2009: A Year Of Rural Broadband Musical Chairs? > AT&T sold off phone services to Valor

reply to KrK

Re: AT&T sold off phone services to Valor

What service are they on btw?

Here, we have Qwest. See my below post.

In Windstream areas, most places can do at least 3/384, even out in the sticks. With FastPath, and thus with good pings. Closer to town/in town, 12/768 service is available for $45 per month.

In Embarq areas, speeds ramp up from an expensive $35 for 768/384 (naked) to a cool $55 for 10/896. Both Embarq and Windstream overprovision (Windstream only on higher end tiers but still) so you get the speed you pay for. As opposed to Qwest.

CenturyTel (merging with Embarq) offers 1.5/256 DSL in many of their markets, I'd even say most of them. DSL service beyond that comes in 3, 6, 8 and 10 Mbps varieties, depending on how far you are from the CO, with up to 768k of upload speed. There are also fiber developments that have 15/768.

GVTC, a local outfit not too far from my home in Texas, is deploying FTTH in all their new developments (as are Embarq, Windstream and CenturyTel). Business service goes all the way up to 25 Mbps for "over the counter" FTTP, and FTTH has just been upgraded in speed to the following (naked prices; bundling or contract reduce the monthly price by $5, both bundling and contract reduce it by $10)...

768/128 (!) - $30
1.5/384 - $35
5/768 - $40
5/2 - $50
8/1 - $45
8/2 - $55
12/1.5 - $60
12/3 - $70
20/3 - $75

DSL is available on up to 5 Mbit packages, and cable is available on up to 12 Mbit. You don't get speed upgrades on either for uploads, but the price is the same as FTTH.

So yes, it is perfectly possible for rural operations to get fiber (and DOCSIS 3) into homes, but they have to be co-op-minded, and that's what WIndjammer et al ain't :/

reply to travelguy
I am in the same boat. Have at&t out in the sticks in rural Ohio and the best I get is 19.2K dialup. Were I used to live up in NY I was on a small local telco and Broadband was available everywere even out in the sticks. I would love to see at&t take a hike out of the rural markets and get some smaller companies and even coops because as far as I can see broadband in rural areas will never happen when the big guy is busy running fiber in the cities.