Re: What's Wrong With LinuxMint ?

The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 19/08/2026 04:32, rbowman wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Aug 2026 22:16:09 -0400, c186282 wrote:
>> 
>>>     Anyway, they took away my hardwire and gave me a 5G where the 
>>>     antenna is many miles away.  Weak signal almost always, perhaps 
>>>     packet errors too.
>> 
>> I had a Verizon MiFi for years and it served me well but I think the 
>> closest tower is 6 miles away.  Youtube, streaming Netflix, and so 
>> forth wasn't a problem but I rarely saw 20 Mbis.  StarLink is a 
>> reliable 100 Mbis and makes the world of difference for updates, 
>> downloading isos, and so forth.  It's also $40 / month cheaper.
> 
> You actually have starlink?
> 
> Well I guess in rural USA fuck the rednecks is the average ISPs 
> response.

It very much is, just dressed up as "much too capital intensive for any 
reasonable ROI", but in the end the meaning is the same.

And it comes down to density.  Outside of the urban/surburban areas, 
the rural USA is *very* sparse.  The ISP might have to run eight miles 
(12.9km) of "cable" (be that fiber /or/ coax, whatever the link may be) 
before they reach the next, single, house to which they can sell an 
internet connection.

The monthly bill to repay the capital expense of hanging 12.9km of 
cable for "one house" would be such that no one would pay (or could 
afford to pay) the ISP bill.  So they simply don't wire up the rural 
areas.

Those same rural areas have electricity and POTS phone service (where 
it has not been retired) only because back in the 30's through 50's 
there were major government programs spending tax dollars to "wire up 
the USA" and so the capital cost of installing 12.9km of "wire" just to 
connect one home was borne by the govt., not the "ISP" (phone company 
or electric company back then).  When the service providers received 
the transport medium effectively free of capital expenditure they could 
then profit from their usual monthly fees, and were happy to oblige at 
that point.

But with the internet, while there have been half hearted pushes to get 
the corporate ISP's to "wire up rural areas" with some token tax money 
offers, there has been nothing of the scale of the push from the 30's 
through 50's and so much of 'rural' America has no internet besides, 
maybe, dialup or satellite.