Recently,in the paper there was reporting on the inferior broadband access situation in HSV. Not mentioned was the even worse issue of weak or nonexistent cellular connectivity Village-wide. Many homeowners cannot get any cell signal at all. Or, they can only get a marginal signal from one carrier but not others.
If the fix to Village broadband is wireless (like AT&T LTE Fixed Wireless Internet) then the first order of business is getting more cell towers. Otherwise, there is nothing to build from and wireless broadband won’t work.
But there are other problems with LTE broadband as well.  LTE speed maxes out at about 30 Megabits per second. A weak or marginal cell signal will drastically reduce that speed. There is also the throughput cap that the carriers put on their data plans. The AT&T cap is reported to be 160 GB on their LTE Fixed Wireless. To stream 4K HD video requires a steady connection speed of at least 25 megabits per second. Streaming HD video consumes about 3 GB of data per hour. You do the math.
Most people have or want a large screen 4K HD smart TV to stream Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.  Every Millennial already has one and would not live without it. Bottom line: We need the cell connectivity problem fixed. But regardless of that, LTE broadband just isn’t going to cut it.
Solution: Suddenlink was originally granted some sort of franchise as the cable provider for the Village.  Ditto for AT&T for phone lines and their U-verse system (available in some parts of the east side). Ditto for whomever owns the existing cell towers. Why is POA not working to bring legal, political or media pressure on these big carriers to provide adequate, reliable, state-of-the-art service?

Tom Blakeman
Hot Springs Village