 nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
 ·Comcast
| so what? good for covad, but so what? They are struggling to provide a replacement for POTS while the world moves on towards VOIP (including the ILECs). As long as their service is POTS, it will have all the taxes and fees associated with POTS and thus not competitive with VOIP.
Another atta boy to COVAD for some "facilities based" competition; that's what Michael P. loves. Another so what. Cable is moving to docsis 2 and the ILECs are doing FTTP or FTTC, while COVAD is deploying regular DSL technology. They'll probably be OK until fiber shows up, at which time they will be blown out of the business (unless they can sell DSL for $10/mo and make a profit).
As for the wireless stuff, most articles that mention a time frame are talking at least 5 years before it's widespread, if then.
Meet the new monopolies, same as the old monopolies and don't expect any real competition from COVAD or anyone else.
Number 13 in the world and dropping; thanks Michael. | |
| 
scooby
Premium
join:2001-05-01
Chicago, IL
1 edit | no competition = higher prices Sucks for competition. Once Covad and the others die I guarantee you prices go insane and we all suffer. With no other choices price wise, dialup may live on. | |
|  | chex383
join:2003-03-13
Montreal, QC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
| Re: no competition = higher prices said by scooby  :Sucks for competition. [ ... ] With no other choices price wise, dialup may live on. How could dialup live on once your ILEC replaces your copper loop with Fiber, upon which no competition is allowed? Hello 'Good old days' of Ma Bell.
-- Chex
--
Sung to the old New England Telephone Ad Jingle: " We're the only one New Eng-Lund, Hell-Ri-zon Tele-phonnnnne! " | |
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phxmark
What Country Are We Living In?
join:2000-12-27
Glendale, AZ
| Re: no competition = higher prices I think what is meant here is that without competition, the baby bells don't have to worry about upgrading your service and they can charge whatever they want for your already crappy service.
I believe that competition brings on innovation. In order for the baby bells to compete, they would have to innovate upgrades to compete with the CLECS. | |
| | jimbo2150
join:2004-05-10
Youngstown, OH
 ·Dreamhost
·Armstrong Zoom In..
| said by scooby :Sucks for competition. Once Covad and the others die I guarantee you prices go insane and we all suffer. With no other choices price wise, dialup may live on. At this point with broadband prices rivaling that of dialup I doubt they would then raise prices after some other companies kick the bucket or move on to other markets. We are currently starved for faster broadband in many areas (especially video & digital voice content). They are already saying that fiber prices will drop significantly in the next few years, and we are seriously dropping behind Asian countries in deployment.
At this point I think the broadband providers have little choice (which is good) than to continue on with fiber rollouts and lowering prices. I think that cable/dsl competition will be good enough as it is, and will be. Other technologies like WiMAX, BPL (supposing they fix the major problems), and others will likely create more competition in the coming years as well.
Personally, I would say that saying prices will raise is ill-timed, it is still early in the game for broadband services with a lot to look forward to in the next few years.
Also, at this point I believe that in the coming years dialup will all but die or only be used by those too far out to get broadband or for those who are traveling (that is until wireless mobile internet has as much coverage as cellular does).
--
- "Techie" Jim | |
| flushls
join:2004-11-02
Joyce, WA
| No Sympathy for CLEC's They can deploy 900 mhz Wireless & 5.8 Ghz wireless like all the WISP's out there.
If I can do it to compete with the CryBaby bells they can I can hit customers in sparse rural areas for about $300 each in town about $125 each.
So quit crying and Quit licking the Bells butts and get over it.
Flushls | |
| forestville
join:2003-12-10
Sunnyvale, CA
| This is good for Covad Most people do not want the extra hassle of a Voip service. What you will see a lot of is a shift to VON which is what Bell Canada is doing, but it is still POTS to the home. POTS will be around for a long time and possibly forever. My grandparents still rented their phone from Bell up until they died, even though it was a waste of money. The convenience and old habits die hard.
Voip will eventually be taxed. We just aren't at the tipping point yet where the old taxes scheme has eroded enough. Tax revenues need to be collected, and Voip services have a home address associated with them. Once you add the taxes, Voip losses its cost advantage for most people.
A POTS card would permit an AT&T to move their phone services off of the baby bells equipment (which they have to pay for), onto a network which should be less expensive to run, and over which they could have a control of costs.
I realize that the DoNotCall lists have really put a damper on the acquisition of new telephone customers. Hence, the greatest likelihood is to move existing customers of a partner onto Covad's network away from the ILECs' networks. As well, consumer telco requires a fair amount of marketing muscle, which Covad does not and has never had. It was always difficult for Covad to compete with the millions of advertising inserts that were placed in the bills that were sent to every telco customer.
My thoughts are that at this point AT&T could use Covad POTS, and Covad would do well to enter AT&T's fold. Covad's future as an independent is more dicey. | |
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