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YearZeroHeavy Metal BakesalePremium
join:2001-08-28 | Nagging non stop I nagged telcos and cable for about the last two years non stop to try and get something here. I use to be out in the cold until last week when I was able to get mediacom cable...Verizon was and still has no offering here and continues to drag there ass but that is alright with me..I at least have some form of broadband and so far it kick ass..Granted I don't know how much nagging would actually do since companies like Verizon look at the bottom line and decided not to open a market here due to the fact that it might not be profitable. | |
 TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
| said by AMaench:
Granted I don't know how much nagging would actually do since companies like Verizon look at the bottom line and decided not to open a market here due to the fact that it might not be profitable.
Exactly, I wish some people who rant about not being able to get DSL is Tiny Township, Kentucky would realize it's just a matter of pure economics. POTENTIAL REVENUE(subscribers) - INFRA STRUCTURE COST = PROFIT. If there's not a positive number in the PROFIT area, you can bet the phone company won't be providing DSL there. All the nagging and harassment won't change their bottom line any sooner than going to a car dealership and ranting about the price is going to get them to sell it to you at a $10,000 loss...
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Miami Hurricanes #1 (we're back!)
[text was edited by author 2002-04-14 20:24:17] | |
YearZeroHeavy Metal BakesalePremium
join:2001-08-28 | reply to YearZero
also this town administration always wonders why no one wants to move here...well that could be one of the reasons also...broadband can do a lot of things..help people run businesses from home,there own shops,etc... | |
wtansillNcc1701
join:2000-10-10
Falls Church, VA | reply to TZi
said by TZi:
Exactly, I wish some people who rant about not being able to get DSL is Tiny Township, Kentucky would realize it's just a matter of pure economics. POTENTIAL REVENUE(subscribers) - INFRA STRUCTURE COST = PROFIT. If there's not a positive number in the PROFIT area, you can bet the phone company won't be providing DSL there. All the nagging and harassment won't change their bottom line any sooner than going to a car dealership and ranting about the price is going to get them to sell it to you at a $10,000 loss...
So -- do you eat well? Most likely the answer is "Yes". Why is that? Because people in Tiny Township Kentucky have lots of wide open land on which to grow fruits, vegetables, and grains, or raise cattle, hogs, chickens, etc. Wide open land translates into low population density. Basically you want the advantages of such a system, while at the same time denying these folks the same benefits that you demand for yourself. Sorry, but we've had a policy of guaranteed access in this country for the last century or so. Now is not a good time to abandon that policy. | |
TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
| said by wtansill:
Basically you want the advantages of such a system, while at the same time denying these folks the same benefits that you demand for yourself. Sorry, but we've had a policy of guaranteed access in this country for the last century or so. Now is not a good time to abandon that policy.
I personally did not demand the service in my area, the phone company made a strategic decision to provide DSL in my area based on return on investment and revenue potential figures. While I am happy to take advantage of it, I am only able to do so by sharing the cost with my fellow subscribers in my area thus making it a profitable venture for the phone company.
Equal access has been a policy in this country, that's true, but only for government services. I saw a story in the news about a week ago about a town 60 miles outside of Seattle that still didn't have dialtone phone service. Unfortunately, broadband is not a government service and thus it's deployment is subject to the discretion of a given company.
I understand that these kind people use the wide open land to grow our food and everything, but examine that argument a little more closely. At what point do you think everyone should have equal access. If the phone company is forced to deploy broadband in unprofitable areas, then why not force Citibank to deploy branches in areas where they'll never get any business, why not force K-Mart to put a store in a town of 10 where they'll never make a cent of profit and then force all the major television networks to put affiliates in areas where they'd only have 100 viewers. Then you could go on to argue that they ought to open up a stock exchange in Sherman, Texas so the residents there could equally benefit from a stock exchange like the residents of NYC. It's a slippery slope, and I wouldn't look to the government for setting that sort of precedent anytime soon. They simply can't legislate companies into unprofitableness... they'd lose billions in tax revenue and ending up slowing broadband deployment overall. How quickly do you think a broke phone company would be able to deploy DSL? They couldn't and they wouldn't- they'd abandon the concept altogether. Then nobody would have DSL.
We have a choice of where to live. By living in the city, I give up my opportunity to grow fruit and have wide open spaces and in turn benefit from the advantages of Urban life. By living in the country, you benefit from the ability to grow food and own huge lots of land but in turn give up the advantages of Urban life... you see.
If everything is equal access, well then darn it I want the government to give me 100 acres to grow oranges in the middle of downtown Miami!
Nothing is stopping those people in rural Kentucky from getting broadband. If they really wanted it, they could pay for the infrastructure to run fiber out into the middle of nowhere. If you really think that everyone should have access to broadband, then you ought to write out the +10 billion dollar check to phone companies and stop asking us "unduly-benefited-by-the-phone-company" subscribers, and the phone company itself to bear the unreasonable cost.
PS I do eat well because the people in Kentucky grow me fruit. Conversely, those people in Kentucky are able to make a profit off me because I can't grow my own food. Everything in life is a trade-off. When you start saying everyone should have equal access to everything, you're bordering on the tenets of socialism...
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Miami Hurricanes #1 (we're back!)
[text was edited by author 2002-04-14 21:30:29]
[text was edited by author 2002-04-14 21:36:46] | |
| reply to TZi
Wrong again!!! It's ignorance and stupidity of the RBOC planners. If they had half a brain combined, then 3 years ago they would've completely focused on these urban/INNER suburban areas(like my city) that didn't have cable modems yet. They should've made sure that people located even 30,000 ft could get DSL before people located 300 ft in cities that had cable modems. That would make good business sense. You people always tell me that people don't want broadband even when they can get it. What do you think the take rates are for the 2nd broadband option that becomes available? At that point all of the early adopters who desparately want it area already take. Yes some people will switch, but even the statistics prove obviously that not enough people switch. The RBOCS should've only focused on cities without cable modems. So I don't want to hear about how they know what they are doing because they don't. | |
TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
| said by 2farfromCO:
They should've made sure that people located even 30,000 ft could get DSL before people located 300 ft in cities that had cable modems. That would make good business sense.
While it seems that that would have made good business sense, you're forgetting to take a few things into account:
1) At the time DSL was initially deployed, there was no technology available to reach customers beyond even 18,000 ft, and even at that distance, it wasn't guaranteed.
2) Even when the technology became available to deploy RTs beyond 18,000 ft, it would have cost the company nearly 5X as much per subscriber to reach these distant users.
That said, it wasn't really poor planning. They didn't really know if DSL would fly or not and it was largely an unproven technology. So, the phone companies started off quite unsure about DSL with a few DSLAMs in a few chosen COs to "test the waters". By deploying it in limited urban areas, they were able to reach the maximum number of potential subscribers with the minimum amount of capital investment. When DSL became a success and technology advanced, then the phone companies began gradually expanding to remote areas.
If you look at it from the phone companies point of view, it made a lot more sense to invest a smaller amount of money on an unproven technology in denser population areas than it would have been to invest huge amounts of money to deploy it to remote regions with fewer potential subscribers. Just think, if they had in fact taken the latter strategy they might well have declared DSL a failure because the revenue would likely not have exceeded the cost-of-deployment. Even today, phone companies find it difficult to justify the cost of deploying an RT for the exact same reason, too little return on investment.
Any company, be it the phone company, cell companies or TV stations are more likely to deploy fledgling technologies in areas where they can reach the most people with the least investment. That's why there were cellular networks in New York City before Albequerqe, New Mexico. That's why there are +8 HDTV stations in Los Angeles and almost none in rural Tenesee. I mean, that "from the outside in" deployment philosophy sounds goods at first, but on paper and in practice, it's rarely successful and definitely not good business sense.
-- That'd be like saying "let's open up a Rolls Royce dealership in Morgantown, NC instead of Atlanta because there's already three Rolls Royce dealerships in Atlanta". Yeah, you might have a few customers in Morgantown, but still not enough to justify opening the dealership in the first place-- even though there weren't any dealerships there to begin with. You'd have made more money if you opened up another dealership in Atlanta even though you'd compete with the exsiting dealerships...Scarcity of a resource does not necessarily translate into greater demand in a given market.
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Miami Hurricanes #1 (we're back!)
[text was edited by author 2002-04-14 23:12:48] | | |
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| reply to TZi
The local telephone companies were granted a special monopoly status by the government which is why they are regulated. It's not going to always be profitable to provide service to underpopulated areas but the government/people decided that the service needed to be provided so the cost is distributed across the whole customer base. The same thing goes for electricity which is why the NRECA was established. I'm now paying Universal Service Fund charges and the like on my phone service to make sure basic phone service is available everywhere (something that should already be done now) and to subsidize the schools,libraries, and rural hospitals for Internet access.
The more people on the Internet the more valuable it is as a resource. Subscription rates will eventually go up everywhere as a result. The phone company, as a public utility, should be trying to provide this service everywhere and just not where they'll get the most profit. I predict that the government will eventually force them to provide some type of base level internet service if improving tech developments don't eliminate the need.
And sometimes these little Tiny Twp, KY places provide a constant flow of profit to the phone company that is greater per capita than more densely populated places because the phone company never invests further in infrastructure. And the lack of investment in infrastructure is the real complaint here...
Mike Carson | |
 RR ConductorHappy 40th AmtrakPremium
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
kudos:1 | reply to YearZero
Why doesn't the government set up an agency to make sure broadband is installed in all areas, much like they did to get electricity to many areas in the US still without it under the TVA(Tennessee Valley Authority) or the REA(Rural Electric Administration) in the 1930's and 1940's? I think unless the government stands up and tells them they get it done or else, these companies will just drag their feet. Look at Lake Erie, you think it would be alive again if they had just let the status quo be? | |
TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
| said by ILOVELA2:
Why doesn't the government set up an agency to make sure broadband is installed in all areas, much like they did to get electricity to many areas in the US still without it under the TVA(Tennessee Valley Authority) or the REA(Rural Electric Administration) in the 1930's and 1940's? I think unless the government stands up and tells them they get it done or else, these companies will just drag their feet. Look at Lake Erie, you think it would be alive again if they had just let the status quo be?
The government can do their best to ensure that MOST people have access to broadband or electricity, but there simply are no guarantees. My parents own property in New Mexico they bought a decade ago, it still doesn't have power. Even though it has a road running right in front of it, there is still no utility service. To ask the power company to come out and service that property when it's > 100 miles from the nearest tower is outrageous. But if they build a house out there, does that give them a right to instantly demand broadband among all the other utilities? HARDLY! It's great that the phone and power companies eventually deployed their initial service all over the country, but those days are over. Now, it's all about the bottom line. The second you start forcing the phone company to provide services that can't really afford is the day they'll really abandon the idea altogether. I mean, look at it from their standpoint. If the government all of a sudden declared that broadband ought to be available on every phone line, the phone companies would respond by deciding not to provide DSL at all.
Furthermore, you're forgetting one major fact. While the government may require the phone and power companies to provide service in unprofitable areas, that is because 99.9% of the nations homes have electricity and 97% have telephones and that these commodities were introduced well over a century ago. The government didn't legislate the phone and power companies into widespread, universal deployment a decade after their technology came out, it took almost a century and still some areas don't have power or phone service... In this case, it can almost be said that these are "necessary commodities" though some may argue otherwise. On the other hand, broadband usage in this country, even if you consider areas that are saturated with service capacity is less than 25% and the technology is less than a decade old. To force the phone company to provide broadband for every customer today is like saying the phone company should have run phone lines out to every home in the country when telephone technology first came out!
Furthermore, if you actually went out to a lot of these rural areas (which I have) and actually got to know some people out there, you might find (the readers of this board excluded) that most rural people want to the government to bring better hospitals, schools and health-care out to these areas before they worry about broadband! There are much greater issues at hand for our government to be dealing with right now, and much better things for our tax dollars to be spent on.
Why does everyone insist that broadband be universal when it's only 10 years old at best? These things take time and money, and the government can't legislate either (unless you're willing to pay). This point is worth re-considering in 20 years, maybe, when the technology is mature and well established as a staple in our society. For the time being, though, with the exception of urban areas unserviced due to mismanagement, the government shouldn't force the already-struggling broadband industry to do something it doesn't want to/can't afford to do!
PS As I've said previously, broadband really is available to anyone who wants it in this country so long as they are willing to pay for the infrastructure to bring it to them. If broadband is so important to rural people, let them walk up to the phone company with the multi-million dollar check required to deploy service in their area and I guarantee they won't be denied! In the meantime, don't ask the tax-payers or urban users to foot the bill for bad economics.
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Miami Hurricanes #1 (we're back!)
[text was edited by author 2002-04-15 13:55:57] | |
RR ConductorHappy 40th AmtrakPremium
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
kudos:1 | reply to YearZero
"don't ask the tax-payers or urban users to foot the bill for bad economics" - what happened to "promote the common welfare"?, we should all help each other out in this. We all are Americans.
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"Furthermore, if you actually went out to a lot of these rural areas (which I have) and actually got to know some people out there, you might find (the readers of this board excluded) that most rural people want to the government to bring better hospitals, schools and health-care out to these areas before they worry about broadband! There are much greater issues at hand for our government to be dealing with right now, and much better things for our tax dollars to be spent on"
Like I said, in this day and age, broadband is as important as the telephone was in the 1930's and 1940's. Lack of it will prevent companies from investing in rural and smaller areas, and will leave these areas economically disadvantaged. | |
TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL | said by ILOVELA2:
what happened to "promote the common welfare"
Well, um, the Soviet Union fell some time ago. Just Kidding.
I do believe we should support the common welfare. However, there is a point at which the burden and cost imposed on the people outweighs the benefit of "common welfare". In a perfect world, everything would be universal and free, but it's not and things do cost money. I can't fix that and neither can the government.
I mean, if we could just snap our fingers and bring DSL out to rural areas, then we might as well just be able to wink and tell the oil companies to bring us the all the oil we want at cost since we're geographically disadvantaged and shouldn't have to pay for the cost of oil tankers hauling in from Saudi Arabia.
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Miami Hurricanes #1 (we're back!) | |
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