Charter wants $7100 to make my new home serviceable. What gives?

Question

Specifically, I live in a residential neighborhood in a moderately sized city in Minnesota.I'm willing to go as far as to start a WISP if I can get enough community support; but my question for the telco HNers is this: what specifically drives the decision to burden the consumer with a significant cost? I can understand if this parcel were somehow drastically outside the ISP service area, but I am certain that isn't the case as I have personal friends within .5 miles that have 1-gig service.Wouldn't the ISP benefit from investing by expanding their available service, given most of the lines (AFAIK) around here are aerial, pole-to-home.Side note, relevant to my ultimate goal of non-DSL internet.... Anyone have advice or ideas on how to get reliable fiber to my community?

Scoundreller · Accepted Answer

Any of those friends within a few miles that want to make their 1-gig internet bill $0/month in exchange for a link/mount on (their existing?) TV tower?
Ubiquiti gear can get you an airfibre 1-gig+ link for $1k-$3k: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airfiber (+ tower costs of course)
Or less for the "consumer grade" stuff: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-devices
From there, you can distribute your network. Backyard to backyard is easy. Across municipal rights-of-way is more complicated with physical cabling.

kkielhofner · Answer

Go to city hall and see if you can get a copy of the agreement Charter has with the municipality. Sometimes there will be clauses that cover minimum densities per cable mile, etc.It may be possible they&rsquo;re required to provide you service.

aurizon · Answer

Do they have others in this same position that they also charge a $7100 hook-up fee? If so, they are abusing the process. That said, once they put it in, will they maintain against ice/snow/etc. or will you get bills for thousands each year for weather outage? If you put in a WISP, how many co-wispers can you arrange and who will supply your internet connection to share the cost? How long do you plan on living in that house? What will your monthly bill be? Are you allowed to subdivide your internet connection with 1 or more neighbours? If you get Starlink will it be economic on a 10 year basis if you share via WiFi with 1-10 neighbors? There is a super Starlink as well.

giantg2 · Answer

"what specifically drives the decision to burden the consumer with a significant cost?"I wonder too. I know this is how most utilities work. My guess is that they want part of the cost covered up front in case your house burns down and nobody rebuilds there. And of course profits.

sethammons · Answer

I bought my house with the intent of working from home. Spectrum confirmed serviceability until they came out to hook me up - turns out they serviced the other side of the highway. Long story short, I got to pay $5k and wait a year while permits and weather did their thing so Spectrum could bore a channel under the highway. Now I have high speed internet. I consider it part of my house down payment.

colechristensen · Answer

It would be entirely believable that the charge reflects their actual cost and wouldn&rsquo;t be recovered by your subscription for decades. Local laws and agreements with your local governments might mean they have to do it for free in exchange for the privilege / local monopoly.

rasz · Answer

> I have personal friends within .5 miles that have 1-gig service.Buy 3 boxes of cat6, ~4-6 POE repeaters and you are set.

mtnGoat · Answer

Charter did all the work for me at no cost, even came and repaired the cable I cut with a shovel two weeks later. All during the whole three months I was a customer. I felt like my fiber provider needed to step up their game, so I canceled for a bit.Funny how they pick and choose who to charge.

relaunched · Answer

Adam? I was just having this conversation at work.I've also been told. that the ISP's will prorate the fees if you sign a contract. If it gets you business grade gigabit, it might be worth it.

hedora · Answer

By California standards, that's cheap, for new construction.
There are engineering and permitting fees, along with doing the actual trenching. I'd expect that to run a least a few thousand in "normal" markets.
Are they laying fiber to the home for that price? (They should! Labor is ~100% the cost of laying new lines.) Guaranteed minimum speed?
(If it's an existing house that used to have phone/cable service, then it sounds like they're ripping you off; check with city council, etc.)

kfrzcode · Answer

Update, tweeted the mayor. Further discovery into how to topple the monopoly to follow. Out.

CodeWriter23 · Answer

You think running a half mile of cable for $7100 is unreasonable?What I did in DTLA when they wanted $10k to cable the building, I used DSL and waited approx 2 yrs until I saw &ldquo;TWC&rdquo; WiFi on the sidewalk then there was no charge for connection.

hindsightbias · Answer

Start with the cost of 2500&rsquo; of fiber + whether it is trenched (surveys, trencher crew) or on poles ($250/hr for a lineman).Am sure that&rsquo;s at least $5k.

consumer451 · Answer

Starlink seems like a potential solution&hellip; just curious if you had considered that and decided against it?

Charter wants $7100 to make my new home serviceable. What gives?

Go to city hall and see if you can get a copy of the agreement Charter has with the municipality. Sometimes there will be clauses that cover minimum densities per cable mile, etc.
It may be possible they’re required to provide you service.

"what specifically drives the decision to burden the consumer with a significant cost?"
I wonder too. I know this is how most utilities work. My guess is that they want part of the cost covered up front in case your house burns down and nobody rebuilds there. And of course profits.

It would be entirely believable that the charge reflects their actual cost and wouldn’t be recovered by your subscription for decades. Local laws and agreements with your local governments might mean they have to do it for free in exchange for the privilege / local monopoly.

> I have personal friends within .5 miles that have 1-gig service.
Buy 3 boxes of cat6, ~4-6 POE repeaters and you are set.

Charter did all the work for me at no cost, even came and repaired the cable I cut with a shovel two weeks later. All during the whole three months I was a customer. I felt like my fiber provider needed to step up their game, so I canceled for a bit.
Funny how they pick and choose who to charge.

Adam? I was just having this conversation at work.
I've also been told. that the ISP's will prorate the fees if you sign a contract. If it gets you business grade gigabit, it might be worth it.

Update, tweeted the mayor. Further discovery into how to topple the monopoly to follow. Out.

You think running a half mile of cable for $7100 is unreasonable?
What I did in DTLA when they wanted $10k to cable the building, I used DSL and waited approx 2 yrs until I saw “TWC” WiFi on the sidewalk then there was no charge for connection.

Start with the cost of 2500’ of fiber + whether it is trenched (surveys, trencher crew) or on poles ($250/hr for a lineman).
Am sure that’s at least $5k.

Starlink seems like a potential solution… just curious if you had considered that and decided against it?