nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
 ·Comcast
| reply to Rick
Re: I think the question is...
said by Rick  :... I think that verizon has EXACTLY the right idea and strategy to create world class competition for the cable providers in their service area. The WINNER in those areas is going to be the consumers. ... you keep using the word "competition", but it only applies in the sense that a telco is competing against a cableco. That is not competition in the market sense, that is a duopoly.
in areas where verizon is competing with a cablco for video, verizon has already raised their video rates and cablecos seem to raise rates like clockwork every year no matter what happens.
consumers will never be a winner in a duopoly market, we'll just be less of a loser. |
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Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA | Agreed. Competition >= Duopoly >= Monopoly for most measures in most instances related to our discussion of quality. |
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Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs: 
1 edit | reply to nasadude
(reply to nasadude)
Sorry but I really can't agree with you. Look at Intel before AMD became such a force in the CPU market.
They controlled virtually everything. And they priced their cpu's whereever they wanted to at will.
Along comes AMD and their first athlon CPU. That started to change everything and prices came down.
Everyone said at the time that Intel never would or even had to respond to the AMD threat..but the years since certainly proved that wrong.
There is an example of a duopoly, except in a different industry and the very positive effect that AMD had on both providing consumers with a choice as well as driving intel to lower prices and better compete.
In markets where FIOS and cable compete, I predict this same thing will occur, if only in time.
The PROBLEM with AT&T's strategy is that if their product offerings are inferior to cables, then you don't have competition. You simply have a lower class of service, for which they will charge less.
IMHO..that's what's going on right now. It's why cable charges mid 40's per month for their hsi, and telco is forced for the most part into the teens with constant specials.
Cable providers have not stopped raising prices at will..the same way Intel did with every new processor they rolled out. They have no one to fear right now, except for fios in limited areas.
What AT&T is risking by not getting into this raise is almost complete obsolesence I predict. Who is going to want 768k~3Mb DSL service..or even uverses 5.5Mb in the face of what Comcast and others will be rolling out with Docsis 3.0 next year? The gap will just widen so much and so far, AT&T might never catch up.
One also needs to understand that Comcast and others are now ALSO in the telephone business. And, by using their HSI..and video...they can drive the price of telephone connections literaly down to ZERO if they want to.
It's already happening in the form of Triple play.
99.00 and you get digital tv..hsi..and phone service.
That equals zero cost phone service.
Think about this. If AT&T has their landline business drastically reduced..has no HSI speeds to speak of..and is just trying to rely on consumers accepting them as their television provider..what does that equal?
I think it potentially equals the end of AT&T.
Some here are trying to take that statement literally. It's not what I mean. I mean the end of them being a significant player in these businesses. Surely, they'll still be around as a cell provider and business connectivity provider..but if they lose the consumer to the cable co's..they'll never get them back.
AT&T MUST adopt Verizons FIOS program..right now.
Verizon did not come to that decision lightly.
They thought this through. And, came to the same conclusion I have apparently. |
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