Puna internet options - the good, the bad, and the ugly

[ironyak]

Figured might be worth a thread to allow for a showdown between Puna's internet options, to see which takes a fistful of dollars, and what you can get for a few dollars more.

Over the years and at different locales, we've had:
- Aloha "Broadband": super slow browsing, could almost hear the mynah birds carrying the messages back and forth, but provided plenty time to gaze out on the Kalapana coast
- Verizon Hotspot: limited and metered data, but could be completely off-grid and take the access with you where ever - look ma no strings!
- Hawai'i Telcom over copper: Bad shared bandwidth that dropped to being nearly unusable in the evenings - who needs internet then, other than everyone apparently.
- Spectrum (or whatever it was called at the time - keep changing names and the bad rep won't catch up, right): Cable based, decent enough bandwidth, not great customer service, but the crews were pretty good about getting things fixed when the trees would take out the lines.

- Currently, Hawai'i Telcom fiber: Gigabit speeds up and down for less than a benjamin, very rare outages for us in mid-Puna, super cool local crews that talked story, gave useful tips and tricks on trenching and laying out the conduit, and have made one repair with just a shrug and a smile when my system "modifications" went awry and nicked the line. Hard not to support local folks doing good work, especially compared to funding billionaire white supremacists bent on undermining democracy and promoting CSAM (subtle enough reference? ;)

So there's my contender for Clint Eastwood (the good) - anyone want to put their Puna internet service in as Lee Van Cleef (the bad) or Eli Wallach (the ugly)?

[HiloJulie]

Excellent idea Ironyak! Always the bastian of wisdom!

For us at the fictitious house in the Acres it was:

• Hawaiian Telcom POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) At one time we had 5 POTS lines, 1 for voice for my husband, 1 for voice for me, 1 dial up/FAX for my husband and 1 dial up/FAX for me and one line for the Ohana house. Talk about slow on top of slow! And if it rained, we had 48 hours of static on each line. Also at this time, a cell phone, if you could afford one, and carry a 20 pound brick around, were useless in the Acres and hotspots had not been invented yet.
  
• Then was, if I remember correctly, Advanced Wireless? Some dude came out and installed a big plastic antenna by climbing up an Ohia tree, mounting it and running a wire to the house. It was much better than dial up, but you had to log in every few hours. No matter what you were doing, it cut you off and required a log in. Still had to have the POTS lines, as cellphones were still useless. And the Ohia tree died 6 months later.
  
• Then, Exceed. For the fictitious home in the Acres, we were finally Hi-Speed. Cellphones/hotspots started to become somewhat useful - as long as you stayed in the kitchen. 
  
• Then Hawaiian Fiber. Cellphones/hotspots worked. Sometimes.
  
• And then a new cell tower installed off 8 Road and E Road in the Acres made cellphones/hotspots totally functional.
  
• And now, Starlink.
  

And imagine what your life would be if you refused to buy or use anything from a company whose CEO's/financial investors/benefactors you despised. Starbucks? Hilo Benioff Medical Center? Amazon? Facebook? X? McDonalds? Uber?

[ironyak]

HJ - And imagine what your life would be if you refused to buy or use anything from a company whose CEO's/financial investors/benefactors you despised. Starbucks? Hilo Benioff Medical Center? Amazon? Facebook? X? McDonalds? Uber?

Yes, imagine all the local coffee shops, mom & pop small businesses, independent and unique online communities not gamifying hatred, local grindz made with local ingredients by locals, and transportation options where most of the money goes to the drivers instead of the venture cap bros... what a nightmare! (In short that's a good boycott list, and you're not the first to make something like it)

If you're "voting with your dollars" by choosing Starlink, how does voting against your own interests by funding the corpos' and billionaires' enshittification of everything for everyone besides themselves make any sense? Unless by helping accelerate the instability and Balkanization you're working to achieve Hawai'i sovereignty, it's hard to see how such choices actually support and benefit those who live and work here in Hawai'i.

[MyManao]

Starlink

If voting with one's dollars is Starlink.. well, then you're voting for an infantile, fed on the breast of apartheid, spoiled brat who dreams of world dominance. Essentially, the Fourth Reich.

[HiloJulie]

HJ - And imagine what your life would be if you refused to buy or use anything from a company whose CEO's/financial investors/benefactors you despised. Starbucks? Hilo Benioff Medical Center? Amazon? Facebook? X? McDonalds? Uber?

Yes, imagine all the local coffee shops, mom & pop small businesses, independent and unique online communities not gamifying hatred, local grindz made with local ingredients by locals, and transportation options where most of the money goes to the drivers instead of the venture cap bros... what a nightmare! (In short that's a good boycott list, and you're not the first to make something like it)

If you're "voting with your dollars" by choosing Starlink, how does voting against your own interests by funding the corpos' and billionaires' enshittification of everything for everyone besides themselves make any sense? Unless by helping accelerate the instability and Balkanization you're working to achieve Hawai'i sovereignty, it's hard to see how such choices actually support and benefit those who live and work here in Hawai'i.

Starlink

If voting with one's dollars is Starlink.. well, then you're voting for an infantile, fed on the breast of apartheid, spoiled brat who dreams of world dominance. Essentially, the Fourth Reich.

When I can walk into the Hilo, Kurtistown, Keaau or Pahoa Post Office and not see a mountain of brown boxes with a smile on them, I'll get rid of my StarLink. 

Deal?

[MyManao]

When I can..

They say lemmings are like that too. No morality, just follow along with what others do.

[Durian Fiend]

....When I can walk into the Hilo, Kurtistown, Keaau or Pahoa Post Office and not see a mountain of brown boxes with a smile on them, I'll get rid of my StarLink. 

Deal?

  Unlike some friends I don't strive to boycott for political reasons any of the businesses you've listed previously (although I've only eaten at McDonald's once in memory over the past 30 years). In Musk's case I'm willing to make an exception-especially since it's relatively easy to do so.  Now, if he owned Amazon maybe not! 

Also, if fiber wasn't available locally I might be tempted to go with Starlink.

[HiloJulie]

In Musk's case I'm willing to make an exception-especially since it's relatively easy to do so.  Now, if he owned Amazon maybe not! 

As I originally said, what I think of Musk, I can't say here on PunaWeb. 

But what about Bezos? 

While Bezos may have a filter in between his brain and mouth, unlike Musk, the core values of the two are more or less quite the same. While Musk may blabber his "Fourth Reich" agenda for all to see on X, and allow a platform for the Hawaii DOGE AI slop to be posted here on another thread, Bezos does more or less the same quietly in the background. 

A guy who can spend 50 to 60 grand per guest for 200 plus guests at his recent wedding, but then fight a few dozen workers trying to unionize at one of his warehouses, does that make him any better? Full of character? Morals? This guy is OK to do business with, but not the other guy? That is selective moral outrage.

But damn, I sure can get a good deal on the NetGear router and not have to pay Hawaiian Telcom 5 bucks a month rent if I just press that Buy Now button. Plus free shipping!! And it's here in a few days. Or weeks. or months. But damn, it was a good deal!

And if anyone destroyed the old "mom and pop" local business, outside of WalMart first, well, I'd say those brown smile boxes had a lot to do with that as well.

Oh and yeah, I don't vote with my dollars either. I vote for competency. But of late, I'm seemingly on the losing side of that.

[randomq]

I was tempted by the recent low Starlink prices, but just couldn't do it. There has to be some justice in the world when we can afford to dole it out, right?

There are companies that sell annual wireless plans with unlimited hotspot. I always shop around Black Friday and score a great deal. Often the deals are for "new customers", which means we take turns signing up for the accounts. Worth it IMHO, for saving hundreds of dollars a year.

[ironyak]

HJ - As I originally said, what I think of Musk, I can't say here on PunaWeb
But whatever your strong feelings, you'll still give him your money. Apparently your convictions are pretty shallow, if you'll support a purveyor of kiddie porn just to get your dog videos a little more quickly or consistently.

But what about Bezos?
Has all the problems you listed and many more.

If your moral philosophy is so bereft that it can only see money saved as the best and highest purpose, then maybe put on those Rowdy Rowdy Piper sunglasses and look past your capitalist consumerism for some other inspirations about making choices that are pono in their own right, regardless of what everyone else is willing to goosestep along with.

randomq - There are companies that sell annual wireless plans with unlimited hotspot. I always shop around Black Friday and score a great deal. Often the deals are for "new customers", which means we take turns signing up for the accounts.
That's a crafty solution - are the locally available plans actually unlimited or do they throttle after a certain download total? If so, how bad is the throttling? (you know a modern PC game often clocks in at over 100 GB with some 4K resolution titles hitting 200+ GB? Looks like kids would eat the allotted download total for some of these plans on a single game if it's not truly unlimited)