| reply to jimbo2150
ISP/Video Competition said by jimbo2150:said by myokitis:a highly competitive environment I highly disagree. I only notice decent to good competition in larger cities. You obviously don't work for a MSO or Telco. Take it from somebody in the business: The level of competition is intense. They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes.
It's the difference between being an armchair quarterback and actually being in the game. |
|
|
|
| said by myokitis:You obviously don't work for a MSO or Telco. Take it from somebody in the business: The level of competition is intense. They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes. It's the difference between being an armchair quarterback and actually being in the game. You obviously don't live in an area where you only have 2 options that have not changed in over a decade and commonly see people in areas that have 1 or no broadband options. From what I hear Virginia is already one of the most wired states in the nation.
--
- "Techie" Jim |
|
| said by jimbo2150:said by myokitis:You obviously don't live in an area where you only have 2 options that have not changed in over a decade and commonly see people in areas that have 1 or no broadband options. I understand where you're coming from. But that doesn't change the fact that both groups of companies are indeed intensely competing against each other for survival. It's just that your area probably isn't one of their primary battlegrounds. |
|
Reviews:
 ·exede by ViaSat
| reply to myokitis
said by myokitis:said by jimbo2150:said by myokitis:a highly competitive environment I highly disagree. I only notice decent to good competition in larger cities. You obviously don't work for a MSO or Telco. Take it from somebody in the business: The level of competition is intense. They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes. It's the difference between being an armchair quarterback and actually being in the game. This makes no sense in this case. If TW were trying to win customers, they wouldn't even be introducing caps at all. If you want to win customers, you have to be innovative and for the consumer which TW is NOT in this case at all. |
|
 fireflierCoffee. . .Need CoffeePremium
join:2001-05-25
Limbo | reply to myokitis
said by myokitis:They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes. I don't work for a MSO or Telco but I'm smart enough to observe that someone desperate to win customers is not going to do so with ridiculous cap levels and insane markups when a competitor in the same market has no caps.
If TWC had simply opened their stats for public or independent scrutiny that could determine that in fact they are having bandwidth issues, it would go a long way toward resolving this dispute. That will never happen though.
So I see now, there's hinting at the layoff boogeyman if TWC doesn't "compete" (translation: caps and overages).
--
Tradition: Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid. --despair.com |
|
 sivranOpera convertPremium
join:2003-09-15
Arlington, TX
kudos:1 | reply to myokitis
Ain't it funny, too, how the "trial areas" are all non-competitive market...
I live in the middle of the DFW area, and the "competition" here is little more than the mere presence of two broadband ISPs: AT&T and TWC. They set up shop, display their wares, and that's pretty much the extent of the competition. They don't even try to respond to one another. It's a "We're here. Pick one." kind of situation.
Being that Verizon FIOS is ~30 miles away from Arlington (and practically non-existent in Tarrant County, and our ILEC is AT&T, I wouldn't be surprised if one of those "trials" showed up here.
Frontier did everyone a favor by making noise about dropping caps in Rochester. What did AT&T do in Beaumont? Implement caps themselves. If you ask AT&T, competition is the race to see who can gouge their customers more.
--
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon profitable cause... |
|
 Matt3All noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | said by sivran:If you ask AT&T, competition is the race to see who can gouge their customers more. I couldn't agree more. It seems as though the two compete against themselves to see who can create the most confusing package to entice a customer to their service. All the while providing the least amount of actual service possible.
They don't compete on the actual merits of their respective offering. Verizon and Cablevision seems to be the only larger companies who do that. |
|
1 edit | reply to myokitis
said by myokitis:said by jimbo2150:said by myokitis:a highly competitive environment I highly disagree. I only notice decent to good competition in larger cities. You obviously don't work for a MSO or Telco. Take it from somebody in the business: The level of competition is intense. They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes. It's the difference between being an armchair quarterback and actually being in the game. I am a CUSTOMER. In my area the competition is ZERO, I have as the only option for good high speed internet access Comcast.
The lies about competitive market are just designed to hide the truth from uneducated politicians and customers. and that is what they are:
LIES.
--
Obama '08. Will help resolve the terrible broadband issues we have that put us so far behind other countries. |
|
 Combat ChuckToo Many CannibalsPremium
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA | reply to Luminaris
said by Luminaris:This makes no sense in this case. If TW were trying to win customers, they wouldn't even be introducing caps at all. If you want to win customers, you have to be innovative and for the consumer which TW is NOT in this case at all. Did you read the part where he said they're between a rock and a hard place?
What do you do when you have two bad choices? They're going with the one they think everyone will be doing in a couple years and hoping they can ride out the churn.
Here's the thing, everyone is looking at this from the point of view of right now. People see they had good profits last year and using that to "prove" that their cries of running out of money are nothing but BS. They are looking 3 to 10 years in the future something the majority of people don't do, which is pretty much the root cause of all the problems in society.
You can be sure that the people at the helm of Verizon and the others are all sitting at the helm with their finger on the button. No one wants to be the first to do it, the desperate companies are going to be the first to do it and the rest will hang onto flat rate as long as they can comfortably do so to snatch up all the defectors of the early adopters, then they'll switch to metered billing.
--
Come let us reason together. |
|
 El QuintronResident Mouth BreatherPremium
join:2008-04-28
Etobicoke, ON
kudos:2
 ·TekSavvy DSL
 ·WIND Mobile
 ·voip.ms
| reply to myokitis
Seriously...
I worked for a major Telco, and that's the refrain they'll keep repeating not to pay you a decent salary, and the one they tell the customers to keep gouging them.
If I had to do it all over again, (work in the Telecom field that is) I'd go with a start-up, cause my career would have nowhere to go but up.
--
Working to bring you closer to a Bell and Rogers free household. |
|
| reply to myokitis
said by myokitis:I understand where you're coming from. But that doesn't change the fact that both groups of companies are indeed intensely competing against each other for survival. It's just that your area probably isn't one of their primary battlegrounds. I understand that, but you were also making it sound like the select few areas that they are competing equates to the entire (or at least a majority) of the market, which it does not. I just don't see the "ravenous" competition that they so often claim. For example: Just because they are competing in, lets say five, select markets... is it really necessary to claim stiff competition when the majority are not in areas with much or any competition? See my point?
--
- "Techie" Jim |
|
| said by jimbo2150:... is it really necessary to claim stiff competition when the majority are not in areas with much or any competition? See my point? I think I do, but it sounds like you're speaking in terms of %of geography, while the companies need to look at things in terms of %of customers (where their revenue comes from).
The current acquisition offers d'jour from select MSOs & Telcos are around $200 in value (cashback,credits, etc; I know of at last one major telco and one major MSO w/ offers like this), and the companies wouldn't be spending that $$$ to win customers from each other if they didn't think they needed to, if their management and shareowners weren't applying the pressure on their organizations to do so.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. This is a situation where "position determines perspective". |
|
 maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 | reply to myokitis
said by myokitis:said by jimbo2150:said by myokitis:a highly competitive environment I highly disagree. I only notice decent to good competition in larger cities. You obviously don't work for a MSO or Telco. Take it from somebody in the business: The level of competition is intense. They're desperate to win customers from each other, with employment (or lack thereof) implications depending on how the battle goes. It's the difference between being an armchair quarterback and actually being in the game. Sure, if you look at an area like the greater southern california area, where half of telco-land is owned by Verizon, the other half owned by AT&T, and where Time Warner Cable owns about 90% of the cable business.... (and 5% to Charter, and 5% to Cox, give or take) ... there is plenty of competition there.
I get calls from AT&T at least once a month (and they are allowed to do so as they supply one of my phone lines, thus existing customer) if I don't want to switch to their DSL service. TV ads from FIOS, Uverse, and Time Warner are slamming each other.
I never believed for one minute that in the greater SoCal area, they would ever introduce caps, as both Verizon and AT&T would have a FIELD DAY and rake in the customers.
But if you are living in a city like Boise, ID where the competition is a sub-par DSL provider that considers "standard" to be 1.5 Mbps and "ultra" is 3 Mbps, and the city is so widespread, with so many neigborhoods far away from any CO.... cable companies can easily introduce caps and get away with a whole lot more. |
|
| said by maartena:I get calls from AT&T at least once a month (and they are allowed to do so as they supply one of my phone lines, thus existing customer) if I don't want to switch to their DSL service. TV ads from FIOS, Uverse, and Time Warner are slamming each other. Advertisements do not equal availability. Time Warner and Comcast advertise in my area but do not serve my house. They serve neighborhoods up north and south I think, and in my area is a smaller cable co, but as far as I can tell none of them compete with each other... only with satellite.
--
- "Techie" Jim |
|
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | reply to Combat Chuck
Combat Chuck
If you think TW has been looking ahead, you are deluding yourself. It has been obvious what direction the bandwidth usage has been headed for years. Yet, TW still has a ton of systems still running D1.1 and D2. If they had really been looking forward, a significant amount of their footprint would be D3 today.
All cable companies (or companies in general) have debt. Take a look at their 10k. After expenses they still made 4 BILLION dollars. Spend, say 1/3 of that, on network upgrades (today) and they will no longer have capacity issues for the next few years. You are correct in that the demand for more bandwidth will continue to grow. But the way to handle that is to plan for the future and provide the capacity for that bandwidth, not to try and stop it. Essentially what they are doing is like a car company selling a car that you can only drive 40 miles a day. If you want to drive more than 40 miles a day, they are going to charge you $1/mile. All trying to do stuff like this is going to accomplish is to drive customers elsewhere.
As far as other ISPs watching this; sure if customers are actually stupid enough to put up with this, they will want in on the action too. If customers will put up with it, any business would be foolish not to try something that will ten fold their profit margins. There is nothing in this that the ISPs have to do this. |
|
| said by Lazlow:Combat Chuck If you think TW has been looking ahead, you are deluding yourself. It has been obvious what direction the bandwidth usage has been headed for years. Yet, TW still has a ton of systems still running D1.1 and D2. If they had really been looking forward, a significant amount of their footprint would be D3 today. All cable companies (or companies in general) have debt. Take a look at their 10k. After expenses they still made 4 BILLION dollars. Spend, say 1/3 of that, on network upgrades (today) and they will no longer have capacity issues for the next few years. You are correct in that the demand for more bandwidth will continue to grow. But the way to handle that is to plan for the future and provide the capacity for that bandwidth, not to try and stop it. Essentially what they are doing is like a car company selling a car that you can only drive 40 miles a day. If you want to drive more than 40 miles a day, they are going to charge you $1/mile. All trying to do stuff like this is going to accomplish is to drive customers elsewhere. As far as other ISPs watching this; sure if customers are actually stupid enough to put up with this, they will want in on the action too. If customers will put up with it, any business would be foolish not to try something that will ten fold their profit margins. There is nothing in this that the ISPs have to do this. Use the profit to upgrade the network and invest in the company's future? Probably won't happen. They will use the profits to pay out dividends and increase the value of executive stock options. |
|
Combat ChuckToo Many CannibalsPremium
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA | reply to Lazlow
said by Lazlow:Combat Chuck If you think TW has been looking ahead, you are deluding yourself. You're deluding yourself if you think that looking ahead is limited to the goal of figuring out how they can provide more bandwidth for you. They're looking at money, it's fairly clear that Time Warner cares little about their front end infrastructure.
--
Come let us reason together. |
|
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | Combat Chuck
You really do not understand how business works do you? In a consumer based market, if you do not keep up with what the consumer wants, you are going to loose customers. Loosing customers (in significant numbers) means that you are loosing money. The only reason companies reinvest in their infrastructure is so they can continue to be competitive. Fios did not come into play becuase it was a "cool" idea. It came about becuase it was obvious that ever increasing amounts of bandwidth were the direction things were/are headed. Cablevision understood this too (which is why they have 30Mbps D2 available today). Comcast even understands this, as evidenced by their rapid (relatively) switch to D3(despite their official caps, there has been no significant amount of action done to those that have exceeded the caps). Even Charter (broke as they are) recognizes that they have to offer more bandwidth (slower switchover to D3). |
|
| said by Lazlow:Combat Chuck You really do not understand how business works do you? In a consumer based market, if you do not keep up with what the consumer wants, you are going to loose customers. Loosing customers (in significant numbers) means that you are loosing money. The only reason companies reinvest in their infrastructure is so they can continue to be competitive. Fios did not come into play becuase it was a "cool" idea. It came about becuase it was obvious that ever increasing amounts of bandwidth were the direction things were/are headed. Cablevision understood this too (which is why they have 30Mbps D2 available today). Comcast even understands this, as evidenced by their rapid (relatively) switch to D3(despite their official caps, there has been no significant amount of action done to those that have exceeded the caps). Even Charter (broke as they are) recognizes that they have to offer more bandwidth (slower switchover to D3). Loosing eh?
Classic. |
|
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | My apologies for my typo. I should always have caffeine before I type. Despite my typo, I think everybody understood my point. |
|
