individual lots. It's basically the same thing as a trailer park except each person who owns a plot has an ownership stake/voice in the HOA- there isn't public right-of-way like there is in a non-covenant development.
When these types of developments are originally being built, the contractor will generally offer the local ISP's/telco's the chance to come run their lines while the trenches are open. In most cases local companies which already service the area will even come out drop their copper into the trenches for free, which is most likely how the DSL got there, but in some cases they HOA or original developer has to pay them. (Especially if you want fiber instead of copper).
So the first part of the answer is- you're going to have to work with the HOA no matter what. The ISP is not likely to pay to open trench and/or push conduit without being paid to do so, and HOA's can be extremely difficult to deal with at times depending on the membership. The HOA probably wants the ISP to pay to run the lines and landscape it afterwards, and the ISP probably wants the HOA to do it themselves or pay them to do it.
The best route to go is consult with the HOA and if there's support for it, have the HOA itself approach the ISP's Construction Manager, possible speak with someone who works on Business accounts. Once they understand the HOA is on board, they will be more willing to prepare an actual Quote to get services run.
But it's also possible the HOA worked out an exclusive deal with the existing DSL provider, where they won't allow anyone else to run lines in exchange for the ISP 'freeing out' the construction/build-out fees.
Good Luck!
Side Note- this is one of the reasons why I really hate HOA's and would never buy property in a covenant development.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:46 · Score: 0

He can't, it's covenant controlled which means the HOA has to agree if he wants run any kind of lines, and they probably made an exclusive deal with the DSL provider back when the division was first developed.
Re:The basics... by mrmeval · 2014-01-20 11:53 · Score: 1

Yep
Option 1) Use your vast political machine to convince congress to once again smash the HOA's in the mouth and allow it.
Option 2) You kill enough people in your community they vote to allow it
a)or vote to pay for the underground wires
b) or the remaining bleaters all leave and you ARE the
HOA and you can do what you want.
Option 3) You destroy the local telecom and plunder all of it's accounts of cold hard cash, launder it and use that to take over their infrastructure.
Option 4) Move.
All of them are expensive, some are more expensive than others. If you pick the most expensive and cruel congratulations Bezos has job for you.

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Re:The basics... by icebike · 2014-01-20 11:55 · Score: 3, Informative

It depends on who owns the underground infrastructure.
In many places who ever did the subdivision originally, deeded all of that underground wire or piping to the city, or to the home owners association (if there is one) or to who ever they contracted for putting tin the original DSL. (AT&T apparently). If those owners won't allow use of the in ground infrastructure for a new purpose, you have to build new parallel plumbing.
In that event, the cost of permitting, call before you dig, trenching, tunneling under driveways, etc can be so expensive they would never get payback, and the risk of destroying everything already in the ground is significant Everything from street lamp wiring, gardens, sprinkler systems, water pipes, etc.
I've seen it done, but there usually has to be a city wide project to get this to happen. Enough work to make it worth employing a professional crew and providing months of work.
You might have better luck getting all 22 homeowners to go on on a private conduit installation, with a bigger than needed conduit (or maybe just armored fiber) to each premises, all terminating at some common (and accessible) location. You'd have to pay for the trenching and materials, but it isn't that expensive, especially if you cover the liability aspects.
All it takes is one hold-out to prevent a complete plan.

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Re:The basics... by pepty · 2014-01-20 11:57 · Score: 1

And by "crush" you mean, what?

AT&T could refuse to sign up to the neighborhood infrastructure unless everyone paid for a normal account with AT&T. The HOA (or OP) would have to eat the costs of burying and building all of the mini-ISP's infrastructure.
Re:The basics... by Stormy+Dragon · 2014-01-20 12:06 · Score: 1

His housing development probably isn't zoned for non-residential use like this.
Re:The basics... by pepty · 2014-01-20 12:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

How it works in my city:
1. City allows utilities to charge a fee to underground telecom and power cables.
2. Utilities collect the fee for decades without actually burying any cable.
3. Fees stopped, utilities allowed to keep what they collected.
4. Folks with ocean views pay to bury stuff on their own
Fast forward a few years...
1. City allows utilities to charge a fee to underground telecom, internet, and power cables.
2. Utilities collect the fee, promise to have everything buried by 2067 ...
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:11 · Score: 1

Money
That's the answer.. Begging will not work, nor will doing it yourself. You and your neighbors will need to cough up the cold hard cash
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Covenants are there to restrict what you can do with land you... long-term lease from the neighborhood association under the guise of land ownership.
If you don't like the restrictions... don't like on snooty restricted land. If you're not rich enough to just bring your own fiber in underground, why are you living in wannabe snootyville?
Because, 95% of all homes built in my area come with deed restrictions and an HOA with Nazis on the board. The other 5% are more expensive or located a LONG way from work.
Re:The basics... by mysidia · 2014-01-20 12:22 · Score: 1

If you don't like the restrictions... don't like on snooty restricted land.
Or bear the cost of the restrictions, buy paying the extra cost to compensate the company for burial.
The other thing one can do is ignore the restrictions, and build out what they want. Make certain that nobody will complain, or take adverse action, because if they do -- it will be expensive.
If you are in violation long enough, with nobody complaining --- an estoppel then applies.
It may also be possible to fight the restriction, or find a method of circumventing it.
For example: the local telecommunication company, is not beholden to the HOA's requirements, only you are. The local government: can still permit the local telco - through imminent domain, to install telephone poles that cross through all the properties, to extend their service.
Such that just your individual drop needs to get buried, for the last 20 feet or so.
Re:The basics... by TheSeatOfMyPants · 2014-01-20 12:38 · Score: 3

In many areas, HOA-controlled neighborhoods are all that have been built for quite a while now... My home is in one of the very last traditional neighborhoods built in my suburb/city; all of the homes built here after ~1980 are either apartments, condos, or HOA-controlled houses on tiny plots of land. :-(

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Re:The basics... by reboot246 · 2014-01-20 12:41 · Score: 4, Informative

Look up "directional boring" and "plowing" and forget that torpedo idea. With directional boring you can have the bore hole come out right where you want it. With plowing there's no need to "look" for the cable (or pipe or whatever) - it's there.

Contractors are required by law to have all underground utilities located before they start. Hitting a water line or gas line can cost them a bunch of time and money. They're a lot more careful nowadays, though sometimes the utility companies miss on their locations.
Re:The basics... by aaarrrgggh · 2014-01-20 12:44 · Score: 1

MB, CA?
To the OP, you can't bury lines; all you can do is bury a duct bank and give a pull string for the telco. Unfortunately, they will require dedicated pathways, so you can't have competing providers in the same conduit or boxes. If they aren't even amenable to that, provide your own network and build an "association clubhouse" at the main street. Get the fastest service (or two) to that point, and distribute out on the network.
Re:The basics... by mattack2 · 2014-01-20 12:50 · Score: 1

Wow, really? I would have thought in the long run you save money due to fewer repairs needed due to weather, corrosion, etc.
Re:The basics... by DigiShaman · 2014-01-20 12:51 · Score: 1

Normally the cable companies just go in with an underground torpedo (yes, just like in the ocean, a big projectile that rockets through the ground) and shoot the thing toward the destination.
Say whaaaat?!!! You're just fucking with us, right? I've never heard of such a thing, and the amount of energy to file a projectile underground and maintain enough moment to push dirt aside would be tremendous! Are you sure you're not just talking about typical horizontal boring machines? Back when I had to work with cable in the mid 2000s, that's what was used.

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Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:06 · Score: 0

I would just skip the fiber and go for a 2 to 4 in conduit to each home that gets progressively bigger towards a central or multiple central building that are owned by the city which charges a small rent for cabinet space. The system would also benefit from having underground accessible junction boxes that allowed for the installation of router, multipliers, repeaters, etc. That way changing or adding fiber or copper lines moves from around $100,000 to being about under $1,000. Actually, this should be mandatory for all new developments feed by underground utilities. I don't think it would cost much more when your anyway digging electrical(Which could share the same conduct system with slight modifications.), plumbing and sewer lines. Like I said if the cable company could wire your neighborhood for $200,000 instead of $2 million they would probable do it. And someone would probably lay Fiber to compete. Giving you choices and competition.
Re:The basics... by pepty · 2014-01-20 13:23 · Score: 4, Funny

Hmm. How about just suspending a thin piece of fiber optic cable around the neighborhood on poles? Of course OP and several neighbors may have to convert to Judaism to apply for a religious exemption for their eruv ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv#Tradition_regarding_eruv
Re:The basics... by multimediavt · 2014-01-20 13:32 · Score: 2

Money
Actually, they want a certain number of base subscribers in your neighborhood to "pre-order", then they'll charge you the ridiculous amount of money to run the lines in your neighborhood, then they profit off the service and the nickel and diming they'll do to you on boxes, converters and DVRs.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:33 · Score: 2, Informative

Have you ever worked in this field? I currently work in construction for a certain ISP and you are only talking about the one off situations. That type of stuff does happen, but it's not something that construction crews try to do. Before any work is done, locates have to be called in. The "torpedo" that you are talking about is not the only way of doing underground cable (and by cable, I'm referring to coax/fiber/or copper phone). Boring, trenching, or plowing are used for underground construction as well. The "torpedo" is only really used for short distances. As for the suggestion to pull fiber, I totally agree as long as you have a provider that can/will use the existing fiber.
Re:The basics... by demonlapin · 2014-01-20 14:15 · Score: 1

Above-ground is pretty cheap to fix when it breaks. Below-ground is expensive to put in and expensive to maintain - e.g., I live in an area with shrink-swell soils, so you can't count on conduit being waterproof. You actually have to inspect it on a regular basis.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:22 · Score: 0

Sounds like there needs to be a lawsuit for breach of contract. You should talk to a lawyer about a class action, with the goal of achieving one of two remedies; actual performance (burying the cable) or return of all the fees ever charged to the people they were charged from. Since the second will be unbelievably expensive the company will have to do the first.
Re:The basics... by Frobnicator · 2014-01-20 14:36 · Score: 1, Insightful

Yes, a cable torpedo, along with other tools like a pneumatic mole or trenchless borer, is a real thing. They are usually run for one-shot cables of short distance, such as hooking up a single house, rather than a large area. Basically they dig a hole on either end, stick the torpedo with a cable, and hope it doesn't miss. Sometimes they accidentally pierce existing things, sometimes they hit a rock and get lost, but usually they make it between the ends just fine.
But as I said, if the OP is going to rip up an entire neighborhood for Internet connections, they might as well lay down fiber instead of copper. It isn't much more expensive, and both costs will be dwarfed by the cost of trenching and repairing everything when done.

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Re:The basics... by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 14:41 · Score: 1

If he's going to the trouble of running cable then buying a T3 line or a couple T1s and actually being his own goddamn ISP is perfectly possible.
Re:The basics... by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 14:44 · Score: 1

Option 1) isn't just restricted to the Feds. States have more powers to deal with things like this then the Feds because they can do literally anything that isn't specifically forbidden by the Constitution. They have no "enumerated" powers.
A city could also do a lot to screw with a Homeowner's Association because it has the power to say "Fuck you, we're running above-ground utilities."
The problem is that they don't tend to use these powers unless a whole lot of local voters get off their asses and bitch about the tyranny of the HOA, but if a whole lot of voters are doing that they could just vote in the HOA to do something.
Re:The basics... by mikeiver1 · 2014-01-20 14:46 · Score: 2

Actually that is one of the ways they can get wire or fibre or conduit to a location. If the soil is not rocky it works great. BTW, it is not so much "shot" as it simply pounds its way through. It uses a hydraulic power unit run off of air for the energy. Second option is a horizontal directional boring machine. A good contractor can hit a target area less than a foot in diameter at over 200 feet easy. The downside is that this is not a cheap process. The third is to simply blade in the cable with a vibratory blade and puller. Likely the cheapest of the options and easiest to make happen. You, or if you are smart your contractor, would dig ground box holes in front of each home and then the cable would be pulled from hole to hole where a loop would be left for the termination. A conduit would also need to be dug to each home for the actual service drop. After this you then need to have a professional terminate taps for each homes drop. Here is the real issue, getting the assholes to connect you to their service. Good luck with that. My advice would be that you simply add in a pole at the start of the development and a hut for the communications shit as well as power and share it out to the neighborhood. A couple of fast Docsis3 connections bonded would give in excess of 100Mb down and 10Mb up for around $200.00 a month plus power. You could probably do it all with hardware and install financed for around $40.00 per month for each home assuming that all were in for it. In my experience there are always assholes that make this sort of thing a non starter.
Re:The basics... by jandrese · 2014-01-20 14:52 · Score: 1

T1s are goddamn slow by todays standards.

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Re:The basics... by aurizon · 2014-01-20 14:53 · Score: 1

This is a self inflicted problem. The people wanted tress and shrubs to be the only thing above ground, so they made this rule and it bit them.
The only solution is fiber into streetlights with WiFi on the lights. Each light will serve 6-10 houses? and with the latest WiFi might give acceptable BW, since there are that many frequencies in each one, sort of like cell tower service.
Or they could use internet via water pipes
https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=...
Re:The basics... by achbed · 2014-01-20 14:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

And by "crush" you mean, what?
AT&T could refuse to sign up to the neighborhood infrastructure unless everyone paid for a normal account with AT&T. The HOA (or OP) would have to eat the costs of burying and building all of the mini-ISP's infrastructure.
They could go to the state and get a law passed that HOAs and public interest groups are not allowed to provide ISP service. Like they did in South Carolina to municipalities. Next they'll go to the FCC and get them to reclassify ISPs are common carriers so that it's impossible to make new competitors due to regulatory hurtles.
I'd like to think I'm paranoid and/or kidding.
Re:The basics... by fast+turtle · 2014-01-20 15:30 · Score: 2

Sure a T1 connection is god damn slow but it's what's being offered in the area for a reasonable fee. The main thing is that T1 defines a single connection rated at 1.55mbps both ways. So instead of running a single T1, it's not much more expensive to go and run a T3 (10 T1) or an E3 (10 T3) connections or as someone else pointed out, simply run fiber. You can get Pre-terminated fiber in 2km lenghts for a pretty fucking reasonable price per cable.

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Re:The basics... by Zomalaja · 2014-01-20 15:30 · Score: 2

You cannot count on properly cemented PVC conduit being waterproof ? I have heard of O-ring jointed PVC failing in expansive soil but not cemented conduit.
Re:The basics... by SpectreBlofeld · 2014-01-20 15:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

Did this once! 2003 or so. Had a workplace with a bitchin' high-speed internet backbone situated at the bottom of a mountain ridge about a mile away from where I lived. My roommate and I we were poor 20-year-olds and wanted fast internet without the cost. We climbed the foothills of the mountain and affixed an antenna on the mountainside using highly directional antennas to give us free high-speed internet at home. We used fancy stuff like spotting scopes and lasers to help us align the two antennas. The antenna on the house was lashed to the fireplace with aluminum bands.
It was a lot of fun to set up, but it didn't work very well. No matter how we tried to stabilize the setup, weather fucked with us. High winds caused things to wobble, which meant packet loss, and slowdowns. And when it would go down completely, one of us would have to - with an exasperated sigh - get in the car and drive a mile away and climb a hillside and check out the setup while the other person climbed on the roof... while communicating to each other with walkie-talkies because it was 2003 and we were poor. We eventually ended up springing for some DSL provider, I don't even remember which.
All that said... I cherish the memories.
Re:The basics... by SpectreBlofeld · 2014-01-20 15:35 · Score: 0

LTE-Advanced will save us.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:20 · Score: 0

1. Order 1 metric ton of gravy.
2. Pour said gravy onto train
3. Make phone call to cable company
4. Profit?

I would change #3 to make it more effective

3. Make cable call to phone company
Re:The basics... by Zebai · 2014-01-20 16:30 · Score: 3, Informative

I work for a cable company and sat near the Commercial Dev agents for several years it was not uncommon for them to negotiate deals to lay new construction. Many communities opted for bulk agreements as part of the deal that required some basic level of service for all members for a number of years resulting in the cable company willing to cover a larger portion of the construction cost, sometimes all of it.
Re:The basics... by Firethorn · 2014-01-20 16:32 · Score: 1

Given that he talked of shrink-swell ground, I think he's worrying less about the joints than the conduit itself, which can be warped/stretched to the breaking point.
An extreme example would be a conduit buried through a earthquake fault line - and after a good shake one side is displaced 6-12" to the left.
Then there's things like tree roots, rodents, etc...

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Re:The basics... by dwater · 2014-01-20 16:41 · Score: 1

fiber optic *cable*?

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Re:The basics... by bigtreeman · 2014-01-20 18:07 · Score: 2

" Normally the cable companies just go in with an underground torpedo "
Insightful bull_hit
Slashdot has some moronic kids moderating the posts
Try horizontal boring, then pulling conduit through, then pulling the fibre through the condute. Much more boring than an f'ing torpedo
In Oz you can put fibres all through your own property, but not across boundaries into other properties, or under roads or other public space and I expect it would be the same in any first world country.

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Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 18:55 · Score: 1

Yeah, I hate HOAs. Got lucky. For some reason, our HOA got disbanded (somebody forgot to re-up the thing, I think), and the ONLY way to bring it back is with 100% participation. So guess what happened? NO HOA!!! Woohoo!! I'll never vote to bring it back!
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 19:18 · Score: 0

Building shared infrastructure is a typical case of a thing that doesn't work well with private companies. It is the kind of investment the city should make.
Re:The basics... by JWSmythe · 2014-01-20 19:58 · Score: 1

Nah, they "big dogs" as you say, have already expressed a disinterest in providing to those homes.
Setting up an ISP of some sort would be fairly easy. From the main building to the cliekts, it could be wireless with decent directional antennas, overhead fiber, underground fiber, or (forgive the thought) copper. A lot of it depends on the topology, and what is allowed. I've done overhead fiber, and directional wireless at different places, depending on what problems were between point A & B..Z.
I already have a business line that I could resell as much as I want. The local carriers, including my uplink, don't care what I do with it (within reason). I could resell to every house in my neighborhood. The average consumer doesn't suck up much bandwidth. They only buy the huge pipes because they think they're better.

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Re:The basics... by DarkOx · 2014-01-20 22:53 · Score: 2

Learn the laws if you state too. In many states you have rights to "enjoy your property" lots of thoes HOA agreements don't exactly get a solid legal review before they are enacted. I know people that have successful challenged various provisions in court and had them found to be I unenforceable, be careful with that through there are hefty attorney fees to be encountered there, and if you do prevail against the HOA you might not get invited to the next block party

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Re:The basics... by Bengie · 2014-01-21 01:05 · Score: 1

Who is "Utilities" that they can charge power and telcom fees? Around here "Utilities" just means power/telcom/gas/cable, all of whom have ROW access.
Re:The basics... by BitZtream · 2014-01-21 01:12 · Score: 1

Yes, they are real things, no they dont' work anything like a torpedo as people are commonly aware of.
They aren't one-shot for anything more than about 3 inches.
As was previously said, what you're claiming is entirely contrary to the energy requirements for doing what you're claiming. It would be easier to tear up the road and repave it than blast a torpedo under it ... as the end result of the blasting is going to be ... the road exploding anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Thats a pneumatic torpedo mole. Everyone one of those 'ticks' you hear is an pneumatic impulse. They move it an inch or so at most.
You're not 'one shot'ing anything useful.

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Re:The basics... by Bengie · 2014-01-21 01:16 · Score: 1

When they installed fiber around here, they didn't tear up the streets. They used something that looked like this to go under streets. http://blog.cleveland.com/busi...
Re:The basics... by Bengie · 2014-01-21 01:22 · Score: 1

Why not start a mini-ISP and co-location facility in the area?
Unless I'm a regulated utility like power, gas, telcom, cable, water, I don't get ROW access by default. I would have to go door-to-door to get permission to run cables/fiber to each person's property. That increases install prices from about $1.8k/house to around $10k/house. Hard to be competitive.
Re:The basics... by Bengie · 2014-01-21 01:24 · Score: 1

I would think getting reclassified as common carrier would reduce the hurtle because then ISPs would get ROW access without being regulated as a telcom.
Re:The basics... by Bengie · 2014-01-21 01:33 · Score: 1

In an a near by area where I used to live, above ground cables broke about 3 times per year and underground cables in my new area, well, it's been about 8 years now, not a single issue. Lots of trees, freezing rain, tornadoes, other randomly strong seasonal wind, and some other stuff.
Re:The basics... by dcsmith · 2014-01-21 02:12 · Score: 1

Next they'll go to the FCC and get them to reclassify ISPs are common carriers so that it's impossible to make new competitors due to regulatory hurtles.
I'd like to think I'm paranoid and/or kidding.
I'm pretty sure you are kidding. It's inconceivable that "they" would try to get ISPs classified as common carriers. The courts just told the FCC to take a long walk off a short pier over net neutrality because ISPs *WEREN''T* common carriers.

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This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Re:The basics... by oh_my_080980980 · 2014-01-21 02:40 · Score: 1

Bull shit! So you can bury gas lines and power lines but not cable? Are you an idiot. Of course you can. It's whether or not the cable company want to bother with it. The OP pointed out the infrastructure is there, they just decided not to bother with the rest of the area.

This is a business decision NOT an engineering problem.
Re:The basics... by dcsmith · 2014-01-21 02:44 · Score: 1

There are 22 houses in the subdivision. Let the dingbats who don't want lines run across their property keep their DSL. When they try to sell their houses to non-Luddites, make sure to hang around the open house and tell everyone that they only have tin-can-and-string Internet access.

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This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 02:51 · Score: 0

Reminds me of the $300 billion broadband scandal scam.
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
Re:The basics... by aurizon · 2014-01-21 02:53 · Score: 2

No, neither business nor engineering. This is a social decision.
This area has decided that all services must be buried, even services added later - which means large costs to dig up etc.
A far seeing town council would have emplaced buried pipes large enough for future services, but these were just fools. Now all their residents suffer the need, and there are probably enough regressive farts to stall any changes to the rules.
Re:The basics... by jmilne · 2014-01-21 03:00 · Score: 1

Sure a T1 connection is god damn slow but it's what's being offered in the area for a reasonable fee. The main thing is that T1 defines a single connection rated at 1.55mbps both ways. So instead of running a single T1, it's not much more expensive to go and run a T3 (10 T1) or an E3 (10 T3) connections or as someone else pointed out, simply run fiber. You can get Pre-terminated fiber in 2km lenghts for a pretty fucking reasonable price per cable.
Ugh. It's not as if it's that hard to look up since you obviously don't know.
A DS3 (or T3, as you call it) is equivalent to 28 DS1 (or T1s). Not 10. Roughly 45 Mbps.
An E3 is roughly 34 Mbps, which is 16 E1 channels plus an additional signaling channel. It's also not going to be available in North America, where AT&T operates and where this person lives.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 03:06 · Score: 0

You need a slight amplifier most likely, and a grid based antenna that had a low wind profile.
Re:The basics... by cayenne8 · 2014-01-21 03:23 · Score: 2

How about they go the easy route, and just let the companies set up poles and run the wires that way?
What's the big deal? Most areas I know of have utility poles.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 03:48 · Score: 0

Your post is like an academic exercise in identifying conflicting statements:

poor 20-year-olds ... spotting scopes and lasers

about a mile away ... walkie-talkies

internet backbone situated at the bottom of a mountain ridge ... affixed an antenna on the mountainside

without the cost ... highly directional antennas
(and a router, and a radio, and a backhaul down the mountainside, and electricity for the antenna (or the repeater between it and the radio), and physical access to the backbone, which presumably was located inside a business office which apparently was located all by its lonesome in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of a mountain ridge)
Re:The basics... by Jon_S · 2014-01-21 03:54 · Score: 1

Wow, that's amazing. I was going to post something basically bashing the choice to live in a HOA-controlled area in the first place.
I am not aware of hardly any HOAs in my neck of the woods (although I am sure there are some), and I live in a fairly large metro area. What kind of place only has HOAs?
HOAs are evil in my book.
Re:The basics... by Tokolosh · 2014-01-21 04:23 · Score: 1

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.
http://www.google.com/tisp/ins...

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Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 04:24 · Score: 0

"subdivision covenants" are not always linked to a HOA. I live in a non HOA development that is "Deed Restricted' just means the developer put a bunch of limits on what can be done on the property for the next 20 years. Thinks like I agree not to have livestock since I live in a town where that's cool.
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 04:53 · Score: 0

In the US, all land is rented from the government anyway. We call those rents 'property tax'. Don't pay your rent? Government takes the land. Government decided to do something with the land? Government takes the land (old-style eminent domain). Someone else will pay mnore rent? Government takes the land (new-style eminent domain).
Re:The basics... by Reziac · 2014-01-21 05:24 · Score: 2

In California, part of the resistance comes from the fact that buried cable is subject to property tax, while overhead line is not. (Or so I was told by an engineer at the power company, when I was investigating costs to bring in utilities.)

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:The basics... by Reziac · 2014-01-21 05:28 · Score: 1

Or sometimes you just get a moron. Talked to a fellow the other day who relayed such a tale... guy at his work comes up to the boss and wants a saws-all. Why? To cut that pipe that's in the way of his trencher.
On closer inspection, the pipe proved to be a gas main.
Well, that was one guy's last day on the job, one way or another!

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:The basics... by Reziac · 2014-01-21 05:29 · Score: 1

How much do the materials cost? Do you need anything beyond the basic trencher that you can rent for a couple hundred bucks a day?

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 05:43 · Score: 0

Rural? Find a federal grant to fund it. Or have the powers that be order/strongly suggest they do it.
How?
1. Check for a (formerly USDA Rural Development-funded) "[Name of your local area] Resource Conservation & Development" non profit to help you secure the grant. Keep the cable guys in the loop; I suggest connecting with the tech guys who'd actually be in charge of this. Most cable companies are actually run by their accountants (avoid them).
2. Alternately (or also) find a local engineering firm which could actually do the work. Many such firms find grants, then go to town/city councils to get their backing, then go to state/federal agencies for the funding (CIB grants etc).
3. Finally and foremost, go to a town council meeting and complain. Get on the schedule. Bring friends and neighbors and try to get the local media on board. The councilmen have the power to not renew the cable companies' contracts. Press them. Its a simple thing for them to tell the cable cos. to step up for *their* residents. A key to doing that could mean a sympathetic city manager, but this is the actual job of your elected officials. Be prepared for the companies to respond that they are busy, and a have a years' long list to get it done.
Re:The basics... by enharmonix · 2014-01-21 06:49 · Score: 1

If you are serious about doing it, avoid cable. Hook up the neighborhood with fiber to each home.
If they won't lay cable, who's going to lay fiber? Fiber is definitely preferable, but isn't it even more of a commitment from the utility?
But don't let me sidetrack you on the fiber. The subject is near and dear to my own heart. I would personally love to convince my township that we need fiber to every home, but I have no idea how to sell that apart from suggesting it will improve property value, so if you have any ideas, I'm all ears.
Re:The basics... by icebike · 2014-01-21 07:59 · Score: 1

I suppose it depends on your approach, and your local regulations.
Cable companies often put their connections in continuous (often brightly colored) conduit.
However for a small subdivision you might be able to use armored fiber-optic cable.
Also depends on how much disruption the neighbors will tolerate. You pretty much end up trenching everybody's lawn,
tunneling every driveway. Depending on subdivision layout it might be easier to do a back-yard trench. Less utilities to
interrupt, less pavement to cut. Take down fence, trench through, put up fence again.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:The basics... by nmr_andrew · 2014-01-21 08:06 · Score: 2

In TFS, it says that the subdivision covenants require that all utilities be buried. Depending on the exact wording of the covenants, it may be possible for the HOA to change them or that they may expire at some point. IIRC, the covenants that cover the development I live expire in something like 2018 (house built in 2002), so at least some are time limited.
The reality is that it really, REALLY depends on where the poster lives. Some states and/or municipalities have seriously reigned in the power of HOAs and put limits on what covenants can and can't restrict. In other parts of the country, you can be fined hundreds of dollars a day for having the wrong kind of flower garden or putting up a flagpole.
Re:The basics... by cayenne8 · 2014-01-21 08:58 · Score: 1

The reality is that it really, REALLY depends on where the poster lives. Some states and/or municipalities have seriously reigned in the power of HOAs and put limits on what covenants can and can't restrict. In other parts of the country, you can be fined hundreds of dollars a day for having the wrong kind of flower garden or putting up a flagpole.
I hope so...I'm so happy I've never had to live where there are HOA's or covenants, etc.
I'd be seriously pissed at being so limited as to what I could do with my own fscking property I'd bought.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:The basics... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 09:32 · Score: 0

> 10 homes wanting $100/mo cable+internet adds up to $1200/mo
No, that's $1000/mo. If you cannot handle basic multiplication by 10 in your head, then use a calculator and double-check with pencil and paper.
Re:The basics... by EndlessNameless · 2014-01-21 10:40 · Score: 1

Fiber is provider-agnostic. Which electrical wiring to run? Most phone companies provide service over twisted pair to the house, and most cable companies use coax. Fiber is essentially a universal medium, and the telco will provide (or spec out) compatible equipment to be installed in the home.
Fiber is the future. Most major telcos have some sort of next-gen internet offering based on fiber. And everyone's fiber service is better than their copper/coax service. Since most of the cost is digging up and filling back in, you might as well spend a little extra to make it worthwhile. There is no reason to tear up the entire neighborhood just to install some obsolete technology.
Fiber is easy. In the past, running and splicing (aka, fusing) fiber was very difficult and therefore expensive compared to copper/coax. This is no longer the case. Fiber has outgrown its early-adopter and premium-price taxes for the most part. Experienced techs are now commonplace. You no longer need a huge box mounted on a pickup truck with a generator to splice fiber---there are handheld units. The tech has matured.
Running copper/coax now is like building a cobblestone road. You certainly could do it, and it would essentially work. But this is not something you should do anymore unless there is a specific requirement to do so.

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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Re:The basics... by SpectreBlofeld · 2014-01-21 15:38 · Score: 1

You'll never find this reply because you're posting as AC, but...
- Laser pointers are cheap, and the spotting scope was purchased for the endeavor and then returned to get the money back (yes, lame, but there you go)
- FRS/GMRS radios are cheap and have a range of several miles, and when I say we were 'poor', I don't mean 'destitute', but in 2003 it wasn't common for lower-middle-class 20-year olds to have mobile phones
- Almost all the equipment used came from the company we worked for (a tech company - and not in secret, our boss knew what we were doing and didn't object), and it indeed had its facility at the foot of a mountain ridge. Yes, we ran power and backhaul up the mountainside, but keep in mind we only had to go a hundred feet up the hill or so, being a mile away - it's not like the stuff was at the crest of the ridge.
And it wasn't 'all by its lonesome'. Hills and mountains aren't exclusive to the remote corners of the globe. This took place in Knoxville, TN, which has a population roughly the size of Fort Lauderdale, and is bisected by several mountainous ridgelines. Take a look on a topo map sometime.
Re:The basics... by grahamsz · 2014-01-21 16:06 · Score: 1

We tried for years to get time warner to deliver cable to our offices in a small town. They gave us installation quotes around $20k, but then when we tried to actually follow through with that, they didn't seem interested.
In the end, the holy grail was to offer them our telephone service. I don't recall exactly how we started that conversation but they examined what we were paying centurytel for a 23-line voice t1 and offered to undercut them, and since it was a new install, they ended up running fiber instead of copper. With a three year commitment to around $700/month in business phone service, they did the install (about 2000' if i recall correctly) at no charge. Once that was negotiated I said that sounded great, but could they run coax too so we could sign up for their business grade cable internet - and it wasn't a problem.
So i suppose if anyone in your subidivision runs a business, you might be able to use that as the carrot.
Re:The basics... by demonlapin · 2014-01-21 16:45 · Score: 1

Shrink-swell soil. In the South, so no basement. Traditional pier-and-beam foundation for the house, and the piers move as the soil shrinks and swells in response to moisture. Floor-to-ceiling cracks in the wall are actually considered perfectly normal and do not indicate a foundation problem. Yes, it can crack anything.
Re:The basics... by crypticedge · 2014-01-23 01:11 · Score: 1

Some cities, counties and even states insist all new development carry a HOA so they won't be responsible for things like the streets/lights in case they need fixed. Where I live is like that, there are some non HOA areas, but they are rare.
After the HOA is released from developer control the HOA can be disbanded and the restrictions removed, but it's very rare for them to do it.
Re:The basics... by crypticedge · 2014-01-23 01:15 · Score: 1

Much further than a mile with a pair of these. http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber
They say they can hit 13 KM with them at 1.4 gb/s, and faster at shorter ranges.

City laws by gameboyhippo · 2014-01-20 10:50 · Score: 2

Unless the municipality requires them to, they won't. Time Warner in Kansas City is required to support all of KC. Other ISPs that came in later (AT&T, Google, etc...) don't have such a requirement.

Re:City laws by crow · 2014-01-20 11:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

Exactly!
I don't know about the details in Kansas City, but in Massachusetts, when Verizon was doing the FiOS roll-out, the typical franchise agreement with each town required that they offer service to every resident within five years of the initial agreement. This typically meant that those with above-ground utilities got it in the first year, and everyone else had to wait until the fourth or fifth year.
You need to talk to your elected officials in town. Find out when the license is up for renewal. It may be a ten-year deal with the town (that's not unusual). Push hard to have the town require universal access to all residents within a reasonable time as a condition on any license renewal.
The simple fact is that, taken as a whole, most towns with a mix of above and below-ground utilities still result in a profit for cable companies when they have to install service to all neighborhoods. Below-ground utilities alone are still profitable, but the payback is longer, so they prefer to invest in infrastructure elsewhere.
Re:City laws by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:37 · Score: 0

They could if the number of homes would be many times larger and more centralized. 22 is not much potential payers for a pair of optical lines and the necessary equipment and its protection, which could mean a building project and a land deal in the worst case.
Perhaps this association could see if it could build the necessary endpoint telecom room for the equipment. The investment would bring long term benefits and let the members choose their favourite telecom provider more freely, if the local telecom monopolies are not taken into account.
Re:City laws by Bengie · 2014-01-20 16:14 · Score: 2

Nearly my entire city has everything underground, including power. I find it strange to have anything above ground.

Owned by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:51 · Score: 1, Insightful

It's nice to see you NIMBY dirt-bags getting what you deserve.

Re: Owned by kenh · 2014-01-20 11:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Your 22 houses represent a very, very small market to the carriers, and your neighborhood decided to be cute and require all utilities be underground... Guess what, your 22 possible customers are too few to interest any carrier in even submitting paperwork to bury cables.
Can you even guarantee that all 22 houses will buy into whatever carrier you can convince to serve your neighborhood?
You should have buried the cables when you built the neighborhood, then you'd have a fighting chance to convince a carrier to serve your neighborhood.

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Ken
Re: Owned by silas_moeckel · 2014-01-20 11:03 · Score: 2

They should have buried conduit, pulling fiber/cable is cheep digging holes not so much.

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No sir I dont like it.
Re: Owned by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:23 · Score: 1

They should have buried multiple conduits, each at least 6" in diameter.
Re:Owned by dk20 · 2014-01-20 11:27 · Score: 2

Someone wanted a subsivisiion to look a very specific way (no overhead cables) and didnt plan things out?
When the subidvision is being built laying underground cable is still expensive, but a lot cheaper then when the area is built out.

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"?
A place where "hipsters" live? Oh, i dont live in a subdivision like you do, i live in a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"
Re:Owned by pepty · 2014-01-20 12:01 · Score: 1

Someone wanted a subsivisiion to look a very specific way (no overhead cables) and didnt plan things out?
Seems well planned out to me: build the subdivision, sell the units, turn the HOA over to the residents, let them deal with extra costs out of their HOA dues, not your profits.
Re:Owned by Stormy+Dragon · 2014-01-20 12:18 · Score: 1

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"?
It means that to afford a house, he had to move out into the middle of nowhere, but living in the middle of nowhere isn't cool, so he likes to pretend it's an urban area.
Re:Owned by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 14:50 · Score: 1

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"?
A place where "hipsters" live? Oh, i dont live in a subdivision like you do, i live in a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"
It's actually the opposite. "Micropolitan" means that you're in a region where the local "city" is 10k-50k, and it is so isolated the government hasn't put it into the Statistical Area that includes a bigger. Semi-rural probably means that he isn't within the City limits.
So he's in the ass end of now-where.
Re: Owned by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:36 · Score: 0

Your 22 houses represent a very, very small market to the carriers, and your neighborhood decided to be cute and require all utilities be underground... Guess what, your 22 possible customers are too few to interest any carrier in even submitting paperwork to bury cables.
Can you even guarantee that all 22 houses will buy into whatever carrier you can convince to serve your neighborhood?
You should have buried the cables when you built the neighborhood, then you'd have a fighting chance to convince a carrier to serve your neighborhood.
That doesn't guarantee anything.
I live in a two-highrise complex, literally 2 blocks from one of the largest peering sites in the US. I can see it out my window. Every single backbone provider has fiber running under the street right in front of my condo. We've got a little over 500 condo units, every single one has cat5e wired to a junction box in the front closet of the unit (they also took care of running cable from the junction box to the various rooms in each unit). And it all goes down to a data room in the basement of each building. So they built this place correctly 5 years ago... What does the shit-for-brains developer do with all that money he spent? Signs an exclusive 10-year contract with Comcast for internet service, using the coax wiring. And we only find out about it after he's out of the picture and we're looking for someone to run 10 yards of fiber out to the middle of the street.

I don't. by kheldan · 2014-01-20 10:51 · Score: 1, Offtopic

If things keep going in the direction they've been going lately, pretty soon there won't be a reason to have internet access anymore.

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Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!

Re:I don't. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 15:58 · Score: 0

An ultra paranoid flamebait comment on Slashdot? Say it ain't so! You should probably go back into your bunker and lock the door- forever.
Re:I don't. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 05:46 · Score: 0

Yeah, sure thing, that's real believable coming from some asshole who won't even put a name behind his bullshit words.

With Net Neutrality being torn down, at least one ISP trying to charge people for basic connectivity like it's a cellphone dataplan (i.e. sold by the gigabyte), and countries all over the world trying to impose control over the internet as a whole? In ten years' time there might not be and internet for anyone to use, or it may be so expensive that it more or less ceases to exist. So how about you shove it up your ass and go back to 4chan, you piece of shit?

Simple. Allow no competition. by game+kid · 2014-01-20 10:52 · Score: 1

It's simple: assure an ISP that any "competing" ISP that follows them will not offer prices, services, or data restrictions substantially better than theirs; et voila, cable and/or fiber.

Cartels and de facto monopolies are what seems to get them building these days.

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You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.

So... by msauve · 2014-01-20 10:53 · Score: 2

You've got a 22 home sub, and everyone wants better Internet run. Change the covenants, if that's what it takes, sounds like you have the support. It sounds like there's already coax - it's not clear why a cable ISP couldn't run high speed service over that, or why you think they would need new cable.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law

Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:58 · Score: 0

Coax? DSL runs over POTS twisted pairs, my friend.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:04 · Score: 0

Indeed. If everyone in the subdivision agrees to do it then rewriting the covenants should be relatively easy.
Re:So... by jklovanc · 2014-01-20 11:21 · Score: 1

Changing covenants is not easy by design. Covenants are usually imposed by someone else, usually the local government, to allow the project to go forward. If they were easily changeable by the HOA it would be a bylaw not a covenant.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:37 · Score: 0

A way to fight it on the ground is ask whomever regulates the utilities in the area who the declared monopolies are in your area for the different utilities and what level of compliance they are for the universal access rules. However, you may be out of luck. The cable ISP in a rural area of our state paid the (grow by the month) penalty, rather than comply with the baseline level of service.
Other than that, I'd recommend making a wireless ISP coop. The running costs can be low, depending on your relationships. That way, the only connection needed is at the edge of the network. Just get some routers and make them form a mesh network, or the like. There cannot be a monopoly on wireless in certain bands. With 22 people, reasonable use levels, no profit motive and generous use of squid, you could provide pretty good internet access for surprisingly cheap and very competitive with U-verse.
Re:So... by cheese_boy · 2014-01-20 11:40 · Score: 2

Covenants are usually imposed by someone else, usually the local government, to allow the project to go forward. If they were easily changeable by the HOA it would be a bylaw not a covenant.
Covenants are usually created by the HOA - usually by the developer who is creating the homes and has 100% control of the HOA at it's beginning. If the local government wants to impose a restriction, they create ordinances.
To change covenants usually isn't "easy" - but it's doable. The problem is getting everyone to agree to the change. (or at least a lot of the people).
For example here's an article on doing it in CO: http://www.cohoalaw.com/your-governing-documents-should-your-covenants-be-amended.html
The difference between by-laws and covenants is that the bylaws are for the group of people - they specify how often meetings should be, how many people on the HOA board, etc. And those bylaws are often more easily modified.
Covenants are attached to the property and are just about what can be done with the properties (ex. no raising farm animals on the property, all utilities must be buried, etc)
As for the OP - I'd try a letter to the cable company from all the homeowners who are interested - give the cable company the names and addresses of the 15 properties who are planning to sign up, and most likely that'll get them to consider it.
If not - paying for it yourself seems like a good option...
Re:So... by Aighearach · 2014-01-20 11:41 · Score: 4, Informative

In the US covenants are almost always contractual conditions imposed by a private party that are signed as a (perpetual) condition of purchase or transfer. Generally this is where the developer builds a "subdivision" all at once, and forms a "neighborhood association" composed of some of the original owners. They come up with a list of things that can't (or have to be) done with the property; common ones in my area are restrictions on removing trees (without some sort of vote by the association), banning of manufactured homes, parking restrictions on private roads, stricter "quiet hours" than the municipal code provides, and in some cases even a ban on building a house from the same design as any existing house in the neighborhood.
Sometimes even the allowed colors of homes are controlled. It is almost unrestricted. Here in the US, there is actually very limited things that the local government can do with regards to property restrictions. Arbitrary restrictions are generally thrown out by the courts, as are things that restrict your freedom of speech. However, a neighborhood association is not a government, and since the restrictions are contractual in nature, you can include a wide variety of severe, arbitrary, and speech-related restrictions.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:25 · Score: 0

Indeed. If everyone in the subdivision agrees to do it then rewriting the covenants should be relatively easy.
If only, but it's going to take EVERY LOT OWNER to allow this to happen. ONE hold out and it's a no-go. Changing Deed Restrictions is incredibly hard to do in practice. I think they are short sighted too. In 30 years when those houses start looking really old, it will be impossible to do much to them but build them back to how they are now. The builder writes the restrictions and applies them to the land, then walks away when all the lots are sold. They don't care.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:29 · Score: 0

Right, they're all getting their cable tv over POTS lines.
Re:So... by bobbied · 2014-01-20 12:29 · Score: 2

The problem is getting everyone to agree to the change. (or at least a lot of the people)...
Your first statement is usually right. The *only* way where you can get away with changing the CC&R's without 100% of the lot owners agreeing to it is *if* the existing CC&R's have a way to edit them that doesn't require everybody to agree. I've read a lot of CC&R's in my area and I've NEVER found one that allowed modifications so I'm assuming that is extremely rare.

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"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:56 · Score: 1

HOA's are formed by builders and have a no-collapse clause for the term the builder is in there, transferrable to other builders. Once the subdivision is full, the owners can vote to dissolve the HOA.
The legal standing of the HOA is by state statute, and many states subject them to the same constitutional restrictions as the state government (the state can't grant it immunity to the federal government at all, laws OR constitution).
The HOA's do NOT like you to know this, though. Old residents get pissy when you try to wreck their tinpot dictatorship.
Re:So... by radarskiy · 2014-01-20 14:33 · Score: 1

"Sometimes even the allowed colors of homes are controlled. "
Sometimes even the allowed colors of home purchasers are controlled.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:52 · Score: 0

Restraints on alienation based on ethnicity are illegal.
Re:So... by jandrese · 2014-01-20 14:59 · Score: 1

From my time in a HOA, they're both insanely persnickety but ultimately powerless. They loved to send out threatening letters to people who installed vinyl windows instead of wood or repainted their fence in the wrong shade of tan, but when a house was foreclosed on and immediately started deteriorating at an alarming rate (shingles fell off of the roof, yard got rediculously overgrown, a window fell completely out--stupid wooden dormers) they were absoultely powerless to do anything about it. When I moved I made a point of finding a place without a HOA, since I'd rather not be forced to pay monthly dues to a useless and capricious organization.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:So... by davidwr · 2014-01-20 16:40 · Score: 1

Restraints on alienation based on ethnicity are illegal.
When the grandparent post said

Sometimes even the allowed colors of home purchasers are controlled.
I assume "Sometimes" meant "before such restrictions were invalidated."
I think he was talking to people with time machines that went forwards AND backwards.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Re:So... by Aighearach · 2014-01-20 23:25 · Score: 1

In Oregon, as in many places, if you don't follow the covenant rules they can not only fine you and sue you, they can get a restraining order to do whatever is necessary. In the case of things like noise rules, you can get banned from your own property in a manner more normally associated with rentals.
As far as overgrown lawns, if they care they can probably hire a crew to cut it for you, bill you, and even get a lien on your property over it.
In some cases they don't do anything, but it is generally because anything they would do would be unpopular with the homeowners. Sometimes they write stricter rules than they even intend to enforce.
Other times, they are really serious about having a community with strictly enforced rules.
Re:So... by Reziac · 2014-01-21 05:39 · Score: 1

The HOA agreements I've read all allow placing a lien on your property for a variety of faults.
I have yet to hear of a HOA that wasn't in some way either run by little tin gods, or corrupt. When my sister got on the board of her HOA, she discovered the previous board president had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars, but there was squat-all anyone could prove about it. Where I'm at now, the HOA fell apart, but on the way out the final president co-opted about $35k worth of assets (road grader and other maintenance equipment). I looked at property years ago that had covenants dictating down to fine details like the color of your mailbox (mind you it was right next to the oil lease; the beauty of the property would never be an asset). Etc, etc, etc.

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:So... by jandrese · 2014-01-22 05:02 · Score: 1

My HOA had that power as well, but actually doing that requires legal action, which means paying a lawyer, and the HOA administrator figured that if they did that they would never get that money back. Worse, putting a lien against a property means it's even harder to sell, so it stays vacant and continues to deteriorate.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:So... by jandrese · 2014-01-22 05:05 · Score: 1

We had a new administrator for our HOA a couple of years before I left. His only act of note was to raise the dues as fast as the covenant allowed so he could start amassing a gigantic war chest for some unspecified reason. He claimed that it was "best practices" to have a huge pot of money ready for an emergency, but I was always suspicious of it.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:So... by Reziac · 2014-01-22 05:24 · Score: 1

Yep... like my sister's old HOA, their war chest was supposed to provide for stuff like reroofing all the townhouses. When the time came that reroofing had to be done, the money wasn't there; instead everyone had to cough up $15k to the HOA to pay for the contractor who was retained by the board. Nope, you could not retain your own contractor; and speaking from when I had to reroof my own house a couple years later, $15k was about double the going rate. Where did the rest of the money go, hmmm??

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:So... by Aighearach · 2014-01-22 06:33 · Score: 1

The difference between being able to prove embezzlement and not being able to comes down, almost entirely, to hiring the forensic accountants to collect the evidence... or not.
Something like a HOA isn't likely to have untraceable income and assets. Everything they get is somebody else's home ownership expense, it is normally all done with legit financial instruments, and lots of record keeping.
I certainly wouldn't expect the office workers who discover the embezzlement to ever be able to recognize or collect evidence. More likely, other people were also involved, and just wanted to lay all the blame on the old person, at least in the eyes of the new person. If they just say, "well, there is no way we can prove it" enough times, nobody will even file a report.
Re:So... by Aighearach · 2014-01-22 06:41 · Score: 1

No, putting a lien on a bank-owned property causes the bank to auction it instead of trying to sell it. Getting a lien can be the quickest way to get a good new neighbor.
The combination of a lien and a HOA means all the institution all players will want to cut losses and end their interest. In the case of a member who is the full owner, they can often be forced to sell by being kicked out of the HOA; something you normally can't do to somebody, but it becomes much easier if you've got a lien, and they're still in rules violation after the lien is placed.
If it is still hard, it means the tin gods aren't listening to the lawyers, probably they keep trying to spew political propaganda at the courts instead of saying what their lawyers told them to say.
Re:So... by Reziac · 2014-01-22 07:33 · Score: 1

You'd think, but even banks can be a problem that way (what would have been my inheritance was embezzled by someone at an unbonded bank -- we even knew who it was, but couldn't prove it). It's been some years and it wasn't my HOA, so I don't really have details. My sister is an architect, not a forensic accountant, and I don't suppose anyone else on the HOA board really knew how to investigate accounts either. :(

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:So... by jandrese · 2014-01-22 16:26 · Score: 1

My situation was probably a little complicated by the fact that it was right after the housing bubble popped and so many flippers just walked away. Those owners were fucked up assholes anyway, installing tile floors and granite countertops, but apparently not fixing a leak in the basement that caused mold to take over (this was a townhouse and I was attached to it), plus they had a couple of yappy dogs they left outside to bark all night long. They also never cut their grass, even when they lived there. Naturally the window falling off happened roughly a week after I put my unit on the market. This is why I was so incredibly frustrated with the toothlessness of the HOA. I'm guessing those assholes cost me several thousand bucks in resale value, and the HOA president couldn't give a shit.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:So... by guevera · 2014-01-23 00:20 · Score: 1

Two questions:
What's an unbonded bank?
if you know who stole your inheritance, why didn't you handle it? All I can figure is 1) it was a really small inheritance and you're not willing to stand on the principle of the thing 2) You're a punk or 3) You're an idiot who actually did kill the guy/gal in question but will then admit motive on /.
Re:So... by Reziac · 2014-01-23 02:02 · Score: 1

It was about half a million dollars, in an unbonded bank (I don't think this is allowed anymore, but at the time there wasn't the sort of deposit insurance we have today) in a state 1200 miles away, and the loss wasn't discovered until some time after my grandmother died (this was back in 1969; I was 14 and my mom was a working single parent with two kids, and not exactly free to run off and chase it down herself) and the actual embezzlement probably took place 3 years earlier, after my granddad died (he was the one who dealt with all the money). The culprit even said to the investigator, "Yeah, how you gonna prove it?" or words to that effect... real balls, he knew he was untouchable.
But hey, which of the 3 choices are you? Oh, I know, #4) makes unwarranted assumptions based on one data point.

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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?

Ok, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:53 · Score: 0

so why not bury your own cable and leave enough to reach the top of the pole?

Re:Ok, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:30 · Score: 0

so why not bury your own cable and leave enough to reach the top of the pole?
Because it's a covenant development, so he has to get it cleared with the homeowners' association. And they probably made a deal with the DSL company granting exclusive access to the subdivision in return for waiving the build-out fees.
In short, unless he can get the rest of the HOA members to agree, he's fucked.

you have the answer already by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:53 · Score: 1

bury the wire yourself.
either then ask them to discount you on hookups, or charge them to use it for delivery :)
bury some other stuff while you're in there!
if that sounds too expensive to split 22 ways, then you understand why the cable operator is hesitant to go out on a limb too. of course, being able to snatch dsl and satellite customers away from the telcos should sound appealing to them.

I'm in the same boat on my street.

Pay them. by RealGene · 2014-01-20 10:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Really, it's the only way. Pay them to do the work. It will cost you at least $3-5K per household.
The only alternative is to go to your locality's cable commission, and find out if/when the cable provider's license is up for renewal. Make 100% coverage a non-negotiable requirement for renewal.

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Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.

Re:Pay them. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:40 · Score: 1

The only alternative is to go to your locality's cable commission, and find out if/when the cable provider's license is up for renewal. Make 100% coverage a non-negotiable requirement for renewal.
It's a covenant development, the PSC doesn't have any authority over their property. The PSC can only tell them to cover the development by running lines to the edge of the development, from the edge to the actual houses is all up to the HOA.
Moral of the story- don't buy a house in a covenant-ruled development without doing your homework well in advance.

DIY by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:53 · Score: 0

or pay them Dollar Dollar bills, YO!

Offer to throw in some money by selectspec · 2014-01-20 10:54 · Score: 1

Get your Home Owners Association (or POA) to put up some of the cost.

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Someone you trust is one of us.

Common situation in Seattle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:54 · Score: 1

In my neighborhood in Seattle and in ones where several friends live, we're in the same situation. Comcast doesn't provide service and CenturyLink won't upgrade to fiber. We're stuck with 1 Mbps or slower service due to the age of the buried phone cable at nearly $70/month. The HOA in my neighborhood will not consider helping to fund replacing the buried cable since this isn't a very technical area and not having good Internet access seems to bother only me. I wish I had a solution.

Re: Common situation in Seattle by kenh · 2014-01-20 11:03 · Score: 1

Move.

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Ken
Re: Common situation in Seattle by Luckyo · 2014-01-20 11:16 · Score: 3, Informative

This is actually a real solution. Internet access is important nowadays. People move for a lot less, like to appear to have better life to their family or get their children into what looks to be a better school.
One would think that for someone who views reliable and fast internet access as an important factor in quality of life, moving to get better internet would be up with those reasons to move in terms of importance.
(I live what I preach. I moved into the house that gets 21mbps connection on ADSL2+ which theoretically maxes out on 24mpbs back when adsl2+ was newest of the new in internet over POTS lines).
Re: Common situation in Seattle by Aighearach · 2014-01-20 11:42 · Score: 1

More broadly, move to a place where you own the land you "own."
Re: Common situation in Seattle by dk20 · 2014-01-20 14:07 · Score: 1

You never really "own" the land you live on, you just rent it from the government.
For evidence, try missing a property tax payment or two. Before you know it you will get a notice that a first lien on your home has been filed. Keep not paying and you will find your house is being sold under some form of "Writ of Seizure and Sale" (or whatever it is called in your area) to pay off the lien.
Re: Common situation in Seattle by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:14 · Score: 1

And tell people precisely *why* you're moving. If you're selling your house then this will increase supply of house in your area, hurting property values. If you're stopping a rental this won't affect property values as directly, but it will affect demand for rentals.
Since most Americans retirement is their equity in their house by moving you will convince people that a) you were serious about the internet, and not just whining, and b) that if they don't fix the internet their home's value will collapse, and they will be unable to buy a spot in a decent retirement community.

Re:Simple. Allow no competition. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:55 · Score: 0

Well, it's understandable they might not want to invest a boatload of money just to have everyone switch to someone else. They might as well just plow the money into the ground along with the fiber.

go public with your own plan by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:57 · Score: 0

Have your neighborhood organization start talk about become an ISP to the neighborhood and installing its own lines underground. Go public with that. Wait for the ISP's to line up to provide you with overpriced service.

Re: go public with your own plan by kenh · 2014-01-20 11:07 · Score: 1

You may run afoul of the exclusive deal the cable company has for your town...
Would the rest of your town be willing to abandon their current cable company so that your 22 house neighborhood can enjoy better internet connections and no unsightly poles? I suspect not, and I suspect the cable company knows this, so you have no leverage over the cable company to get what you want...

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Ken
Re: go public with your own plan by Shadowmist · 2014-01-20 12:03 · Score: 1

You may run afoul of the exclusive deal the cable company has for your town...
Would the rest of your town be willing to abandon their current cable company so that your 22 house neighborhood can enjoy better internet connections and no unsightly poles? I suspect not, and I suspect the cable company knows this, so you have no leverage over the cable company to get what you want...
Exclusive deals don't come into play in areas the company does not cover.

As an alternative... by JonahsDad · 2014-01-20 10:57 · Score: 2

You could get your subdivision covenants changed to not require all utilities to be underground. Worth weighing the costs of each approach (both monetary and non-monetary).

Re: As an alternative... by kenh · 2014-01-20 11:10 · Score: 1

I don't think they'd be willing to drop poles in your little neighborhood just to pick up a dozen or two new customers...
Have any companies expressed a willingness to serve your neighborhood with above ground services?

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Ken
Re:As an alternative... by jklovanc · 2014-01-20 11:11 · Score: 1

Covenants can be very difficult to change. In developments, the local government is usually a party to the covenant and must agree, and sometimes pass bylaws, to changing it. The covenant was probably places on the development to keep its rural flavor. Since there is an alternative, burying the cable, I doubt the covenant would be dropped. If it was changeable by the residents it would be a bylaw and not a covenant. There are ways to remove covenants but they are not easy.
Re:As an alternative... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:13 · Score: 0

"rural flavor" would definitely not imply buried cable.
Re:As an alternative... by jklovanc · 2014-01-20 11:17 · Score: 1

That was just a guess anyway. The point is that covenants are difficult to get rid of.
Re:As an alternative... by jandrese · 2014-01-20 15:02 · Score: 1

There is no way in hell the majority of the other residents are going to agree to allow poles to be planted all over the neighborhood. Underground utilites are a feature--poles are considered ugly. Running poles for only one service would look pretty weird too. Added bonus: Your internet won't go out during bad storms.

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I read the internet for the articles.

Rebranded as UVerse? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 10:59 · Score: 0

How did you get AT&T to rebrand as UVerse? They are starting to put the smack down on a 150 gb data cap, which if they lifted to 250 gb (UVerse levels) would suit my usage just fine. However UVerse "isn't available" in my neighborhood so now I'm contemplating switching.

Simple by dysmal · 2014-01-20 11:00 · Score: 1

Pay for them to do it.

Why not researching a wireless solution? by fred911 · 2014-01-20 11:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Are there no wimax solutions available? Wouldn't a hspa+ / LTe / 4g solution be much more cost efficient?

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

Re:Why not researching a wireless solution? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:00 · Score: 5, Informative

No, just no. I had Clearwire for a while in downtown Seattle. While the speed was great since it was nearly 50 times faster than CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) DSL, it was actually slower in practice because of the horrific latency and packet loss. I know it's hard to believe, but the typical Seattle less than 1 Mbps DSL line was more pleasant to use than the Clearwire connection that was fifty times faster on paper. Wired is just that much better than wireless.
Re:Why not researching a wireless solution? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:21 · Score: 0

Slow latency? Did you try changing your connection's DNS server? Did wonders for me on my T-mobile connection.
Re:Why not researching a wireless solution? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 21:29 · Score: 0

If you need to use wireless form and to a fixed location get a directional antenna.

It's expensive by NoKaOi · 2014-01-20 11:01 · Score: 3, Informative

It's really expensive to bury lines, something like 10x the cost of above ground lines in some cases. The only way you're gonna get them to do it is if your neighborhood ponies up the money. The other alternative is to change the C&Rs to allow above ground, and even then they'll only do it if they're gonna make more money than what it costs.

stopping just short of burying our own cable and hoping they'll at least be willing to run a line to the pole at the end of the street and drop it into our box.

Well, if you want it badly enough, then that may be pretty much what you have to do (or at least bear the cost of it). You're dealing with a for-profit company, not a charity, so from a business perspective why would they spend the money when they have no hope of making enough to cover it in the foreseeable future?

Re:It's expensive by IanGrant604 · 2014-01-20 15:45 · Score: 1

It's expensive to lay the cables, but they're cheap once they're in. Poles, on the other hand, are cheap to install and expensive to maintain. Reliability-wise, underground is excellent and poles, especially in rural areas, can't be noted for their reliability.

Compete by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:02 · Score: 0

Start your own WISP.

Buy a bulk connection (from them) in their service area and resell it to outside the service are.

Watch how fast they start digging....

You get what you pay for by jgotts · 2014-01-20 11:04 · Score: 1

Move somewhere without these types of covenants and this type of association. Sounds a little bit like you're getting what you deserve or you didn't do the research before moving in.

Ham radio operators have been dealing with this since I was licensed in 1991 and probably much earlier. Move somewhere, they forbid you from erecting an antenna, and you can't set up your station, public service or otherwise.

Re:You get what you pay for by rjune · 2014-01-20 11:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Perhaps you could clarify about being restricted from putting up an antenna:
http://www.arrl.org/restrictive-antenna-ordinances
Are you being prevented from putting up an antenna by ordinance or by covenants?
Re:You get what you pay for by number17 · 2014-01-20 14:11 · Score: 1

Pretty sure he said:

Move somewhere without these types of covenants

Oh no by atari2600a · 2014-01-20 11:06 · Score: 2

I 'accidentally' 'broke' the existing POTS lines!

Too quick to dismiss DSL? by jsm300 · 2014-01-20 11:06 · Score: 2

Perhaps you have been too quick to dismiss DSL. I assume that currently your DSLAM is not very close to the neighborhood and therefore AT&T can only offer the slower DSL speeds. Perhaps you can convince AT&T to install a fiber fed DSLAM near the border of your neighborhood. If there is fiber in the area this can be done without digging up your neighborhood. With current DSL technology (VDSL2) they could offer much higher speeds (up to 100 Mbit down, but more likely 20-40 Mbit). This can be done over your existing neighborhood phone wires as long as the distance to the DSLAM is fairly short. However, your neighborhood still might not be big enough to make a good case. At the very least you would have to get a significant number of your neighbors to commit to buy a high rate DSL service. Are there other nearby neighborhoods that could benefit? That might increase the chances of it happening. I'm not saying that there is a high probability that you can convince AT&T to do this, but you should at least consider all your options.

Re:Too quick to dismiss DSL? by linear+a · 2014-01-20 11:19 · Score: 3, Informative

DSL capability depends on distance to the nearest (hub/station/whatever). We tried that but were barely in DSL range (15,000 feet or so as the cable goes). It ran at 768 kbps max and was pretty bad. If you're closer the speeds etc gets better, if you're close enough to the closest station you can (I heard) get 25 mbps.
Re:Too quick to dismiss DSL? by jsm300 · 2014-01-20 11:51 · Score: 3, Informative

RIght. That nearest hub/station/whatever is called a DSLAM. A DSLAM can be installed near or in your neighborhood and fed by fiber. I have a fiber fed DSLAM in my neighborhood and I subscribe to a 40 Mbit VDSL2 service. I'm less than 1000 feet from the DSLAM, as are most of the people in our neighborhood. The generic "DSL" covers a wide range of service. The fact is that many people can only get 1.5 Mbit (or even only 256 Kbit) service, so they assume that (or 5-7 Mbit, which is the next tier typically available) is the best that DSL can offer.
Re:Too quick to dismiss DSL? by rmdingler · 2014-01-20 12:58 · Score: 1

The range for decent delivery with this ATT Uverse in our locale, say 12Mbit down, is 5000 cable feet from the fiber.
Unfortunate for us sixty-two-hundreders.

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Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Re:Too quick to dismiss DSL? by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:20 · Score: 2

My home is 18,000 feet from the DSLAM. Using ReADSL I can get 1.5/384 at best, but it usually negotiates around 1.3mbit down and ~300kbit up.
I've been through these hoops with AT&T and they are simply not interested unless the feds are paying for it. They refuse to tell me where they do offer ADSLv2 and ADSL+ Uverse service, so I don't know how close I am to a VRAD where Uverse and bonded DSL are offered.
Almost everyone in the neighborhood has AT&T already. Four of the 22 owners went satellite for everything and are just sucking up and paying for it, but they hate that _almost_ as much as being AT&T customers. You're right that we're small potatoes. We're 22 homes in a part of the county where there isn't a whole lot of income outside of our development to go around paying for premium information services.
Re:Too quick to dismiss DSL? by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:28 · Score: 1

What state are you in?
The consensus of advice is that you need to a) change the Covenant, b) put up five figures of your neighborhood's money, or c) find a new neighborhood. Depending on your state's laws and precisely how many of your neighbors are willing to show up at the same HOA meeting a) could be doable.

Problem already been solved before by ceide2000 · 2014-01-20 11:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

There are two options HOAs can access high speed Internet or other telecom services.

Option 1: Poll your neighbors and determine who will sign up for what services if they where available. Write down their contact info, what services they want and take it to a local telco office. Tell them you want to speak with a business sales rep. Tell them your need and provide a copy of the document. They should be able to justify the build-out based on the number of signed service agreements. The standard ROI is two years. So your neighbors will have to be okay with the services they receive for at least two years. This has been numerous times with multiple carriers. So if you get push back from the sales rep speak to their manager. Trust me, they want to make the sale!

Option 2: Install it yourself then contact the provider for bulk services. In bulk arraignments the savings is sufficient to payoff the build-out within 18-24 months if you farmed out the build and maintenance. ROI is much less if you do it yourself. I have some MDU properties with 100/50Mbps service out to each apartment.

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~^\-/^|-|^\-/^~ May the force be with me!

Re:Problem already been solved before by Tridus · 2014-01-20 11:19 · Score: 1

Great answer. If you can show up with fifteen homes willing to sign up, they are a lot more inclined to take you seriously.

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-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Re:Problem already been solved before by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:00 · Score: 0

Option 3: make your own ISP. It is less ridicules than most people think. I read about an island having the problem that they couldn't even get DSL (in 2013!). They founded their own ISP and went to the company, who has a fiber connection crossing the island. In fact they have some sort of repeater station on the center of the island and the islanders bought a really fast connection at that location. They then erected a huge mast, which provided wiki access to all their customers within a few km. They put up another mast 5 km away (around 3 miles), which is wireless connected to the first mast. This new mast then provides internet for the people in that area. When I read about it, they had 7 masts and 35% of the island was covered. Sure some had to go through 3-4 masts before reaching the fiber, but it still totally beats anything else offered at that location. The interesting part is that because they are that many to share the costs, they get 3-5 times the speed of what they would get in a big city for the same monthly payment.
If this concept should be used by EmagGeek, then it sounds like it would be enough to erect a single hotspot in the "deadzone" he lives in. That reduces the cable problem to a single location and that spot might be wirelessly connected with a major internet hub in the area, completely removing the need for digging. There is a risk that the signal could be "shielded" by tall buildings though, meaning it should be carefully investigated before investing money.
Not all transmitters have to have their own mast. Areas with buildings tend to provide a number of them, such a factory chimneys. My local radio station uses the water tower, which works way better than one would expect. In fact a roof you can go to using stairs is much better than a chimney as service is a lot easier and cheaper.
Alternatively accept living with DSL. There is big money invested in using the existing cables meaning DSL users can really soon (if not already) get very decent speed. I know I can get 50 Mb though DSL, though that is serious overkill for my usage. I'm in the same situation as EmagGeek as the fiber zone ends at my backyard (no kidding, the next road has fiber), but with the DSL in this area I don't think that is a real problem.
Re:Problem already been solved before by rmdingler · 2014-01-20 13:01 · Score: 1

Great answer. If you can show up with fifteen homes willing to sign up, they are a lot more inclined to take you seriously.
Or 15 signatures and a call from your Uncle Senator.

--
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Re:Problem already been solved before by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 01:43 · Score: 0

I think the costs to connect a home underground, in a professional manner are a bit different than your costs to connect an appartment from within the building. I'd guess about 100 bucks for an appartment and >3K for the house. Given the costs are 30 times what the appatment are, you have to choose between paying 30 times as much or waiting 30 times longer for payback.

Go wireless by pcjunky · 2014-01-20 11:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

Use WISP technology. And before you say our covenant won't allow antennas....

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule

Re:Go wireless by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:40 · Score: 0

http://www.ubnt.com/nanostation
Re:Go wireless by roc97007 · 2014-01-20 11:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yep. Members of my HOA were harassed by the board of directors back when minidishes started popping up. We invoked the 1996 telecommunication act and dared them to take us to court. They dropped the issue.
WISP will get you the mesh, but you still need a big pipe to the internet. If the neighborhood is close enough to an area that does have broadband, maybe you can work something out with them. Set up a LLC and become your own ISP.

--
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Re:Go wireless by borcharc · 2014-01-20 12:26 · Score: 1

Find someone who can get 50mb+ cable/dsl that is near your subdivision and put up a mesh network connecting the homes with that site. Get a VPS that is geographically near you or in the normal path for your internet traffic with sufficient ip addresses that you tunnel back to your subdivision. Instant ISP, the cable/dsl guys will just see tons of VPN traffic and never know....
Re:Go wireless by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:11 · Score: 0

You can also convince the HOA to extort everyone in the neighborhood to share the costs. Sometimes works.
Re:Go wireless by roc97007 · 2014-01-20 13:30 · Score: 1

You can also convince the HOA to extort everyone in the neighborhood to share the costs. Sometimes works.
That was tried when we went to banks of locked mailboxes. We got enough people to contribute to get it done, but to this day there are still four houses on my block with those old dome shaped boxes with the red flag.

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.

Three words: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:08 · Score: 0

Trained attack squirrels.

OTARD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:10 · Score: 0

Wireless provider may be enticed to point a sector your way.
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule

Comcast... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:11 · Score: 0

I called them every single day for 4 months. And they finally put a cable down our road with 20 homes on it.

YEAH! I just saw the ad for comcast cable on tv! I want comcast cable!
Waits... Answers questions. Waits.. What! I can't get comcast cable?!?!?! BUT I SAW IT ON TV! I WANT IT!

Repeat for 4 months. They got us cable so i would shut the fuck up and stop bothering them. I wasted far more employee time than that cable costed to install!

But of course now i have comcast cable... SO there is a downside.

Altho endless porn on the pc makes up for it.

Micropolitan? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:11 · Score: 0

What the heck is a micropolitan area?

Re:Micropolitan? by dk20 · 2014-01-20 11:29 · Score: 1

I'd mod you up if i could....
" semi-rural micropolitan area", what the hell?
Re:Micropolitan? by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:10 · Score: 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Re:Micropolitan? by camperdave · 2014-01-20 15:28 · Score: 1

" semi-rural micropolitan area", what the hell?
Alias for trailer park.

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!

Re:Simple. Allow no competition. by Luckyo · 2014-01-20 11:12 · Score: 1

For 22 houses? They'll laugh at your bluff.

I call bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:12 · Score: 0

There can not be differing requirements in franchise agreements.

Re:I call bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:52 · Score: 0

There can not be differing requirements in franchise agreements.
This is a covenant development (HOA controlled), the franchise agreements with the city only cover public right-of-way which ends at the edge of the development.
You'll see this with HOA developments, High-rise condos, and large apartment complexes quite a bit... the local ISP will run the lines across their property for free in exchange for exclusive access to the development.

Vegeta by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:13 · Score: 0

They should just set up wireless towers to cover rural areas one tower can cover OVER 9 MILES. That is what I used until I moved their speeds was not the best but hey 200kbs beats the hell out of 2.6-3.5kbs I have a 100mbps connection today making up for lost time. It took me 26 days to pirate Warcraft III and it took me 30 minuets to figure out it was a piece of shit.

Pay for it. by pubwvj · 2014-01-20 11:16 · Score: 2

Our Telcom told me they would put fiber up to me if I paid for it. A mile and a half. I put in 12 pair phone underground wire laid on top of the ground inside 1" black plastic water line 25 years ago and it has lasted well. This was back before DSL when we had 14Kbaud modems or so - ripping faster than the old 300baud modems which were definitely better than throwing rocks or smoke signals. :)

I'm trying to get them to just let me run the fiber through my existing 1" water line pipes which has plenty of bandwidth. :)

Re:Pay for it. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:31 · Score: 0

We don't know where you live - North Dakota or Florida.
Burying fiber 2 feet down is expensive.
Trenching 6 inches is cheap -relatively speaking.
grass will grow over/around it.
so just get a guy who lays sprinkler pipe and pull the fiber yourself. Get a splicer ( $200 - $500 end ) and you are in business.

Research by DiSKiLLeR · 2014-01-20 11:16 · Score: 1

In this day and age there is no excuse to not have done your research before hand.

Any time you plan to move somewhere (whether renting or buying but especially if you're buying a home) find out what is available for internet at that address.

In NZ we're rolling out fibre to the premises over most of the country but there are lots of places that get screwed and will probably never get it, so RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH.

Property that can't get decent internet should be worth less because it will forever be less appealing.

--
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.

My recent experiences in this by linear+a · 2014-01-20 11:17 · Score: 2

1 Consider getting enough neighbors to split the cost (depends on what the cost is of course). 2 Wait until somebody else pays to get it closer to your area. 3 Get them to give a credit (50% in my case) for future service of the money paid to bring the cable in. Have them agree that's transferable to subsequent owners if the cost is high enough to bother with. 4 Look at alternatives - satelite internet (slow and VERY laggy but otherwise usable, can't do online gaming though). - cell phone data plan (low data caps, good for gaming, drops off sometimes).

Re:My recent experiences in this by pepty · 2014-01-20 12:18 · Score: 1

1 Consider getting enough neighbors to split the cost (depends on what the cost is of course). I think that could be really tricky if the group doesn't include all of the homes under the HOA.

It's all about the money by Ancient_Hacker · 2014-01-20 11:17 · Score: 1

Economics. Burying is going to cost a lot. The ISPs would have to borrow money now to pay the diggers, and hope that they can recoup the cost in the long run. The up-front cost is like $2000 per city lot. The ISPs are unlikely to foot the bill, even though interest rates are at record lows.

You'll have to move. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:17 · Score: 0

Most likely the real explanation why the cable company is not providing service in your area is because the HOA wants door fees from the cable company to be able offer service in your subdivision. There is a possibility that there is a signed contract with AT&T and the HOA which gives AT&T exclusive access to the subdivision for the next decade. Some HOA's have exclusive contracts with a Satellite company as well in which they earn kickbacks off of everyone's satellite TV bill in exchange for blocking the cable company from being able to provide service.

HOAs and property management companies are the scum of the earth, as they can lock their residents into an exclusive contract with a ISP/telco/tv company of their choosing and earn a cut of the profits while the homeowners receive inferior service.

Re:You'll have to move. by couchslug · 2014-01-20 11:24 · Score: 1

"HOAs and property management companies are the scum of the earth"
The people who CHOOSE to empower them get what they CONTRACTED for. They traded freedom for perceived neighborhood "security".

--
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Re:You'll have to move. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:08 · Score: 0

Yeah, I bet you say the same thing for binding arbitration being forced on consumers for virtually every service rendered these days. Most developments built within the past 40 years have HOAs. Especially in the south. People are not choosing to buy homes with HOA's. They are forced to buy homes with HOAs because that is what the majority of new housing developments built since the 1960's is encumbered with.

Call your friendly Electric Coop by Your+Average+Joe · 2014-01-20 11:18 · Score: 2

As long as the local electricity is provided by a Coop you should be able to get it. You might have to get all your neighbors to sign up as well but you get a Gig fiber connection to your house( called an ONT ) and you pay for whatever bandwidth they decide to sell. Usually 10, 25, 50 and 100 megabit business service. It works really good.

You say your electricity comes from a local monopoly like Consumers Energy, well I guess you will have to wait 2 decades and they might have it, they are just a little behind and have NO incentive to provide extra services to have happy customers.

--
Your Average Joe

Re:Call your friendly Electric Coop by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:12 · Score: 1

We do have an electric co-op that serves our neighborhood, so that's something I hadn't thought of. I don't believe they offer BPL services - at least nothing is listed on their website - but it can't hurt to make a phone call.

depends... by Spyder1384 · 2014-01-20 11:22 · Score: 0

How close are you to an existing cable or fios installation? Within a mile, it might happen, over 5 miles, time to move. I live in a rural area and I can't even get Dsl because there is 0 demand for internet access in my neighborhood (im the only person under 50). I'm. Thankful for a cell signal most days.

Easy Way by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:22 · Score: 0

We had the same exact situation several years ago. In addition, we were well outside anyone's service area. And yet Comcast ran several miles of hardline on poles to reach our area and then dropped it underground to reach our isolated country road. We all got service with no connection charge. Our current download speed is 30Meg. It turned out we had a Comcast Vice-President of Engineering living on our street.

Offer to help pay for it... by aklinux · 2014-01-20 11:22 · Score: 2

Put together a Home Owners Association and collect dues. Use the money collected to pay for moving the utilities underground. Or, you may be able to get your city to bond the project. This would mean higher property taxes, at least in your area.

With a 22 home subdivision, there is no way it is going to pay for the utility Companies to do this on their own.

Re:Offer to help pay for it... by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 12:54 · Score: 2

Long story short (because I've posted it elsewhere in this thread) - there's a state law in SC that may make that criminal. It's illegal to connect a consumer to a network that was subsidized unless all competing network providers were offered the same subsidy. Since we can't afford to offer all competing ISPs (including AT&T) the subsidy, we may not be able to do it.

LMGTFY by jklovanc · 2014-01-20 11:24 · Score: 1

LMGTFY

Re:LMGTFY by dk20 · 2014-01-20 14:13 · Score: 1

So the whole "town, city, village, hamlet" concept but rebranded with the word "micro" to sound cool?
Re:LMGTFY by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:42 · Score: 1

It's actually an Academic term because "town, city, village, and hamlet" are very hard to define.There are legal definitions, which frequently contradict each-other, economic definitions, etc.
"Micropolitan" refers to a rural region where the main town is big enough that it's hard to call it a "small town," but has trouble claiming the mantle of "City." Population is in the 10k-50k range. In California a Micropolitan region would typically be a single rural County, whereas in Michigan it would have it's full complement of 36 townships plus, plus the main city, plus a couple small towns.

Same situation here! by Jack+Kolesar · 2014-01-20 11:24 · Score: 1

I'm in almost the exact same situation as you. What is worse is that I only live in a 10 home sub-division. We have all tried to commission Time Warner who is right on the main road but they keep saying no. I believe they will do it if we pay them and even informally quoted us at some point (several thousand or tens of thousands of dollars if I recall). It's very frustrating to be able to practically see the line from my house and not be able to tap into it. We just moved here so to say that going from 50Mbps on TW or WOW (both in my previous area) to 5Mbps on a good day through Centurylink is frustrating is an understatement. Luckily I packaged with DirecTV for one year to get the fantastic deal of $30/month for the internet portion. Next year it goes to $60/month. $60/month for 5Mbps down and 0.5Mbps up! Now THAT is a monopoly!

Your labor is cheap. by Maxo-Texas · 2014-01-20 11:24 · Score: 1

Look- you and your neighbors could dig that trench in about 1 day (each person digging their own 2' deep, 1' wide trench.

You could then buy the line for under $500 bucks.

So then it's just a question of getting comcast to hook to it.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:Your labor is cheap. by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:00 · Score: 1

We'd probably have to go a little deeper than that, but it's not that simple. There are issues of ownership, maintenance, junction boxes, insurance, easements (if we "gift" the rollout to the ISP and they become responsible for maintenance), and so on. Say everyone owns the portion of the cable that goes through their property. Say Neighbor X has a problem in their section, but refuses to fix it, thereby causing an outage for everyone downstream? They, of course, get mad at the ISP for the outage, which is powerless to fix it. It becomes clear that the ISP must be given ownership of the cable, and with it the necessary easements for access.
We're talking about 7500 feet of cable required to make it around the subdivision if we lay it out to avoid having to trench through concrete driveways and the side street. Good, long-lasting direct-bury RG6Q is probably $1/ft or even more, so figure $10K just in the cable, the cost of junction boxes, and so on. I can see where it starts to look very expensive, which is the crux of the problem.
If it were up to me I'd just go rent a ditch witch and lay it myself, but the legal fees involved with adding the easements are considerable, along with the legalities of giving the ISP a bunch of infrastructure they didn't build but that nevertheless they become responsible for maintaining.
Re:Your labor is cheap. by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 16:39 · Score: 1

Why am I not surprised this comment comes from a guy with Texas in his name...
The OP's in a subdivision, not a 500-acre ranch. He is almost certainly boxed in by his neighbors. None of his neighbors have access to the equipment one needs to dig a ditch through a stream, and (this being South Carolina) there is almost certainly at least one of two between them and modern internet infrastructure.
Moreover if he had 100% support from his neighbors he would simply have gotten an agreement signed by all of them and somebody would be running cables above-ground. So there's one guy who doesn't want his lawn dug up, and in any state but Texas that guy has the right to do things like call the Sheriff and get all his neighbors arrested for trespassing when they disobey his wishes.
Re:Your labor is cheap. by Maxo-Texas · 2014-01-22 11:34 · Score: 1

Wow, did some Texan steal your SO or kick your dog?
Your point about the neighbor is valid- I assumed that everyone in the 22 house neighborhood wanted better cable.
You can "shoot" a trench 2' deep across the entire yard in under 8 hours. And that's clear from my comment. It would require heavy machinery to lay cable across a 500 acre ranch.
My comment comes from personal experience. One of my girlfriends sewer line went out. The repair was estimated at $1600 dollars. So I got my shovel and in about 6 hours had the broken spot located-- and it was a little over 5' down. The cost to repair the break was $19 dollars. It took under an hour to refill the hole afterwards. People underestimate their capabilities and can convince themselves they are helpless or unqualified to take personal action. But in most cases, a little reading and a short youtube video will provide you with what you need to know.
I had no idea that South Carolina had so many streams and the PP didn't mention one. A stream would be a unique challenge.
Apologies for however some Texan wronged you.
Later... pardner. :-)

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

You don't by Charliemopps · 2014-01-20 11:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

I work for a phone company. The only way to do it is pay for it yourself. Which is actually an option. We get businesses that will move into an area and want larger data-pipes and they just end up paying to have the cable laid. I think though, that after you get the estimates on the costs, you'll quickly realize why they have no desire to upgrade your trunking. It's upwards of a million dollars a mile... then take the number of people in your neighborhood, multiply that times what you pay per month, then divide the cost of laying the cable by that, and I bet you're looking at 40yrs before it pays itself off. By then there will be a new technology that you'll be bitching at them for not installing.

Re:You don't by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 12:52 · Score: 1

Paying for it ourselves may actually not be an option here. There is a State law in South Carolina that prohibits connecting any consumer to any subsidized infrastructure unless all competing carriers are offered the same subsidy. It might be construed by that law that our offer to pay for at least part of the installation costs constitutes a "subsidy" that we would have to offer to all other ISPs, which obviously could never afford.
This Law came about because my county got a Federal contract to string Fiber to every residence in the county and offer 100Mbit duplex to every home. AT&T lobbied the state legislature to criminalize hooking consumers to subsidized infrastructure. So, now only county government entities are allowed to connect to it, and the county taxpayer may be on the hook to reimburse the federal government for the money that was granted to build the network.
Re:You don't by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 16:15 · Score: 1

If you built it yourself and then said hey AT&T hook up for free you'd clearly be fine. Anybody else who expressed interest could simply be offered the same deal. But you'd have to maintain the cables yourself.
I suspect if you set yourselves up as a private, for-profit corporation you could give the cables to AT&T. If corporations can't give each things the entire private economy becomes illegal.
Depending on the precise legal status of your Home Owner's Association you might be able to run it through them. If they're government you might have problems, if they're officially a private entity that a bunch of private people have given certain rights then they'd be fine.
Hell even if they are government, what does "offered" mean? Does it mean you put a press release in the local small town paper saying "we're giving these cables away to the first taker who can give us decent internet," and you're cool? Or do you have to make a presentation in the board rooms of every ISP in the state?
The best people to ask this are actually your state government elected officials. They know the ins and outs of state law, in some cases their opinion may be legally binding (in Michigan an "Opinion of the Attorney General" is legally binding until some court over-rules him), and most importantly they're the ones who would have to decide to nail your ass to the wall. If they're sympathetic to your internet project then it doesn't really matter whether it's technically an illegal subsidy, because they have Prosecutor Discretion to not arrest you.
Re:You don't by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 01:53 · Score: 1

In 2000, as an ISP myself, on private proerty, I paid $6.25 a foot for a 200ft installation of Qty3, 1.75" conduits to support the fiber connection Qwest was bringing from the street into my offices. This included mounting a cabinet on the floor inside our build, after tunneling under the edge of the foundation and the installation of the "HandHole" (mini-man-hole). With 5,280 ft * $8 (inflation) = $42,240... I'm not sure where the other $950,000 goes in this estimation of a million a mile. Certainly this is bogus in rual areas.

burying cables by MrKaos · 2014-01-20 11:26 · Score: 1

Utilities companies are cheapskates. In Australia, and I'm sure it's probably similar in America, the power companies here are still reluctant to bury power cables that arc, ignite bush fires and then kill people.

I'm not saying what you are trying to achieve is impossible, but however you attempt to achieve it you are up for a lot of hard work.

--
My ism, it's full of beliefs.

Contact the state cable franchise authority by IP_Troll · 2014-01-20 11:26 · Score: 1

Franchises such as cable providers are required to pull lines to all people is a territory. In exchange for being the only cable company, the cable company is typically required to provide services to everyone regardless of the cost. Google to find out the complaint department for your state franchise authority and place a complaint. I did this is the past and was quickly provided with cable access, even though they had to pull additional lines to reach me.

Re:Contact the state cable franchise authority by mysidia · 2014-01-20 12:51 · Score: 2

Franchises such as cable providers are required to pull lines to all people is a territory. In exchange for being the only cable company, the cable company is typically required to provide services to everyone regardless of the cost.
The HOA's burial requirement nullifies this by eliminating the public right of way from inside their development. A covenant development falls outside the franchise, and in general: the HOA will have to make a deal with the utility, and pay the utility for the installation of the lines, unless the government intervenes, and restructures the development to allow for a public right of way (Including, the ability for the utilities to install poles).
Re: Contact the state cable franchise authority by IP_Troll · 2014-01-20 15:46 · Score: 1

Where I live, the cable company has to pull the line to every customer, regardless of burial requirements. Cable companies don't WANT to bury but that is the compromise they made when they got the franchise, making them the only game in town. Put in a complaint with the franchise authority, let them tell you what the facts are.
Re:Contact the state cable franchise authority by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:27 · Score: 0

An HOA covenant is a contract between members of the HOA. It has utterly no power over a law. Private individuals can't make contracts that nullify laws.
Re: Contact the state cable franchise authority by mysidia · 2014-01-20 17:28 · Score: 1

Where I live, the cable company has to pull the line to every customer, regardless of burial requirements. Cable companies don't WANT to bury but that is the compromise they made when they got the franchise, making them the only game in town
Many cable company don't have franchising agreements in many areas with any such requirements, or they escaped buildout and rate regulation requirements, by petitioning that they were in a market "With effective competition", due to the presence of a satellite provider serving the area.
Re:Contact the state cable franchise authority by mysidia · 2014-01-21 13:13 · Score: 1

Private individuals can't make contracts that nullify laws.
On the contrary, private individuals certainly can make contracts that cause some of their rights or special privileges under the law to be waived.
The development placed under the HOA can very well have been built in a manner where there is no public easement available for bringing in new cabling or utilities.
The earlier telco may have been awarded exclusivity, in exchange for running their cabling into the covenant development --- a service, that would normally require the land developer to not only cover the costs, but pay extra for the service.
This is similar to an apartment complex, where a satellite TV service is offered by the apartment complex, for an extra steep fee.
The local area might be within the franchise agreement of a local cable company, and you might want cable to be installed -- But, the apartment complex will not agree to it, under the lease you have signed.
Therefore, the cable company's obligation under the franchise agreement is null and void, since you are not able to avail yourself of cable service, due to the condition of No access permitted by the cable provider.
Re:Contact the state cable franchise authority by mysidia · 2014-01-21 13:22 · Score: 1

Franchises such as cable providers are required to pull lines to all people is a territory.
Franchises don't usually require them to upgrade existing lines for fast internet speeds. Often they only address reliability and basic television service.
Also, the author hinted: There is a competing cable company in the area, also with infrastructure nearby
If there is a competing cable provider serving the same area, then there is not the exclusivity that is the entire purpose of a franchise agreement from a provider's perspective.

anther direction by JustNiz · 2014-01-20 11:28 · Score: 1

Have you considered getting all the residents together to beat up the HOA or whoever it is that controls the shortsighted covenants, in order to get them to make an exception for cable?

Re:anther direction by argee · 2014-01-20 13:17 · Score: 1

So you propose to take a nice neighborhood, and put poles and string wires all over? If I lived there, I would back the HOA
covenant against poles and overhead wires. Underground is the way to go, and less maintenance. Consider doing it yourself;
not having the TELCO do it at a Million Dollars a mile, which is a Tariffed rate. To do a mile with a ditch witch to bury the
plastic PEX conduit will be far cheaper. A Ditch Witch looks like a giant chain saw on wheels and will dig up to 6 ft down, but for
Commo cable or fiber you do not need anything that deep. I think the HOA will go along with this plan.

Yes by Pharmboy · 2014-01-20 11:29 · Score: 1

We got a petition, so they would know how much money they could earn, thus know the investment would pay off. Took a year, we got underground cable. Persistence and organization won the day. This was just over 10 years ago with Time Warner and we all lived on 4 acre lots. 40+ of us.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!

Re:Yes by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 12:41 · Score: 1

Our situation is similar. We have large lots and just a preliminary walk of the proposed cable route is nearly 1.5 miles - average lot size here is about 3 acres.
What I did a year ago was put together a survey/petition form for everyone to say who they were using and how much they were paying for the services the cable company provides. I imagine they're looking at about $2-3k/month in revenue if everyone jumps on board with Phone, Internet, and TV, and it seems like everyone will if they can.
I have no idea how much of that is profit for them so I can't begin to guess what the payback would be assuming ~$100k in installation costs.
I've been at them for nearly a year now, but we'll keep pushing. Thanks for the reply.

Here is the $600M answer to your question. You're by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:30 · Score: 1

Excluding the possibility that any portion of this land could be valuable to an ISP to reach another location strategically, The only way to make this work is: Step 1 - do the math on the total annual telecom & video spend for your neighborhood & divide the cost of installing a hybrid fiber/cat6 distribution system by the annual neighborhood spend to determine the number of years (likely between 10 - 20) it would take a contract for exclusive ISP rights in the neighborhood to pay back the cost of infrastructure. Step 2. Have a commercial real estate attorney draft a contract including the structured financIng above but also INCLUDING separate documents which modify EVERY landowners deed, granting exclusive easements across each property for the distribution system (which each owner releases to the ISP in perpetuity) AND simultaneously creates secondary "blanket" easements which will cover all remaining ground surface on each landowner's property which will specifically restrict any other legal entity from crossing those properties with telecom cabling of any kind. Step 3. Take this agreement that guarantees exclusivity for all wireline access to the homes subject to deed restrictions with each individual landowner (that part is critical as this agreement would never work if structured with some kind of homeowners association) to the competing ISP and while you're trying to sell them on it, try and pretend like you will never need customer support of any kind.

wifi??? power-lines??? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:32 · Score: 0

I'm no expert in this, and almost certainly this idea is a baaaad one, but it would be interesting to discuss what makes it a bad idea.

What about power-line networking? There are speed limitations, but perhaps less than legacy DSL. If your subdivision was constructed all at one time, perhaps it is all on a single stepdown transformer. Find a single home in the subdivision that can get a decent high speed connection (perhaps one that is close to the periphery, and bury a single cable yourself) and let it feed the rest through the power lines.

A similar alternative would be to serve the whole subdivision with a couple local high-range wifi xceivers.

Both of these technologies have been maturing in capability. But exploiting these bleeding-edge technologies in a setup that is supposed to work with little maintenance for a decade or two is not something for amateurs, and like I said, a bad idea.

(That's why I am posting anonymously.)

Gov't regulation by rsilvergun · 2014-01-20 11:36 · Score: 1

it's the only way they bother. Either the gov't pays for it and gives it away free for a private company to monetize, or the gov't requires the private company to pay for it in exchange for the revenue. Either way it pretty much boils down to the gov't paying for it.

I'm not complaining. I'm in favor of infrastructure investment. Just don't expect them to bother if it's their money on the line and they're not promised a tonne of long term profits (and a bail out if those profits never materialize). The kinda ppl that run cable companies are rich, and they didn't get rich taking risks.

--
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/

Re:So... Covenants by laughingskeptic · 2014-01-20 11:42 · Score: 1

You are right that they are hard to change. You are wrong that they are usually associated with a government. They are usually associated with the deed of the property. When the property was subdivided, the creator of the individual parcels specified deed covenants that they thought would improve the value of the property. States have laws related to the type of super-majority required to change these deeds (often 90%), but even if everyone in your neighborhood agrees, good luck getting the banks all equally interested in making this change. Then you typically would have to re-close on the new deed and pay the associated costs of that. In other words, pretty much impossible.

I love 1/4 mile from a site that has 40mbit DSL by twistofsin · 2014-01-20 11:45 · Score: 2

And can't get shit beyond "1.5" at my house. It wasn't even half that speed when I tried it.

Pay them to by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 11:53 · Score: 0

All you have to do is fork out the money and they will do so.

Re:So... Covenants by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:04 · Score: 0

Our covenants are amended all the time yeah it takes a 76% vote to get a change though but there are few hassles besides the obvious one of having to get 76% of our homeowners to all agree on something, there is no bank involved, there is no re-closings needed.

Google by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:04 · Score: 0

Start dropping references to Google and Kansas City, in your meetings with the ISP. Let them know you have options. Start talking up Metro area WiMAX or WiFi. Nothing shifts "attitude" like competition, and it doesn't have to be real. Just make sure YOU know what's real, that you sound knowledgeable, and that you're willing to support a company that will invest in your subdivision.

Also, you don't want to talk to the low level network techs. They work in the here-and-now, or the easily-achieved. You want to be talking to marketing, business development, or whatever they call themselves. They might be small but they will exist and they live in fear of having their market taken by someone, anyone. If anyone can kick the network techs to do something for you, it's a highly motivated marketing manager.

If you can make it sound like competitor X is thinking of laying fibre to the home (or broadband by any means), and there's a hint of plausibility to it, you might suddenly find yourself at the forefront of a new technology infrastructure program by your ISP.

Start by Googling "Google + Kansas City".

easy peasy by spottedkangaroo · 2014-01-20 12:12 · Score: 1

Easy, show them the capital expendature will increase reveneu enough that the margin between the operating costs and the reveneu by enough to make back the capital expendature or thereabouts (smallish sunk costs are ok) within a year or two.

--
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy

haha loser by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:19 · Score: 0

for living in one of those communist HOA subdivisions.
You deserve what you get.

Re:So... Covenants by Stormy+Dragon · 2014-01-20 12:23 · Score: 2

The problem usually isn't getting 76% to agree, it's getting 76% to care enough to show up to the meeting and vote at all. Most homeowners don't go to HOA/COA meetings and in terms of changing covenants, an abstention is usually treated as a no vote.

My story from the past few days is related. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:24 · Score: 0

I asked my ISP for an upgrade. i live in a small town, the DSL is legacy (5mbit down, few hundred kbit up at best due to headends, cable here again is similarly slow). i already had 6mbit/4mbit radio....so i sent an email to put me at their 12mbit plan (way more expensive). but then the CEO of the company phoned me that evening. Offering to string fiber to my house. i got nerdboners to the maximum. if you live in a city of a few hundred thousand where i live, fiber is still basically not going to happen. i live in a town of like roughly a thousand people. i used to work for an ISP with fiber deployments, ran fiber before. i was like "even if i have to pull the cable myself i'll take it". this ceo is rich anyway but its good to see him grasp that we as users do want better than 12mbit. i vpn my house to my work and to my phone. thats why i pay so much for upstream.

Bait them by ewieling · 2014-01-20 12:25 · Score: 2

The only way AT&T will upgrade your service is if they think someone else will install better/faster/cheaper/service. Make them think that and your problem is solved.

--
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.

Re:Bait them by wasteoid · 2014-01-20 17:21 · Score: 1

How exactly would you do that? Call up AT&T and tell them you have Google on the other line waiting to make a deal with you to run fiber to your house, but you wanted to see if they could top it?
Re:Bait them by ewieling · 2014-01-21 04:19 · Score: 1

I was thinking more along the lines of starting a nice public push for muni fiber.

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I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.

HOA - aka subdivision covenants by i.r.id10t · 2014-01-20 12:27 · Score: 1

You are part of an HOA. I'm assuming that some/many/most others in the HOA also want better services. Raise HOA rates a bit, have the HOA run the wires and provide the service.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos

Re:HOA - aka subdivision covenants by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 12:47 · Score: 1

Just to clarify, we're not an HOA. In fact the covenants prohibit the formation of an HOA. We have a "neighborhood association" that organizes the annual yard sale and put luck BBQ party, and does other non-binding social things like brainstorm ways the community can act together to make it a nice place to live. There are absolutely no enforcement powers authorized by the covenants, and in fact they specifically state that action must be brought by an individual owner in the county court system.
In any case, this is one of those activities where a few of the owners who care get together to try to get something accomplished - like getting modern services installed. We're willing to foot some of the installation costs up front, but dealing with them is painful at best. They just seem like they're not interested if they have to shoulder ANY of the rollout or maintenance costs.

Or You Could Think Like A Grad Student: by rmdingler · 2014-01-20 12:52 · Score: 1

Step 1 Don't stop just short of burying the cable yourselves.

Step 2 Offer a substantial bribe (hot pizza & a cold pop, your wife's promiscuous sister's affections, whatever...you may ho for hbo) to the serviceman who arrives at your domicile after a request for service

Step 3 After winning the technician's heart, convince him that you and yours are worthy of the hookup.

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Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway

Find a WISP by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 12:54 · Score: 0

Find a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) in your area. Check www.wispa.org and find a member company willing to provide you service.

you might check the Ubiquiti forum for more info (www.ubnt.com/forum)

Re:Find a WISP by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:04 · Score: 1

Thanks for that suggestion. I looked and nothing came up for our area. We're pretty rural.
I know of a WISP that operates in the nearest town to me, but even with my 65 foot crank-up tower I can't see their SSID, and they only offer 500kbits anyway.

So, as long as you don't have to do any real work? by mosb1000 · 2014-01-20 13:03 · Score: 1

stopping just short of burying our own cable

You're willing to go as far as talking to people? You sound pretty dedicated to the cause. . .

So, neighborhood has no poles at all ? by ChefJoe · 2014-01-20 13:05 · Score: 2

For all the comments about "underground is more expensive" does that really hold true if OP's neighborhood requiring all underground utilities doesn't have poles to string wire on ? I think you might end up having to get your neighborhood together as an organized group. You might be able to swing it if you could get a significant portion of the residents to pay for home-to-telecom cabinet condiuts out of their own pocket (like the resident owns the side-sewer hookup and paid for it with construction costs) but it's probably going to be a lot fewer residents than you imagine willing to do so.

White space internet by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:27 · Score: 0

How rural is the area, i.e. how much white space is there in the tv band, or how many over the air channels are there? (there are online databases that will tell by zip code). If there is sufficient white space you soon might be able to run licensed wireless internet to the DSLAM. Here is a link to one company that provides this service, Or you could set up a neighborhood coop to do it. (again this depends on how rural the area is)

Re:White space internet by EmagGeek · 2014-01-20 13:31 · Score: 1

Where's the link?
There is a local translator that brings in a lot of TV stations, so I'm not sure how much whitespace is there. It's something worth looking into though, if only for the education.

Fortunate in Saskatchewan by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 13:28 · Score: 0

Fortunately, here in Saskatchewan SaskTel is doing fiber to the prem in the 9 major city/towns. And in the rural area's we have highspeed to towns as small as 150 people. We also have a 4G network that covers 98% of the population, and LTE in the major centers.

You should just buy a parka, mitts and a touque, and move here!

Good luck with that by sylvandb · 2014-01-20 13:35 · Score: 1

I've been trying for over 10 years to get the cable company to hook me up. Right after the Comcast acquisition AT&T pamphletted the neighborhood and solicited pre-orders but didn't ever install.

AT&T traded my area off to CableOne and CableOne wouldn't do it.

I'm less than 400ft by right-of-way from the CableOne pedestal. One other property in between. They won't do it.

CableOne sent me a flyer early last year with an offer to sign up but wouldn't take my order, "please contact our sales office." I did, they said they couldn't do it.

They took my order and my money last fall, then the day before the scheduled install they called and cancelled. They couldn't do it.

I've even offered to run the cable myself if they will hook it up. They won't do it.

Just before Thanksgiving I signed up for 20Mb/s DSL instead.

On Jan 18th I received another flyer in the mail from CableOne wanting me to sign up. Think they'll do it now?

I don't. I won't believe they will run cable 400 feet to hook me up until I see action.

Getting them to run cable thru an entire neighborhood?

Good luck with that.

Re:So... Covenants by langedb · 2014-01-20 13:51 · Score: 1

There is one other process. It's called a variance. The Board of Directors, at their discretion, can under certain circumstances grant a variance to the CC&R. Now, if your 22 homes are truly of the mind to get high-speed, why isn't the HOA via the Board trying to negotiate something? If the declaration is what's getting in the way, and everybody wants the service, it seems changing the CC&R would be easy, especially for 22 homes. Now, move up to 300 homes, and life gets harder. Barring that (each state is different in regards to reqs for changing the CC&R). Alternately, the HOA has one other tool -- Special Assessment. You all find out the cost from the ISP to wire you up & the HOA as an entity pays them to do the neighborhood. The ISP is more likely to be willing to deal with one entity and one payer than 22 individual ones.

Run for office by spasm · 2014-01-20 13:53 · Score: 1

Step 1) Gete elected to local office
Step 2) Hint that you'll let them do if only your subdivison had enough bandwidth.
Step 3) Wake up next morning to the sweet sound of a trench digger heading for your driveway.

Re:Run for office by spasm · 2014-01-20 13:55 · Score: 1

Stupid drunken posting. Key characters got stripped. Let's try that again:
Step 1) Get elected to local office
Step 2) Hint that you'll let them do [the most evil thing they want to do] if only your subdivison had enough bandwidth.
Step 3) Wake up next morning to the sweet sound of a trench digger heading for your driveway.

What if there is a cell phone tower near by? by tmilne · 2014-01-20 14:09 · Score: 1

My weekend place can't get Cable TV nor even DSL. Just dial up over POTS or Satellite (which I have). Verizon Wireless has great signal for my cell phone but is there a way to add FiOS? Their fiber is already running 10 feet from my property line, and their technicians know my dog by name. Any pointers would be really appreciated.

missing tag by Ralph+Spoilsport · 2014-01-20 14:10 · Score: 1

firstworldproblems

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Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.

call this guy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:18 · Score: 0

http://www.skylinebroadbandservice.com/services.html

seriously. He was in the same situation and started his own ISP.

Re:call this guy by Mystiq · 2014-01-20 14:55 · Score: 1

I understand people need to make money but the monthly cap on that service is ridiculously low. (Caps period make me squeamish.) I blow through 4 GB a month on my phone. Insert rant here about how downloading one application can probably blow your cap.

I'm sorry, I fucking hate caps. At 3 in the morning when your service is probably at 10% utilization, there should be no cap in place. The cap is creating artificial scarcity.

Not $1M/mile by crow · 2014-01-20 14:31 · Score: 2

I've heard that $1M/mile number thrown around, but in the context of putting all utilities underground. Most of that cost is for the electric lines that probably have to be put in deeper with a backhoe. When they put in the FiOS lines in our neighborhood, they used the same equipment that they would use to put in a sprinkler system. The conduit is probably two feet down. Probably the most expensive part was repaving where they had to cut through sidewalks and driveways.

Re:Not $1M/mile by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 18:35 · Score: 0

it is about $10 / meter to pull a fibre through a conduit, and about $100 / meter to bury the conduit.
Re:Not $1M/mile by crow · 2014-01-21 02:24 · Score: 1

That's $177,027.40/mile. I suspect that's still an exaggeration, but it's certainly less than $1M/mile.
Re:Not $1M/mile by Bengie · 2014-01-21 12:09 · Score: 1

And about $0.40/meter for a 144 strand fiber cable. With all of the overhead costs, the fiber part is cheap.

Re: How Do You Convince an ISP To Bury Cable In Yo by Guest316 · 2014-01-20 14:40 · Score: 1

A low-cut blouse and push-up bra always worked for me.

Your biggest opponent is freedom by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:41 · Score: 0

And your first mistake was to decide to live in an area that is governed by stupid flashy rules like no telephone poles. You lost your freedom and now you're complaining on how to get service when there's no freedom to do so. Well, there are two ways to do this. Either you do it yourself or you pay, that's right.. pay the ISP to do it. It will cost a few thousand dollars just for them to reach your house but that doesn't cover the cost of fixing yards, possible broken pipes, and the cost of equipment used like cable or fiber lines. My suggestion is to move away from that socialist neighborhood since you will never get cable there unless a lot more houses are built.

Re:Your biggest opponent is freedom by Mystiq · 2014-01-20 15:05 · Score: 1

Socialism is bad, mmkay!

I know you're just AC but please stop with the hyperbole. Lots of areas have stupid laws. There are websites dedicated to finding them. The problem with above-ground wires is trees, birds, wind, snow, rain, cars and big animals.

Case in point: a few years ago a car drove into a pole in my neighborhood. That pole happened to service the entire rest of the development south and since it was the only street leading into the development, it took out at least 60-70 houses (poor planning, but hey, that's what you get for living on the shore). They blocked off access past the downed pole for a few hours, since power was also knocked out and the wire was live for a while.

I also can't tell you how many poles Sandy took out. Other companies contracted out here to help looked at us like we were nuts with all the poles and the trees nestled in the wires.

As a Design Engineer in this field... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 14:42 · Score: 0

YOU can't. Your subdivision would have to request a PO to the desired cable company. Depending on how far they have to go, what they have to all bore through and around and if frost charges apply for the season, it would be quite expensive. Not something you, yourself would most likely be willing to fork out. If they run cable to you, they will want to feed the whole subdivision at once, so either everyone in your subdivision would have to be up for it and split the cost, or the owner of your subdivision would need to pay for it. The main costs in this would be all the permits to even be able to dig and build there and the equipment itself. Actives and Power supplies are not cheap. You'd probably be looking at easily thousands if not tens of thousands depending on the size of your subdivision. My advice would be to simply get dish if you are unsatisfied with your AT&T DSL. Verizon also offers in home internet via their towers, wirelessly, which would also be an option. Usually cable is built in before the roads and houses are even put in the subdivision. Doing it afterwards is very expensive and hard to convince the right people to fork out that kind of money.

So Sad by Mystiq · 2014-01-20 14:46 · Score: 1

I think it's just upsetting period that a company carrying what arguably is a modern necessity won't invest at all in an area because the profits are too small and the politics surrounding the fact in this country make competition extremely difficult. As a result, people have to suffer with poor service, non-existent service or, as in most areas of the US, insanely high-priced service.

People in other countries must think we're so fucking backwards.

Here's to hoping (wishing) that the FCC says fuck it and just declares ISPs common carriers. So many problems would be solved in one fell swoop.

Start the project yourself by TheScottishGuy · 2014-01-20 14:47 · Score: 1

Other posters are right, most ISP's won't consider a build like this for 22 residents. Cost will vary depending on where you live but I'd guesstimate (knowing nothing about your subdivision, so this is a pretty wild guesstimate) that you're looking at about 100k to build out underground conduit, vaults and building entrances. On top of that they've got to bring backhaul to the neighborhood. Now how much are the 22 residences going to be willing to pay per month? I'm guessing $100/home at the high end. Even without working out the cost of pulling the fiber through that conduit and doing 22 installs and pulling backhaul in you're looking at about 46 months payback. Add in those other costs and you're looking at about 5 years payback on build, that's without factoring in the cost to deliver services over that infrastructure. Alternatively you could seek out a local WISP and work with them to bring 100Mbps to the neighborhood and distribute it to the 22 homes, you can probably get yourself 10-30Mbps symmetrical service for about $100 a home with no contracts or commitments. Disclaimer: I am an infrastructure manager for an independent ISP, I have this conversation about 5 times a month with people who "just want fiber"

Re:Start the project yourself by Bengie · 2014-01-21 12:18 · Score: 1

3-5 years pay-back sounds about right. After that, the next 95 years that the fiber is still good, how much does it "cost" then? Did you also add in that you can save about 30% on your opex going fiber over copper? Verizon is claiming about $300/customer/year being saved using fiber. Around here, cable has been upgraded about once every 5-8 years. They start sending out the people to upgrade their network and you see equipment everywhere. Why do this same crap every 5 years? Do it ONCE and do it right.

If I had to choose between buying a new $1000 car every 5 years with a $300/year on-going maintenance cost or a $1,500 car with a $0 maintenance cost that only needs to get replaced once every 50-100 years, I might look into that $1500 car. Just saying.
Re:Start the project yourself by TheScottishGuy · 2014-01-21 13:25 · Score: 1

but it's not 3-5 years payback, that's just the payback for the pipes in the ground, you still have to pay for equipment and backhaul, realistically you're looking at more like 7-10 years before break even. Fiber isn't a 100 year investment, fiber installed 20 years ago almost certainly needs at least servicing to bring it up to current standards. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it's a great idea to build fiber. What I'm saying is that if you can't rustle up the money to build fiber talk to independent ISPs that might be willing to help.

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area" by tlambert · 2014-01-20 14:52 · Score: 2

What exactly is a "a semi-rural micropolitan area"?

"a micropolitan area is a geographic entity used for statistical purposes based on counties and county-equivalents"

So basically, a subdivision in an unicorporated area of a county. Some place that interesting enough for him to live, but not a sufficient source of sales tax revenue for the area to have been finger-annexed by a municipality so they can collect sales tax from there.

Basically: suburbia, or as the communications industry has been calling it since the 1980's "The last mile", which is a place no one spends on infrastructure because the population density isn't high enough that the economic benefit outweighs the cost of investing in said infrastructure.

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To the OP: Get your neighborhood association together and vote out the restrictive covenants on overhead wires. Alternately, move to a coverage area. Alternately, get your PUC to extend the tariff radius so that you're inside instead of outside.

I lived in an area technically in Silicon Valley for a very long time where the tariffs put my residence 50 feet too far from the LATE for them to offer me high speed internet; even though I would likely still get full data rate, they were unwilling to sell the service to me due to the penalties for offering me a tariffed service, and then being unable to deliver the tariffed data rate by even 1%.

Also: If you bury your own fiber, expect to be sued for offering a competing service; in general, anyone with a big infrastructure investment won't let a local entity go into competition with them, even if the alternative is that you don't get service because their idea of competition is larger than their idea of economically viable service area.

Isn't Cable a Government Controlled Monopoly? by helphand · 2014-01-20 14:53 · Score: 1

I thought cable was a monopoly right granted by a local government (city or county)? And that the price paid for the monopoly right is the requirement to provide the service to all residences in that government area. The phone company doesn't get to pick and choose where it puts phone lines. Isn't the cable company the same? Once you get cable, internet by the cable company uses the same infrastructure.

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If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you. -- Muhammad Ali

Re:So... Covenants by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:08 · Score: 1

And tell people precisely *why* you're moving. If you're selling your house then this will increase supply of house in your area, hurting property values. If you're stopping a rental this won't affect property values as directly, but it will affect demand for rentals.

Since most Americans retirement is their equity in their house by moving you will convince people that a) you were fucking serious about the internet, and not just whining, and b) that if they don't fix the internet their home's value will collapse, and they will be unable to buy a spot in a decent retirement community.

Re:So... Covenants by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:09 · Score: 1

Goddamnit, this reply is in the wrong tab.

Re:So... Covenants by NicBenjamin · 2014-01-20 15:24 · Score: 1

Most American government is designed so the people who show up can dominate the proceedings. This is because the default is typically "nothing changes," and there generally isn't a person whose got the power to fight that default. You have to do that yourself, and you aren't allowed to skype that shit in from your business trip in Ohama. In many other countries they don't have all these tiny little boards of obscure officials that nobody bothers to vote for, and are therefore dominated by the curmudgeonly types who DO know the homeowner's association bylaws; they have tiny little boards of obscure officials that are appointed by the local equivalent of the Governor, Mayor or President.

The latter type can be influenced by people who didn't show up at the meeting because those people voted in the Gubenatorial/Presidential/etc. election and therefore their email from their business trip in Omaha is as important as some unemployed curmudgeon bitching about petty shit because he has nothing to do on Tuesday at 8 PM except bitch about petty crap.

I've done it. by alispguru · 2014-01-20 15:56 · Score: 2

I had one critical advantage. Our HOA board members were being complete dicks about the clause in question(*) - so much so that the management company (a third party paid by the HOA to run things in accordance with state law) was sympathetic to me, a new home owner, and advised me on the exact process for changing the covenant.

With their advice, my wife and I created a one-page proxy form which we took door-to-door and got our neighbors to sign, one at a time. It took a month, but we eventually got proxies from just over 75% of the owners.

(*) I have since learned that this is pretty much the natural state of all HOA board members.

--

To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.

Here's how you do it (from a telephone guy) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:05 · Score: 0

Disclaimer: I work for a telephone company, but not AT&T.

Burying utilities comes in two ways: direct buried (dig a trench, throw in the cable, put the dirt back) and pulled through conduit (dig a trench, put in conduit, put the dirt back). Direct bury is the cheapest up front, the most expensive to repair. Conduit is the most expensive up front, less expensive to repair.

Normally this is done while the subdivision is being built with the trenches being dug by the contractor. Doing it afterwards is a real pain in the butt. People don't like their yards being torn up, their drives cut up and channels across their roads. Nor do utilities like to pay to locate the existing utilities, trench and tunnel under driveways and roads. It's damn expensive.

Want the stuff in your neighborhood? Gonna take everyone in the neighborhood to co-operate.

1) Are all the neighbors willing to buy in, and are they willing to have their yards and driveways dug up for this? Who's gonna help pay? Is someone or does someone know someone with heavy equipment? And the experience and competence to run it?

2) Talk to AT&T. Find out who the Construction/Splicing Foreman is and talk to him. From him, find out who the Outside Plant Engineer (OSPE) is and talk to him. Those two folks are the bread and butter for getting stuff in the ground. Find out who the local AT&T manager is, start a dialog. Ask if you dig/fill the trenches through the neighborhood and to the houses, will they install conduit and pedestals (those green vertical boxes with reflective stickers on them)?

3) Find out where the utility right-of-ways are from your City. Talk to your City folks. Will they give you permits? Will they let you dig? Can you dig and let the utilities put stuff in? Often the OSPE can help you answer these questions.

There's a reason AT&T and the cable company don't want to do this. It's very expensive with a long return on investment time. Pulling cable (or fiber), splicing and terminating takes a lot of time and expertise to be done right.

Buried is hard, aerial is easy.

Good luck.

Re:So... Covenants by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:05 · Score: 0

You sound terribly angry at HOAs. Did they ban you from keeping the sheep you love to fuck in your back yard? That would piss me off too! Granted, I'm smart enough to have never bought into a HOA. I'm also smart enough to know that if you're gonna habitually fuck a farm animal, you keep that fucker in the house!

Tiny ditchdiggers by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 16:05 · Score: 0

In Vancouver, there is a company that digs about a 1/4" wide trench down about 2" on the existing pavement, sidewalks, etc, and lays fibre for private ISP's.

They dig, lower the fibre, put down silicon or something, and then pave/cement over the crack.

I've seem them regularly cross major roadways with ease.

That might be a solution.

Band together & offer money by Fallon · 2014-01-20 16:10 · Score: 2

A ways back when I was still living with my parents, a neighbor moved in & was getting really excited about trying to get cable (TV) into the neighborhood. A main line passed by our street with a dozen houses on it. Not sure what all he did, but ended up getting the cable company to agree to put it in. The deal was he had to get a certain number of houses (half maybe) to cough up a couple hundred bucks & agree to some relatively normal 1 or 2 year commitment. He did & we ended up getting cable a little while later. A few years after I moved out the cable company ended up getting bought out & offering Internet access (don't remember if it was in that order, it was a good number of years ago). Basically you have to make it worth their while. Find out what their current rates are & see if you can get a significant number of your neighbors to promise to commit to a 1 or 2 year plan if the company will put in the new cable plant. That might get their attention. The cost of cable/wire is pretty cheap to the cost of labor & right of way issues. You might want to try & get fibre rather than coax put in.

It is all based on return on investment by Hey_Jude_Jesus · 2014-01-20 16:13 · Score: 0

The utilities have no incentive to bury cable for 22 houses. The only way you can get high speed internet in your area is to change the by-laws of the HOA to allow overhead wiring or pay for the installation with funds from the HOA. Sorry, but you're stuck with it and your only way out may be to sell your home to move some place else.

Relevant Case Study by smutt · 2014-01-20 16:31 · Score: 2

You guys are going to have to do this yourself as no ISP will take an interest in your small neighborhood.

You might want to try reading this case study.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/p...

It covers the hurdles a small rural town went through in order to build their own municipal network.

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The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.

End-run around covenants by davidwr · 2014-01-20 16:32 · Score: 2

The *only* way where you can get away with changing the CC&R's without 100% of the lot owners agreeing to it is *if* the existing CC&R's have a way to edit them that doesn't require everybody to agree.

It's not going to happen in this case, but there are at least two other ways to change a covenant without the agreement of all or any property owners:
* Invalidate the section you want removed by statute
* Invalidate the section you want removed by court action

Unless the proponent of the change is politically connected, the first is a non-starter.

Unless the proponent of the change is legally correct AND has deep enough pockets to file suit and see it through the appeals process, the second is a non-starter.

Some 20th-century examples of both are the Congressional actions and federal-court cases in the Civil-Rights Era (roughly the 1950s to the 1970s) that removed race-based deed restrictions from properties all across America.

But back to the topic at hand: I agree with you: As for getting the "no above ground utilities" deed restrictions changed by passing a city ordinance or state law or getting a court to invalidate it, "good luck with that," 'cause it ain't gonna happen.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

HOAs vs. deed restrictions by davidwr · 2014-01-20 16:37 · Score: 2

The deed restrictions may read something like "Must be a member of the HOA" AND "must abide by these other deed restrictions like no above-ground utilities."

Even if the HOA is dissolved, the remaining deed restrictions remain in force, and the property owners of the properties that were in the now-defunct HOA may still have standing to take you to court to enforce them. I say "may" - if the HOA extended over a mile in width, the guy a mile away from you may not have standing if your violating the covenant doesn't affect his enjoyment of his property or the value of the property. But your next-door neighbor and the guy down the block almost certainly would have a valid claim.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:HOAs vs. deed restrictions by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 21:59 · Score: 0

I'm new to this conversation.
Deed restrictions are contacts with the land, right? It seems wrong for them to go on and on forever. Apparently some areas have expiration dates, by state law perhaps? I would suggest all states to take up legislation putting an end to deed restrictions after a reasonable number of years. Your thoughts?
Re:HOAs vs. deed restrictions by davidwr · 2014-01-21 17:15 · Score: 1

I would suggest all states to take up legislation putting an end to deed restrictions after a reasonable number of years. Your thoughts?
This is a good idea in principle but unless existing covenants were grandfathered in, it would be a political non-starter and subject to expensive court challenges, challenges the state might very well lose.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Re:HOAs vs. deed restrictions by Aighearach · 2014-01-22 06:26 · Score: 1

No, they are contracts with the buyers of the land, that attach to the land deed, and that have a GPL-like clause that requires new buyers to agree to the contract before purchasing. So there is no expiration date. Eventually the owner of record has to die, and their heirs have to agree to the contract just to take ownership.
You can try, but unless you have a zillion dollars to throw at this you'll lose because the covenants are supported by developers who use it control the character of new developments. For them it is part of an advertising strategy aimed at snooty rich people. Which is why in my city, it is only snooty neighborhoods that have them.
There would be other complications to a timed expiration: often the home owners association actually owns some land that the members have shared access to. In some cases even private roads. (this is mostly so that they can have stricter on-street parking regulations than a public street; for example letting members control the spaces in front of their house). There is no guarantee that the city is even willing to take over that ownership. Generally when you build a street in a new development, if you want the city to own the street you have to design it in the way the city wants. The developer often doesn't want to design streets in the same way, where the process is driven by traffic engineers. Instead, marketing drives the process; there might only be 1 or 2 ways in/out, because they maximize the salable land and reduce connector streets, and they want to control the view that people viewing homes will see as they come into the neighborhood. The city might not want to take over those kind of sucky streets.
Re:HOAs vs. deed restrictions by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-22 23:36 · Score: 0

I still say expirations would be a good idea. Worst-case scenario: 100% of private land ends up having deed restrictions and there's no way to escape. "Owner of this property must yodel for no less than one hour every Sunday." Do we want a nation of yodelers?
Shared spaces, including private roads, is a non-issue as those should not expire. But the question is, who owns that land? Someone owns it. Someone is paying the taxes. Is it paid for by the HOA? Is it owned by the HOA? If a parcel is truly shared, that should be an exception. What shouldn't be an exception to expirations should be private residences.

Powerless HOAs Re:So... by davidwr · 2014-01-20 16:45 · Score: 1

In some states they would've had the right to sue the property owner, in this case the bank, to compel compliance.

I don't think bank presidents like being hauled into court for contempt.

When I moved I made a point of finding a place without a HOA

I feel the same way you do. In some areas, it's hard to avoid HOAs and restrictive covenants. Where it's unavoidable or the only non-HOA homes are undesirable for other reasons, I factor in the reduction in my ability to enjoy my property when I make my bid.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:Powerless HOAs Re:So... by jandrese · 2014-01-20 17:15 · Score: 1

Theoretically the HOA in question had the power to sue the previous owners, but since the house was a foreclosure the HOA administrator didn't think it was worth the time.

I can see where he's coming from, but at the same time it made me realize how pointless the HOA was. It was utterly unable to deal with a serious problem, and could only hassle the good guys over petty crap.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:Powerless HOAs Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 04:40 · Score: 0

HOAs are complex and vary widely. In our area (Nothern Virginia) they can fine you for non-compliance, and put a lien against the property in extreme cases. In general, inspections are done when the property is transferred. When we sold our town home, we were given a list of issues from the HOA. It was up to us to negotiate with the buyer as to who would fix them. Since ours were just minor painting and yard maintenance, we did it ourselves. Since VA does not have any local townships/municipalities, only the County, I find that the HOA neatly fills this role. They maintain parks, pools, and trash pickup among other things.
Re:Powerless HOAs Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 04:47 · Score: 0

In our neighborhood, we had a home go into foreclosure and began to deteriorate. So the HOA foreclosed on the house against the bank for lack of maintenance, per the covenants. That was a fun court case to see. The best line was in one of the letters from the bank's law firm (which is the largest foreclosure firm in the state) contained the sentence, "We find it inconceivable that an organization would foreclose (read: steal) a house from another, just because it would hurt their bottom line."

Re:So... Covenants by davidwr · 2014-01-20 16:49 · Score: 1

I'm also smart enough to know that if you're gonna habitually fuck a farm animal, you keep that fucker in the house!

And you know this because ....???

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:Yes, a torpedo underground by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 17:03 · Score: 0

I recently received, with my gas bill, a notice about cleaning out the sewer lines to the street. They said that gas lines are installed without digging a trench and the they may pierce the sewer line, and that it the sewer line was cleaned, you might cut the line. No advice was given on how to determine this before hand. I guess they wanted you to dig up the sewer line to check.

Some thirty years ago, a co worker bought a new house and wanted cable TV. The company wanted $300 to install a cable from a cable box in the sidewalk into the house.

The only real way to get underground utilities is for the city to do it.

SOLUTION: Bury the ISP by chriscappuccio · 2014-01-20 17:45 · Score: 2

And put up wireless gear. Ubiquiti AirFiber gives you 774Mbps FULL DUPLEX transport at 4 miles LINE OF SIGHT for $3000. Rocket M5 Titanium and NanoBeam M5 give you an easy 150Mbps half-duplex.

mesh networks are common nowadays by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 17:51 · Score: 0

I used a few point to point wireless products over the years and they were all expensive and didn't work that great. Nowadays things are far easier with mesh gear. I'm not sure the speed you're after but open-mesh.com works decent with a little range. I live 1/4 mile as the crow files from my office with DSL. However it's down a hill and trees between so no line of sight. My house only has access to a slower cable connection that is is oversold. I use open-mesh to bounce off a farmer's house that is visible to both the office and my house and things have worked well for years. Each leg is about 1/2 a mile.

The downside.. speed. Doing more than 10Mb isn't doable at these distances with the default antennas. I'm usually doing 5.. which is my DSL speed so no big deal. I could speed it up with directional antennas yet the default $50 unit with omni antenna works for my needs.

Meraki used to make decent gear. I had the older meraki gear running for years and had a TB of hotspot access go through it, it worked well. Google bought into them, now I see Cisco owns them. No idea what they're like now yet they are advertising 900mb speeds. Obviously would be far more expensive.

If you can get cable close enough that may be an option. Open-mesh is cheap, does NAT by default. I've hooked up openVPN routers to give real IPs over wifi, it can be done with dd-wrt simply. Meraki can probably do real routing out of the box, not sure.

Community owned dark fiber by Z00L00K · 2014-01-20 17:59 · Score: 2

Create a community that owns the fiber and puts it down. Offer access to the ISPs to the dark fibers and tell them that here you have the fibers, now just connect us at this central point.

Just make the correct contracts and it should work out. That strategy has been used elsewhere in the world.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.

All about the contract. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-20 19:20 · Score: 0

Get your neighborhood to sign on for a 5-10 year contract for internet...or longer!

Set it so those fees are included in the HOA fees.

If it's a guaranteed profit, they'll do it.

All about the community by YoungManKlaus · 2014-01-20 19:29 · Score: 1

Get your community to set up an ISP. Its probably both cheaper and offers better QOS at the end of the day.

Re:Simple. Allow no competition. by crutchy · 2014-01-20 19:45 · Score: 0

i'm pretty sure if you remove the incentive to compete, they won't compete... and you'll be stuck with the same shitty old copper till it degrades to nothing