over who knows how many years. idk, if i have the money, i seems like it might be worth while building it in a city or two and then letting other isps rent space in it for cheaper than the current cost to get on a pole.

maintenance would start to pay for itself

make money off my competition

if i lose the war for the actually internet piece, i still make money off the pipe

I don't know for all EU but things unraveled here like this: companies built their infrastructure then lease it to other companies... if you are internet operator you compete for costumers all over but you pay the lease for infrastructure to some .... Speed is unaffected since they are under "lease agreement)

the alternitive is what were doing right now creating ever complex systems of cables ontop of artifical trees or under the ground with the added problem of it being easier to forget where they are underground because they arnt inside the extremely expensive pipe your preposing

and all of thise expense falls onto either the tax payer or the isp

And whoever is going to do that will need to get the local community's permission to do so...pay an annual fee to the government, etc. in other words they are given a monopoly on that. 😉

local government doesn't even approve it to start with, i mean why would they? whatever company is the current ISP can just pay the town not to

the monopoly exists simply because its hard to do this and anyone who trys eventually gets eated up by the larger isps and their cables become comcast's cables

consumers wants competition

"hey, don't undo this regulation and i'll pay you uhhhh.... late fees for missed dues, yeah"

even if the right of way cost is exorberent, its still preventing more taxation on the united states infastructure

because keeping that infrastructure funded by only the government has been working out real well.

actually it sounds like its funded by isps taking up pole realistate

though taxepayer money probably does eventually go into that

fuck, i wish they would privatize roads here just so that there would be real roads, rather than the state government raiding the transportation funds to pay some ex governor 100k a year in pension for retiring at 50

@Arch-Fiend i wasn't talking about just the internet infrastructure, otherwise your comment on "preventing more taxation on the united states infrastructure" would make no sense

"its taxing the infrastructure....by building new and better ones.... yeah..."

also who owns poles is really random and different from place to place

your suggesting a pole for every isp?

we once looked like this https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4066/4329783566_8e1420ea07.jpg

it would probably end up being easier and cheaper to start going the underground route at some point

there is several different ways to solve this problem but the government is not one of them

Underground tends to work better in many areas (I know in FLorida it would be better as it would minimize damages and speed up recovery after hurricanes. That is unless you are in a low lying area that is prone to flooding...in which case your underground wiring/cable/electric will get fried when you have alot of rain/hurricanes/storm surges

it does nothing but fuck it up

@Chijohnaok and not on limestone that likes to vanish

the giant alka seltzer that is Florida

i think i agree with you that even if the goal to making right of way exorberently expensive just to prevent cable bloat on poles, its not seemingly a calculated expense, it probably does have more to do with kickbacks, however at some point compatention will have to be curbed by realistic limitation on infastructure. so i think yes this right of way cost is protectionist for existing ips and should be delt with, but at the same time we should decide how far we will go. even then this doesent solve the problem in the marketplace that corporations will have where they simply outcompete with eachother by already having so much wealth they can choose to take a loss over a number of years just to kill out any compatition that arises and intimidate any others for a time

@Arch-Fiend as with everything, there is balance.

however, talking about the cost of digging holes, maybe Elon's boring company would be helping to fix that

In my subdivision all the utilities are buried but as soon as you step outside you have large utility poles (some wooden which tend to come down easier in storms and some massive concrete poles which tend to stay up better during storms). A storm related fail will result as soon as it comes to that wooden pole.. aka the weakest link in the chain

maybe you don't need to dig a hole along every house, just a main one under the street or through some main drag, then towns or homeowners pay for the line going from the house to the hookup

so the cost of that is on the owner/town

and the ISP is just the cable running to the hookup

As it is now the two two primary cable/internet/phone providers in my area have their own buried lines in the right of way (grass between the sidewalk and street). One provider uses the coax wiring to carry signals while the other provider (FIOS) uses fiber optics.

Those lines I think are no more than 1-2 feet underground.

Perhaps a better solution is for some communities to just start kicking out ISPs completely and just putting down the 20k to set up their own internet node and pay the 1800 a month collectively

That could be the cost of like 18-20 people paying for high speed internet right now

Well, if you have ever sat in on a Homeowners Association meeting, getting a group of people to agree on assessing the members more money is not an east thing to do.

easy