The public is very lucky to have plucky characters able to survive and serve in such a dis-functional environment.
I know several rural wisps who worked years to just break even, so it is not surprising that they disregard comments from people who seem to feel they are 'entitled' to near-free internet access.
The cost to the end-user greatly depends on how much trouble & expense the provider has to go to to deliver service in a given area.
Whilst In-town services may including fiber widely available and at competitive rates, this does not apply in more difficult locations. There are areas where the nearest fiber line may be 100km or more away, as great cost, and has to carried across a private network requiring a heavy investment ( and probably with limited returns ).
If you live / work in the sticks, it is unreasonable to expect a wisp to deliver city-like fiber high-speed & uncapped service at anything approaching comparable rates.
Also raising prices are incompetent or corrupt authorities with their vested interests who have failed to deliver promised and necessary infrastructure needed by wisps to viably roll out services. Many of these wisps are heroes in their own areas, because they have overcome so many odds to provide services to their previously un-served/under-served communities.
Recently, the pressure ramped-up when the lock-down regulations caused so many to work remotely. This dramatically accelerated the demand for services and bandwidth usage by several hundred percent. Even fiber operators were scrambling to re-work their contention ratios to meet the now much higher demand caused by so many devices sharing services - and every device is much busier than before lock-down.
This has put huge strain on available spectrum where ISM bands have become saturated.
Bandwidth is now a much more valuable 'commodity' and rural prices remain high from 2nd-tier operators.
All these factors mean that any prospective wisp has to possess a hefty appetite for risk and have access to capital. Our unfriendly banking system, expensive, slow banking systems, far too many regulations, disruptive load-shedding, ridiculous labor laws and a hostile receiver can make the life of a wisp a nightmare.
Such are the challenges of operating in what is pretty much a socialist state - which are known for inefficiencies and high overheads. My hat goes off to all fellow-wisps who are able to succeed !
