Earthlink Wants Wholesale Access As NBC/U Condition Offers study indicating new Comcast will raise broadband prices You'll recall that Earthlink's fortunes collapsed after their wireless MVNO (Helio) flamed out spectacularly, and ISPs were no longer required to provide third party access to next-generation networks. Earthlink tried a lot of ways to get around the incumbent ISP gridlock -- from municipal wireless to broadband over powerline -- though none of them materialized. Earthlink does have limited, expensive access to Comcast's network in some markets, and has access to Time Warner Cable's networks as a condition of the AOL/Time Warner merger. This required access being Earthlink's only real path in the broadband space, it's not surprising to see the ISP continue to push for wholesale access to Comcast's network as a merger condition. The company went so far this week as to offer a report (pdf) from Professor Simon J. Wilkie, Former Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission, highlighting how the creation of NBC Universal will result in higher prices for standalone broadband services. The report concludes that such hikes could be mitigated by (duh) competition: "...sufficient competitive choices, such as independent ISP like EarthLink could provide, would mitigate the harm to consumers who wished to remain with a stand-alone broadband provider at the old prices. This is because the availability of sufficient neutral provider choices would serve to discipline Comcast�s ability to raise prices." Unfortunately for Earthlink, unless the FCC has a real surprise planned, such a condition isn't happening. Comcast's spending millions on an absolutely massive army of lobbyists aimed at not only getting the deal approved, but getting it approved with thin conditions. The FCC's already shown they have no absolutely no desire to upset the nation's wealthiest and largest carriers by addressing competition or open access policies. Unless Earthlink can make use of delivery alternatives like White Space broadband, or has a few billion hidden away for a fiber to the home deployment, their future is not particularly bright. Update: Comcast sent us this statement in response to the study: "Earthlink's economics are simply off base. Opponents of the Comcast NBCU transaction like Earthlink are rereleasing and rehashing the same discredited arguments they made months and months ago. We have fully addressed these arguments in the FCC record and shown conclusively their analysis is flawed and incorrect."
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  BelinrahsI have an ego the size of a small planetPremium
join:2007-09-07
Nashville, MI
1 edit | Is it just me or does anything EarthLink touch turn out horrible?
But on a more serious note, yes, NBC + Comcast sounds like an awful idea. As I recall, DirecTV had a recent (possibly still-ongoing) kerfluffle with Comcast - they wanted DirecTV to pay more for access to Versus Channel. All we need is the same to happen, except Comcast being NBC/U and the channel in question being NBC. | |
|  | | | Re: Is it just me of course the content owners want providers to pay more. That's just the fact of every year or so. And NBC already went with their latest round of rate hikes. | |
| | |  BSD24Tier 4Premium
join:2008-04-30
Middleboro, MA | Re: Is it just me said by hottboiinnc:of course the content owners want providers to pay more. That's just the fact of every year or so. And NBC already went with their latest round of rate hikes. Consumers really never seemed to realize before why Comcast and all of the other competitors (excluding dish network and directv) and cable operators raise rates every year or so. Its part because of increase in cost for upgrades, or increase in cost of equipment and other things but a big part of it is the increase in networks costs. If the networks didn't ask for increases every year or so, peoples cable bills wouldn't go up much if any at all (atleast as often). Course the cable tv providers will continue to get blamed for it regardless as there is always some consumers who are not as well aware of things going on these days.
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| | | | | | Re: Is it just me i know why cable goes up. I know they have the plant to maintain and everything in between and all of the techs in the cities. Dish and Direc don't have that problem but still raise their rates when Cable does.
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| | Hahahahahahahahaha! Oh yeah, as a condition of this merger I want free cable. Seriously Earthlink, Comcast (or any other companies you might want to shake down) owe you nothing. If you can't do it yourself, then get out of the business. Exploiting someone else's investment is not how it's done here. Move elsewhere (France, South Korea) if you want to be a parasite. | |
| | | | Re: Hahahahahahahahaha! How about as a condition of the merger they are required to separate the network from the ISP.
Then the network can lease lines to the Comcast ISP and any other ISP (Earthlink, etc) and said ISP's can then provide any service they want on those lines?
Then the network makes it money and continue to grow and invest in itself and the ISP's can compete with one another on content, speed, caps, customer service, price..... you know all those things that actually matter to a consumer.
Actually I vote they are forced to do this (along with all other network provider/ISP's) anyway. | |
| | | | | Re: Hahahahahahahahaha! well then while we're at it T, and VZW need to do the same and also i want all wireless divsions done the same. no way related to the "brand" and no combo billing or anything of that sort.
All needs to be separate if you're going to do it to one; make it fair for all.
ATT DSL, U-Verse and Wireless need to be spun off to something else - maybe back to Prodigy and Cingular?
VZ and VZW and FiOS and DSL- spin the Internet off to an unrelated company and the Wireless div. can become VodaFone's brand here
TWC well they don't own any TV channels so they can keep their RoadRunner
and WOW can keep their network the way it is as well.
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| | | | | | Re: Hahahahahahahahaha! You would get no argument from me. You should know by now I am one for 1 nationwide network that serves every person and place. Whether that is wireless or wired does not matter to me. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Hahahahahahahahaha! yes i do know. the only thing is if we keep taking money and putting it to cover "war" and "peace keeping missions" or giving the USF to VZ and T there won't be any money to build a nationwide system of any sort.
This is where I'm surpised the WiSPs haven't come up with a system yet. Merge them into one and go from there or at least team up on a larger aspect. The Co-Op phone companies could do the same and bring more Fiber out.
Earthlink could build out a Wireless Network if they wanted or lease/resell Clear as well.
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 LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5
2 edits |  How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ?
Open Access never worked for a reason. And that is the finger pointing that went on between the company providing the biggest chunk of the infrastructure and the company that layered their hardware on top of that.
And even if you didn't have the finger pointing issues when troubleshooting problems, the price offered by the 3rd party provider was never any cheaper. Why would any sane customers buy in to that grief for no monetary benefit.
Earthlink can't provide a competitive service; so they go begging to the government to "bail them out". Of course, the gov't may do just that since it seems that that is now one of the government's main jobs - bailing out failing companies(GM anyone?). | |
| | | | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by Linklist:Talk about a failed business plan. Earthlink has access to Comcast & TWC customers, but how many actually use them instead of the companies providing the underlying infrastructure. Open Access never worked for a reason. And that is the finger pointing that went on between the company providing the biggest chunk of the infrastructure and the company that layered their hardware on top of that. And even if you didn't have the finger pointing issues when troubleshooting problems, the price offered by the 3rd party provider was never any cheaper. Why would any sane customers buy in to that grief for no monetary benefit. Earthlink can't provide a competitive service; so they go begging to the government to "bail them out". Of course, the gov't may do just that since it seems that that is now one of the government's main jobs - bailing out failing companies(GM anyone?). It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. | |
| | | TavokkPremium
join:2009-05-05
Smyrna, DE | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by tjb122982:It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. Why doesn't Earthlink spend capital to build out their own network instead of leaching from others? They deserve a free ride in the interest of consumer protection? Why? Because THEY have the consumer's best interests at heart and aren't at all worried about their shareholders/stock price? | |
| | | |  chrisPoor Impulse ControlPremium
join:2000-08-13
Middletown, CT | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by Tavokk:said by tjb122982:It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. Why doesn't Earthlink spend capital to build out their own network instead of leaching from others? They deserve a free ride in the interest of consumer protection? Why? Because THEY have the consumer's best interests at heart and aren't at all worried about their shareholders/stock price? +1
If you want to own the network, build it. | |
| | | | | | | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by chris:said by Tavokk:said by tjb122982:It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. Why doesn't Earthlink spend capital to build out their own network instead of leaching from others? They deserve a free ride in the interest of consumer protection? Why? Because THEY have the consumer's best interests at heart and aren't at all worried about their shareholders/stock price? +1 If you want to own the network, build it. It's not so easy when you consider their not good ole Ma Bell. | |
| | | | |  DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:78
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| said by chris:said by Tavokk:said by tjb122982:It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. Why doesn't Earthlink spend capital to build out their own network instead of leaching from others? They deserve a free ride in the interest of consumer protection? Why? Because THEY have the consumer's best interests at heart and aren't at all worried about their shareholders/stock price? +1 If you want to own the network, build it. or buy it, charter has some for sale!
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| | | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1
1 edit | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by Mr Matt:  Deploying a network is not so simple. Back in the mid 80's a company called TELSAT a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light Company, attempted to compete with the local cable company by installing their own outside plant. That turned out to be a disaster. TELSAT attempted to install cables in the utility easement as shown on the Planned Unit Development Plat Plans. Unfortunately many of the utility easements were abandoned to the homeowners and the homeowners had built in the space. TELSAT learned about the lack of documentation, the hard way, when one of their crews started to dig out a homeowners back yard and the homeowner called the police. The homeowner had been smart enough to record the easement release documents on their deed as well as having a copy in their home office. TELSAT was unable to use the easement in question and found that many other utility easements had been abandoned. As a result their plans for installation of a competing cable system was unusable. TELSAT eventually canceled the project after a protracted lawsuit prosecuted by the incumbent cable company. The incumbent cable company claimed that they had a contractual exclusive right to use, utility easements in certain Planned Unit Developments. Starting from scratch installing any cables in a utility easement is not so simple. Huh? Abandon an easement? Thats the POWER COMPANY. How do those subdivisions get power without an easement?
On the other hand, here in Connecticut, SNET, the local baby bell, built a full HFC network in the late 1990s, it was called Americast, only to abandon it 3 years later the moment SBC bought them. The HFC plant still rots on the poles today. The fiber is sometimes reused for Uverse VRADs. | |
| | | | | | | | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? the same was done in the other Ameritech States with Americast; although those areas are lucky to have WOW who is currently working on extending their network.
I'm surpised they didn't pick up that network or nobody buy it from SBC when they decided to get out of the TV business only to get back in years later with a half ass product. their HFC plant could be fully FTTH by now.
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| | | | eakenn
join:2005-02-20
Ormond Beach, FL Reviews:
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| said by Mr Matt: Deploying a network is not so simple. Back in the mid 80's a company called TELSAT a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light Company, attempted to compete with the local cable company by installing their own outside plant. That turned out to be a disaster. TELSAT attempted to install cables in the utility easement as shown on the Planned Unit Development Plat Plans. Unfortunately many of the utility easements were abandoned to the homeowners and the homeowners had built in the space. TELSAT learned about the lack of documentation, the hard way, when one of their crews started to dig out a homeowners back yard and the homeowner called the police. The homeowner had been smart enough to record the easement release documents on their deed as well as having a copy in their home office. TELSAT was unable to use the easement in question and found that many other utility easements had been abandoned. As a result their plans for installation of a competing cable system was unusable. TELSAT eventually canceled the project after a protracted lawsuit prosecuted by the incumbent cable company. The incumbent cable company claimed that they had a contractual exclusive right to use, utility easements in certain Planned Unit Developments. Starting from scratch installing any cables in a utility easement is not so simple. Did Telesat ever build out in Eustis? We had it in unincoroprated Orange County. In fact my parents had it when I was in high school (early 90s). We had the choice between CableVision of Central Florida (not the same CableVision in the Northeast) or Telesat (owned by FP&L).
Heck, in some parts of unincorporated Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties there was a choice of 3 cable companies: Cablevsion Industries (CVI), CV of Central FL and Telesat. Some areas of Altamonte Springs/Longwood had TCI.
Unfortunately Telesat was bought up by Adelphia and we know what happened to them. CVI was purchased by Time Warner (formerly Cablevision of Central FL) and TWC also bought up the TCI property in Seminole Co.
So, now there's only Bright House Networks (formerly TWC) and Comcast (former Telesat/Adelphia) in the Orlando area.
It was nice having a choice back then, late 80s/90s.
Found an old article about Telesat on Orlando Sentinel's website:
»articles.orlandosentinel.com/198···perators | |
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| | | jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL | You do realize Comcast didn't build a network, they bought it via acquisition. Whoever build the cable networks prior to that did it with a lot of tax subsidies from the local governments, you know the public's money
My brother in law lived in a condo building in which Comcast claimed exclusivity to the copper conduits that were built in 70s or 80s, according to the HOA president the city gave money and tax brakes to the company back then!
The investment has paid for itself many times over yet Comcast insisted no one else can have access but them!
So unless the company forked over all the cash, 100% and put their ass on the line building the network without any help from tax payers they shouldn't have to share, but it's not so | |
| | | | | | | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? said by jagged:You do realize Comcast didn't build a network, they bought it via acquisition. Whoever build the cable networks prior to that did it with a lot of tax subsidies from the local governments, you know the public's money My brother in law lived in a condo building in which Comcast claimed exclusivity to the copper conduits that were built in 70s or 80s, according to the HOA president the city gave money and tax brakes to the company back then! The investment has paid for itself many times over yet Comcast insisted no one else can have access but them! So unless the company forked over all the cash, 100% and put their ass on the line building the network without any help from tax payers they shouldn't have to share, but it's not so +1
If you are going to take tax breaks, you have to allow other carries. | |
| | | | | | | and how do you think cable got its start? they had to build some where. they just didn't pull the copper and HFC plants out of their asses. | |
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| | BSD24Tier 4Premium
join:2008-04-30
Middleboro, MA | said by tjb122982:said by Linklist:Talk about a failed business plan. Earthlink has access to Comcast & TWC customers, but how many actually use them instead of the companies providing the underlying infrastructure. Open Access never worked for a reason. And that is the finger pointing that went on between the company providing the biggest chunk of the infrastructure and the company that layered their hardware on top of that. And even if you didn't have the finger pointing issues when troubleshooting problems, the price offered by the 3rd party provider was never any cheaper. Why would any sane customers buy in to that grief for no monetary benefit. Earthlink can't provide a competitive service; so they go begging to the government to "bail them out". Of course, the gov't may do just that since it seems that that is now one of the government's main jobs - bailing out failing companies(GM anyone?). It's not about coddling Earthlink. It's about giving consumers a choice. I checked and Earthlink has just as good ratings as both Comcast and Time Warner; though "Road Runner" did win that head to head. One of the reasons that more people haven't chosen Earthlink is that they haven't heard of it. If the free market was left to decide everything, we would be getting our high speed internet from Bell Systems. I don't get your point. If the free market was left to decide everything - why would everyone have internet thru the bell systems? Twin pair wire is not efficient, Coax is much better carrier of signals. fiber optics are nice, but have a limited bandwidth, and a limited lifetime. Copper (coax) is better conductor of electricity and likewise for the future possibilities as its only limited to the technology used to communicate between points A and B.
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| | | |  webnetwizGNS3 and Olive babyPremium
join:2004-09-22
Valley Village, CA | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? What do you mean by fiber optics have limited bandwidth and a limited lifetime? All long-haul cables around the world and in the US are in fact fiber, since light travels waaaaay faster than electricity through a copper core and is not subject to interference . If you bury fiber in the ground in an armored cable, it'll live there for centuries. And the only bandwidth limitation you have is the silicon on the ends of the fiber that has to convert optical signals into electrical. the only issue fiber ever has is the light dispersion over distance, which can be mitigated by stronger, more focused laser. There are already 100Gig fiber standards that have been ratified, and to the best of my knowledge so far coax can deliver about 1Gig worth of bandwidth over a short distance. And all cable companies operate HFC plants, so the core transit is fiber. | |
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approval from:
Vchat20 
| Note that Earthlink has better pricing. I almost switched to earthlink from roadrunner, as TW increased their price...again. Once TW went to 49.95 (6Mbps), I dropped it to 1.5Mbps, then it went from 34.95 to 40.95 in two years). Note that TW 6Mbps is 51.95 around here...
Once I called TW and told them I was switching to Earthlink, they offered me a 29.95/mnth for a year (6Mbps) and would go to 44.95 afterwards. | |
| | |  Vchat20Landing is the REAL challengePremium
join:2003-09-16
Columbus, OH | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? Bingo! Earthlink service as it is provided now on existing wireline broadband providers is very often or always cheaper than the 'ISP' who owns the lines. EL's problem though is lack of advertisement that this is available to them plus the line owners, I bet, do whatever is possible to distract customers away from the option. I know TW buries the option pretty deep on their rate sheets online and really don't display it anywhere else. You really have to do some heavy digging and research to find out if you have it available. | |
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| | | Open access has worked pretty well in other countries.
Regulation "which allows leeching off of networks" such as carterphone worked very well in america.
Now I wouldn't try to claim that open access and decisions like carterphone are exactly analogous and there are plenty of people arguing that the market in america isn't the same as in places like europe. History never exactly repeats itself but the same problems and issues do crop up endlessly, in slightly different form.
If one looks, though, at the regulatory traditions in the US, the beneficial effects of those policies, and the experience of other countries, it doesn't look like the main problem in the US is that we are so profoundly different from every other society on the earth, but, rather, that there has been no political will to enforce open access in america in recent decades. The dominance of the ideology that property rights are absolute, that using property in any way one chooses without regard to surrounding impact is an absolute right and that any imposition of rules or boundaries upon the way a company uses property, regardless of its market power, constitutes an intolerable assault on america, is theft, is a communist plot, etc. is at the heart of why all such policies have failed.
American history does not, in any way, back up this ideology. America was not built on this ideology and has never lived according to this ideology. Still this simplistic rewriting of american history dominates what passes for though in this country today and makes sensible governance increasingly difficult.
It is america's pragmatism and flexibility, not rigid ideology, that is at the heart of our success. | |
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1 edit | Your statement of open access never working shows your lack of knowledge and/or your choice to ignore truth to push your agenda. Either way, you look like an idiot for simply saying it.
I don't think a single person here is asking that Comcast be forced to GIVE them access for free. There is nothing wrong with them being forced to provide access to the network for a fee that they will profit from. That isnt Comcast issue anyway. Their issue is the competition that it would bring. So even if the competing companies provided the exact same price, they could provide their own service levels, own services, and would attract their consumers that way. But in the end, it gives consumers choices which is always better then them not having a choice.
All of you "build your own" people need to realize 3 things.
1.) These networks were originally built with help through tax breaks, exclusiveness, and inflated pricing through such.
2.) The ability to enter into a competing business has great barriers of entry that have been shown on many occassions.
3.) I as a consumer and land owner do not want my neighborhood, street, or communities tore up every time a new provider gets past #2 above to actually provide service. There should be 1 line to my home and I should be able to pick any provider I want to give me any service I want over that line. | |
| | | | | Re: How many users use Earthlink instead of Comcast or TWC ? not be mean or anything; but your right as a land owner doesn't count when it comes to the Public Right Way; your local and state gov't decides that for you so you're pretty much get what they decide. 5 providers? all dig at differnet times? sure! the PROW will be dug up 5 different times.
I for one am suprised Earthlink didn't take a Wholesale deal with Clear though.
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| | | if you want to bring in GM we also bailed out several banks- KeyBank, NA? They got money too. and so did several others.
Also if we didn't bail out GM we would have NOT bailed them out the economy would be worse than what it is no and more people would be unemployed. After all have you seen where the Feds get their cars and SUVs from? It surely isn't Ford. They buy them from CHEVY! Which is GM!
And if the Reps didn't allow GM to do what they did with Mass Transit we'd have a great system now instead of a failed system.
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| |  yay
@sbcglobal.net | We saved something like $15/mo by choosing Earthlink Cable instead of Road Runner, because we did not subscribe to cable TV.
So every month we got a bill from Time Warner, with a single line item "EARTHLINK CABLE $42.99" | |
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| | cap I believe if earthlink gets access to comcast network, they might be caped at 6 megs | |
| | | Those cable providers just keep raising prices and they never end and grow faster than inflation.
Whose salary grows with the pace of all this? I doubt massively. | |
| | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Re: Those cable providers just keep raising prices You got that right and as someone who lives in area where Comcast is the only cable TV provider IMHO this merger sucks. Comcast rates only go in one direction, up, and when they have to pay for this unnecessary merger that will be way up! | |
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 jack bGone FishingPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-08
Cape Cod
kudos:1 | hmmm Has Lisa Hook been consulting for Earthlink in her spare time?
Everything she touches turns to... well, you know...oh, and it's not gold...
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