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Comments on news posted 2012-06-01 09:09:03: Like Verizon's FiOS, AT&T has frozen all U-Verse expansion, meaning that if you didn't get upgraded on the first go round, you're out of luck. ..


pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
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join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

pnh102

Premium Member

Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

I think Verizon is doing the same thing and I think it is for the same reason. Even though we hear about a "freeze" on FIOS deployments I can tell you, and you can go confirm on Verizon's on website, that they have made a new push into more rural parts of Maryland (including where I live... yay!)

»www22.verizon.com/about/ ··· ion.html

I can't speak for other states of course, but I am just saying that I don't think fiber upgrades are completely stopped.
jeepwrang3
join:2011-02-24
North East, MD

jeepwrang3

Member

Re: Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

NICE... I'm in Cecil, and I don't expect to see any upgrades here for the next 5 years. Sucks because I've checked the construction schedule for the past 3 years, and every month its the same thing(nothing for us).

I honestly cant imagine how bad the copper lines to my neighborhood since they were orig installed back in the 60's, and lines are knocked down by trees at least a dozen times a year. The sheer # of splices would be mind boggling over the past 50 years

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium Member
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

pnh102

Premium Member

Re: Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

It seems like they are going based on population. I noticed that for awhile, they were working in Montgomery, PG, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, and then Howard counties. Those are the largest counties in MD by population. Then they moved into Harford county for awhile. Now they're in Frederick and Carroll counties.

Sadly Cecil county is way down on that list.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ··· Maryland
jeepwrang3
join:2011-02-24
North East, MD

jeepwrang3

Member

Re: Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

Yeah Cecil is spread out. The county just redid their Franchise agreements which were last updated in 1996, so that may assist. Ultimately my contact with Verizon upper management resulted in being told cecil is last on their list, with my community being probably the last of the county projects so that pipedream went away.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to pnh102

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to pnh102
I was just noticing how far out into the boonies near Annapolis FiOS was available last weekend when I was over there... Wow, Vz really just wants to be an East coast company...

HaloFans
join:2006-12-18

HaloFans to pnh102

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to pnh102
Somehow, only Maryland has that construction page for FIOS.

I tried looking at other states (e.g. California), and they don't have such a page.

NWOhio2
@buckeyecom.net

NWOhio2

Anon

Re: Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

Wasn't CA one of the states that went to Frontier?
Chawk12
Premium Member
join:2011-12-26
Everett, WA

Chawk12

Premium Member

Re: Verizon Adopting Similar Strategy?

No. Frontier did take California exchanges like Crescent City which were already part of Verizon's Northwest region. The SoCal suburbs however stayed with Verizon.
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

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to HaloFans
said by HaloFans:

Somehow, only Maryland has that construction page for FIOS.

PA used to have a FiOS construction page but Verizon stopped updating it before it disappeared entirely.

hobo Kid
@verizon.net

hobo Kid

Anon

Verizon construction locations

pa. still has a construction location page at:
»www22.verizon.com/about/ ··· dex.html
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

Sammer

Member

Re: Verizon construction locations

You're right, I have to check out a couple streets on the list to see if anything is really going on there.
Sammer

Sammer to hobo Kid

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to hobo Kid
Checked out the three streets on the list for my town. While most of the homes in that subdivision are existing (but less than 10 years old) the real reason for the fiber seems to be some new home ("greenfield") construction.

antdude
Matrix Ant
Premium Member
join:2001-03-25
US

antdude to pnh102

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to pnh102
said by pnh102:

I think Verizon is doing the same thing and I think it is for the same reason. Even though we hear about a "freeze" on FIOS deployments I can tell you, and you can go confirm on Verizon's on website, that they have made a new push into more rural parts of Maryland (including where I live... yay!)

»www22.verizon.com/about/ ··· ion.html

I can't speak for other states of course, but I am just saying that I don't think fiber upgrades are completely stopped.

Interesting link. I can't seem to find one for CA in »www22.verizon.com/about/ ··· nity/ca/ ...

fatness
subtle

join:2000-11-17
fishing

fatness to pnh102

to pnh102
said by pnh102:

Even though we hear about a "freeze" on FIOS deployments I can tell you, and you can go confirm on Verizon's on website, that they have made a new push into more rural parts of Maryland (including where I live... yay!)

»www22.verizon.com/about/ ··· ion.html

I'm struggling to find places on that list that are rural.

Elkridge?
Bowie?
Silver Spring?
Gaithersburg?
Aberdeen?
Randallstown?

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Rely on New Technology?

I doubt this.
The cheapest thing to do is truck over all the now unused aDSL equipment from the Uverse areas to these rural COs and plug it in.
Why throw away a bunch of functional aDSL equipment when it can be reused cheaply.
The only huge expense would be if they need to upgrade the rural COs internet connection.
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

Re: Rely on New Technology?

said by r81984:

I doubt this.
The cheapest thing to do is truck over all the now unused aDSL equipment from the Uverse areas to these rural COs and plug it in.
Why throw away a bunch of functional aDSL equipment when it can be reused cheaply.
The only huge expense would be if they need to upgrade the rural COs internet connection.

But how well will that equipment work with old, crappy copper wire? I would think that ATT would have to spend money on upgrading the infrastructure too.

It looks like the suckers who bought Verizions unwanted networks have learned their lessons and are staying away from ATT's unwanted networks.

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
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join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

RR Conductor

Premium Member

Re: Rely on New Technology?

said by mogamer:

said by r81984:

I doubt this.
The cheapest thing to do is truck over all the now unused aDSL equipment from the Uverse areas to these rural COs and plug it in.
Why throw away a bunch of functional aDSL equipment when it can be reused cheaply.
The only huge expense would be if they need to upgrade the rural COs internet connection.

But how well will that equipment work with old, crappy copper wire? I would think that ATT would have to spend money on upgrading the infrastructure too.

AT&T's phone lines are actually pretty good out here, other than not having DSL in Redwood Valley they have a strong, very dependable landline system.

CaptainRR
Premium Member
join:2006-04-21
Blue Rock, OH
·AT&T Wireless Br..

CaptainRR

Premium Member

Re: Rely on New Technology?

Same thing here in southern Muskingum county in Ohio where I live. The copper plant here is also solid, lots of it was redone in the 80s. Even though the dialup on them in a lot of places is slow pings are around 200ms and pretty much do anything I can with them. DSL would work fine on most of them they never wanted to spend money to put it in.

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

jseymour to RR Conductor

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to RR Conductor
said by RR Conductor:

AT&T's phone lines are actually pretty good out here, other than not having DSL in Redwood Valley they have a strong, very dependable landline system.

Carrying 3KHz-wide voice traffic is significantly less demanding than carrying high-speed data.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray to mogamer

Member

to mogamer
Its not the crappy copper so much, its the loop length.
Getting more than 1.5Mbps on runs of 4+ miles is impossible without repeaters and RT's, and the top speed is quite limited.

They could spend a bundle to deliver 2-4Mbps, only to see rural customers shrug. They don't subscribe to existing broadband when its available. Why would they buy slower DSL at higher prices?

LTE will be deployed in many of these areas, and despite the alarmist rhetoric you hear here daily, the offerings will be tailored and priced to entice purchase - so caps will be higher and prices lower, with speeds that decimate any copper product - AT&T would be foolish to invest in wired technology.
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

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said by r81984:

I doubt this.
The only huge expense would be if they need to upgrade the rural COs internet connection.

You mean unless the fiber is inadequate or non-existent. Even if the rural COs are linked with fiber it's only cheap to reuse the ADSL equipment to provide ADSL within a couple of miles or so of a CO.

NWOhio2
@buckeyecom.net

NWOhio2 to r81984

Anon

to r81984
won't work in many areas as the COs are still in "city" limits with over 5+ street miles from the CO. You know how many copper miles that could be? Most of those would still be without any service in ATT regions. In a good share of NW Ohio they NEVER put the COs outside of city or village limits. You'll have the coss connect boxes but that is IT. no "huts" or anything from ATT. They'd be better off doing the wireless route VZ is taking.

David
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join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL

David to r81984

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to r81984
why not take all the pots pairs you are not selling and just push them to a wireless tower? That would be a lot easier than upgrading copper no one wants.

who would want to wire up a town say "longtown, MO" with a population of at most 120. Short answer.... no one who was serious about spending money. For those people wireless is the answer. Hell if they just ran a fiber line down U.S. highway 61 to the Zion Lutheran church and set up a Wireless tower there they would probably cover the whole damn town.
25139889 (banned)
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH

25139889 (banned)

Member

Re: Rely on New Technology?

And that's the thing. Companies will be doing that more and more. It's smarter than running any wireline network. Cost is cheaper, easier to maintain, and saves $$$$$ over years and years. They could build that network to support both VoIP and Internet and call it U-Verse.

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
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join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

RR Conductor

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Then there are areas like ours, without DSL.

"Still, 5 million homes in AT&T’s coverage area are located too far away from a network hub to receive any kind of broadband, Ratcliffe said."

Which would be those of us in Redwood Valley (appx. halfway between Ukiah and Willits), where AT&T hasn't even upgraded the CO for DSL, and anyplace else in our rural county (Mendocino) outside of Ukiah, Willits or Fort Bragg. Verizon serves the northern half of the county, but only has DSL in Laytonville. We do get Comcast HSI out in Redwood Valley though, I have the Blast! Tier (20/4, 35/6 with PowerBoost).
RR Conductor

RR Conductor

Premium Member

Re: Then there are areas like ours, without DSL.

Now, when it comes to AT&T Wireless, well, we do have HSPA+ w/EB from them, I get up to 10 Mbps down with that, though we don't have LTE yet (from AT&T, Verizon or U.S. Cellular). So it seems AT&T's wireless network is running quite a bit ahead of their wired network, at least here.
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

Re: Then there are areas like ours, without DSL.

said by RR Conductor:

Now, when it comes to AT&T Wireless, well, we do have HSPA+ w/EB from them, I get up to 10 Mbps down with that, though we don't have LTE yet (from AT&T, Verizon or U.S. Cellular). So it seems AT&T's wireless network is running quite a bit ahead of their wired network, at least here.

They probably ran fiber out to all their cell towers instead of installing U-Verse. More profit in it for them!

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
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join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

RR Conductor

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Re: Then there are areas like ours, without DSL.

said by mogamer:

said by RR Conductor:

Now, when it comes to AT&T Wireless, well, we do have HSPA+ w/EB from them, I get up to 10 Mbps down with that, though we don't have LTE yet (from AT&T, Verizon or U.S. Cellular). So it seems AT&T's wireless network is running quite a bit ahead of their wired network, at least here.

They probably ran fiber out to all their cell towers instead of installing U-Verse. More profit in it for them!

Actually, most sites here are backhauled via Microwave (due to the rugged terrain, forest cover and many isolated areas), and that goes for all the carriers (ATT, VZ, USCC, TMO, Metro PCS). What they do is put a site in an area where it can get as much copper and/or fiber as possible, then backhaul several outlying sites from it via microwave.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

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to mogamer
They're using FTTCT!

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
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join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA

RR Conductor

Premium Member

That said, all of their CO's are linked via fiber, even ours in Redwood Valley, so they just have never bothered to put in DSL equipment in it.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt

Premium Member

Re: Then there are areas like ours, without DSL.

One of the problems is most Co's are full, there is no room for the extra equipment racks for xDSL or even fiber.
In some cases it's not possible/practical to expand the building footprint to cover all the demand.
even RT's have to link back to something, so adding new RT's can be a multi year process as they replace older bulky equipment serving other areas to make room for additional new circuits.

••••

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
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join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

RR Conductor

Premium Member

Even if they upgrade our CO for DSL, you still have the problem of distance, as most people in this rural area are spread out. There are about 6000 people in Redwood Valley (while there is a TINY town of Redwood Valley, it's not incorporated, only Ukiah, Willits, Fort Bragg and Point Arena are incorporated in Mendocino County), but they're all spread out for the most part, so you'd have to put in RT's as well. At my house, for example we're 20,000+ cable feet from the CO, though physically we're about 2 miles away from it.
linus5171
join:2004-02-10

linus5171

Member

How Far out

I guess something is better than nothing but I am curious as to how far out they might go. Our town has DSL at the CO but nothing past that. If they do decide to upgrade, will they just add DSL to towns that do not have DSL or will they expand the range of existing equipment. I live 10 miles from the CO so no broadband for me unless they add more RT's.

franknalco
join:2005-01-27
Littleton, CO

franknalco

Member

Re: How Far out

I think they would prefer to hook you into LTE and charge you up the yingyang for data overages. Their $$$/margins is in wireless these days, and I know they don't give a hoot about wired line service. Even B2B, their margins are disappearing as companies like Level3, XO, etc, are lowering their pricing on new circuits week by week. They are practically giving away T1s and DSE3s these days. The general assumption in the industry is that bandwidth prices will continue to fall to zero, and the money/profits are in the services (network security, cloud, etc). Take a look at the sale price of Pacnet last week - they practically gave the company away. The company is flush with fiber and underwater cables - and nobody saw any value to it. They lacked the services vertical. It is a shame this hasn't translated into residential - but their isn't any competition to the home. So consumers are seeing prices go up, while businesses are seeing record low pricing.
25139889 (banned)
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH

25139889 (banned)

Member

Re: How Far out

and doing wireless would be better for the company and the customer. Why spend all that money maintaining an aging network and building and building and not actually get anyone?

Wireless would be the best thing over FTTH in the rural areas where your closest neighbor is 1+ mile away and you're 10 street miles from the CO- can you even imagine how far you are in wire miles? It would not be cost affective.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

1 recommendation

CylonRed

MVM

Wasn't there a story earlier this week talking about

how AT&T was forcing users off DSL to U-Verse? This seems to be the exact opposite to me.... Which one to believe????

NWOhio2
@buckeyecom.net

NWOhio2

Anon

Re: Wasn't there a story earlier this week talking about

Yes, it is known that T is forcing aDSL users to U-Verse if it is available to those customers. It's a great way to get rid of the CLECs and the 3rd party ISPs. Especially since they do not have access to the next-gen networks.

I also don't see at&t spending money ou in BFE to deply DSL when it hasn't been available at all. Especially when its not going to work for them in terms of ROI or even building out the network. They'd be better off deploying a fixed wireless solution.

OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

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More then likely the plan is to migrate those in u-verse avail wirecenters to IPDSLAM/U-verse to retire the aDSL hardware, and then to save on cap ex truck that decomissioned gear to rual non-dsl wirecenters if there is sufficent parts able to be sourced, while rely old aDSL hardware gets scraped.

That plan actualy makes economical sence, start earning higher returns on u-verse upgrades by getting aDSL'ers on it, and recoup some value from that old aDSL hardware by offering DSL to underserved rual areas, possily with the Fed kicking them some cash to offset the integration costs to move the hardware out there.
etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

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1 recommendation

etaadmin

Member

Do what Verizon did...

Make a deal with the cable companies and offer triple play services to cable customers.

Verizon saw the writing on the wall but at&t didn't »www.lightreading.com/doc ··· r_cable& Now verizon can directly compete with at&t in markets were they offer uverse.

In markers where Verizon can't offer more than adsl speeds (more than 90% of its footprint) they can sell cable docsis3.0 via their partners and Verizon's partners can sell wireless products to their subscribers.

AT&T is stuck between a hard place and a rock, nobody wants to buy their dying dead landline business and they can't offer competitive products. AT&T will loose by loosing those those neglected subscribers and they will loose by loosing those subscribers' wireless business too.

People using old at&t products should switch to cable now (if they have the option) and put an end to their pain.

And another thing
quote:
AT&T would rely on new copper-line technology to offer faster broadband in areas without access to AT&T’s U-verse fiber-optic network

Who are they kidding? Uverse fiber-optic network? There is no such thing as a uverse fiber-optic network... it is COPPER to the home!

••••••••
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

this is where regulation comes in..

Another carrier should be allowed to build a last mile network without being shoved aside by incumbents. No amount of telcom lobbying and state level laws should be allowed to block a 3rd carrier from deploying a fiber or coax network. docsis 3 is about to leave u-verse in the dust.. 50mbit tiers are becoming the norm in the northeast (by next year). uverse tops out at 24/3. Comcast which overlaps AT&T in a majority of it's footprint offers 50/5 which is double and could (in a competitive marketplace offer that for the same or lower price than AT&T offers 24/3 and that's IF your copper line qualifies). Absent this kind of competition, a 3rd carrier should be allowed to build a network.

Wish google would get off their ass and just release the service, even if there are some problems with it... which can be fixed along the way!

••••••••

jandar
@entint.com

jandar

Anon

Even in their UVerse markets, many are still stuck on ADSL

I am surrounded by UVerse neighborhoods (most smaller than mine) and we are still stuck with ADSL. No hardware reasons, as the copper is less than 10 years old, and we have a DSLAM. The backbone is there, they just decided not to upgrade us for whatever reason.

So while my market is "upgraded", it is highly unlikely I'll ever see UVerse, or anything close to it. DirecTV and Comcast Business Service suits me fine anyway, but competition and a choice is nice.
sparks
join:2001-07-08
Little Rock, AR

sparks

Member

how come?

If they said its not profitable and bla bla bla.
why did I get a circular in the mail in may saying it was on sale for $14.99 to new customers. Fastest in its price range sign up now.

BUT we don't want new customers and it should die and all customers are stupid etc.