08-15-2014, 02:32 AM
There is really no good reason for the awful internet access situation in the Puna district. I am facing the same issue when I return in a few months. I need to be able to work from home in Fern Acres. The kind of bandwidth that I need to be able to teleconference while presenting meeting content is not available in that area. Perhaps Aloha Broadband will extend their coverage to the upper Puna district someday, and perhaps speed their offerings. But for now...
I am a network architect, so I know something about the telecom business. And, with no good solutions available, I will likely improvise. Though, I have occasionally even given some ephemeral thoughts to starting my own wireless internet provider in the area. By the preliminary figures, it seems that it could be done. Case in point – Aloha Broadband. But what keeps me from acting on that daydream is the lack of certainty about the actual demand.
I am just not sure that if I built it, they would come. People would probably be willing to pay $50 or so per month for 5Mbps service. But, would they be willing to pay $150 for the installation? And, what about the higher speed services? Would they be willing to pay $75 for 10Mbps, or $125 for 20Mbps? All of those speeds are easily brought to the market. However, unless you can be confident that people will actually buy these higher speed services, there is too much risk involved to invest in the cost of adding of engineering your network to provide them.
It is the uncertainty to these types of questions that keep these services from coming to our area. The technology certainly exists to bring high speed internet service to nearly any home in the Puna district. The local carriers such as Oceanic and Hawaiian Tel have no incentive to do so; because it would mean abandoning the extensive investment that they have in their existing wire based outside plant. The cellular carriers don't have any incentive to do it; because they already have a wireless internet access product offering where they are making money hand over fist. Their paradigm allows them to content filter and cap bandwidth to further maximize their profits.
An independent wireless internet service provider (like Aloha Broadband) is likely the only option for us. Aloha broadband has done a nice job of bringing that option to the table. I just hope that they have the drive to expand their coverage area, and the expertise to improve their backbone to bring the kind of speeds and reliability that should be available. 2Mbps download is just not enough to keep pace with the growing bandwidth needs of the current technology world. And the concept of paying double to top out at a paltry 4Mbps is not very marketable.
The fact that Aloha Broadband has not already expanded to upper Puna indicates to me that that sufficient demand may not be present. Similarly, the fact that they are not offering 10+Mbps services indicates to me that the actual demand for those services is not there either. Or, perhaps, the demand exists, but is not being felt.
I am a network architect, so I know something about the telecom business. And, with no good solutions available, I will likely improvise. Though, I have occasionally even given some ephemeral thoughts to starting my own wireless internet provider in the area. By the preliminary figures, it seems that it could be done. Case in point – Aloha Broadband. But what keeps me from acting on that daydream is the lack of certainty about the actual demand.
I am just not sure that if I built it, they would come. People would probably be willing to pay $50 or so per month for 5Mbps service. But, would they be willing to pay $150 for the installation? And, what about the higher speed services? Would they be willing to pay $75 for 10Mbps, or $125 for 20Mbps? All of those speeds are easily brought to the market. However, unless you can be confident that people will actually buy these higher speed services, there is too much risk involved to invest in the cost of adding of engineering your network to provide them.
It is the uncertainty to these types of questions that keep these services from coming to our area. The technology certainly exists to bring high speed internet service to nearly any home in the Puna district. The local carriers such as Oceanic and Hawaiian Tel have no incentive to do so; because it would mean abandoning the extensive investment that they have in their existing wire based outside plant. The cellular carriers don't have any incentive to do it; because they already have a wireless internet access product offering where they are making money hand over fist. Their paradigm allows them to content filter and cap bandwidth to further maximize their profits.
An independent wireless internet service provider (like Aloha Broadband) is likely the only option for us. Aloha broadband has done a nice job of bringing that option to the table. I just hope that they have the drive to expand their coverage area, and the expertise to improve their backbone to bring the kind of speeds and reliability that should be available. 2Mbps download is just not enough to keep pace with the growing bandwidth needs of the current technology world. And the concept of paying double to top out at a paltry 4Mbps is not very marketable.
The fact that Aloha Broadband has not already expanded to upper Puna indicates to me that that sufficient demand may not be present. Similarly, the fact that they are not offering 10+Mbps services indicates to me that the actual demand for those services is not there either. Or, perhaps, the demand exists, but is not being felt.