 IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA
 ·Comcast
 ·Verizon Broadban..
| Cable is the only viable option Where I live (Springfield, MA), Comcast is the only viable option as the only other options are DSL (becoming the new dial-up), Verizon LTE HomeFusion (expensive with low caps) and the satellite providers (high latency with plenty of throttling and expensive). Comcast Internet is decent except when there is a problem as getting them to fix anything is just like pulling teeth.
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I wish I still lived in Iowa; Everything there from rent and groceries to Cable TV is much cheaper in Iowa (especially with an overbuilder in town). |
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 baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI | Clarify ATT and VZ do care about residential broadband, but only with their UVerse and FIOS products.
That being said, i feel like the cable guys have double the speeds every 2 years for the last decade, and that trend seems to be continuing. |
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 DominokatHiPremium
join:2002-08-06
Boothbay, ME
kudos:2
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by baineschile:...i feel like the cable guys have double the speeds every 2 years for the last decade, and that trend seems to be continuing.
And the price. Not literally "double" but they keep raising the price, even though the cost for byte (to them) keep falling.
I am able to get 15/1 from DSL. For the same price as 20/2 from Time Warner. |
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| reply to baineschile
How many places does Verizon want to lay FiOS? That's the problem.
This is why we have caps and overages, not because of network congestion, but because there's nothing stopping the cable companies from just gouging their customers.
Where will they go? The internet is basically crippled on DSL. |
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| Predictable So what did you expect the telco's do? They can't magically rewire everyone to something more robust than copper, and can't suspend the laws of DSL delivered physics. In short, they're stuck with an obsolete technology that can't compete with cable. And face it, fibre, or FIOS is just too expensive right now. Despite google's tiny subsidized 'experiment', FTTH is not a viable option in the US.
Putting their eggs in wireless is the only smart choice they have. |
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| Network Design. DSL can't compete on Speed or availability, and Telco's don't seem to be doing much to expand offerings.
I Love my DSL but Time Warner offers 50/5 in my area now. Sooner or later I'll end up switching just to have the higher speed.
Wireless may be the future of profits, but Fiber is an investment that should be made at least NEAR peoples homes.
With fiber at their disposal the Telco would never have to worry about cable being faster. |
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| FIOS is DEAD! Verizon and AT&T have shot themselves in the foot!!!! They were stupid for not expanding further! Corporate Bean counter idiots! |
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 N3OGHYo Soy Col. "Bat" GuanoPremium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1 | Perhaps Fios EXPANSION is dead. Fios is alive & well and bringing me the intertubes on a daily basis.
Verizon & AT&T built their next generation plants out to the areas they chose to serve probably based mostly on economics & market research. They have no desire to expand.
Verizon would rather focus on their more profitable non union wireless division than deal with their rickety old copper plant
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Petty people are disproportionally corrupted by petty power |
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| Predictions for the Future? So how does everyone see the situation in 5, 10, 20 years?
Will it just be wireless and cable--with the landlines dead? Or will fiber take off (and who will provide this fiber: the Telcos or Google or ....? |
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decifal
join:2007-03-10
Bon Aqua, TN
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
| reply to N3OGH
Re: FIOS is DEAD! That maybe so, but your not going to expand subscribers by simply not upgrading more areas that are under your footprint.. sure you can have the best service around, but if people with "no" service options cannot subscribe then your losing potential income.. If the current landline division isn't profitable, figure out how to make it so.. Either by selling it, or leasing it, or redoing it all together.. Just letting a huge chunk of people go unserviced is irresponsible.. And no, i'm not talking about the areas where you drive 15 miles and see only one house.. There are many many many places undeserved where the potential for adding subscribers is very high as they would be the only provider in the area...
I don't get comcast/att's math.. I've heard comcast wants 12 house's per mile before building out.. Yet we now have over 125 homes right on the road for 3.8 miles.. Do we have services? No.. Neither att or comcast have yet to bother.. Keep in mind these are homes right on the main stretch here, there are many branch off roads with many many more house's.. Yet this area is just a black hole for broadband for some reason..
I've seen VRADS and cable ran out to practically the middle of nowhere just to service one house.. There was absolutely nothing else in the whole area..... It just doesn't make sense... |
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| reply to PastTense
Re: Predictions for the Future? I don't see anyone laying fiber without government intervention.
Punitive caps and high costs on both cable and wireless will all but stifle technological development, and the world will laugh as they leave us in the dust and take our tech jobs. |
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| Why is uverse so expensive to implement? There are plenty of large sized urban AT&T communities without uverse. I just don't get why the costs are that outrageous. It's not like they have to dig up people's yards to get fiber to the home.
Despite what you may feel about fiber to the node, it is at least better than the current reality with AT&T dsl.
This whole system is just so broken. The government is nowhere to be seen and is about to rubber stamp yet another uncompetitive deal with Verizon and the cable companies. I'm at the point where I think AT&T and Verizon should be forced to spin off their entire landline business.
It really just puts everything into perspective that these Telcos are letting everything else die in favor of AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. |
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| leaving DSL I left my DSl service for Comcast a year ago and I did not want to make that move. Sure DSL is slower but it worked for me. I left because of the absolutely crappy service Qwest/Century Link offered. Sure Comcast is just as bad but at least I am getting higher bandwidth for the same cost. Too bad these large companies simply miss Customer Service as something to sell besides high speeds. I'd gladly take slower bandwidth for high end customer service. |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | reply to osravens
Re: Predictions for the Future? said by osravens:I don't see anyone laying fiber without government intervention.
Punitive caps and high costs on both cable and wireless will all but stifle technological development, and the world will laugh as they leave us in the dust and take our tech jobs.
Utter nonsense.
Caps are rarely "punitive", and cable broadband is not expensive.
Neither will "stifle" development of any kind. |
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| $30 for unlimited data to $50 for 1GB is not punitive?
What incentive does cable not have to rip people off when they're the only game in town?
That is what is coming. You can't have a natural monopoly without regulation, the end result without that is massive inefficiency and terrible service at high prices. |
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| hmm They have only have themselves to blame. I live on long island and Verizon will not finish their fios rollout. It has nothing to do with money since most of long island is middle class.
I cannot get dsl or satellite and I can only get cablevision tv and internet. |
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| there is only so many houses to hook up so, at one point, it will be nothing but churn, as people jump from 1 uncompetitive ISP to the next. Lets just hope by then, that there has been some regulation to improve competing based on prices. |
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| reply to JasonOD
Re: Predictable The telcos simply fell victim to digital communications, which allowed Triple Play services to be offered over the same line. A historical accident left them with a lower-capacity network than their competitor. So they found themselves in an overbuild situation to remain competitive.
But in this overbuild situation, the cable companies were the incumbent, and the telcos were the challenger. That's not a good position to be in. If your competitor gets to use their existing plant, and you have to build a brand-new one from scratch, then you'll be at a severe cost disadvantage.
The only way this situation could turn around is if bandwidth demands exceeded the carrying capacity of coax, such that fiber-to-the-premises became a necessity. Then the odds would be evened, and neither party would have an advantage.
(Well, not the only way. There could be government intervention. China Telecom and China Unicom are in the middle of a project to replace their entire copper networks with fiber. Their current target is one HUNDRED million homes passed, each, by the end of the current Five-Year Plan: 2011-2015. But, well, that's socialism, and we can't have that.) |
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WhatNowPremium
join:2009-05-06
Charlotte, NC | reply to decifal
Re: FIOS is DEAD! AT&T placed vrads where there was a fiber feed first. in some cases the neighborhoods the local elected officials live in were a prime choice. From what I have seen income was not the driving factor. |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | reply to osravens
Re: Predictions for the Future? $30 for unlimited wireless broadband - was never unlimited, as we witnessed time and again with the rush to saturation. Where are you forced to pay $50 for 1GB? Please, dispense with the hyperbole.
Given the right circumstances, you're correct, any last-mile entity could find itself able to set pricing if they truly fear no competition, i.e. Frontier. But those situations are the rare exception, not the rule, and the margins are that fat, they will invite a competitor.
In our case, we have but one wired broadband option, but the de facto monopoly provider isn't sophisticated enough to know they have us, so their rates reflect the potential of nearby competitors.
I've always agreed with your assertion - the last mile is a natural monopoly, and therefore would be best served by a regulated entity. But that isn't on the table; instead, we have the socialists rallying for yet another expansion of government, which would yield the highest rates of all.
A newly re-regulated monopoly would assure that wired "universal service" could be delivered to 95% of the country, and for the 5% beyond reasonable reach of cabling, we could have a reasonable fixed-LTE tariff - not unlimited, but generous enough to retire satellite service. |
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