Re:Two Countries, Two Vastly Different Phone Bills
by PaulHoule on Sunday August 24, 2014 @05:01PM
(#8219661)
So far as I can tell, cell phone technology works best in third- or fourth- tier cities like Rochester, NY. The worst cities for cell phone coverage are cities like LA, NYC, Washington DC, etc.
In very dense areas they have to put in more cells, deal with the fact that there is a lot of metal around, multi-path propagation, more difficulties getting towers sited, etc.
In rural areas I think the cost has more to do with topography than anything else. In a mostly flat area that has an occasional mountain that's taller than anyone else, you can space towers far apart. In the Appalachian mountain region, however, you have a network of ridges that are all about the same height, so you'd need to run power and fiber to the tops of all the ridges - you might as well just run FTTH to all the homes, except you couldn't charge $10 a GB for FTTH.
In very dense areas they have to put in more cells, deal with the fact that there is a lot of metal around, multi-path propagation, more difficulties getting towers sited, etc.
In rural areas I think the cost has more to do with topography than anything else. In a mostly flat area that has an occasional mountain that's taller than anyone else, you can space towers far apart. In the Appalachian mountain region, however, you have a network of ridges that are all about the same height, so you'd need to run power and fiber to the tops of all the ridges - you might as well just run FTTH to all the homes, except you couldn't charge $10 a GB for FTTH.