So, we have all heard the hype about this new-fangled technology and how it's supposed to magically make our lives so much better.

Before now, I never bothered to give it a second thought. I figured it would be eons before technology like that would make it's way to my tiny, hole-in-the-wall state. Not to mention, nobody in my family, or anyone I know has a device capable of utilizing this new technology anyway. I brushed it off as something the major cities like NYC or Los Angeles, Boston or Dallas or something would get long before podunk Manchester...

Then I saw workers installing an electric meter box, disconnect/breaker box, and a bracket on the utility pole outside the bar I do maintenance for...
"Hmmm, I wonder what that's going to be for?" Genuinely having no clue...

Then another identical setup appeared on a pole on my street.
And another.
Now they are appearing around the city.... Something is up.

Today the one on my street was a flurry of activity, bucket trucks, table with prints and manuals and a half dozen men working, some big electronic box hanging on the bracket, and metal poles with cellular looking antennae on it.

I must do research!! A quick google search turned this up:

5G Coming to 16 markets

Well I'll be darned.

Then I go to the company website. Flat rate for 5G home internet, 200Mbps symmetrical. Price is damn good. Cheaper than I'm paying now, claims there's no limits, caps, throttling, etc. So far, I'm sold- hook, line and sinker.

The company name is Starry Inc. Anyone know anything about these guys? I was quite literally jumping for joy when I say they were bringing this to Manchester. Now that my excitement has subsided and rational thinking has returned, I'd like to do my due diligence and see if this is legit. Appreciate any input anyone has. Thanks.

-I wasn't sure where to post this. If it belongs somewhere else let me know.

From PC Mag: "The early 5G rollouts are more like a public beta test than a final product. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all using technologies that only travel about 600 feet from a cell site, which means there isn't much coverage." Source

Quick, relocate to a utility pole near you.

In addition to Verizon Wireless, Verizon Core is looking to 5G as an eventual replacement for FiOS in towns/cities where the service is not currently available...and...for buildings that are located in towns/cities where the service is offered...but...the company has chosen...for whatever reason...not to install fiber.

As Professor noted, Verizon's implementation will yield faster speeds, but, the signal won't travel as far as other providers...and...will be affected by objects such as trees, leaves and walls.

I have learned that this service that is coming to Manchester is intended to be a fixed wireless solution. Not intended for mobile customers, they plan to offer fixed internet to customers for a flat price. Their website says something about needing access to buildings, hinting that there may be a fixed antenna of some sort installed. I would think this would make the service at least consistent. I personally am excited at the potential of there being some competition in town against Comcast and Consolidated. Comcast has decent service, but their prices are very high. I'm hoping that some competition will knock them down a peg. Consolidated refuses to offer anything but bonded DSL. That's fine if you live within a few blocks of the CO or a node. The bar does ok with 40/2m bonded, but it's really a thin margin. Our point of sale system, music system and TV are all internet based. Add guest wifi to the mix and it gets really close to running out of bandwidth. Currently I have the guest wifi throttled to only 5/1 megs, to make sure there is ample bandwidth for the core needs of the bar. I would love to raise or eliminate that cap, but until a more affordable provider comes to town, it's just not an option. We have live shows and people like to post them online and stream them. I couldn't ask for better free advertising but we need better internet to make that happen.

Verizon would need to install an external antenna. At least Consolidated does offer a bonded DSL product. At the Church, we're stuck at 7d/768u.

Verizon doesn't offer a bonded product and refuses to provide FiOS because the existing copper (50 pair) was installed back in the 1940s using direct burial cable as opposed to conduit. Comcast & RCN have no conduit & cables underneath the street along our block.

For the Church, 5G would be the only way to get very high speed Internet access. I'm in no hurry to start looking at satellite providers.

When we got satellite TV, they tried to sell us on satellite internet. I was wholly unimpressed with nearly every aspect of it. The price was higher than the more traditional wired services currently available, the latency was much higher, speed was capped at 25d/3u. They also have data caps and throttling. Considering our current usage of between 700 and 800 gigabytes of data per month, any data cap is just out of the question. Their "best" plan which is -without quoting specific prices- is $35 more than we are paying Comcast now, and has a data cap of 50 gigs, just wouldn't cut it. After you use up your 50 gigs, they throttle you from 25d/3u to 3d/1u. Why is that even a thing anymore?

I can't believe Verizon doesn't offer a bonded product. I mean, I guess I can, but still. Your church is opposed to a drop even in the rear of the building? I wouldn't think that would be all that obtrusive. I know the front is beautiful and I can understand why you wouldn't want anything strung up out there. If memory serves, the problem with running conduit was the driveways on either side, right? Or would it also have to cross the street? I don't remember which side the utility poles were on.

To get back on topic, I called Starry today. I don't want to knock them, but the information I got wasn't what I wanted to hear. To preface, I understand their reasoning for doing things the way they are, unfortunately it doesn't benefit me as yet.
The service is aimed only at apartment buildings and other multi-tenant residential buildings. They currently do not serve single family homes, though as they grow, that could change. They also are only serving residential customers at this time. They did say, that because the bar is in a multi-use building with mostly apartments (the top two floors are all apartments and the first floor is the bar, a laundromat and a hair salon), it may be possible to get an exception and get service there.

The fact that so much of rural America is still on DSL is such bullshit. In 2018/2019 I still had a dry DSL pair in Fletcher, NC, 15 minutes away from Asheville, NC that had direct fiber to homes. I was paying the same price as I am now paying for 900/50 here in Southern Maryland.

My only thing is... what is the jitter and latency like on this system?

I was/am wondering the same thing

A Comcast rep offered to tap into their cable on the side street secure it along the back of the building, drill into the rear wall to get it in and run the cable through the basement rooms to get it to my "office" aka the phone closet.

My response was "Call me when you are ready to service our building correctly".

Still waiting for the .

What gets me is that towns/cities allow service providers to invoke hardships/exceptions/exemptions when rolling out new services.

How about taking an "all or nothing" approach?

If a provider wants to offer services, they must make them available to every single address...no exceptions or excuses allowed.

Paul, out of curiosity, what would you consider "servicing the building correctly"? I'm not patronizing you, I'm genuinely curious. What that rep described to you is pretty typical of a Comcast install. The techs are forbidden from "fishing" wires through walls or ceilings with the exception of a straight through hole. An aerial drop to the nearest corner of the building would also be pretty typical. In my experience, if you want conduit- buried or otherwise, wires hidden in walls, ceilings, and chaseways, or anything beyond the scope of a basic "Get it in and get it working" install, then it falls on the property owner or their "guy" to do that work.

I think we can all agree that many cable tv "techs" have less than stellar installs. There's no excuse for doing hack work, but..... these techs also have strict rules set by corporate for what the can and cannot do. I'm sure some of it is liability concerns, some is time and money concerns, and some is just corporate nonsense. Whatever the reason, that's what the techs have to work by. I'm not necessarily defending them, but I've dealt with enough around here to understand why they do what they do. Lord knows I've cleaned up more than a few "installs". One that sticks out was the woman who owned a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The house is all brick, built on a slab, no attic and no basement. The tech's solution? Run the wires across the roof, drop them over the side next to the windows and drill a hole in the window frame to poke the wire into the room. I got called when she was getting a new roof installed and the company told her the rat's nest had to go. I opened up the soffits under the roof overhangs and ran all the wires up there and around to the garage where I installed the distribution amp. Only 2 places you could see the wires when I was finished. I had to go around a chimney with a wire so I used white coax and white clips then anchored it right over a mortar joint. Another spot was a shorter window that didn't get close enough to the eaves so that one you could see a couple feet coming down from the soffit to the window. She said she was ok with it so that's what we went with.

I guess my point is, they're only going to go so far, the rest is, unfortunately, up to the property owner.

That being said.. If you ever wanted a hand doing a nice job getting a cable through the building to someplace where you want the handoff, I'm only 45 minutes away. You've done a lot for me, helping you out is the least I could do.

900/50

I'm jealous

By servicing the building correctly, I mean that the utility utilize the existing entrance facility and not create a new one just to save the utility a few dollars.

Old pictures of the building show that the utilities used to be above ground. At some point (late 1940s/early 1950s) everything went down into conduits. If New England Telephone wanted to bring service into the building from the back, it would have done it at that point...or even earlier.

Ma Bell trenched the property line between the Church and the neighboring house, ran 25 pair direct burial to the house & 50 pair direct burial to the Church and straight into the phone closet.

I am a bit late to the conversation, but have you looked at getting multiple dsl circuits installed and a summing router?

Cost-wise, multiple DSL feeds would exceed comparable FiOS service. If a summing router is another name for bonded DSL service, Verizon doesn't offer it.

Is my memory of the property correct in that, in order to trench conduit to the church, you would have to cross asphalt at some point? I can't remember if there was an open path to the property line anywhere.

I think he said once theres like 100 ft of parking lot at the shortest point.

You could get ethernet over copper/shdsl.

Cost like $200/mo for 20/20 with a service level agreement and you can put a t1 on it if they use that for voice.

Once the backhoe pulled the cable up, the path was discovered. The cable goes underneath the sidewalk, along the property line, hooks to the right and enters the building to the side of the walkway. The old fire pull box uses the same entry point as does a ground wire.

Any T1 service is well outside our range. Average Sunday attendance is 25-30...mostly elderly.