• Triasha@lemmy.world
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        19 minutes ago

        This would work in the US on the coasts and in the cities.

        Even the eastern parts of the west coast states the math gets bad. Running cables over/mountains to service the poorest 10% of the states population.

        Getting into the square states you have 10s of thousands of miles of mountains and deserts to get to a vanishing small number of people. There are twice as many people in my city as there are in the entire state of Wyoming and we are the third largest city in Texas.

        Are you really going to run cables all over an area of the alps but the size of France to bring service to a number of people equivalent to one midsize city? Most of it is protected national Park people don’t even live in.

        Most of Nevada is uninhabited desert with some of the hottest temperatures on earth.

        We can leave half of Texas empty and still have service for 95% of the population.

        It’s not as simple as “just do it” over here. We have huge problems, but the challenges are legit.

        • sasquatch7704@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Obviously there is fiber, copper is usually “last mile”. Its cheaper to have a long fiber and short copper. Copper more or less anyone can install, fiber is more specialized.

          I’m not proposing to reinvent the wheel, just continue what has proven to work.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            2 hours ago

            You don’t seem to be getting it. Where is the fiber coming from? These properties almost certainly have only copper the whole way, so in order to upgrade them to decent internet they would have to completely relay the fiber line, and unlike copper, fiber requires electricity so then they have to lay an electrical line as well. It’s like a whole thing.

            It’s only economically viable to do that when there’s going to be a large population density at the other end for small rural locations it really isn’t worth it.

            Your opinion is not unpopular, it is simply uninformed.

            • sasquatch7704@lemmy.world
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              52 minutes ago

              Copper at decent speeds requires more signal amplification then fiber

              Single-Mode Fiber (SMF): Max Length: Up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) or more without needing signal boosters or amplifiers

          • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            The Australian government is heavily criticised for half-assing fibre internet because they did copper to the house in most cases. We still, a decade later, have one of the worst internet in the western world.

            I think satellites are likely much cheaper to deliver internet to a whole continent than trying to run bloody copper.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        oh I didn’t know there’s a fiber box in 100m at any place in the country! tell that to my ISP who cant serve any internet through the landline telephone cable because it’s too far from distribution! oh and also to all the customers of microwave wireless networks.

        and this doesn’t even need to be on the countryside! It’s a problem here even in villages that the ISP is not allowed to run any cables on the high voltage electric poles!