said by moonpuppy:said by Rick:IMHO..I wouldn't be too eager to sing the praises of the cost of FIOS. If anything, Verizon is going to have a lot of heat on them to raise prices MORE than Comcast ever will.
Why? Because # 1..Fios is SO expensive to rollout.
#2..so many of their customers are coming from DSL..meaning they're cannibalizing their own customer base. And
#3...They're losing landlines left and right.
There is an amazing amount of pressure on Verizon to make Fios work. And while the price might be competitive now..it's that way because they have no other choice. I ask you though..how many more landlines and dsl customers do they lose before they can simply no longer subsidize fios at current prices?
To sum it up..I think the REAL risk in future price increases is with Verizon.
In that regard..AT&T probably does have it right with Uverse..with it not being as costly.
The problem with that though is it technologically enough to withstand what Comcast is throwing at them?
Time will tell.
DOCSIS 3.0 is not cheap either and that further puts pressure on Comcast to up their prices.
Landlines are the bread and butter of telcos because while the basic rate is regulated, all the additions like caller ID, etc. are cash cows. Those start going going down in numbers, then you have a problem.
Comcast raises its rates too on TV due to programming costs which both sides will incur. I have already spoken to this issue many times and have said the cable companies and telcos need to grow some balls and take the issue to the subscribers. Watch how fast the tables turn on the content providers when they are held responsible for the extra money customers have to pay.
FIOS has one advantage in that fiber is already at the home so upgrading will be cheaper in the future. Fibet to the node can only go so far and we all know bandwidth is being used up by HDTV and internet.
As you said, time will tell but you also have to take into account that Verizon has a smaller footprint right now that will continue to grow.
DOCSIS3 is expensive, however it's much cheaper than building an entire system. It can also be deployed much quicker and on an as needed basis.
