Many Americans have just one good option for wireline broadband service. But even one good choice puts them ahead of people in some sparsely populated areas that Internet service providers neglect because they aren’t dense enough to provide huge profits.

TWC has received more than $10 million in state funding to bring broadband to underserved portions of New York.

Although progress is being made in rural America through a combination of private and public initiatives, there are still people like Jesse Walser of Pompey, a town of 7,000 residents in New York. Walser, who works as a laboratory analyst at a beer brewery, is one of the five percent of Americans who live in areas without any providers offering wired Internet service (excluding dialup). Walser’s only viable options are wireless.

Time Warner Cable’s (TWC) lines are a third of a mile from Walser’s house, and the company has received more than $10 million in state funding to bring broadband to underserved portions of New York over the past two years. But the company (which will be purchased by Comcast if the government approves the merger) told Walser they won’t do the construction unless he pays more than $20,000. That’s just to reimburse TWC for its troubles—the monthly access bill would be on top of that.

When Walser first built his home 10 years ago, TWC gave him a much lower estimate of $5,900, he said. Estimates rose through the years and TWC came up with a $22,826.80 figure in an April 2012 letter that Walser shared with Ars. (TWC later revised the figure down closer to $20,000.)

To get phone service at his house, Walser had to pay Verizon about $250 up front and another few hundred dollars to set up electric service, both a far cry from the amount requested by TWC.

"I would pay $1,000 for a fiber-to-the-home installation that promised cutting edge speeds without batting an eye—OK, maybe a small flinch," he said. But not $20,000. “I didn’t think it would be that difficult, because the cable was on my road. I have phone. I have electricity. It’s not completely green acres. I don’t have to go up to the pole to make a call. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Walser gets telephone service from Verizon over copper lines, but he can’t get DSL, because his home is too far from Verizon’s Internet delivery equipment and Verizon hasn’t built the fiber-based FiOS where he lives. Verizon’s FiOS buildouts have stalled, he noted. “Pompey is a much poorer and more rural town, and they don’t want to serve more rural areas. They would just as soon not have any lines there at all,” he said.

At home, cellular service with a 20GB cap

Walser tried dial-up Internet after he built his home but said he could never get more than 12Kbps. His other choices for home Internet service are satellite and cellular Internet. Satellite is problematic for Walser because of latency, and trees near his property could mess with the signal. There is a nearby wireless Internet service provider that uses microwave signals, but he doesn't have a line-of-sight path to the provider's towers. Walser, his wife, and their two kids thus use a $90-per-month cellular hotspot plan with a 20GB data cap.

“It’s like long distance calling in the mid-'80s, early '90s, ‘get off the phone with grandma,’” Walser said. “I have to tell the kids, ‘Sure, you can go online, but you only get 10 minutes.’” He downloads software updates at a relative's house to avoid hitting the cap.

Walser originally bought home cellular service from Verizon Wireless, but he switched to Millenicom because “I kept getting over-billed every month and having to call [Verizon] and have them credit me.”

Millenicom simply resells Verizon data, but it hasn’t overcharged Walser, he said. Naturally, Millenicom’s customer accounts are now being taken over by Verizon Wireless. AT&T serves Walser's area with wireless, but Walser said the AT&T service is poor where he lives. For his iPhone, he uses Verizon Wireless.

Walser is still fighting for wireline broadband access that doesn’t cost more than $20,000, but he has nearly exhausted his options. “I have contacted my state senators, my state legislator, US senators, I’ve contacted the FCC,” he said. “I’m going to continue to do those things, but at a certain point you get onto the watch list.”

Walser said he’s talked to town officials about TWC’s franchise agreement, but it doesn’t require TWC to offer him service. As for Verizon’s wireline telephone and broadband arm, the company has “two exchanges [that] come into my neighborhood,” Walser said. “One of them is fed with fiber to the corner of my street. It’s a mile away, but they didn’t install a DSLAM for DSL and they don’t want to… The other exchange that [my phone service is] actually fed from is too far from the central office and the service is terrible. Every time it rains, it sounds like someone is cooking eggs on my line.”

Verizon’s “repair techs are all very nice; they all do a great job trying to get my service back up” when it breaks, he said. But they can’t help him get DSL, a fact Verizon confirmed to Ars.

“The distance from Mr. Walser’s home to one central office is approximately 21,500 feet,” a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. “That distance is too far for Verizon to offer High Speed Internet (the DSL-based Internet access product) to him. The limit for DSL-based Internet access is 18,000 feet. This is not a Verizon limitation, but rather a function of the technology. In another central office, we do not provide [high speed Internet] to his location.”

Time Warner Cable: We're not required to serve everyone in town

TWC’s letter to Walser in April 2012 stated that in order to extend service to his home, cable to “three homes in a span of 0.32 miles that would need to be constructed. This calculates to 9.4 homes per mile. New York State rules require line extensions of 35 homes per aerial cable mile, and Time Warner Cable has surveyed the area to build line extensions of 20 homes per aerial cable mile. As we have discussed, our surveyors have determined an extension of the fiber trunk lines, including a node, would be required, which complicates the use of the term ‘aerial cable mile.’ Nonetheless, under this calculation there is not enough density for Time Warner Cable to extend its cable facilities.”

The letter goes on to say that construction would cost $26,470. TWC would be willing to chip in $3,643, leaving $22,862.60 to be paid by Walser (and neighbors, if they chose to split the cost).

After Walser sent another letter, TWC revised the cost downward to $20,330. This estimate in June 2012 said TWC would be able to build from a different direction and service an additional six homes. Construction costs were listed as follows:

Aerial Design: $310

Make Ready: $5,670

Strand and Hardware: $2,712

Splicing and Electronics: $5,916

Coaxial Construction: $5,719

In cases such as Walser’s, TWC told Ars that it uses a state-prescribed formula to survey the distance of the home to its network and estimate the customer’s share of the construction costs.

“TWC exceeds NYPSC [New York Public Service Commission] requirements in terms of the density of homes/mile to which we will extend our network at no charge,” the company said. “Unfortunately, the density of homes/mile at Mr. Walser’s residence isn’t even close to the TWC standard, much less the PSC’s.”

Government grants have helped some rural areas get ultra-fast broadband at great prices.

The New York state government awarded Time Warner Cable $5.3 million in December 2012 to bring broadband to 4,114 housing units in underserved areas, and another $5.3 million in February 2014 to serve seven regions of the state. But Walser’s street isn’t covered by that program.

The state funding for TWC and other providers is “for specific, defined projects in unserved and underserved communities (as defined by the state),” TWC told Ars. “These funds aren’t for ad hoc network extensions for an individual customer in a situation like Mr. Walser’s.”

In 2012, Verizon refused $19.7 million in federal subsidies (funded by customers through phone surcharges) designed to boost rural Internet access, saying it wasn’t enough.

“I’ve talked the town into filing for rural broadband grants,” Walser said. “The wheels of government turn almost imperceptibly slowly.”

“I don't see my voice as being as loud as theirs”

One Time Warner Cable representative told Walser, “It’s your decision. You’re the one who wanted to live in the country.”

“And he’s right, I did choose to live in the country,” Walser said. “But he also eats food. Farmers need to have the same ability to communicate and use it for their businesses as he does.”

Walser hopes that broadband will be reclassified as a telecommunications service by the Federal Communications Commission; he hopes for universal service requirements similar to those applied to the traditional phone system. But despite his best efforts, there isn't much else he can do for now.

“I keep pursuing it and I keep being stuck,” he said. “It’s to the point where I’m kind of at a loss as to what else I can do other than continue down the same path. But my state senator has gotten donations from Time Warner… Chuck Schumer is one of my [US] senators. His brother works for Time Warner. Not to say that they would be overwhelmed by a donation that they received from a corporation, but I just don’t see my voice as being as loud as theirs.”

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Schumer contacted Ars, and said the senator wants to help. "Senator Schumer has a long track record of pushing to bring more broadband access to Upstate New York, including pushing the FCC to ensure that more federal funds are available for broadband deployment to rural areas, and asking them to classify internet service as a public utility to ensure it remains fair and open for all," a statement from Schumer's office said. "A $20,000 charge for a broadband hookup is not fair, and the Senator has relayed his concerns to Time Warner Cable. This is a key example as to why we need to do everything we can to lower costs.”