For people at the bottom end of the economic scale (thinking about seniors on Social Security), it seems to me the ideal combination is a Lifeline cellphone and an OTA TV antenna with a DVR. The cellphone eliminates all worries about crappy copper, power outages, etc. and it works in the house, out in the yard, or at the doctor’s office. This was at odds with the Wheeler FCC agenda to move everyone’s phone and video to a high cost IP based network of the future. But now Wheeler is out, at least for 4 years.
Gigabit fiber and 4K streaming TV is great for people who can afford it, but not really a great solution for the little old widow lady trying to live in a rental house in the country with no income other than Social Security. The sad thing is many of these people have moved out from the city or suburbs and away from relatives who could assist with their care, because they can’t afford the property taxes and other high costs of living in the more populated areas. The nearest pharmacy may be 25 miles away, so they have prescriptions delivered by mail. They worry about the “fallen and can’t get up” scenario. Meanwhile I keep hearing that all our economic problems are due to lazy baby boomers sponging off the welfare system, when in fact a lot of them are dipping into their 401K savings because they have unemployed 25 year old children and grandchildren living in their basements. When I was 25, it was drilled into us to take full advantage of employer provided benefits like insurance, tuition reimbursement, and 401K contribution matching. The retirement funds accumulated by that generation provided a big cushion to the US economy during the decade long “Great Recession”. I’m sure there are 20-somethings today who max out their 401K or IRA contributions, but a lot of them seem don’t seem to have savings to cover a 1 week layoff, much less their eventual retirement. We live in the prepaid phone era, where you decide at the beginning of each month whether you can afford your phone that month. I just don’t understand why so many people describe our situation as a bunch of lazy baby boomers sponging off the hard working millennials and Gen-Xers. Ask the 70 year old guy retrieving carts in the Walmart parking lot how he’s enjoying retirement. I think it’s probably good that newer generations are less focused on material possession than their predecessors, but no one seems to be preaching the doctrine of saving for retirement anymore (except that company with commercials about “orange money”). The politicians who want to privatize Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security but say everything will be OK with high-deductible insurance and Health Savings Accounts, I don’t think they’ve ever met a poor (non-rich) person. The idea that you can set aside a bunch of pre-tax money each month to pay your medical costs, that’s just ridiculous when you don’t even make enough to pay income tax. For somebody with no income other than Social Security, pre-tax and post-tax is the same thing. It’s like trying to motivate start-up companies via tax exemptions. Most of them would LOVE to have income tax as their #1 worry. In the startup phase, it’s all about having enough cashflow to make payroll. From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of CBB - Jay Fuller Sent: Wednesday, February 1, 2017 9:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] CenturyLink installing these We have just purchased a WISP in a predominately centurylink area. We are hearing about the towns fed by t1s....ugh Fortunately we have just inherited some wireless in those towns ----- Original Message ----- From: Forrest Christian (List Account) <mailto:[email protected]> To: af <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 11:29 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] CenturyLink installing these Out of curiosity, do you know how are they feeding these shelves? I know that in at least one case a couple of years ago, Qwest was feeding an entire neighborhood on I think 4 T1's. On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 5:06 PM, Darin Steffl <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Exactly. Calix VDSL2 Remote DSLAM. These are the result of CAF funding from Govt. to provide minimum 10/1 Mbps speeds to the census blocks they took funding for. If Centurylink had crappy or no DSL in these areas before, expect them to be able to offer somewhat functional to excellent DSL speeds to customers in range of these remote DSLAMs. For really close customers, they may see up to 40/1 Mbps speeds. On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 3:54 PM, Carl Peterson <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: As someone already said, its clearly and E3. https://www.calix.com/systems/e-series/e3-e5-dsl.html On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 4:18 PM, George Skorup <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Regen would be my guess. On 1/31/2017 2:45 PM, Tim Reichhart wrote: it got fiber ran into it for remote dslam to provide customers vdsl2 along that route. Tim -----Original Message----- From: "Carl Peterson" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Date: 01/31/17 03:28 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] CenturyLink installing these Calix. I'd guess G.Fast Sent from my iPhone On Jan 31, 2017, at 3:07 PM, Josh Corson <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Does anyone know what these are? They are popping up on fairly rural areas of our coverage areas and on the state highways. Thanks <mime-attachment.txt> <image1.JPG> -- Carl Peterson PORT NETWORKS 401 E Pratt St, Ste 2553 Baltimore, MD 21202 (410) 637-3707 <tel:(410)%20637-3707> -- Darin Steffl Minnesota WiFi www.mnwifi.com <http://www.mnwifi.com/> 507-634-WiFi <http://www.facebook.com/minnesotawifi> Like us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/minnesotawifi> -- Forrest Christian CEO, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc. Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] | <http://www.packetflux.com/> http://www.packetflux.com <http://www.linkedin.com/in/fwchristian> <http://facebook.com/packetflux> <http://twitter.com/@packetflux>
