Power,internet, and bringing a job with you

[Carey]

Susan, IS DSL an option in Orchidland (my thought is not...but may there is...) Also, your lot may not look like you last saw it

[terracore]

There is no DSL available in Orchidland. They will tell you there is, but when you try to get it hooked up you get the "all ports are full" explanation. There has been no effort to add ports in the 3 years we've been monitoring the situation, and the population is growing daily, so waiting for somebody with a port to die or move away is no longer an option.

Need to add, we've been using Verizon 'home fusion' for broadband in OLE, and it has worked great. Never an extended outage even during Iselle. But the 30 GB max data plan and extremely high cost is a burden.

Still waiting to know if "residential" ports and "business" ports are two different sets of ports.

[redefinehappy]

I'm very interested in the "business port" option, I had no idea that might be available. In addition, setting up a co-working space in Pahoa or Kea'au would be a fantastic option for us. Count us in if anyone wants to talk seriously about setting something up. Tony at Hawaiian Techworks might be interested in helping us set up a branch here. He already has a lot of the infrastructure and is very committed to helping build the tech community here on the Big Island.

Cheers
-Allison

I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them.
- Isaac Asimov

[freespirit]

Aloha,
We have Telcom DSL in the back part of Nanawale. Hubby and I both work from our home office on the isle since 2009.

In order to get it though I had to wait for a port to open which involved calling Telcom every single day for about 6 months straight asking them if a port had opened. I kept record of whom I talked to on each call and by the end when a port finally opened I pretty much knew all the workers by name and they knew me.

Kind of funny – they would say you know you really don’t have to call every day and I would say yes I do cause I REALLY need to have internet in order to have any income.

Eventually a port opened up and we are so glad that it did. Seems to be pretty reliable and a steady speed during the day like clockwork at 8:00 PM bam our speed goes down to hardly nothing and I mean slower than dial up. Telcom says no reason for it to do that but its every single night for the last 4 years so seems like too much of a coincidence. So reliable when it slows down I could set a clock to it.

It’s OK though as long as I have it for work during the day I can live with the slow speeds at night.

Our other house in Hawaiian shores Rec again Telcom no ports but I did not have a problem getting Oceanic Time warner service although they are a bit more expensive than Telcom.

Depends on what you are doing as far as work on the internet – we need to have high speed so satellite would not work for us or wireless as it would not be reliable enough. Dial up forget it....

[Justin]

We have a cable modem in Leilani, and, aside from this week, have found it more than fast enough for both my wife and I to work remotely. My company also provides a "Jetpack" that turns a Verizon 4G signal into wi-fi, and with the new cell tower on Moku, this gives us a good backup when the power goes out during thunderstorms, wind storms, etc. It's also mobile, so I can take it wherever, including out in the yard, if I want to FaceTime my wife with what's blooming in the garden. I don't know what a JetPack would cost per month (since I never see the price), but frankly I'd happily pay the cost to be in Leilani than on the mainland.

[HI_Someday]

I'm trying to understand WHY these ISPs aren't expanding their capacity to meet demand when there is so much potential for them to grow their business? It just doesn't make sense that if they are in business to provide a service, charge for it and make a profit (they would be out of business if they didn't) why wouldn't they meet the demand and make more money? Anybody have any insight?

This should go without saying but please don't include mind control, weather manipulation or poison death rays from satellites as a reason. [8] Thank you.

[kalakoa]

Short version: no carrier wants to bother investing in wired infrastructure because it's expensive and highly regulated; wireless is easier to build and has fewer regulations.

Why should "they" run wire all the way to your house and give you unlimited megabits for a flat rate, when that same bandwidth is subject to costly overage fees if it's wireless?

[davidr]

Google Aloha Broadband and check their map to see if service is in your area. I had good speeds at a reasonable price when I used them. I switched to DSL when it became available.

[The_Saints]

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.

[kalakoa]

I am a network architect, so I know something about the telecom business.

I suggest that the usual rules do not apply here. Take your pick of reasons: low population density, rugged terrain, lack of infrastructure, limited economic means, and various kinds of anti-tech luddites ("don't want that mind-control ray", "can't cross my property", etc).

I thought about starting a small local WISP, but the high cost of an uplink (which would also permit resale) divided against the small number of potential customers resulted in rates similar to Verizon's 4G offering -- not including the hardware cost, nor the "mandatory Fed record-keeping" required of an ISP these days.

Telcom "could" install small poletop remote DSLAMs and repurpose their existing copper plant, but why should they bother?

Oceanic "could" roll out some more coax... but why should they bother?

In both cases, people are apparently willing and able to pay through the nose for a wireless broadband option with all the caps, throttling, and usage charges that entails, therefore "availability" isn't an actual problem.

The offensive part: this means turning away perfectly good "foreign" revenue from people who would live here if they could telecommute. (Driving to a "shared space" is not really "telecommuting" in that it does not solve the same problems.)

It's not just a Hawaii problem, either.