Fifteen thousand per house at 1 house per mile would be pretty optimistic for this area (NY State). The poles on those roads tend to be old, and the telco attached at a time when nobody was too concerned about the clearance rules. With make-ready on a rural road, you tend to get up to $50k/mile. You can go underground, but we have a bunch of challenges with that too.
Regardless, it would be hard to make a viable business out of that scenario. It's all well and good if the government helps you get the capital, but opex is your problem. If we, as a society, feel that those properties need broadband then there would have to be something that functions more like USF, where those rural properties are subsidized by a fee paid by the city dwellers. Your description of old farms and farmhouses is very familiar. Family farms still exist, but often in the form of a corporation owned by the family. I think that's to avoid inheritance tax because the corporation doesn't die. Give your shares to the next generation when you retire rather than waiting until you die. The exception is dairy farms. With all the dairy subsidies we still have lots of dairy farms with 100 cows or less. Out of our >600,000 dairy cows in the state, the average herd size is 1200ish. One thing that I don't know if you experience in other states is you get the occasional "farm" around here that's actually just some millionaire's tax shelter. Some of the expenses for their palatial estate can become expenses for their struggling farm business. P.S.: One thing I do like about this group is nobody has ever asked me where NY keeps the cows with all the buildings around. -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2025 12:13 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: [AFMUG] rural areas and fiber In some areas we serve where houses are a mile apart and the nearest town with a Walmart is 15 miles away, people tell me that when a homeowner dies (many are in their 70’s and 80’s), they won’t even list the house because nobody wants to live in the middle of nowhere. It will be abandoned, or torn down to and turned back into farmland. We no longer have small family farms with the farm family living in a house on the land, because you need to farm so many acres to make a profit. If a farmhouse is near a town, it may become a rental house, but not when it’s 10 miles from the nearest town or school. But I expect some company will be awarded $15K+ each to pass these houses with fiber. If it takes 4 years to complete, the house might not even be occupied by then, and in any case, the 80 year old occupant probably doesn’t care if they have gigabit Internet. So will fiber make these houses suddenly desirable, and work from home people will move there from the cities, towns and suburbs? Reviving these rural areas where the younger generation has moved away? I guess that’s the vision, I’m not sure I buy it. Well and septic and propane, quarter mile driveway to plow in winter, but blazing fast Internet, and you can have horses and chickens. Will they start building subdivisions out there once fiber is available? I’m not buying it. Am I wrong?
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