| Maintenance I don't see how they are lying about maintenance costs. Wireless or not, that doesn't make maintenance for DSL any cheaper. And as people flee DSL, that would make maintenance costs per subscriber increase drastically. That big copper network still has to be maintained.
$28.99 is pretty cheap for DSL anyway. You would be hard pressed to find DSL in this area for that price. |
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| I don't see how they are lying about maintenance costs. That big copper network still has to be maintained. $28.99 is pretty cheap for DSL anyway. You would be hard pressed to find DSL in this area for that price. |
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| reply to silbaco
Yeah, not buying this one, Karl. If anything they are raising rates in DSL users to push them to FiOS. And if not available then they are not pushing people toward cable, cable is winning them with better pricing. That's called competition. |
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| That's called competition. |
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| reply to thehondaboy
They're not pushing them to FiOS. See how small the footprint for FiOS really is.
They're pushing them to give up home broadband for fixed LTE and wireless, which is the biggest fantasy of all but what the shareholders want. |
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decifal
join:2007-03-10
Bon Aqua, TN
kudos:1 | reply to thehondaboy
Heh, maybe pretend competition.. Once verizon gets rid of those peskey dsl customers cable will suddenly need to jack their rates up.. What then? Back to verizon? Assuming they even let you resubscribe? No, not likely.. |
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| Here it comes... All the Telcos are doing this. ATT, Verizon...
Copper plant is aging and triple the maintenance (maybe even more).
Pensions are going up (not down).
No new infrastructure.
Push up prices then in 6-12 months promise newer, LTE wireless with "broadband" speeds at only double the price but 20x faster!
Verizon plans Fios and LTE. DSL and POTS are dead.
Welcome the antenna overlords! 
--
Splat |
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| Don't count on it Up here in Canuck land, people fed up with phony costs increases over well established lines (and therefore more than paid for), are simply dropping services entirely. People would rather have nothing than pay through the nose for wireless services that cost next to nothing to support compared to physical lines.
Or if they do get a cell phone, it's prepaid with barely any services, just enough to get buy. And forget the data plans, they are a pricey joke. How the costs per GIG goes up over wireless last mile supply when the infrastructure still uses the same fibre line that was paid for years ago is outrageous.
You can't force people to subscribe to your services, all you can do is drive them away, which is what I think more people should wake up and do. Given a choice between less subscribers and milking them dry, intelligent CEOs would tend to lower prices to retain people, after all, customers are your bread and butter. |
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Reviews:
 ·Frontier Communi..
| reply to Mojo 77
Re: Maintenance said by Mojo 77 :a 768 kbps line costs Verizon hardly anything. Certainly not worth a $5 hike.
A 768kbit/s line probably costs them more than a 10mbit/s line. The 768kbit/s line is likely rural, or at least a long loop suburban line, and longer loops are never going to be as cheap to maintain as shorter ones. Additionally, the 768kbit/s line has a lower margin even after they raise prices. My old 10-15mbit/s service was $60/mo and undoubtedly provided them with a higher margin than a $28 1.5mbit/s or less circuit.
The major expense here is the maintenance of the copper plant. Backhaul bandwidth is trivial, and for that cost there is likely very little difference between a 768kbit/s line and 10mbit/s one. Particularly when you account for the fact that the vast majority are idle at any given time, even in the IP video era. |
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| Unionize? Every article about POTS and DSL here makes mention of the fact that the wireless side of telecom in America isn't unionized. Well, why don't they? Why isn't the CWA making this their top priority? Can we get an article those efforts and their progress in the future? |
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 Simba7I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT | reply to cableties
Re: Here it comes... said by cableties:only double the price but 20x faster!
You forgot overages! Be prepared to sign over your bank account and everything you own! |
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Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| reply to thehondaboy
Re: Maintenance I don't understand this notion that they should be obligated to maintain an expensive/dying technology or compelled to spend billions of dollars to upgrade markets where they'll see less ROI than they do on wireless. Wireless is a growth market, landline is not. They could pour billions into the landline market but that will make precious little difference as far as uptake is concerned.
People around here don't seem to grasp the concept that they are not the typical broadband user. The vast majority of "normal" people I know are still using the broadband provider they first signed up for when it became available a decade ago. Many of them are on 1.5mbit/s DSL with grandfathered pricing plans that have never changed. They don't realize (or plain don't care) that faster offerings are available. Some of them even have access to faster DSL speeds for cheaper. They could activate the new plan with a two minute phone call, but they don't realize that, or are just too lazy to pick up the phone. When they do switch it's usually because the nice salesman from the cableco knocked on their door and touted the "advantages" of a triple play.
(Advantages in quote marks because it doesn't always make financial sense for someone to switch, particularly if they aren't heavy internet/phone users and/or get suckered into a big cable package they never end up watching.) |
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Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| reply to goodcow
Re: Unionize? They aren't unionized for the same reason that the Japanese auto manufacturers with United States locations aren't unionized. The employees are smart enough to look what what the union has done to their legacy competitors and don't wish to go down that path. There's a reason why unions are dying in the private sector. Their only growth market is in the public sector, where they literally get to pick their boss, which is a major reason why so many state and local governments are going broke.
And before the pro-Union crowd jumps on me for that last bit, you might consider the words of FDR on this subject, then ponder if you can dismiss him as a right-wing corporatist or whatever else the insult of the day happens to be for people who disagree with you politically. |
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| All of Carriers are doing it. ATT first slowed my service down. Then told me it was a line issue. I found out it was bad phone line. I had them fix it. Then when I tried to get my Elite service back. They told me it was unavailable. I would have to get UVerse. If they can't deliver service through copper pair how can I trust them with something bigger at a higher price.I finally dumped them after 9 years, I will never go back to ATT ever again. |
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openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | reply to goodcow
Re: Unionize? That'll help control costs and keep prices down for consumers. Why do the Verizon Wireless workers need to unionize? |
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Reviews:
 ·Time Warner Cable
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·voip.ms
| reply to silbaco
Re: Maintenance They may desire to get to a critical mass so they can shed the must-carry service, but by no means does Verizon WANT to give up profitable customers. That's total bs.
The problem is that infrastructure costs while may be going down SLIGHTLY, labor is not so call it a wash. These costs need to be AMORTIZED over the customer base.
So for instance say it costs $1000 opex for 100 users ($10/user/mo), and 30 leave for cable. Now that cost is still $1000, but now only 70 people, so now it costs $14/user/mo). Guess what, profit margins need to be maintained, so prices go up. Not rocket science.
As this death spiral continues until Verizon asks for regulatory relief, and they sell off the remaining lines to some small regional player who may invest in next gen and do something with it. But make no mistake, they are riding this horse into the ground, and it is the right move. Copper is dead, so why throw good money on bad.
Verizon needs to sink their capital budgets into LTE to keep ahead, and once they complete in 2014, then they can go back and refarm and potentially add fiber to profitable areas, but they aren't going to add fiber to some farm with 2 houses per 80 acres. They are going to get LTE or whitespace, and it's going to be expensive AS IT SHOULD. If it cost verizon $1000 to wire 20 houses in my neighborhood (not true), and $2,000 to wire a farm, guess what--if you owned a business what would you do? Wire a house for $50, or $2,000?
Add to the fact that replacing copper is very expensive and moving to newer line cards/technology (VDSL2, etc) give minimal uplift especially if they are not going to do video on it.
So this is what happens when a technology is disrupted with legacy collateral damage, it dies a very expensive, ugly, and painful death. |
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 tobyTroy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA
·OlyPen, Inc.
·CenturyLink
| reply to cableties
Re: Here it comes... said by cableties:All the Telcos are doing this. ATT, Verizon...
Copper plant is aging and triple the maintenance (maybe even more).
Pensions are going up (not down).
No new infrastructure.
Push up prices then in 6-12 months promise newer, LTE wireless with "broadband" speeds at only double the price but 20x faster!
Verizon plans Fios and LTE. DSL and POTS are dead.
Welcome the antenna overlords!
I keep reading on here where 'copper' is going to die, as its so old.
It can last for decades, just like the power lines going to and in our homes. |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to thehondaboy
Re: Maintenance Uh, the whole thing clearly smacks of LACK of competition. |
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BiggA
join:2005-11-23
EARTH Reviews:
·Comcast
| They're not trying to drive customers away They've just figured out what the optimum profit point is between raising prices vs. retaining customers, and apparently a few less customers with larger margins will make them more money. Same decision most businesses make.
It is too bad that their idiot stockholders won't let them do 100% FIOS, as they got FIOS right in the places they rolled it out. |
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 PacketeersPremium
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
kudos:1
·Time Warner Cable
·Verizon Online DSL
| they only alienate future fios customers i was one of the first verizon dsl customers in my area nearly a decade ago, and recently switched to cable ($30/mo 15mb including MagicJack phone on my own DOCSIS1 cable modem) when verizon said they would demanded you get pots service added to their existing $40/mo 5mb dsl only customers. when fios finally lights up my area in 2014 i won't ever trust their business practices again to give them any of my future business, including my wireless... i just hope TWC does not get half as greedy as "baby bell" verizon has become. my cable modem is working over a coax building wiring plant that has not been touched in 20 years - so I'm pretty sure the last mile wiring has been paid for several times over by now. |
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