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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

If one ISP balks though...

If there exists in a given area an ISP that offers an uncapped connection transfer-wise then that's a MAJOR selling point, and will get them a premium price or allow them to sell lower speeds for the same price, versus a competitor. When TWC talked about metered billing in San Antonio and Austin, Grande Communications immediately took the statement and ran with it, advertising that their plans have no caps. If any provider is willing to stick to uncapped internet to the point that they'll advertise it as a value-added feature, they for the short term get more customers and in the long term prevent a move to low-limit cap-and-tier pricing in that area.

Unless of course you're being throttled by your local loop provider...ahem Bell...

StevenB
Premium Member
join:2000-10-27
New York, NY
·Charter

StevenB

Premium Member

The only reason this hasn't hit in the USA yet, is due to verizon. Once verizon hops on board to do this type of billing, it will come live. ATT/Time Warner/Comcast/Cox etc.. all have had their dream goals of metered internet, but verizon isn't hoping on board with it.

Cablevision isn't on board either because of the Verizon competition in all of their markets. But they'd love to do it as well

The little ISPs/MSOs i don't know what they'll do, but prob follow suit with the big boys.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Again, no cap = competitive advantage. If Verizon does cap their landline broadband it'll be upwards of 500GB in all likelihood. Otherwise they'd be running at ~5% of capacity.

As for CV, they've said straight up that they aren't going to cap-and-tier anyone. They took throttling off their 15/2 service a few years back and the way they run their network (fast and loose) there's no reason to do capping scare tactics.

Right now bandwidth pricing is at an all-time low, which means that "indie" providers can pick up enough to bring their bandwidth cost per gigabyte near zero, provided they can get transport to a major internet city. With the pipe open on that end, they can push whatever they want down the line to consumers, and will have a lot of excess capacity if they're running DOCSIS 3, DSL or FTTH. The most logical way to use this capacity in a competitive marketplace is to ratchet up speeds and increase or eliminate transfer caps, because if you're better than your competitor, people switch to you.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

1 edit

patcat88

Member

said by iansltx:

Right now bandwidth pricing is at an all-time low, which means that "indie" providers can pick up enough to bring their bandwidth cost per gigabyte near zero, provided they can get transport to a major internet city.
Well getting your fiber just to the basement at the colo/meet me room can be a $1000 a month, then you might find out the only duct owner in the city is the ILEC and 1 or 2 CLECs that price 5% less than the ILEC in a duopoly. Or the ILEC rented all unused ducts to the peering center to force everyone to rent from them. To pay for urban construction to add ducts to the colo building you don't even own, you must be as rich as a silicon valley dot com start up in 1999. All the other CLECs in the building rent bandwidth or lambas from the ILEC or the CLEC in order to serve that building. Some cities have NIMBY "embargos" on street construction which mean no new ducts can ever be built again except by existing telecom providers under a maintenance or emergency exception. Some cities give exclusive telecom ROW rights to the ILEC to keep the ducts organized and mapped well in the city, even the CABLE COMPANY MUST RENT FROM THE ILEC to run its coax to serve the city. See »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em ··· y_Subway
rahvin112
join:2002-05-24
Sandy, UT

1 recommendation

rahvin112

Member

Horseshit. I don't believe a word of what you just said about building utilities. I KNOW it's not true in my state and I doubt there is a state in the union where any of what you said is true. No city, county or state could legally block a Utility from using the public ROW as it would be a clear constitutional violation of equal protection. They can make it expensive and a hassle full of red tape but they cannot legally block it. Contrary to what people on here are have posted not even a franchise agreement with explicit language only allowing a single provider can stop an overbuilder. Such contract terms are unconstitutional and illegal.

Legal impediments aren't what stop overbuilding. What stops overbuilding is that building out a Last mile utility network is ultra expensive. Not even those circa 1999 dot coms had the kind of money to build out last mile. A single million+ metro area can cost upward of 10billion to wire once construction, easement and damages are figured in. The problem the overbuilder faces is once they spend the 10billion to wire the city the incumbent ILEC and cable company undercut pricing in the overbuilt area to prevent the overbuilder from being able to recoup the investment. This is what happened to RCN the cable overbuilder.

Nothing can prevent overbuilding, it would be completely unconstitutional to try and any city that tried would end up with a legal bill defending the measure with no success in preventing. You cite New York as the example, but what you didn't note was that anyone could overbuild in New York but the cost of construction is what stops it. Verizon is spending multiple billions to rewire a city they already have ducts in and it's the city with the highest density in the country. Imagine the cost of a city without ducting, infacstructure, CO's and everything else already in place. An overbuilder has to tear up streets, buy property for the CO's plant, build buildings and pay to repair every yard they tear up and it's more expensive now because most municipalities require everything to be buried now and that doesn't even include material costs. It's immensely expensive, probably the most expensive type of construction in the country because of the complexity and involvement of individual property owners who think allowing a cable through their yard is worth 1million dollars. And the final nail in the coffin of overbuilders is that most states have granted ILEC's and other primary utilities the power of eminent domain (to acquire needed property for the common good even if the seller won't voluntarily sell), something the over builder rarely has access to.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

I think you`re being naive about the difficulty of overbuilding and cutting through all the red tape.

You`re also ignorant of the costs. One million = $10 billion? That`s 10,000 per person... in a metro area. So wiring up the entire US of 300 million would cost $3 trillion? Are you nuts?
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88 to rahvin112

Member

to rahvin112
said by rahvin112:

Horseshit. I don't believe a word of what you just said about building utilities. I KNOW it's not true in my state and I doubt there is a state in the union where any of what you said is true. No city, county or state could legally block a Utility from using the public ROW as it would be a clear constitutional violation of equal protection. They can make it expensive and a hassle full of red tape but they cannot legally block it. Contrary to what people on here are have posted not even a franchise agreement with explicit language only allowing a single provider can stop an overbuilder. Such contract terms are unconstitutional and illegal.
What if there is a law that says that the current ILEC network would be illegal to ever build again due to building code/safety/aesthetics/to promote competition/flying unicorns/save children/etc, and the current network is grandfathered?

Access to the ROW for a utility is a PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT under law. We wouldn't have a PUC/PSC if it were a right.

You just said about grandfathered powers that existing utilities have that newcomers won't ever have.
said by rahvin112:

And the final nail in the coffin of overbuilders is that most states have granted ILEC's and other primary utilities the power of eminent domain (to acquire needed property for the common good even if the seller won't voluntarily sell), something the over builder rarely has access to.
If a city council votes no on your franchise or building permits, your screwed. Just 1 politician who didn't get a donation, and the process is over for you »www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/d ··· 2002.pdf
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Fortunately, I'm not talking about NYC. I'm talking about areas where the local city governments don't have their heads firmly shoved where the sun don't shine and know that their towns will dwindle/die if they can't attract next-gen, preferably high-tech industry (and the workers that go with them) into the area. I'm not talking about towns where there's the ILEC deploying VDSL and the MSO pushing 50/10 DOCSIS 3. I'm talking about areas where the ILEC's nearest fiber is in the nearest city with population > 200,000 and you're in a town of 30,000, 10,000 or 3,000, and where (as such) the cable provider can upgrade (or not) at their leisure. In those towns you snag a few key business accounts as the new provider, then build out to lower-tier areas with the blessing of a city government that sees broadband as an economic development boon.

FWIW, costs are MUCH less than $10k per subscriber unless you're talking about very, VERY low-density areas, at which point you have no competition and an 80%+ take rate for whatever you can provide, as long as it marginally beats 3G service, which inevitably reaches 1000/500 and no more. Costs are closer to $2000 per subscriber, which are steep but something you can amortize over the long run. You just hang in there, compete on price when needed and compete on service quality and speed at all other times.

At any rate, I was talking about a provider who already has a network established and whose former bottleneck was cheap bandwidth availability. Building out a whole new network is expensive, but if you're competing against Frontier Communications might actually be a viable operation. Or if you're competing against CenturyLink and are willing to offer something better than 25/2 for $85 per month.
rahvin112
join:2002-05-24
Sandy, UT

rahvin112 to sonicmerlin

Member

to sonicmerlin
said by sonicmerlin:

I think you`re being naive about the difficulty of overbuilding and cutting through all the red tape.

You`re also ignorant of the costs. One million = $10 billion? That`s 10,000 per person... in a metro area. So wiring up the entire US of 300 million would cost $3 trillion? Are you nuts?
I said larger than a million. That's what the + means by the way, it means more than. I work in the civil projects industry, the red tape isn't difficult, it's always been cost of construction. Anyone stupid enough to argue it's the cost of the red tape doesn't know anything about the business and is talking out their ass.

»www.fundinguniverse.com/ ··· ory.html

RCN then acquired Residential Communications Network to form the foundation for McCourt's new vehicle to take on the entrenched telecommunications industry. When the realignment was complete in October 1997, RCN lost little time in raising $575 million in junk bonds to start building its communications network. The initial focus was on a corridor that stretched from Boston to Washington, D.C., a potential market of some 25 million households. McCourt's ambitious goal was to make customers out of nine million of them. Given that it would cost from $1,200 to $1,400 to wire each household, RCN was looking at a $12 billion price tag to build the Northeast network.

25 million households, $1,200 per home = $30,000,000,000 =$30 billion. This figure is the wire line installation costs. The one thing it doesn't cover is the plant and CO's.
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