Sunday Ticket BYE, BYE?

[bobvick]

there must be. elec coops are getting into the fiber business
Rural America Is Building High-Speed Internet the Same Way It Built Electricity in the 1930s

You do know that cooperatives exist not to make money, but to provide their members a service reliably and at a responsible cost.

They do not get into broadband to ‘make money’ but because there is a need for reliable fast broadband in rural areas, just like anywhere else.

No one but a nonprofit entity is going to provide it

I am served by an electric cooperative (Tombigbee Electric Cooperative) that is in phase II of their fiber to the home project.

Hopefully by the end of this year I’ll have gigabit fiber service installed.

The fiber is ran right in front of my house. All they’re waiting on is getting a new fiber node online to serve this area.

They’re in the process of working on it right now.

I can’t wait to get gigabit fiber, from 4.0 Mbps/512 Kbps DSL.

 

[slice1900]

And the Death Star is still making claims about Airgig.

AirGig is the backhaul, i.e. in lieu of running fiber in rural areas. The "last mile" will be wireless, probably 5G. AirGig provides the missing piece that makes serving very rural areas viable. Even if someone offered to build all the towers wherever they were needed for free to cover every house in the Nebraska Sand Hills (an area I'm familiar with so I'm using it as an example, and that has a population density of less than one person per square mile) it would never be practical to run fiber to those towers.

But anywhere there is electricity, AT&T can run "fiber", or rather AirGig, which is as good as running fiber. It will cost less than a thousandth the per mile cost of running underground fiber, and probably a few dozen times less than the cost of running fiber on poles. Then instead of trying to figure out how to put towers on hilltops that might still only be able to serve a half dozen houses, you just put up little bitty antennas on top of the power poles where they go down someone's driveway (AirGig technology won't pass through a transformer, so it can't continue down the driveway to the house) so it is basically one microcell antenna per customer, matched with one on the customer's house.

 

[bobvick]

AirGig is the backhaul, i.e. in lieu of running fiber in rural areas. The "last mile" will be wireless, probably 5G. AirGig provides the missing piece that makes serving very rural areas viable. Even if someone offered to build all the towers wherever they were needed for free to cover every house in the Nebraska Sand Hills (an area I'm familiar with so I'm using it as an example, and that has a population density of less than one person per square mile) it would never be practical to run fiber to those towers.

But anywhere there is electricity, AT&T can run "fiber", or rather AirGig, which is as good as running fiber. It will cost less than a thousandth the per mile cost of running underground fiber, and probably a few dozen times less than the cost of running fiber on poles. Then instead of trying to figure out how to put towers on hilltops that might still only be able to serve a half dozen houses, you just put up little bitty antennas on top of the power poles where they go down someone's driveway (AirGig technology won't pass through a transformer, so it can't continue down the driveway to the house) so it is basically one microcell antenna per customer, matched with one on the customer's house.

Aren’t they still going to have to run fiber on the poles? If so, a drop to a home should be nearly as cost effective as a wireless system, since drops only run in the neighborhood of 1500 feet or so.

 

[slice1900]

Aren’t they still going to have to run fiber on the poles? If so, a drop to a home should be nearly as cost effective as a wireless system, since drops only run in the neighborhood of 1500 feet or so.

They only need to run fiber to one pole, and then it is distributed along the power lines from there. Customers may be 10 miles away from the nearest fiber and still get served as long as they have electricity.

There are issues to work out with the electric company since the devices clamp onto the wires (the signal actually travels in the air around the wire, not inside the wire itself) but most electric in rural areas is delivered by small cooperatives that are owned by the customers. Obviously the customers would be all for getting access to high speed broadband so they'll be eager to strike a deal with AT&T when they come calling. If there are associations (like say all the rural Nebraska cooperatives getting together in a statewide association to share employees to help repair storm outages) then AT&T might be able to work with them and get deals made in bulk.

Installation is basically "climb the pole, clamp on the device, climb back down" and they only need one every three poles or so, so they would be able to cover a lot of ground in a day. Heck, maybe they'd train the utility guys and have them do the installs during their downtime when there are no repairs/maintenance scheduled or alongside regular inspections they probably do checking for cracked insulators etc.

 

[mdram]

They only need to run fiber to one pole, and then it is distributed along the power lines from there. Customers may be 10 miles away from the nearest fiber and still get served as long as they have electricity.

There are issues to work out with the electric company since the devices clamp onto the wires (the signal actually travels in the air around the wire, not inside the wire itself) but most electric in rural areas is delivered by small cooperatives that are owned by the customers. Obviously the customers would be all for getting access to high speed broadband so they'll be eager to strike a deal with AT&T when they come calling. If there are associations (like say all the rural Nebraska cooperatives getting together in a statewide association to share employees to help repair storm outages) then AT&T might be able to work with them and get deals made in bulk.

Installation is basically "climb the pole, clamp on the device, climb back down" and they only need one every three poles or so, so they would be able to cover a lot of ground in a day. Heck, maybe they'd train the utility guys and have them do the installs during their downtime when there are no repairs/maintenance scheduled.

hows it work with underground powelines

 

[slice1900]

hows it work with underground powelines

It doesn't, it only works on aerial lines. It is designed as a solution for rural customers, and buried lines are almost nonexistent in rural areas.

 

[mdram]

It doesn't, it only works on aerial lines. It is designed as a solution for rural customers, and buried lines are almost nonexistent in rural areas.

im rural, we have 50/50 ariel/buried

its very common because of storm damage

 

[bobvick]

im rural, we have 50/50 ariel/buried

its very common because of storm damage

Very rural here, and frequent storm damage, but our coop’s whole power system is aerial. I would say the vast majority of coop systems are like that. Our FTTH/FTTB network is all aerial as well.

 

[bobvick]

They only need to run fiber to one pole, and then it is distributed along the power lines from there. Customers may be 10 miles away from the nearest fiber and still get served as long as they have electricity.

There are issues to work out with the electric company since the devices clamp onto the wires (the signal actually travels in the air around the wire, not inside the wire itself) but most electric in rural areas is delivered by small cooperatives that are owned by the customers. Obviously the customers would be all for getting access to high speed broadband so they'll be eager to strike a deal with AT&T when they come calling. If there are associations (like say all the rural Nebraska cooperatives getting together in a statewide association to share employees to help repair storm outages) then AT&T might be able to work with them and get deals made in bulk.

Installation is basically "climb the pole, clamp on the device, climb back down" and they only need one every three poles or so, so they would be able to cover a lot of ground in a day. Heck, maybe they'd train the utility guys and have them do the installs during their downtime when there are no repairs/maintenance scheduled or alongside regular inspections they probably do checking for cracked insulators etc.

I understand now. I was thinking last mile being closer to the end user.

 

[slice1900]

im rural, we have 50/50 ariel/buried

its very common because of storm damage

Are you rural enough that there probably isn't any fiber within a mile of your location? There is rural and then there is rural - like the <1 person per square mile example I gave in the Nebraska Sand Hills region.

 

[mdram]

Are you rural enough that there probably isn't any fiber within a mile of your location? There is rural and then there is rural - like the <1 person per square mile example I gave in the Nebraska Sand Hills region.

not that bad. there are 2 fiber runs withing 500ft of my house
but neither can be accessed
1 is a cell tower back haul
1 is for the electric coop to read meters and control their sub stations

 

[slice1900]

not that bad. there are 2 fiber runs withing 500ft of my house
but neither can be accessed
1 is a cell tower back haul
1 is for the electric coop to read meters and control their sub stations

The cell tower backhaul would allow them to provide you with fixed wireless without any need for AirGig, and it wouldn't just be AT&T but any provider could do so (I don't know for sure, but I am assuming the cell tower owner provides the backhaul in the typical situation of a leased tower with more than one cellular provider renting space on it)

In some rural areas the electric company is selling internet access because they've already run fiber all over. Fixed wireless will make that a lot easier because they won't need run fiber all the way to the house so it becomes a LOT cheaper to do and won't require a big up front payment or commitment to three years of service like some do to defray that cost.

 

[mdram]

cell tower is verizon, i get 60mbps on my cell phone

i have talked to the elec coop. they are looking for a partner to do the internet thing

 

[navychop]

I understand there is a plan underway to try installing Airgig by drone.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[slice1900]

I understand there is a plan underway to try installing Airgig by drone.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

Yikes, I think it would be easier to have guys climb poles (since they need to inspect the insulators regularly anyway) rather than having a drone buzzing around power lines - if it is wide enough it could touch both all the savings would go away from the first time they need to replace blown transformers due to the short arcing across the drone!

I'd love to watch them try - from a distance, of course!

 

[Jimbo]

Yikes, I think it would be easier to have guys climb poles (since they need to inspect the insulators regularly anyway) rather than having a drone buzzing around power lines - if it is wide enough it could touch both all the savings would go away from the first time they need to replace blown transformers due to the short arcing across the drone!

I'd love to watch them try - from a distance, of course!

I know this is way different, but have you ever watched the guys checking the power lines in the helicopters ?

Thats quite a sight to see as well.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Back to the NFL

Anyone who wants Sunday Ticket pretty much already has Directv and is gladly paying regular rack rates. This includes bars and consumers.

Generally the new customers signing up who get Sunday ticket for free don’t really care. Granted it does attract some new subscribers, but everyone who wants Sunday ticket already has it.

If you offer a lower cost streaming option, all your going to do is take away from your customers who are paying a premium for it right now and replace them with a cheaper product.

I can see the bars immediately switch to streaming and pocket what they where paying as profit.

As far as pick your team, that’s a disaster waiting to happen with the loss of revenue

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Back to the NFL

Anyone who wants Sunday Ticket pretty much already has Directv and is gladly paying regular rack rates. This includes bars and consumers.

Generally the new customers signing up who get Sunday ticket for free don’t really care. Granted it does attract some new subscribers, but everyone who wants Sunday ticket already has it.

If you offer a lower cost streaming option, all your going to do is take away from your customers who are paying a premium for it right now and replace them with a cheaper product.

I can see the bars immediately switch to streaming and pocket what they where paying as profit.

As far as pick your team, that’s a disaster waiting to happen with the loss of revenue

streaming to bars will likely cost a lot more then homes or homes may be locked down to only 1-2 live streams at an time. Also bars may need pay out there ass for an uncapped internet link.

 

[slice1900]

To my knowledge NO ONE offers any streaming that is legal for public viewing in bars/restaurants. You can't show ESPN3, you can't show ESPN+, you can't show BTN plus, you can't play Apple Music, you can't play Pandora. Check the terms and conditions, they all say for private non-commercial use only.

They would have to create a specially priced version of streaming NFLST. If they didn't, any bar caught using it would be treated the same way bars that have owners bring their residential receivers in to get NFLST on the cheap - they'll get sued out of business.

 

[MrMars]

If I had to guess the NFL will void the AT&T contract, start their own streaming service then sell TV rights to AT&T at a cheaper price, no way it goes streaming only but I do think it will end up being both next season. AT&T won't like it but NFL holds all the cards.