| reply to me1212
Re: Devil's Advocate The problem is that expansion isn't profitable. Doing things like behavioral ads or getting into content are profitable. Serving rural America isn't in the plans for anything but the tiniest of carriers who don't need to placate investors. |
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me1212
join:2008-11-20
Pleasant Hill, MO | said by Karl Bode:Serving rural America isn't in the plans for anything but the tiniest of carriers who don't need to placate investors. Weren't they going to use LTE for rural? »CenturyTel Plans To Use LTE For Rural Deployment |
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beaups
join:2003-08-11
Hilliard, OH | reply to Karl Bode
And had they not merged would the expansion, specifically the rural expansion have happened faster? I don't see anything unreasonable here at all. Maybe it didn't get tech media coverage because this deal didn't deserve tech media coverage. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
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| reply to Karl Bode
The problem here is lack of competition (whoda thunk?). In a duopoly situation, it's easy for everyone to do behavioral advertising and lower the bar together. This tacit collusion isn't doable in highly competitive markets because one competitior will decide not to do the advertising in order to get more customers.
Also, rural customers will pay $50 for a 512k connection. Once you build out the infrastructure they're quite profitable because you are the only game in town in all likelihood. In less competitive areas they're the most loyal customers you've got.
Case in point: around here there's no DSL to speak of. The local wireless operator has let their network go to seed but where are customers going to go? WildBlue? CenturyTel serves areas like those.
Granted, the following example is a co-op, but HCTC (hctc.net), seeing that they weren't going to keep gaining landline subscribers, decided to outfit their network with digial loop carriers to enable DSL service. Now average loop lengths are 7k feet (crazy if you know the market they serve) and their DSL packages are as follows (all require home phone service):
128/64 - $17.95
512/256 - $39.95
1024/512 - $59.95
3072/768 - $69.95
$70 per month plus a landline may sound like a lot for a mere three megabits of internet connectivity, but when your alternative realistically tops out at 1.5/256 (who's going to buy 5 Mbit down, 300k up on HughesNet? Bueller? Bueller?) for the same price (HCTC worked out a nice deal with WildBlue) who ya gonna call?
Now that HCTC has DSL to these areas, they'll be able to sell as much as $100 per month in services (local + features + LD + DSL + security) to people for five years or more. How's that for ROI? Certainly better than getting a lame cut from WildBlue and watching your landline revenues go away as cellular providers build out their networks. |
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1 edit | reply to beaups
And had they not merged would the expansion, specifically the rural expansion have happened faster? You miss the point. The merger was an opportunity for an FCC that's been prattling on about what a priority broadband expansion is to actually do something about broadband expansion. Instead, they decided to enact wholly meaningless conditions for a former colleague who's now a lawyer at CenturyTel. That's a story. In any language.Maybe it didn't get tech media coverage because this deal didn't deserve tech media coverage. Maybe it didn't get tech media coverage because the tech media is too busy fellating Apple and trolling brand fanboys for advertising eyeballs. |
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