Apple Co-Founder Doesn't Have Broadband

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You would think that the Woz would have his own satellite orbiting his house providing broadband via laser beam or something, but he doesn't.

"I don't have broadband at my home," Mr Wozniak said, to much surprise in the audience. "I, Steve Wozniak, don't have broadband at my home." "Broadband is a monopoly in my town - that means you can get it from a cable company, but I don't have cable.
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What would be the point. He's probably never at home anyways. Plus hes got a iPhone no doubt.
 
Pfft probably tethers using one of his 3 Iphones or 2 android phones.
 
I'm not sure why this is news or even shocking. People need to leave work @ work (which is one of the many reasons i assume he does not have broadband).

For the record.. I work in IT and i share a 24/7 on call shift. Every time the cell phone rings / beeps / falls off the desk due to being on viberate i get dirty looks.
 
What does being without a decent network connection have to do with work? I spend 16 hours a day infront of a computer, 8 of them are paid and the other 8 is leisure.
 
NickJames said:
What does being without a decent network connection have to do with work? I spend 16 hours a day infront of a computer, 8 of them are paid and the other 8 is leisure.
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I did admit in my post this might be one of many reasons he does not have broadband.

Perhaps were of a different mind set. I'm thinking that someone in his position is "always" connected and not having internet is a way of saying "this can wait until i get into office".
 
It explains his reasoning right in the article. Did anyone read it? Cable and DSL in this country are mostly monopolies, which is ridiculous. There is one provider of cable in my area, Comcast, who charges absurd prices for anything faster than ~25mbps and has horrid customer service, and the other is AT&T U-verse, which I use but you cannot buy anything faster than 24mbps and their customer service isn't much better (although thankfully it's very stable so I've never had to use customer service).

We really need to end the government-regulated monopolies on telecommunications and have real competition.
 
Rizen said:
It explains his reasoning right in the article. Did anyone read it? Cable and DSL in this country are mostly monopolies, which is ridiculous. There is one provider of cable in my area, Comcast, who charges absurd prices for anything faster than ~25mbps and has horrid customer service, and the other is AT&T U-verse, which I use but you cannot buy anything faster than 24mbps and their customer service isn't much better (although thankfully it's very stable so I've never had to use customer service).

We really need to end the government-regulated monopolies on telecommunications and have real competition.
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boo frickin hooo...

i pay 41.95/mo for 7/768 twc in central NC...
 
Rizen said:
It explains his reasoning right in the article. Did anyone read it? Cable and DSL in this country are mostly monopolies, which is ridiculous. There is one provider of cable in my area, Comcast, who charges absurd prices for anything faster than ~25mbps and has horrid customer service, and the other is AT&T U-verse, which I use but you cannot buy anything faster than 24mbps and their customer service isn't much better (although thankfully it's very stable so I've never had to use customer service).

We really need to end the government-regulated monopolies on telecommunications and have real competition.
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Where I live, Comcast is it. Not two miles from here and all around our town is Fios with faster speeds, better customer service, and cheaper. :mad:
 
Metrocall said:
Where I live, Comcast is it. Not two miles from here and all around our town is Fios with faster speeds, better customer service, and cheaper. :mad:
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Pretty much the same here. We do have frontier,but the fastest speed they allow is 3mbps. for $35 a month. It still takes about 10-15 seconds to load a full website. So really the best choice is Comcast but they suck. We have no other local choices.
 
Woz probably has a huge estate in a remote area. Most people in rural areas have trouble getting broadband. There's really nothing surprising about Woz not having wired broadband. And, it's not that big a deal. He's probably almost never there. And, when he is there, he has cell-tower broadband.
 
goodcooper said:
boo frickin hooo...

i pay 41.95/mo for 7/768 twc in central NC...
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My 24mbps costs me $70 a month, not sure why you are upset for paying less and getting slower service. We're both getting equally screwed, considering data speeds in Asia and Europe are between 5-10x faster for less money.
 
Considering how terrible the broadband infrastructure is in California, this comes as no surprise.
 
He's no idiot. Who pays for a service that gives you five minutes of show and three minutes of commercials anyway?
 
I didnt think it was so bad in Cali...

Im in up the coast a bit in vancouver, ca and im getting 50mbs for $40 a month...

40 for 24mbs on a crappy network... Ugh...
 
Rizen said:
It explains his reasoning right in the article. Did anyone read it? Cable and DSL in this country are mostly monopolies, which is ridiculous. There is one provider of cable in my area, Comcast, who charges absurd prices for anything faster than ~25mbps and has horrid customer service, and the other is AT&T U-verse, which I use but you cannot buy anything faster than 24mbps and their customer service isn't much better (although thankfully it's very stable so I've never had to use customer service).

We really need to end the government-regulated monopolies on telecommunications and have real competition.
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Agreed. I support his desire to stand against monopolies. I wish I could do the same but I can't live without my interwebs. :(
 
I'm a lucky one!

I have Charter in my area and DAMN are they awesome! Paying $100 a month for 100Mb net and full cable TV.

Internet is ROCK solid and I have one of the best connections in town. Constant 100Mb download no matter the day or time. Cable guy was actually a hard core PC gamer and saw that I was as well so he hooked it up big time. Rewire the entire house, rewired the house to the street poll outside, had someone come out and finely adjust the settings on the poll, etc...literally got the best connection possible.

On top of rock solid service, crazy speeds, and being "cheaper" overall their customer service is tier 1 through and through. I've heard A LOT of stories about how bad their CS is...and maybe its just my call center or something but I have nothing but positive things to say.

Honestly could not be happier.
 
breaking news, apple co-founder dealing with same real life issues as normal people!!!! :TFH:
 
We only have comcast here, otherwise you have the choice of 56k or satellite....that's it.
 
I believe he is in the same situation where I used to live as explained in the article. Wozniak lives 1 mile from town thus neither Cable internet or Cable TV is available to him. I have the same situation at my home that I am renovating. Cable is 1/2 mile from me thus I have no access like Woz.

Then he goes on to lament the fact that Horizon phone service is terrible in his area. Thus more than likely the line quality isn't there for DSL. At my house the phone company owns the lines and they are not beholding to upgrade them. As long as the phone works, everything else is extra and the customer is not entitled to it unless the phone company deems it profitable to upgrade them. Since Wozniak lives 1 mile out of town then he doesn't qualify for line repairs. That's what CenturyLink explained to me when I complained about the lack of broadband in my area.

Satellite broadband is for getting documents and pictures faster. Some websites will timeout before the delay in Satellite internet's request goes through. Trying to use it for anything else than the aforementioned things is just trying to give you another reason to pull your hair out.

His best bet is to get internet off his cellular phone carrier.
 
Rizen said:
My 24mbps costs me $70 a month, not sure why you are upset for paying less and getting slower service. We're both getting equally screwed, considering data speeds in Asia and Europe are between 5-10x faster for less money.
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yes it is cheaper, hell lot cheaper, but considering about 20x more people using it it's almost impossible to get faster speed.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if he has something better that broadband like an OC-3 or fiber MetroE service. With the kind of money he has, I'd have called up Level3 and/or TW and footed the bill to run a fiber line from my house to them.

Last time I was looking for a job, I was hoping to land this gig in Chattanooga, TN just so I could get 50mbit symetrical fiber internet for $70/mo: https://epbfi.com/
 
I know I'm extremely lucky to have this :



But I pay through the nose for it ($120 a month) still though its incredible. I can't blame Steve for not wanting to support the TWC monopoly. TWC is probably one of the worst offenders at anti-competitive practices.

I'm sure Steve just uses his phone to tether the connection or perhaps he just does all his surfing at his job. Who knows.

Steve is a purist geek , what did you all expect? Did you think he would have an OC-45 line built into his house? He has no money compared to what jobs did and is still a "working" man.
 
Meh...I have Charter..Internet, TV and Phone...pay around $170 a months for all of it. hey have upgraded the speed 3 times in the last year or so...I am now averaging 30-45Mbps down and 5 up...they do offer faster but I see no reason to go any higher...

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I pay $40 a month for AT&T's bullshit internet. It's supposed to be 3mbps down but I get 300kbps max. It's ridiculous. Living in central California, btw.
 
where does the woz live again?

a lot of the remote places in the bay area can be reached by some form of mountain-top wifi link.

shoot...if he wants...he can just pay for the costs (equipment + bandwidth) and I'll install it and set it up for him for free.
 
JoeUser said:
I have Charter in my area and DAMN are they awesome! Paying $100 a month for 100Mb net and full cable TV.
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To make it shorter than the whole story I want to tell, I'm mad at Charter for selling the franchising rights to a small local startup in a town I was living in that caused me nothing but headaches for 7 months. The new company reduced speeds, raised rates by about 75% and messed up my billing every month.

Luckily the next apartment in the town we lived in was able to get AT&T DSL Elite with a phone line for about $10/month less and it was faster speeds, still slower than the original Charter line though. It was a very limited part of the town that could get DSL.

So sometimes having a large corporate monopoly is much better than a small local company monopoly.
 
I only have one ISP to choose from. I have 6mbps/512kbps DSL service with my local telco for $49.95 per month. It was 1.5mbps/256kbps in 2010, so I am happy for the speed boost I got when I bought a new DSL box that supported ADSL 2+. They also offer a 6/1 for $55/month, and the highest package is 10/1 for $70/month. There is another ISP in the area providing cable service (12/2mbps max highest tier busniness connection). However, they will not run lines one street over to my street. I am happy that both companies are progressing pretty fast, and providing decent speeds.

I have nearly 100% uptime all year long, and when I do loose the internet connection it is because of a power outage (not the ISP's fault) usually by a storm or tree taking out a power line. No data caps, no throttling, friendly local customer service. Some of their pricing is a bit rediculous, but all around they are a good ISP. You can call customer support and get through pretty fast.
 
Rizen said:
My 24mbps costs me $70 a month, not sure why you are upset for paying less and getting slower service. We're both getting equally screwed, considering data speeds in Asia and Europe are between 5-10x faster for less money.
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Yet I pay $45 a month a get "30mbit" service, but always pull upwards of 4MB/s.


I'm sorry that you're a sucker.
 
Were I in his shoes I probably wouldn't have "broadband" in the literal sense, I'd have a large high end baseband link, like a DS-3. Pricey, but fun to have and with Woz money, you could :).
 
stop!theradio said:
I pay $40 a month for AT&T's bullshit internet. It's supposed to be 3mbps down but I get 300kbps max. It's ridiculous. Living in central California, btw.
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Exact same situation here in Alabama. Max speed available is 3mbps but I get about 320kbp. I so wish verizon or even comcast would compete here.
 
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