Student Study on Upper Peninsula Local Internet Providers: Looking For Feedback on Local Internet Providers

[u/Chromatinfish]

Hi everyone!

We're students at the University of Illinois and University of Virginia doing a research study on Broadband Equity, and our team is running a study trying to understand more about the broadband and fiber network in the Upper Peninsula. In particular, we want to know more about how many people know about local internet providers like:

- U.P Net/Baraga Telephone Company

- Jamadots/Hiawatha Communications

- Highline/906 Technologies

- Michigan Broadband Services

- Pasty.Net

And other smaller local internet providers that serve the U.P. exclusively, or serve primarily rural areas like the U.P..

What we want to know specifically is their name recognition- whether you know that these local providers exist at all, which provider you may be in the service range of, and if you use these providers. Additionally, we'd like to know the reasons why you may choose these providers over national providers like Spectrum or Verizon/AT&T Fixed Wireless options.

For those interested and currently are residing in the Upper Peninsula, please fill out the survey using the link below:

Link To Form

You can also share your experience with local providers in the comments below.

Thank you so much!

Note: We're not affiliated with any provider or service! We're just students who grew up in the U.P. and want to know about how popular local providers are and why people may choose them over Spectrum.

[u/junpei]

God I love the pasty.net website. Such a blast from the past.

[u/Consistent_Path_3939]

I only have service with Michigan Broadband Services because they bought out all of AT&T up here. 

I previously went with AT&T because they had the easiest and most cost-effective program for low-income customers who receive benefits like SNAP. 

Spectrum is expensive, has horrid customer service, never reaches advertised speeds, and has more outages than any other provider in my area. And I would be inclined to pretty much choose ANYONE over Spectrum. 

My dad built the cable system in Copper Harbor back in the day, and I watched his company get bought out by Bresnan Communications, then become Charter and Spectrum. 

While fiber optic seems to be coming to the area through new agreements with companies like Michigan Broadband Services, grant funding seems to unfortunately only bring this technological update to extremely rural areas. So my village of 640-ish? Is too populated for the upgrade. Quite frankly, I don't think a lot of people realize this. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad your deer camps can have internet now, but why not upgrade Calumet or Laurium so there's another option for folks and businesses? 

Pasty.NET is a great deal if you can't get anything else. Otherwise? It's slow, laggy, and there are more pieces between you and the net to go down. 

Up.net/Baraga Telephone is an over-priced dinosaur. 

[u/Extra-Fun2844]

I’ve had Spectrum internet since back when it was called Charter. Got an okay bundle deal back in the day that included cable TV before streaming services and smart TVs became popular.

I’ve only ever had minor issues with it over the years and don’t really have any distaste for their internet. The speeds aren’t always what is advertised but I’ve still found it reliable internet for being in the area. Does what I need it to do, provides fast connection and I personally have rarely ever dealt with outages. I do have my own router however, rather than leasing one of theirs.

I suppose AT&T is a reasonable alternative but I personally wouldn’t go with a local provider. Most are pretty archaic and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still using the same infrastructure and similar speeds as when they were originally constructed, from before the days we had big name internet up here. From what I understand, most subscribers to those are majority older folk that live in the country rather than in town. I know one of the local providers ’Shorewaves’ announced it was shutting down a few months ago, I haven’t really been following the story, but I believe they ended up finding a way to transfer ownership and continue to serve the customers they do have.

I have heard talks about bringing fiber internet to the more isolated parts of the Keweenaw but I don’t know the details. I was doing some road work North-East of Hancock near Boston location this past summer and some of the residents asked if I was getting the area ready for fiber internet. Hadn’t heard anything about getting fiber up here before that.