These Maps Make Your Internet Worse - Cheddar Explains
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- If you’ve ever struggled with a slow home internet connection or mobile data download in the United States, you’re not alone. Despite mobile and internet companies claiming to have “the best nationwide coverage,” or whatever it is they say in those ads, millions of Americans still lack access to reliable, high-speed internet. But you may be surprised to learn who the real culprit behind this ongoing issue is: flawed, overly-optimistic government maps.
Further reading:
Github
github.com/mic...[…]c6bf87428ed5106870f5
FCC Broadband Data
www.fcc.gov/Br...
The Federal Communications Commission
fcc.maps.arcgi...
www.fcc.gov/re...
www.fcc.gov/do...
transition.fcc...
CNET
www.cnet.com/f...
Microsoft
blogs.microsof...
Congressional Research Service
sgp.fas.org/cr...
The Verge
www.theverge.c...
Broadband Now
broadbandnow.c...
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
ilsr.org/repor...
The White House
www.whitehouse...
US Government Accountability Office
www.gao.gov/as...
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
www.ntia.doc.g...
US Senate - Commerce Committee
www.commerce.s...
PCMag
www.pcmag.com/...
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Meanwhile in Australia, Broadband recently got redefined to a *lower* speed so that more people "have access to broadband". Also, it's notoriously slow.
Yeaaahh have fun with your NBN mate.
For once being a small island off Europe gives us an advantage - for all its flaws, the UKs Openreach scheme does a decent job.
That'd be funny if it wasn't so terrible. It's like laughing at the Darwin awards.
I had a similar reaction. Bad Internet in the US? *cries in Australian*
Sounds like the US Reagan administration reclassifying Ketchup as a "vegetable" so they could say school kids were getting enough vegetables.
@@ThisIsAitch meh, they said I could get upgraded from DSL (
This narration was on point. I always knew those maps were sketchy
Love your content man. Keep being you.
You have amazing videos
Especially the ones she drew by hand.
It’s the same map using different colors, depending on the carrier.
Sir, birds are not allowed to write comment's here.
Cook County: 99% “available” vs. 54% actual. There are worse discrepancies in less populated counties, but, as with San Francisco, it’s pretty shocking for one of the largest metro areas in the country.
Just because it's available, doesn't mean people actually get it. It's pretty common now that some folks just use their phone and don't pay for broadband in home internet connection.
I straight up don't get service in my apartment and in a lot of Oak Park. I have AT&T. If the wifi's not working then I'm just out of luck lol. Really messed up for how densely populated it is here
I wondered what if the MS-GitHub data actually was limited to non-mobile devices connecting. If people use mobile (cellular data using) devices a lot in a place then that would pull down the broadband use percentage rate for that place. But if they do exclude cell data connections then that rate is indeed shockingly low for SF. In either case actual connections of any type is a way better measure than one home connected in the census block or homes that could be served if the ISP felt like it.
@@bessc3358 Yeah i had a similar issue with ATT in the heart of the city in River North. It's why i dumped them.
i fould a county that had FCC numbers at 100%, and microsoft numbers at 14%!
My wife had AT&T and I had Verizon up until last year when we merged plans. I always found AT&T to be more reliable when driving through rural areas in the Great Plains, Midwest, and south. However, I thought Verizon had better coverage and better speed in metro areas. All of those maps are complete BS, but typically if you don’t get service with one, you don’t get service with any.
In rural Nevada & California, Verizon has historically had the best coverage, but in the last 5 years, the speeds have become unusable. I assume their towers are overloaded. Our family has switched to T-mobile and the speeds are much better and the coverage is comparable, though the network itself is less reliable. Accepting a usually good connection instead of a consistently bad connection.
@@TimothyGaetke Verizon isn't known for their speed, they're known for their coverage. T-Mobile isn't known for their coverage, they're known for their speed. Also, you're talking about the desert, sorta.
I agree to an extent, typically, if a GSM network provider (AT&T/T Mobile)has trash service, then a CDMA network provider (Verizon/[old] Sprint)will have relatively better service and vice versa. This applies to the US though since most of the World uses GSM for their cellular networks.
It all just depends on a given area which will work better. That's exactly why husband and i purposely keep separate carriers. Usually if one of them isn't working well, the other one is.
From my experience in the southern us in a medium sized city, Verizon works almost everywhere expect the places that I want it to apparently. T mobile coverage is spotty. And at&t is the best IMO here as it is the fastest and most widespread
Not sure about USA, but here in Europe the GSM operators posess detailed 3D models of terrain and buildings which allow them to calculate the cellular signal quality everywhere with very high accuracy. As part of the university course we were touring a T-mobile facility where the guy in charge of the network could remotely adjust the power of any cell tower anywhere in the country and see the change in signal coverage in real-time. His workstation had 1 TB of RAM to fit all those crazy Maxwell models :-)
That's fantastic it would be great if even a single state in the United States would be able to do that. any state please just do it I need it so bad.
@@cablefeed3738 The problem is simple: Their ability to calculate coverage doesn't make them willing to provide coverage everywhere.
En Europe people are less car dependent and often use transit. Yet plenty of busy (passenger) rail lines have spotty coverage. Mostly where terrain and how rail lines deal with terrain would make it a bit harder....
@@gergelyvarju6679 here in Austria, all rail has WiFi on the trains, probably using mobile connection with the providers since speed is okay. Didn't have call interrupt on my way from Vienna to Salzburg two months ago, will keep track of it again since headed there again on the 23rd and see if I notice signal drop at any point, doubtful though. Maybe going to the south I'll have signal drop.
Biggest issue is more in Vienna itself due to it being taller (4-6 floor) buildings across the entire city, at my desk I get -109 right now in my apartment, go to the window and I get -94.
(You can check on Android by going to your phone settings > About > SIM and tap on the SIM. -110 is terrible/probably going to disconnect on a call, -100 is poor, -85 to -100 is fair, -70 to - 85 is good, and anything above that is excellent).
My house in country side I get -75, running around the forest there I get around -90 at worst, trees have enough openings that it's fine vs the cement buildings in the city.
@@Masterrunescapeer I am from Hungary.
A few people at providers pointed out some key factors. In plenty of European countries mandatory copyright collectives are and were always a thing. They collect some levies, fees, etc. and redistribute them to copyright owners, and they authorize a lot of home taping, copying for personal use, including filesharing (and torrenting) for music, movies, tv shows, etc. ISPs aren't allowed to limit filesharing in their unlimited plans. In some areas they should try to build networks as dense as possible, and they might need a lot more equipment for dense areas.
So here ISPs have to maintain expensive networks from not that good income, prioritizing some areas for tower upgrades, etc. is important.
The WiFi on the trains use the same service from T-Mobile, and when the T-Mobile connection falls back to 2G, Edge (they will be replaced with 5G) or in one of the blind spots (found at least 3 in a 3 hour train ride) we can stay connected to the router on the train but the internet access would stop. Simply because based on their income and how strong networks we need elsewhere some areas has to be far less important. To make things even worse for less important areas, accurate simulation can help them to prioritize areas more efficiently.
USA has high wages, high costs compared to us, and due to huge sprawl issues maintaining networks there is even harder. Based on fixed income, lots of expenses the companies there also has to prioritize... Having good tools to predict reception quality can't change that.
@@cablefeed3738 kansas or any of those flat states could probably model this very easily!
I love your presentation style. Hey Cheddar: More Karin videos please!
@Karin Shedd You got it!
Ditto that. More Karin please.
@@c567591 Yes please! In fact, I like all of Cheddar's presenters/narrators.
Agree
@@cheddar she hot too
Why isn't Broadband access a question asked on the 10-year census at this point?
Why should it be? Why does it even matter?
@@DavidKen878 you watched the damn video, didn't you
@@BrandoMan I did, I just don't see the relevance. Why only internet? Why not ask if we have cell phones and TVs as well?
Because despite what the FCC says, the internet is rapidly becoming a necessary utility rather than a luxury or convenience.
Do you believe someone in NoInternetsVille Tennessee has access to the same opportunities as someone in a major metroplex with all the high-speed they want?
It absolutely should
There used to be full Verizon coverage on the drive from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. You could always make a call. Last year I drove it, and there were literally hours on the interstate with absolutely no signal. The 4g and 5g towers reach a fraction of the distance that 2g and 3g towers could, and those towers have all shut down.
This is some interesting knowledge, thanks for sharing
It’s kinda stupid that they don’t keep 3g towers working. Like if someone crashes how are they going to call help?
5G towers have a lower frequency band(600MHz) that actually has better reach that 3G did, but it's probably the case they just never replaced the towers because of the cost. I mostly notice an outage between Flagstaff and Colorado City, so the Reservation might have something to do with it too, but that's just my own speculation.
That makes a lot of sense. I'm in Canada, but I got a Nokia phone and sometimes I get H+ instead of 4G or 5G, and H+ is often called 3.5G or 3.75G. It's not as fast at 4G, but my Samung phone couldn't get service in those areas since it only took LTE, not HSDPA.
That's what happens when you sacrifice range for more bandwidth. The higher the frequency, the more bandwidth you can transmit. Only problem is higher frequencies can't travel as well as low frequencies. And to think they want to do away with the 3g network in a couple of years...
All maps lie, that’s one of the first things that geography majors are taught. The resources that would be needed to survey every home in every census block, rather than a few in each is so much more that those resources would be best spent on counties which have census blocks without any internet access. Holes in coverage are less of a concern than “internet deserts”
Mmmmm internet desserts 🍪
Or, make it part of the census questionnaire. That thing that has to go around and ask every home within every census block. But the next one is still 8 more years away.
The resources wouldn't be so large if ISPs just had to be more accurate in their reports. ISPs make sure they know exactly which areas and properties they can service.
@@whitenoise509 the ISPs that we are heavily subsidizing to install broadband should be legally required to plot that data accurately.
On the other hand, we could just stop all subsidies (lowering most Americans cell and internet bills by 10-20%) and let the free market take over, since starlink already has the capability
Where they got it wrong is by assessing only one covered point as “full coverage.” This is based off of Census data, which means they could have very easily abstracted a measure of “covered households per 100,000” in each block group or county. Nothing stopped them from being a whole lot more accurate. Additionally, this is something that is already measured by the census bureau in the American communities survey, I really can’t see how they managed to spend $300,000,000 on this map!
The video is great. Good amount of time for the topic, gets its point through without too much digression. Well executed. I spent most of my adult life in a place with one single option (coincidentally they own a broadcast network). I felt like a hostage. The service was expensive, slow, and they clearly knew they didn't need to do much to keep the gravy train rolling.
A follow-up might focus on ISPs finding ways to interfere/donate/bribe states and communities out of municipal broadband?
To me it's crazy how bad us coverage is.
Here in Europe I often forget to turn on my wifi because it doesn't really matter, it's just a cheap as a Lan connection and I usually dont need faster internet.
Is it though? the US is far less densely populated. These videos always want a spicy story, but it’s really not as bad as it seems. She literally went into a desert to say she had no 5g 😂
That's true, but out in the countryside here I still have 4 g coverage. I think the rules of the EU make for a pretty competitive market in cellphone service.
Edit: Of course it's hard to tell from personal experience.
The internet is very good in densely populated areas and the suburbs. Rural areas, not so much.
@@confuciuslola yeah, but Europe doesn’t have vast open expanses of countryside lol “rural” for Europe is basically as far out as an American suburb or small town. There is no European equivalent for Alaska, Montana, Kansas, or Wyoming - just to name a few. If you’re in any American city, suburb, or even small town, you’ll get great data coverage with any of the top 3 carriers. Typically much better than what I’ve experienced on European carriers in the city lol
@@KrishnaAdettiwar yeah but how much did you pay? Is it as cheap to buy unlimited data as it is to buy a Lan connection?
I feel fortunate to live in a country (New Zealand) where we can join almost any provider of electricity, telephone or Internet service, no matter where we are (with some caveats, depending on geography; very hilly or mountainous areas are always going to be a challenge.) These coverage maps are fascinating!
The problem here, in the US, is that one company owns the wires/pipes going to your house. So, even though we have all privatized companies for things like electricity, cable, fiber, natural gas, garbage collection, etc, we really only have one choice. It's the illusion of a competitive marketplace without actually being one.
Cell phone provider is the one thing we can actually choose.
@@LiqdPT No, the problem here is that New Zealand is smaller than the NorthEast Corridor, and is thus not an apt comparison. Russia, China, and India are closer comparisons to the achievement of getting service to large geographical areas. It's pretty easy for Countries like Germany to brag about their internet when they're only 3 Wisconsins large.
EDIT: Canada WOULD be an apt comparison if not for the fact that as our hat it has the coldest climates ever and has areas the size of Wyoming with a population of 0.
@@DSiren - New Zealand - North, South and Stewart islands would roughly stretch from Toronto, ON in the North to Jacksonville, FL in the South.
While it might not be hard to find a provider and get a connection the speeds and means of access will differ significantly dependent on location and topography.
The majority of phone/internet lines in New Zealand are owned by one company.
And much like in Australia I believe true internet speeds in New Zealand are absolutely horrible compared to other 1st world countries.
@@sambeaumont395 Yeah no, I'm not counting the 300 mile gap from the main islands to the tiny peripheral islands as you 'stretching'. All of New Zealand fits in the space between Maryland and Maine if chopped up to fit the space better.
New Zealand is between a third and half the size of Texas.
@@DSiren - all I am saying is the NE Corridor isn’t a great comparison.
It is essentially a straight and narrow line between Boston and Washington DC.
By Road Via Providence, RI - Boston to Washington DC is about 800km - which is about the same (marginally less) than Whangarei to Wellington, which are both North Island cities.
New Zealand may be a relatively narrow country with the majority of its population living along state highway 1, but it isn’t as narrow and extends much much further North to South.
Cables for communication and electricity need to travel the whole length, which kind of makes the gaps between islands relevant, not to mention the significantly lower population density.
New Zealand is roughly the size of Colorado and isn’t wildly different in population density (Colorado +2/sq km).
I went down this rabbit hole with Verizon not too long ago. According to Verizon's map, we should have great 4G coverage at our home, our actual experience is lacking to say the least. After multiple calls with Verizon we got the harsh truth. It turns out that Verizon knows about the coverage issue in our area but can't do anything, the city will not allow them to build additional towers. I find the situation even more annoying because the city has great AT&T coverage and happens to be home to the AT&T Stadium. When the city doesn't allow AT&T's competition to put up towers for no good reason, it makes this seem like a political issue on the surface that customers are adversely affected by.
I find that the reason you were told is bs. They have the money and the ability to buy land. They could easily fix it but don't because they don't have to. Until the turn over rate for their company exceed the new costumer rate I'm doubtful they will change anything.
@@n3rdst0rm They don't even have to buy land, heck or even build a tower. Just put an antenna on the side of a tall building. Here in The Netherlands, providers rent space in church's bell towers, there are often multiple antennas inside those from multiple providers.They Build fake trees (yes that is a thing)as to not be an eyesore but still have coverage in forests.
In all, there are a lot of solutions.
@@iWhacko oh. I didn't know they could do that.
@@n3rdst0rm You need permits to build the tower, and the city is likely getting a lot of money from AT&T that makes them less willing to just let their biggest competitor squeeze into the market. If the city won't issue the permits, they can't build the tower.
Some towers are owned by third parties who rent space to various providers. The towers may be there, but Verizon may be unwilling to pay the rent. In my town, any tower built must allow colocation by other providers. For a price, of course.
Even more into the weeds issue: When an ISP runs service for only the first phase of a multi-phase single-family-dwelling neighborhood, then claims to have coverage for the entire neighborhood after completion. That's our issue (and they didn't even finish the first phase completely).
Funny timing! I just started a contracting position related to this topic. I don't do the mapping part, but I've been familiarizing myself with the topic (I'm not an expert, they needed all hands on deck for a massive workload of getting grant applications in) and one of my first questions to the people I'm working under was about the relevance of the maps and what was considered "served". You explained it concisely and highlighted what I suspected to be a flaw in the process.
I'm still excited to be helping with the grant process, though, because the work I'm doing is going to be one tiny part of the effort to getting some of the less-served parts of the country better internet access.
The FCC allowed ISP's to self-report up until recently. ISP's consider a block to be served if even 1 house has it (as the video said). Many people fall into a weird gap where they may be a few miles from where the lines currently are. If they call the ISP to extend coverage, they will be quoted 10's of thousands of dollars to run copper or fiber to their property. "Extraordinary commitment of resources" That's just broadband wired. Wireless is it's own boondoggle. By the time the wireless ISP's upgrade some portion of their network, they have to basically start again at the newest network technology and they always start with metro high density populations before moving to suburban and rural populations. So yeah... problems
I’ve always been baffled by the jump to 5G when you still can’t reliably get 4G in many places within a city
5G can offer better coverage in congested areas. so in city's 5G is quite useful
pointless when you cant get any signal though
you want 4G first before you are given 5G when 5G technology is already available? If you don't have something at some place why wouldn't you want the new thing to be build.
The extraordinary effort makes sense from a neighborhood cable perspective - if you're ready to go with Comcast but everyone in your neighborhood actually uses AT&T, it's fair that Comcast is still listing they're available. For towers that aren't actually up or cable needing thousands of dollars per house to connect, hell no.
"Without extraordinary commitment of resources" means being able to piggyback on existing telephone or cable-TV lines, or at most, installing poles for wiring, as opposed to having to get city permits and blocking off half the city for a month to use backhoes to dig up long tracts of roads to install pipes and wires. - Theoretically, _everywhere_ should be able to claim that via satellite connections.
I do love your answer to this seemingly unanswerable question.
It gets even more ironic, Verizon bought the naming rights for music/concert venue in Charlotte, NC(circa 2000-ish) and during the first year can you guess which cellphone carrier couldn't get signals at the venue? All other cell providers worked backstage, Verizon even had store inside the facility but were able to activate the phones on Verizon's network if they made a sale...... Most Americans do not understand that 4Mbps is high speed to a lot of people, and even 1Mpbs download is a great day for far to many places and they pay more that than people with fiber speeds pay....
Great job on the video and bringing to light an issue , that far too many take for granted. These monopolies need broken up, they're far worse than AT&T was with phone service in the 1970's, when they were broken up to what were called the baby bells for local phone companies and had to allow you an option of another long distance carrier. Which is ancient history to sum but the practices they used on land lines have been re-implemented on cell phones and internet services.
For a long time, my mom's internet was about 4Mbps, since she didn't really care. She only upgraded to 100 once the pandemic hit and everyone in the house was online, doing important stuff, at the same time. She was always capable of receiving those speeds, she just didn't care to spend any more on internet than she needed
There’s still 7% of US adults not using the internet?!?
That’s 1 out of every ~ 14 Adults.
Probably the elderly who are techphobic.
@Karin Shedd I think lots of people “use” the internet without thinking they do or enough to answer “yes”. Maybe they have Netflix on their smart tv and/or a smart phone with 4g access.
But what % of people are, say, 80 years old or older. They’re just chillin at home. It’s not like they’re going on Twitter to say “Trump rules” or “drumpf sucks! Bad orange man!”
I’m sure the majority are a lot of very poor people
@@codycast 80 YO? I know folk that are in their 50's that have no clue as to who provides/how their content arrives on their device.
@Karin Shedd mostly elderly people many in nursing homes or in rehabilitation centers.
I think you're confusing the Microsoft data and the Government data. The Government is showing access. Microsoft is showing people who have access, but choose to buy internet at slower speeds. The data isn't conflicting, it's comparing different things. There's a large chunk of people in America that don't need high speed internet (in their opinion) and want the cheapest possible internet or none at all.
That makes sense. I am very skeptical that SF county has 58% access.. That doesn't add up for a densely populated city.
@@agisler87 Yeahh, no wayyy in hell SF has 58% access. I feel like you can get gigabit speed at literally any corner of the city and it’s also blanketed with LTE & 5G coverage throughout lol
Yeah, it is two different measurements with different factors.
Like with that SF number. How many people are elderly retirees living there since before SF land became more valuable than gold, and have no interest in internet. Or how many people are using another's wifi. Or phone only internet users. Or the rampant homeless in SF.
I'm confident every building in SF has access to high speed internet. But with as vaccines have shown, access doesn't equal use. But the lack of use isn't an access problem.
Here (Chile), as far as I know, if only one company has service in X zone, the others are allowed to rent the capacity of the antenna to offer coverage in the area. Since it was implemented, it fixed a lot of problems related to providers and signal. Now is about who has the best prices a quality of service.
There is a lot of talk about mobile Internet mixed in with home Internet. So what are we talking about here?
Also there seems to be a discrepancy as to what is on offer and what is purchased. My parents definitely don't need 10Mbps let alone 25. Yet here I am just upgraded at the wire limit of 900Mbps because it is what I rely upon.
Verizon and ATT used to be 1 company called the bell company. They’re not allowed to compete with eachother or more than 1 other competitor at a time due to antitrust. Don’t compare cellular and broadband as cellular is unrestricted and broadband is at the whim of antitrust law
My father in law in New Jersey only had 1.5Mbps DSL service available, up until THIS year when broadband cable TV/internet finally made its way there. Pitiful...
It's expensive to install the infrastructure, so not really surprising.
While I feel your pain, I would love to have your „issue“ with fast internet. There is a country, world leading in many areas, in the US predominantly known for its cars (and for quite idiotic reasons for Lederhosen). A country which is the economic powerhouse of an entire continent, without deserts or gigantic uninhabited areas. A country where one will encounter vast areas with no mobile connection at all - even on main highways. Greetings from Germany, the country with less internet connectivity than Mali.
That’s a big Oof.
This was a good video and I learned a lot. A video about why internet service in the US is so much slower than in other countries.
And has anyone else experienced a downgrade in service since switching to 5g?
The video didn't actually explain why. America is too spread out and much less dense than Europe and Asia, so it actually costs substantially more to lay cables or to build towers to service the same number of people. It is not profitable for AT&T and Verizon to actually provide broadband service to every American
Metro by T-Mobile fleeced my mother and I. Even before getting data capped, our speed would be around 1-5 mbps only and when the data cap would hit it would be a solid 0. Fun thing is my iPhone 12 is locked and can only use Metro for the next 5 months:)
Karin, we knew those maps were lies long ago. I do IT contracting service work in SE Michigan and I can tell you where several RF holes exist just within Oakland County alone! One is the entire Wabeek Country Club and the housing around it. I have been pushing my friend Richard to install a repeater in the clubhouse for years now. Rich takes care of their IT needs in exchange for an annual membership that includes his own locker (Rich loves to golf).
What get me is they haven't even finished building out 4G and they're already racing to put up 5G and talking about 6G. Good God, how many frigging Gs do we actually need how about we get full deployment on existing Gs first?
Also, several years ago there was a moratorium on building new cell towers in Farmighton and Farmington Hills Michigan. As far as I know, they are still in force so there are several RF holes in that area too. FYI - Oakland County Michigan is one of the most populous counties in Michigan, there's very little undeveloped rural space here and they still can't cover all of it (all mobile carriers).
that is the most Farmington Hills thing I have heard all day, but I also would have believed it for Birmingham
@@pizzaivlife in the 90s I was an amateur radio operator (technician class). I was living in White Lake at the time and my uncle Mark was also into the hobby. He lived in Farmington Hills and he invited me to join the Farminton club with him. I was already a member of the Detroit Edison repeater club.
I remember many meetings held to strategize against an enduring moratorium on antenna installations.
@Karin Shedd my dad lives in San Antonio and he says they are laying fiber everywhere out there. He sees the crews working alongside many of the roads he drives on.
Some select zip codes in metro Detroit have access to fiber but we can't even keep our roads and bridges up much less successfully roll out fiber broad band!
Internet infrastructure is a joke. I have a client that lives right outside of Ann Arbor, they've been trying to get reliable internet (NOT Satellite as they would like to live stream and do video calls) and ISPs REFUSE to run cable more than 2 miles outside of Ann Arbor. This client lives between Dexter and Ann Arbor, while there is a cable running down their road it only goes to the people closest to Ann Arbor and then seemingly stops after about 2 miles out of the city. This has been the case for over 5 years now and the ISPs still just keep saying "next year". Funny enough this road is only 6 miles long and once you reach Downtown Dexter, Internet service resumes.
This leaves half of that road with cheap, reliable internet, while the other half has to fork out the cash for LTE home internet or god forbid HugesNet/ViaSat. What a divide.
I went to check the upload date of this clip when I saw it's about the coverage of 4G, this makes me really happy about living in a small island country (I am from Taiwan) and our coverage for 5G is.... pretty high, I was doing a hike in some remote big mountains and I had stable 3G, was stable enough to convince my boss that I was working in my home.
thats incredible
Our internet speeds at home are 7.3Mbps download and 1.34Mbps upload
Never knew broadband was 25 download, since when we first got internet connection at home we were broadband. So the standards changed and we never got upgraded yet still pay more year after year. Btw we don’t live in the middle nowhere, we live just outside of Chicago
25 MBits/sec is slow if you're a digital content producer but it's plenty fast for covering essential access. It's not about getting everyone access to 4k Netflix...
I have no problem with my broadband speed - usually 50+ Mb/s. I live in a dense urban area in the UK, so not surprising. But I do have a mobile problem. Upstairs the signal is fine. Downstairs, it's a waste of time, so I go upstairs if I have an important call!
And great video - assuming it's your first :)
It's always been an issue with mobile, so nothing new. I run into it all the time in even metro areas that should be well covered.
@Karin Shedd Thanks for the reply. If I wanted/needed it, I could get 1 GB/s - which is in South Korea territory I guess.
The streets around me were ripped up last year for ultrafast BB installation. The price for the first year looks attractive, but I wonder what it will be when it's time to renew! Like I say, my BB speed is plenty for my needs anyway.
@@johniii8147 I suspect it's my house. Solid brick walls. It's much the same for Wifi - even with a booster I get a much depleted speed away from the router.
@@rogink I would try switching out the router. The cable company ones suck.
I feel like you gotta appreciate just how incredible it is to have wireless internet access nearly anywhere you go. I'm only 23 and I remember when I was a kid in like 2006 the idea of walking out of the house and your laptop working outside of a wifi connection was like a dream lol. and that wasn't even 20 years ago.. So just give them some slack I'm sure it'll improve as time goes on
Lying with maps was the first lesson in the first class of my geography studies. It was eyeopening and great fun.
I live in a rural area and I am very lucky to have a local business that uses a dish on my house to bring in high speed internet. Otherwise, my only other option was Centurylink and the speeds were so slow it was almost unusable.
I remember in 2011 AT&T claimed to have the best 3G network. In NY/NJ, the signal was good. In Chicago, the signal was horrible. Bay Area, I had great signal.
A) Happy that this video exists, B) Also happy you showed Nebraska, especially considering that I grew up and my parents still live in Nebraska and the possibilities for internet service are an absolute joke. They get calls all the time asking if they have ever thought of switching internet service providers, but when the actually look at their address the only response is, "Oh! Never mind, have a good day." The only reason they have what internet they do is through a hotspot data plan and when I was able to set things up for them to get 15-20mbps I was ecstatic. I had debated a long time about doing something like this, but finally bit the bullet when the pandemic hit and they had a hard time getting unemployment filled out, because it ALL had to be online. so they would drive into town, connect to a public hotspot, do what they needed to do, and then go back home.
That github data sheet also makes sense... FCC 90.79% Actual- 27.1%
If you live anywhere remotely rural this is a HUGE consideration when buying a home. You go to a service providers coverage map and they claim the home your looking at is covered until you call to get the service and find out not so much. I bought a house in Montana and all my neighbors had internet but the "box" for my area was "full". 2 years and it never got addressed. I ended up moving. Fast forward to Alaska, I passed on a couple nice houses up here that were within my price range because there was no internet available for the street these homes were on
Isn't this video conflating wireless broadband (3g,4g,5g) with wired broadband (cable, fiber, dsl)? There is a difference.
Yeah that was my impression as well. Plenty of people just rely on their phones and don't get broadband direct connect in their home.
In Lee County in my home state of South Carolina, 85 percent of people "have access" to broadband, while 9 percent have broadband. A 76% gap. Unbelievable.
I live in SC too and that’s not the only place where internet is that bad
I'm in Maine - 70 miles up the coast from Portland (largest city) and the county specs are 0.98 , 0.34 . Now consider we have an oddball private phone company (TDS) and Spectrum (cable) as providers. TDS wants $110/mo for ADSL (15mbps) and Spectrum wants $2K plus just to run coax down my driveway (and then at least $60/mo). But I love Starlink!
Funny think about the digital divide is that NYC gets multiple layers of competing providers (supply due to demand) but companies can see how building infrastructure in the boonies will never pay off. They will only do it if forced to
Karin, ngl, you could easily run your own channel. This was absolutely on point.
Don't worry about the mic, it's perfectly fine. It's not about the looks, but the sound, and tbh it's a unique and recognizable item...
I really hope Gigi Sohn gets to serve as a commissioner for the FCC. With Jessica Rosenworcel as the FCC chair, we'll finally have people to reignite Net Neutrality.
I didn't know how pathetic American internet speeds are until i went to South Korea in 2016 and their standard 4g was faster than the 5G we are glamming up 5 years later 😂
Of course theirs is faster. They have less people. Which equals more available bandwidth and less congestion.
@@DavidKen878 you're forgetting that they have more devices, businesses and vehicles using the internet in some form or fashion (internet of things) that use up far more bandwidth than people streaming content, the problem isn't as simple as that
@@VinceroAlpha How do we have more people but they have more businesses, devices, and vehicles? I'm confused.
Not to mention SK is a very small and isolated country if all of the US was crammed into an area equally as dense our internet would be similarly fast. Literally half the country lives around one city.
@@DavidKen878 I meant that they have more traffic using the internet versus ours. Although the US is a innovator when it comes to tech, it’s implementation into normal everyday life for the average individual. Automated traffic lights, digital kiosks, robotic AI city wide and nation wide internet coverage, Mobil high speed Wi-Fi, they have been doing that since the early 90s. They where one of the first countries to roll out 5G. Basically they have the infrastructure already extensively built to handle not only the current generation of technology but future innovations as well. Think of it like this, they build 8 lane highway years before the population starts to grow in that direction but it’s able to support double that amount of traffic with a few upgrades. As a result more people and businesses use the highway and feed need for expansion but they are ready for this because it was built into the infrastructure decades ago. The US does the opposite, wait until the area gets congested then builds the highway to support the traffic.
It’s the “-xo, FTC” that did it for me. So good 😅
I live in Finland. Here the internet is available everywhere(almost). Some areas with no people have no coverage. I get a 200 mbs internet on my phone and at home from my wifi. 25 seems so slow... Why America does such shit job with internet? It is always weird to hear these things from US, because we used to that everything is bigger and better there than here in small Europe :D
Because the US is the third largest country on the planet. If you live in a developed area, you are going to have good Internet service. But if you live 3 hours away from a major city (which quite a few Americans do), your Internet options are going to be trash. I went on a roadtrip from my home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to a few National Park Service sites in the state. I drove 2 hours straight east at 70 MPH without driving through a single town. For a good 45 minutes, I didn't even see houses. This is despite having started by journey in a city of a million people. A good chunk of the US just isn't very settled.
@@epilektric and for the most part, most of Finland is just as remote as the Dakotas, particularly in the Arctic circle and outside of urban areas.
The vast majority of Finland lives in the very, very south of the country. Finland is also highly urbanised. 85% of Finland lives in urban areas compared with 60% for North Dakota. The Helsinki metropolitan area alone has 1.5 million, with larger cities in the South like Turku, Tampere, Lahti and Jyväskylä combined with Greater Helsinki totalling 45% of the country living in an area of 1,840.71 sq miles. Despite this, Finland has still decided to make the same investments in the infrastructure in rural areas to ensure pretty much every area where there are people in Finland has decent access to communication services, particularly the internet.
It would make far more sense for North Dakota to heavily invest in its communication systems, particularly in rural areas, than Finland, considering it has a greater percentage of its population in more rural areas.
Good job out of you making this content. I had as well last year done research about Internet in the U.S. will calling the FCC and my state departments to read there documents. I learned all you mentioned and more. It would be better if more local communities within a few blocks of each other or miles builder out there own "internet SET UP building a Wireless ISP (WISP)".. Find the tallest tower or building in your area rent or offer them free wifi to use that area to have it for product. Plus start a coop to raise the $$ from your peeps and sale them back internet monthly at dirty cheap prices just to help keep the services up to par.. FACT it will be less $$ and faster internet then corp shares to most now...
now USA people can do that: it is called CBRS
@@alex.morelli Do you has this is usage and how much monthly?
@@mr.g1683 you have to look for a mast, install CBRS appliance. The cost is related to how much land you would like to cover with your "private operator"
@@alex.morelli thank you kindly for that insight
@@mr.g1683 anytime
25 Mbps is plenty fast enough for even 4K video streaming. The ISPs lie to you to try to get you to upgrade. The real problem is the lack of competition. The government only allows one cable provider per address. Competition would lower that cost for everyone.
Consistent 25mbps is. My internet is supposed to be like 40 mbps down and 5mbps up, but it varies in reality from like 8mbps to 18mbps download, and 0.2mbps upload to 0.9mbps. It also randomly turns off for an hour or so every couple days, and flickers on and off through out the day for a minute or so at a time every few hours.
That Verge map hits so hard. I live in that one country marked on it in northeast Iowa, and my current internet speeds are 4Mbps. Just literally two days ago, I learned that my neighbor up the road has 30Mbps. It's miserable here at times.
It seems like a false substitution to equate "broadband", which could include a wired/fiber connection, and LTE (which is what the consumer map showed) since there's likely places that have internet, but not 4G.
Here in Latvia I got another problem. A new tower got installed near my home recently. And it has 5G transmitter on it. My tablet picks up 5G signal at home. But according to carrier's map my house is outside coverage area. Therefore, they wouldn't give me 5G router and I'm stuck with 4G.
95% availability, 36% actual. I'm honestly surprised the actual number is as high as it is. We have one company with a monopoly. It's a joke here.
Interesting. Washoe County, NV is close(ish), 97% reported available, 73% in use. Difference of 25%. Compare to Humbolt, NV with 90.74% reported and just 18% in use. Difference of 73%. Or White Pine, NV and Lander, NV where the FCC reports lower than actual usage.
A lot of that is people chose not to be the home internet and use their phones.
Recently discovered Cheddar. Great videos! ...BTW, I never noticed the mop in the background, until you mentioned removing it in another clip!
We're pretty lucky living on the outskirts of a big city here in England, we have a choice of 3 maybe 4 providers so the competition is good. We're on fibre and get 250 Gb and 12Gb respectively, I doubt there's a fraction of that in the countryside. My son says we have 5G, but our phones aren't 5G capable so I wouldn't know.
250Mb and 12Mb? Still a few years away from Fiber to the Home reaching 250Gb/s down, short of living inside a data center
@@bdh008 no it's what we have, we're about 20 foot from the node and have fibre not copper into our house. LOL the Internet speed tests report approximately the same bd. Hah, my bad, sorry, just checked that's Mbps not Gbps, you're absolutely right.
@@jimfrodsham7938 No worries, we'll be to 250Gbps soon enough... Plus with fiber that close to you you'll be quick on upgrades so that's nice!
@@bdh008 Thanks. To be honest we're a couple of oldies, the only time our bandwidth gets tested is when our grandkids are here after school. 😀
Helpful about FCC maps, not helpful to mix up metered cellular signal coverage with unmetered wired broadband network access coverage.
This video is nice, but doesn't actually explain that coverage maps are making internet worse. It just explains that the coverage maps aren't as accurate/reliable as you might think
If I had a consistent 4mbps internet, I would start living in the internet...
The official "broadband" speed in my country is 64kbps+
Yeah, I had 3-4mbps last year and it seemed fast enough to me.
I always have been interested to visit USA I hope one day I can meet some one from there and get invited to meet that beautiful country, receive love from Mozambique
It's like Factfulness. I'm so happy to be able to view this channel.
Dutchman here, I can totally agree with the terrible internet in the US. I thought that Germany had bad internet, but when I traveled through the US in 2018 the coverage was horrible😬. Hope you guys get better coverage soon, especially the more rural parts need it.
It is now 2024 and it’s outrageous in the USA that our internet is so slow with constant interruptions! Great info here Karin.
As an Australian, hearing Americans complain about internet seems laughable.
Same frm india
America is 1.3 times bigger than Australia.
@@topgear_75 America is 3 times bigger than India
@@TheLostfoundation ya, but due to population in india the 4g speeds r slow. But 4g+ is good and fiber is best
@@TheLostfoundation what's your point there... he's saying that the internet is worse in Australia and... your reply is that the US is bigger in land area? What does that have to do with the price of Tia Maria?
Karin, can you do a video about a similar "conspiracy": half the time when I hike my phone says that I'm supposed to have 4G connection, but I cannot load any webpage or send an iMessage.
That one is a lot simpler. It just means there's too many people/data consumption on one tower.
@@CameronsCookingChannel I am in the middle of nowhere in a sparsely populated area.
@@BR-lx7py There's rarely ever any other reason for good signal and poor speeds unless there's too much demand for the internet supply. This can happen even more so often in rural areas because towers in rural areas often serve far greater land areas than a tower in a city will, so if it's congested in one area it's likely congested on the entire area, while in a city it's just certain neighborhoods at certain times that experience that problem, and sometimes, (depending on how rural), the internet connection to the tower is slow. It's rare, but some towers in the US are still using sattellite internet...
There's also the element of multiple wireless providers. There was a time where if you lived in a rural area, Verizon (or AT&T) were the only options, meaning that even today as T-Mobile acquires millions of people every year, rural areas still have a greater share of Verizon and AT&T customers, meaning that if there's one tower with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon serving a rural town, it's likely that there's more VZ and AT&T customers, so if all three companies put similar equipment on that tower, speeds are likely going to be slower for AT&T and Verizon.
@@BR-lx7py When in the middle of nowhere and you have a low signal, there may be too great a distance from the tower to your phone for a reliable connection. Even though the tower has enough power for your phone to see a signal and recognize a 4G signal, communication is two way. Your phone needs to transmit a signal all the way back to the tower. If your phone can't, you'll not be able to get internet service.
Thanks @@rigol2k , I buy that.
In Poland, Europe we have companies that use networks of multiple providers. Also we can use our cell phone in other EU countries paying no roaming and having the same costs as in home country. Plus it’s much cheaper then in US. 20$ unlimited phone calls, sms and 50GB of LTE/5G data.
We have MVNOs and roaming in the US as well
I visited Poland over the summer and was surprised at how cheap the cell phone service was along with the fact that even the cheapest over the counter data plan let you set up a mobile hotspot unlike what I get with my USA data plan
I have one thing to say to people that are overly dependent on the internet for navigation when out in the sticks. Offline maps. Every navigation app I have used had the ability to save maps
Google maps still does. I have offline maps saved for that reason and because it uses less mobile data to have them preloaded. It just uses your data for traffic when you have the map downloaded
Karin! You did this! Love the video!
While I didn't find this story very interesting, I'm really glad to see that Cheddar has realized that places exist outside of NYC.
The Github tests were done with correlation of ip addresses with download speed results.
Alot of these connections could be mobile or... VPN connections.
2:16 - you're misinterpreting download speeds (that matter to most users) with upload speeds (which is important for video conferencing and sending files for work). Upload speeds are significantly lower than download speeds.
Kinda shocked by how bad internet coverage is in America. I live in South Africa but I hardly don’t have coverage, as should be the case because we pay ridiculous prices for data.
We don’t get the fancy 5G here but even that is moving fast in city centres. I get more 200mbs on my Vodacom 5G in major cities.
The size of our country is the main problem. The Netherlands can talk how great its infrastructure is when said country is the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
@@maxpowr90 Not only that but these tech companies were given huge tax and direct incentives to improve and expand Internet availability across the country. Instead they used it to consolidate into what we have now and have barely expanded any coverage. And when the due date came, instead they faced no penalties and have been given more. So they have zero incentive to do anything really other than keep taking free money with zero consequence.
@@maxpowr90 ok mate china is the same size with good coverage and fast speeds what do you have to counter?
@@ruripapi China’s population is 4x USA population & 96% of that population lives on the western half of the country while only 4% lives in East China. East China is almost untouched lol America is not the same. 1/4 the amount of people of China and they’re all spread out across the continent. Plus, the video here makes it seem like coverage in USA is terrible which it really isn’t… if you’re in the desert or in some rural area where there’s literally nothing, then yeah it’s terrible (which is the same all over east China) but in the city and suburbs, it’s just fine
@@KrishnaAdettiwar not sure i never gotten under 4g in rural china so hm
idk if this is a thing but I have heard that curved roads should always have a radius because then drivers wouldn't have to keep turning the steering wheel and therefor reducing accidents. that is why the free form tool is so good in my eyes. ; )
I'm in Canada, and sometimes I only get 25Mbps download and 10Mbps upload, I'm lucky to get 100Mbps upload. But not gonna lie, I got a Nokia phone in part because it takes everything from 2G to 5G, and while no one has 2G up and running anymore, I can get service in places my Samsung phone (only 4G, LTE) couldn't get, such as in the old brick buildings at university that can't get all the signals through, or out in the woods where the nearest LTE tower is too far away to get anything reliable. I used to have to bring my iPhone 4S out every time I went camping since Samsung didn't work with the lower bands you could get out there.
Check out Merced County, CA - 99% per FCC, 24% actual.
Or on the flip side, Alpine County, CA - 9% per FCC, 10% actual.
This is why SpaceX's _Starlink_ system fills a massive need: getting over 100 mbps Internet to places that would be too expensive to string out hardwired connections to, let alone put up cellphone towers.
INFRASTRUCTURE people!!
In my place the internet coverage and speed are great. But I live in a place where we actually care for high quality infrastructure in every meaning of the word “infrastructure” . But I happen to live in a west European country.
Let us not blame MAPS themselves. It is who made the maps. They are the ones controlling what information show up in these things.
Thanks for sharing this info. I wasn't aware of all the issues or history with the maps. Keep up the good work.
Republicans actually use AT&T more often, and Democrats are all about Verizon, as we all know
uhhhhh
The things you all say Dems and Reps do are just stupid and make zero sense.
Imagine being a presenter on a channel with 860k subs and not taking the 10 seconds it would take to move a bucket and mop out of your camera view!
I guess my home county before going to college has more coverage than the FCC map. The FCC says it’s 3%, when it is 8%. No surprise to me when fastest internet I could get when I still lived there was 18Mbps download.
The map is helpful for one thing: if you have a cell booster or directional antenna you will for sure pick up signal in the area, but you more than likely will not in the blacked out areas.
I swear i sometimes only watch video's on the youtubes to watch Americans making a fool of themselves... I live in a country where every single citizen is guaranteed to have fiber optic access to the internet. And whilst most people have on average about 40mbps because it will do and we're quite the frugal folks, you can have up to a 1000mbps if your pocket is deep enough. And you can even choose from dozens of providers where ever you live.
Also, if you want things to improve in the US of A, call your senator, your congress man or woman, and tell em to vote yay on President's Biden Infrastructure bill. Or immigrate to the Netherlands. Where internet access at decent speeds is considered a basic human right, like a roof over your head, fresh clean water, and schools for children.
The US does guarantee education for kids from kindergarten to 12 grade and about 95 percent of Americans have access to safe drinking water
And about 500k people in the US are homeless and yes that is a big number but our population is 330 million people
Netherlands population density: 508 people per km²
US: 36 people per km²
Can you see why it might be substantially more difficult to provide costly infrastructure to bring high-speed internet to all people across a massive country? 41 of the 50 states are larger than the Netherlands. You're comparing apples to oranges.
Your country is the size of a damn paper towel, don't try to go about edifying people. My state is three times the size of your country and has less people, it's simply necessary for speeds to be slower.
And you're only making a fool of yourself when you act like the US doesn't have damn clean water and a public school system.
@@clumbus894 The UN and Unicef have stated that clean water, schools, a roof over your head, are basic human rights. In the Netherlands, we added good internet access to those basic human rights. I never stated that the US lacks those things. i simply refrained from mentioning these rights as United Nations based because i presumed you would know.
@Chris G Most of the US population lives in towns and cities. Laying down a few cables between towns is not the issue with internet access in the US, as the maker of this video pointed out. It's to do with the lack of providers and the very weird guidelines and rulebook by which internet is to be provided to the people. And comparing some random statistic to the current subject, that is the very essence of apples and oranges.
When are we gonna stop dancing around the real problem at the heart of all these other problems? It’s capitalism. Companies with the biggest gap between their prices and their value are the *most successful companies* under our current system and there’s a clear oligopoly with internet companies. But we can’t just come out and say that we have to start out by pretending that the real genuine problem is with some technology or individual company when the actual problem lies upstream, in the system in which these companies operate.
Cry me a river. Internet is crazy affordable. Sounds like you're just being cheap.
Without capitalism there would be no internet - at least not for the public. That might solve your problem!
@@rogink hold on, do you think the man who invented the internet got rich off of it??
@@Shlooomth No. Inventors rarely make money from their inventions. Their inventions need to be exploited by those awful capitalists to bring them to public attention. My point is, although the internet was created by the publicly funded US military, and also helped academics connect with each other, without capitalists wanting to make money, we'd never have got RUclips. Or Google. Or Facebook. Or Amazon. For Good. Or bad.
It all makes sense now. I took a west coast road trip with a friend and being from the Caribbean and knowing that we were going to sometimes be out in the boonies I decided to buy a T-mobile SIM card for my phone after checking their coverage. Well on the map it said there was coverage but actually I usually didn't really have coverage until I was close to cities which defeated a large part of the reason I bought the sim.
There is a reciprocity deal among all licensed carriers in the USA.
Everyone can use anyone's coverage area equipment.
This comes from the early days of breaking up Ma Bell: the Baby-Bell startups got to use Ma Bell long-distance equipment, often at no cost.
Same-same today: "Biff's Discount phone service" uses the same communication gear as does 'name brand' carriers, they just have fewer lines available.
Best cheddar video in a while.
7:40 I don’t see the problem here. 100% of SF is served with high speed internet. But only 58% are accessing it. The fact 100% are not accessing it isn’t the providers or FCCs fault. Unless you want to reward the ISPs with some law that forces people to buy. Or some tax payer give away to the ISPs to provide to those that’s otherwise choose not to have it.
Especially since they jack up the prices
@Karin Shedd If a single house can't access a service in an area where that service is available, that validates what the original commenter is saying. It's not the service provider's fault that house has limitations preventing access to their service. Nor does it say anything about the service other than it's available.
@Karin Shedd If an entire neighborhood can get the service except for one house, are they supposed to say the service isn't available in that neighborhood? There are a variety of reasons for why a certain location cannot access certain services and some of those reasons have nothing to do with the service provider. For example, DirecTV is available where I live. However my leasing office doesn't allow satellite dishes. There are some locations that just aren't wired for internet because they're old and haven't been updated. The service provider is supposed to make the infrastructure available for people to access it, not make sure their individual methods of accessing it are up to par, right?
Exactly. Many people choose to avoid the expense and just use their phones. It's not dissimilar than folks disconnecting cable TV which is now quite common.
@@DavidKen878 Or that the occumpent chooses not to pay for it.
I went to school for geography. One of the best books I had to read was called "How to Lie With Maps." It's very easy to manipulate how you apply the data so that you can tell whatever story you want. Anyways, this just reminded me of that😀
meanwhile in the UK, superfast broadband delivered via fttc ,(fibre optic cable to the Cabinet) the cabinet(s) generally serve a max of 120 connections these connections are telephone, whereupon the Fibre cable broadband is mixed onto the indidvidual phone line(copper), to the subscriber/customer premises, now heres where it gets interesting the next tier up is GFast which is fibre optic cable to a central node(basically a multi joint), and from there a short distance of no greater than 300 metres of up to 300mbps dl MAX, this option ironically has very recently been dropped for ongoinging installs by Openreach ( the biggest broadband infrastructure body in the uk), the next tier up is FTTP/H/B (fibre to the Property/Home/buisness (delete as appropiate), the current max speed availabe via this option varies from 330 mbps to 900mbps(which i have :) ) as i am typing this i have just ran a speedcheck my current was 698 mbps download and 119 mbps upload, the advantage of FTTP is no low loss of signals, speeds can be upgraded/downgraded easily no engineers visit required, plus uptime of over 99%,
but here again it gets more interesting VirginmediaO2 (owned by liberty global) throughtout the UK have a ever expanding cuastomer base currently in the region of 4 million customers with there variant of FTTP, there current TOP package is currently billed as the UKs fastest broadband, which @ 1300 mbps is with the average throughout a given peroid exceeds 1000mbps beating the incumbent ISPS BT etc,etc hands down,
despite this there is a even bigger twist in UK broadband tale , in the area of Kingston Upon Hull on the North East coast of England, way back when at the start of Telephone companies Hull had its own independant phone company which started in 1904 as the Hull Municipal Corporation, despite the rest of the UKs telephone companies being absorbed into the then Nationalised General Post Office (GPO) around 1940, they remained a totally seperate private entity,now trading as KCOM, in the late 1980's the GPO was seperated into the Royal Mail for post and parcels TV licensing for TV licenses and British Telecom (BT) ,which was then subsequently privatised, although the British Goverment still holds a £1 golden share in the company, after privatisation BT was split into 2 seperate distinct divisions BT for the provision of phone & now broadband services to the end customer & Openreach who are responsible for all the Cables Poles And Exchange equipment & infrastructure (basically the Backbone) ,Openreach also wholesale sell broadband connections to a Multiude of ISPS UK wide also as well as its parent Company BT, now theres a even bigger twist in the Uk Broadband tail around the 2010 point a New breed of Internet company started to appear collectivately known as "ALTNETs" (alternative networks), basically these companies are giving the incumberents BT a run for there money by only install fibre connections straight to your home or place of work htese tend to be of the symetric type of connection ,basically same speeds for both Upload & Download in the region of up to 1000 mbps or more in some cases, the majority of these are in larger towns/Cities running there cables the majority of the way via underground ducts and paying Openreach access fees, however there are a few much smaller ISP ALTNETs, proably the easiest for you to research is B4RN pronounced BARN, aka Broadband 4 Rural North, it was originally started by a Farmers wife and a Friend (with more than his share of brain cells), there buisness model is they operate as a community led broadband company in the not for profit realm, the vast majority of there Fibre cables in the areas where they are present are placed into plastic ducting and buried across private land/grass verges by members of the community that they will serve, this system saves a vast amount of money although the areas being served have to come up with a certain amount of consumers/money to access this service in the first place, when this is satisfied the service when live is typically around £30-35 a month for unlimited 1000mbps symetrical speeds (up/down), however due to rules issued by OFCOM (the uk governing body of broadband tv/radio), B4rn have to inform Openreach when they are to "overbuild" in any particular location, there was particular funny case about 4 years ago when a SMALL village of 24 houses were being continually being told by BT/Openreach that they could not have broadband over about 1mbps as it was not"commercially viable", the village contacted B4RN sorted out the fianancing and when they were due to start there works(B4RN) subsequently informed Openreach, at this revealation 2 weeks later Openreach sent 28 Engineers & Vans to the village to upgrade it to Superfast broadband(at the time 38mbps), all while B4RN where already progressing /nearly finished nearly ready to connect all 24 properties up, as the tale goes a Farm was Blocked By Openreach vans @ the end of his drive trying to get back into his drive with his tractor, when the farmer got out and asked them why all the Vans in the Village ?? (28), they replied oh we are upgrading the village to superfast , you cant get it you too far away, @ to which point the farmer reportdely said to the Openreach Engineers "i dont care i got 1000 mbps and so has the whole village we are all B4RN now", can you move your vans so i can get in ???
when the 2 original founders setup B4RN and registered it as company in the UK they used a special Company designation as "a not for profit community company", which in essence prevents any private or publicly listed company from taking them over, as all of customers are shareholders, and aside from putting money by for anticipated operating costs for the next year , the profits are donated back to the communities they serve
the 2 original founders were Given OBE's (Order of British Empire) by the Queen for there services to there community,, and you thought the USA system was mashed up ?? try fighting the system here in the UK, unless you are lucky to live in a B4RN area or Virgin Media area it is very much potluck with speeds/realability :) :)
Remember when we could go to the national parks for the national parks and did not need cell phones to enjoy the nature... No? Just me? 🤷🏼♂️
It's one place you should expect to use GPS...from, like, a Garmin, and be glad that your phone isn't transmitting data!
@Karin Shedd as a person who is an avid camper, hiker, outdoorsy person;
Always have your route logged and given to at least 2 people you can trust. Should you not communicate with said people in an amount of time they should alert authorities. That's how hikers should always treat a hike. Even a short one.
I don’t understand why they aren’t doing the same thing they did electricity just pay companies to give people internet
They claim in the commercials that they are the coverage maps. They can say this as long as there is some text saying that it really isn't the coverage map, and they make it tiny letters to show it
Lol 0:50 is Piccadilly in London (opening in Sherlock), it most definitely has some of the best 5g coverage around.
100% vs 58%...
I'm pretty convinced that even childhood me in any of my science class experiments never had a data deviation as big as this - holy Jesus! XD
I remember being on dial up internet until 2007 and DSL until 2016, even now my broadband internet is almost unusable and I'm in the Chicago suburbs. I'm better off paying a little extra on my phone bill for a tablet or Hotspot plan each month to fill in the gaps.
As a geograpgic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst~ a map is only as good as the data it is given. Don't hate the map hate the data