Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

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kayakprof
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Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

Although we live no more than 1 mile from the center of town, our house is not hardwired with cable or fiber optic. Our property is surrounded by high trees and we have no direct line of sight to a tower, which means that several of the local satellite and cell phone internet providers either cannot or will not service us. Given the stay-at-home orders in our state, and a work-at-home mandate, we are having difficulty managing internet access. Both my DW and I can work online for the next few months. Our two elementary age children are at home, and in an ideal world they would be engaged in online learning (the teachers did send home paper packets). We have an AT&T hotspot that offers 32 gigs of data. We tried Verizon, and it barely works. We tried Hughsnet and they won't even try to hook us up. We tried local providers and its the same thing. The answer is - we are in a black hole spot and we can't be serviced. Even though we have banned the children from internet, we blow through a gig a day just doing regular work tasks, and that despite the fact that not one of us has done an online meeting like zoom.

I checked with our local provider about hard-wiring the house. This would help in the current crisis, and of course, would be almost as useful in the future (we could work at home, the kids could work at home, we could stream, etc). Atlantic Broadband is very slow to respond and pretty unhelpful, but eventually they responded.

The initial estimate is $9400 for fiber optic. Wow. That seems incredible. But when I think to the future - and spending the next 20+ years in this location, I wonder if it might be worth it. I guess I could get a second hotspot, although I doubt that would service the needs of all four of us. Should I bite the bullet and pay to get hardwired?
Jags4186
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Jags4186 »

Just so I understand, you currently you have no internet service at your house except for an AT&T mobile hotspot? Do you have a regular copper phone line? You could get DSL (slow but better than nothing).

You’ll pay for the fiber one way or another. I would guess anyone looking to purchase this house from you in the future is going to find out the same information you did and adjust any offer they make accordingly.
dukeblue219
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by dukeblue219 »

None of the hardwired solutions is going to help in the short term, but what about a better wireless plan? Do you have Tmobile service eligible for Tmobile Home Internet (unlimited data). Have you asked AT&T about a better plan, or even waiving caps during the crisis?
HomeStretch
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by HomeStretch »

Reliable, fast Internet access for business/school/personal reasons at our home is essential IMO. If my only access option and I could afford it, I would pay for the fiber optic hookup.

ETA: our house is in a wireless deadzone for mobile carriers.
Last edited by HomeStretch on Tue Apr 07, 2020 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Living Free
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Living Free »

I'd pay that amount to get the fiber optic especially if I was going to live in that house for the next 20 years.
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Watty
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Watty »

kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am The initial estimate is $9400 for fiber optic.

....we live no more than 1 mile from the center of town....
Is there any chance that you could split the cost with any neighbors? If you could get ten people to go together on putting the fiber optic line in then the cost would be more like a thousand dollars per house.

You have to consider the monthly fees as well.
kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am But when I think to the future - and spending the next 20+ years in this location, I wonder if it might be worth it.
I am not up to speed on it but I have been hearing a lot of hype about 5G being superfast. It would be good do some research on that since if you can get that in a few years you might not need a hardwired connection then.
ensign_lee
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ensign_lee »

Watty wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:13 am I am not up to speed on it but I have been hearing a lot of hype about 5G being superfast. It would be good do some research on that since if you can get that in a few years you might not need a hardwired connection then.
If he doesn't have 4G coverage, he definitely won't have 5G coverage.

5G is supposed to cover a much smaller area but be much faster.

OP: That's a rough spot. But uh...internet access is basically a necessity now. If you can afford it (big if), I'd say it's worth it. If you can get your neighbors to pool together, that would obviously be better, but if that's not possible, you should probably get it done - if only for resale value.

The pool of buyers to you with functionally no internet access must be so tiny.
onourway
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by onourway »

I would pay it without a doubt and consider it a part of the cost of the house.

If you have jobs that allow you to work from home, you can work from home far more effectively wIth proper broadband Internet, and the $9k should be a drop in the bucket compared to the value of two professional jobs over the long term.
ARoseByAnyOtherName
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ARoseByAnyOtherName »

kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am I checked with our local provider about hard-wiring the house. This would help in the current crisis, and of course, would be almost as useful in the future (we could work at home, the kids could work at home, we could stream, etc). Atlantic Broadband is very slow to respond and pretty unhelpful, but eventually they responded.
Did you ask them about DSL options? That would likely be cheap and hopefully viable since you are close to center of town. Assuming you have copper phone wires run to the house and they are in good condition.
Carl53
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Carl53 »

OP, is the IP willing to run a mile of fiber for $9400? or is it already in front of the house. I sought to have a local cable company extend service about 150 feet across a rural road five years ago and was told they wanted to take a circuitous route, install a number of poles and charge $12500. I appealed at several levels but was denied. Ended up with several iphones and a home phone/internet box on an ATT plan that assures 22 GB on each line at unreduced speeds and then unlimited service if the system is congested at much slower speeds. The two lines for iphones each include 10 GB of mobile hotspot service. Until this pandemic, I don't believe we have ever had the speeds reduced despite one or two of the lines exceeding the limit. Spouse has seen occasional slowdown in last week or so, but is well past the limit. Not saying this is a good solution, but if I could have gotten hooked up on cable or in your case fiber for a more reasonable fee I might have jumped on it. Previously we had a local DSL that was out of service probably 25% of the time. I actually have fiber in the front yard but am not allowed to be hooked to it as it supposedly goes to a large city some 20+ miles away.
ARoseByAnyOtherName
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ARoseByAnyOtherName »

Carl53 wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:39 am I actually have fiber in the front yard but am not allowed to be hooked to it as it supposedly goes to a large city some 20+ miles away.
That is interesting! Do you know how it got there in the first place?
Carl53
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Carl53 »

ARoseByAnyOtherName wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:49 am
Carl53 wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:39 am I actually have fiber in the front yard but am not allowed to be hooked to it as it supposedly goes to a large city some 20+ miles away.
That is interesting! Do you know how it got there in the first place?
ATT came through a few years ago and put it through in the ROW. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=170434&hilit=fiber
I was offered $400 to cut across the property (would have saved them perhaps 100 feet). I told them I would consider if they would allow me to connect. They said no one in area was being allowed to connect. I told them no thank you to granting them an easement.
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flossy21
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by flossy21 »

I don't know where you are located but in some places you can get long distance wifi internet. You would likely need to put up a tower to access the service.

The link below will take you to the Wireless Internet Service Provider Association (WISPA) website (https://www.wispa.org/. You can find out if there is any service in your region...

https://members.wispa.org/members/direc ... rg_id=WISP
ARoseByAnyOtherName
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ARoseByAnyOtherName »

Carl53 wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:08 am
ARoseByAnyOtherName wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:49 am
Carl53 wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:39 am I actually have fiber in the front yard but am not allowed to be hooked to it as it supposedly goes to a large city some 20+ miles away.
That is interesting! Do you know how it got there in the first place?
ATT came through a few years ago and put it through in the ROW. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=170434&hilit=fiber
I was offered $400 to cut across the property (would have saved them perhaps 100 feet). I told them I would consider if they would allow me to connect. They said no one in area was being allowed to connect. I told them no thank you to granting them an easement.
Bummer. :(
ARoseByAnyOtherName
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ARoseByAnyOtherName »

ARoseByAnyOtherName wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:31 am
kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am I checked with our local provider about hard-wiring the house. This would help in the current crisis, and of course, would be almost as useful in the future (we could work at home, the kids could work at home, we could stream, etc). Atlantic Broadband is very slow to respond and pretty unhelpful, but eventually they responded.
Did you ask them about DSL options? That would likely be cheap and hopefully viable since you are close to center of town. Assuming you have copper phone wires run to the house and they are in good condition.
Additional thoughts: OP you probably need to exhaustively research every option available to you and then decide. These options will vary based on the specific town you live in as well as your specific location, so it's hard to give general advice. Things like line-of-sight wireless and WiMax may be options depending on where you live.

Also for the fiber optic option for $10k, you should understand what speed options this will give you and at what price. For example, will 1 gigabit internet be available and if so what is the cost per month, all in? (Not saying you need this, just for illustration only).
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kayakprof
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

I appreciate these replies. They give me some new options to follow up on. I did find one neighbor who would like to split the costs. The others are either so used to living offline (i.e. in their 80s), or so far away, that they aren't interested. Only about 11 neighbors total on a 2 mile road. I really appreciate the question concerning (if I do hardwire) how much data will be available and how much it will cost - I didn't really ask that question when I was investigating. It turns out they ran the fiber and a box to a house that is 1/4th mile away (or less), and they can wire from that. They will need to install another box in front of my house, and this can service both me and the other interested neighbor. Ultimately, if the monthly costs are reasonable, I don't think I can turn down getting hard wired - even for such a ridiculous cost.
bdpb
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by bdpb »

kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am The initial estimate is $9400 for fiber optic.
Did they give you a timeline when this could be done? Will summer 2021 be good enough?
clydewolf
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by clydewolf »

Would you pay $10,000 for a new roof?
bdpb
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by bdpb »

Do you have another place on your property that would have better line of sight reception?

You could run your own cabling or directed wifi from there to the main house.
ballons
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by ballons »

kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am Atlantic Broadband is very slow to respond and pretty unhelpful, but eventually they responded.

The initial estimate is $9400 for fiber optic. Wow. That seems incredible. But when I think to the future - and spending the next 20+ years in this location, I wonder if it might be worth it. I guess I could get a second hotspot, although I doubt that would service the needs of all four of us. Should I bite the bullet and pay to get hardwired?
You need a contract stating all fiber optic i.e. FTTP, any data caps, 1000/1000 speeds, monthly fees, etc. If this is Atlantic Broadband, they may just be running copper coax and calling that "fiber."

People spend $30,000+ for a swimming pool they use twice a year. $78/month over 10 years + monthly fees is cheap for fiber in rural areas.
FishTaco
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by FishTaco »

It sounds like alot, but if you split it halfway with a neighbor and then amortize it over 20 years, it isn't bad at all. You also have to figure how much you'll save on commuting costs and the like. I would pay hundreds of dollars per month for internet if it meant I could work from home long term.
Valuethinker
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Valuethinker »

kayakprof wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:53 am Although we live no more than 1 mile from the center of town, our house is not hardwired with cable or fiber optic. Our property is surrounded by high trees and we have no direct line of sight to a tower, which means that several of the local satellite and cell phone internet providers either cannot or will not service us. Given the stay-at-home orders in our state, and a work-at-home mandate, we are having difficulty managing internet access. Both my DW and I can work online for the next few months. Our two elementary age children are at home, and in an ideal world they would be engaged in online learning (the teachers did send home paper packets). We have an AT&T hotspot that offers 32 gigs of data. We tried Verizon, and it barely works. We tried Hughsnet and they won't even try to hook us up. We tried local providers and its the same thing. The answer is - we are in a black hole spot and we can't be serviced. Even though we have banned the children from internet, we blow through a gig a day just doing regular work tasks, and that despite the fact that not one of us has done an online meeting like zoom.

I checked with our local provider about hard-wiring the house. This would help in the current crisis, and of course, would be almost as useful in the future (we could work at home, the kids could work at home, we could stream, etc). Atlantic Broadband is very slow to respond and pretty unhelpful, but eventually they responded.

The initial estimate is $9400 for fiber optic. Wow. That seems incredible. But when I think to the future - and spending the next 20+ years in this location, I wonder if it might be worth it. I guess I could get a second hotspot, although I doubt that would service the needs of all four of us. Should I bite the bullet and pay to get hardwired?
A home without high speed broadband is going to be a lot harder to sell. Almost impossible in this day and age I suspect (for a primary residence).

You will get the $9400 back when you sell the house, I predict. It might not be a great return but it will pay a return (of at least 0).

(5G is a hype machine. If it is ever available to you, it won't be so for years).
Nummerkins
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Nummerkins »

I would pay up. Would you pay for a new roof? Sewer/septic replacement? Why not internet?

Also, if you ever have to sell your house... I would never buy one without verified high speed internet and I suspect this will be a deal-breaker for more and more people as time goes on.
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Luke Duke
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Luke Duke »

I'd pay the money and be thankful that it's an option. It will raise the value of your house in a way that isn't likely to appear on the tax roll.

The current pandemic is proving that high speed internet access is more of a "need" than a "want" than many people realized.

I'd even consider putting another empty conduit (cap both ends) in the trench just in case the cable company decides to come down your road in the future.
bloom2708
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by bloom2708 »

My sister lives 1 mile north of her city/town.

They have no option for high speed internet. Hughes just didn't work. Slow and data cap was low and expensive.

They each have 20GB of hotspot data. It isn't working very well for online school.

Maybe try to negotiate a bit. A good idea to see if neighbors along the path might go in.

Also determine what the top speeds will be and the allotment of data. If you do all the work and they cap you at 100GB of data per month it might be all for not. I would want fast 100mb+ and a high data allotment. 2TB+
panhead
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by panhead »

I live in a rural community in the northeast, although cable is available at the street. I just bought and renovated a home with a 700 ft driveway, and this house was never connected to cable (we don't have fiber, man I wish we did). Anyway, the estimate was around $6k to run overhead cable to the house, with the cable company picking up $1500 or so of it, so net out of pocket around $4500. I ended up trenching from the house to the road to add post lights and some other things for about the same cost, and the cable company gave me (free) the direct bury cable to run in the trench to the house. I work from home a lot, so I had to do something no matter what.

So, if I were you and I was going to stay, I'd do the fiber.
Dontridetheindexdown
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Dontridetheindexdown »

We paid about that much 10 years ago, to switch from satellite internet to a predecessor company of Atlantic Broadband.

It was well worth the money, and far less than the capital costs for our electric service, our water system, or our sewage system.

Atlantic Broadband is the most reliable public utility I have ever enjoyed - they typically provide uninterrupted service during electric power outages.

We pay about half each month of what we used to pay for satellite internet, for about twice the speed, and no latency.

No latency means we use VOIP extensively, which was a bit awkward with satellite.

In summary, pay the money and don't look back - you will absolutely love your new connection.
rich126
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by rich126 »

HomeStretch wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:02 am Reliable, fast Internet access for business/school/personal reasons at our home is essential IMO. If my only access option and I could afford it, I would pay for the fiber optic hookup.
I wouldn't buy any house that didn't have high speed Internet. It is indispensable IMO. The potential "gotcha" is wireless. I don't know if in the future you can make do with wireless instead of "wire to the house". There is a lot of talk about 5G but I think that is still going to be a long way off and its range is very limited so it requires a lot of radios being deployed.

So I'm not counting on 5G helping much for most people.


https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/ ... -id/731293
For instance, Samsung Corp. said recently that it tested its 28Ghz infrastructure with Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) for its home-brewed fixed 5G service at ranges of up 1,500 feet (500 meters). If those ranges hold true beyond the customer trials -- note if -- that would mean a 5G radio deployed every couple of blocks in Manhattan, just for a fixed wireless service. (See Verizon to Start Fixed 5G Customer Trials in April.)

Which has recently led me to wonder exactly how widespread mmWave 5G deployments will be? I asked the CTO of Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Ulf Edwaldsson, about exactly this in March at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

"We have never said they would be nationwide rollouts; that would surprise me a lot," Edwaldsson said. (See Islands in the Stream: Don't Expect Full mmWave 5G Coverage in US, Says Nokia.)
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mw1739
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by mw1739 »

A family member recently had to pay about $10,000 to run Comcast cable to their semi-rural home. Comcast did offer what is essentially 0% financing with a 3 year contract.
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PescadorPete
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by PescadorPete »

This won't help you in the near-term; but your $10k expenditure might be old news in a few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
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kayakprof
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

I really appreciate these responses, as they mirror what I've been thinking. I have told them to move forward, but the company movement is glacial. I expect to be connected eventually, but not before the pandemic runs its course. Still, we need to be connected.
megabad
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by megabad »

Have you looked at ATT wireless service? 100 Gb for $100. Not sure I would spend the $10k right now. Especially considering the possibility that might be covered for free or subsidized in government assistance. Nothing like spending 10k for the privilege of locking yourself into paying a monopoly provider for the next few decades...I guess thank you for subsidizing my internet service...(I didn’t pay anything for my install).
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kayakprof
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

OP here. Our county received a government grant for 50% of the costs to hook-up rural customers with fiber optic. It would have cost me $700 to get connected. Then the county commissioners got into a political mash-up and they dropped the grant completely. It was infuriating. I've read news stories that the big companies come in an lobby against such grants as it threatens their monopoly. Thus the $10k cost for me today.
MathWizard
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by MathWizard »

Just to get you through the current situation:

A short term solution:

I don't know if your current phone(s) can be brought to Google Fi, and be hotspots.
(My google phones can of course work this way.)

Either $70 for one phone or $120 fo two phones in the "unlimited" plan.

https://fi.google.com/about/plans/

You have 22 GB/month of data at high speed, unlimited at 256Kb/s after that.
(256Kb/s which fine for text email.)

This is less than what you currently have, but you could use this just for your work
by not sharing the wifi password with the kids, and you don't have to sign up for a fixed period,
it is just month to month, and could dump the plan later, and go back to what
you were using previously.
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kayakprof
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

An update: We teamed up with one of our neighbors (who lives about .25 miles away) and approached the cable company for an estimate to get hardwired. The company was quick and decisive. Whereas it would have cost one of us $9500 to connect, for some reason it only costs $6900 total for the two of us to connect. They offered a discount because we both agreed to connect. My share is 40% of the total cost because my house is much closer to the existing nodes. Total cost to me to get hardwired: $2760. Given our struggles just in the last two weeks with staying connected via hotspots for our employment, this is a no-brainer for us.
Lalamimi
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by Lalamimi »

glad you found a solution. We were on 10 acres 20 miles south of Austin Tx, nothing but a local company available. They wanted to put up a 50 ft tower to get over the trees, etc. to their tower. $500. We said no. Road Runner was across the street in a subdivision, would not come across the highway to our rural subdivision. We used modem and Cingular (now ATT) for years. Sold Oct 2018 and heard Spectrum (formerly Road Runner) had finally come into the neighborhood. I would try to do a deal for the future if any new neighbors join in, they will reimburse you guys.
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kayakprof
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by kayakprof »

Really good idea - there are at least 8 other neighbors on the road - although the nearest of them is about a mile away. But if they ever sell, the new owners will very likely want to get connected.
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8foot7
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by 8foot7 »

Fantastic that you got a solution. For others in the same boat, Charter/Spectrum/Bright House/Time Warner is on a fiber expansion kick and generally if you sign up as a business and agree to a three year contract at $300-500/mo, they'll cover construction and plant up to $25,000. Their fiber division is well run and the service is great, unlike folks' experiences with the coax and consumer side of their companies. I have a contact if anyone would like a referral to see if their location qualifies -- but many do, including many isolated places one would not expect to be covered. (I get nothing out of the referral; I just know what it's like to not have options.)
megabad
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by megabad »

Thanks for updating. Sounds like a steal to me honestly. Definitely worth it at that lower price, Id say.
rich126
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Re: Rural Home: Getting Hardwired?

Post by rich126 »

kayakprof wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:53 pm An update: We teamed up with one of our neighbors (who lives about .25 miles away) and approached the cable company for an estimate to get hardwired. The company was quick and decisive. Whereas it would have cost one of us $9500 to connect, for some reason it only costs $6900 total for the two of us to connect. They offered a discount because we both agreed to connect. My share is 40% of the total cost because my house is much closer to the existing nodes. Total cost to me to get hardwired: $2760. Given our struggles just in the last two weeks with staying connected via hotspots for our employment, this is a no-brainer for us.
They probably gave you a discount since now they are getting two monthly fees. So if they charge $100/month now they are getting $2,400 per year with essentially no other costs for the next few years. They figure you and your neighbor will be keeping service for at least several years considering the upfront cost you had to pay.
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