republican-creole
Search:  

 
 
   News
newer
story category SureWest: 20Mbps Symmetrical Fiber
CA provider unveils new speed, prices
(old news - 04:30PM Thursday Jun 02 2005)
tags: Fiber · bandwidth
Before there was Fios, there was California provider Surewest, who announced yesterday they were now offering users 20Mbps symmetrical fiber connections for $90, provided you bundle their TV and phone service. A symmetrical 10Mbps connection with the same caveat can be had for $50 a month, provided you live in their Sacramento market.

Related:
  1. Utopia Hits 100Mbps
  2. Verizon Continues Proud History Of Denial
  3. Verizon Cooking Up Slightly Faster FiOS Speeds?
  4. Verizon Announces New FiOS Tiers, Promotions
  5. New FiOS Apartment Hardware Simply Adorable
  6. What Network Neutrality Is REALLY About
  7. TDS Telecom Launches 50 Mbps Fiber
  8. Why Run Fiber When You Can Run Ads That Pretend You Do?
Forums » SureWest: 20Mbps Symmetrical Fiber
view: topics flat text 
Post a:

CPM

join:2001-08-24
Miami, FL

Needs

I guess it depends on your needs.
Califax

join:2005-01-27
3004

Re: Needs

My grandparents live there.... hrmmm!
desreversti

join:2002-09-03
San Antonio, TX

Re: Needs

Hmmm, one of my grandmothers lives there as well as some
other relatives... Go sacramento I suppose.
robertg1234

join:2004-04-19
Palo Alto, CA
I Feel The Need,
The Need For -- STREAMING HD VIDEO!

»ranma.com/hk/HK-Food-1440.wmv

wifi4milez
Big Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace

join:2004-08-07
New York, NY
·Verizon FIOS
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·RoadRunner Cable
·BroadVoice

I would pay that in a minute. Right now my bill from Time Warner is $130 per month, and that only includes basic cable plus HBO and my 4m/384k internet connection. If I could switch to Optimum Online I would simply because they are much cheaper than TWC.
--
Now THATS superfluous!!

kamm

join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY
·T-Mobile US

Re: Needs

said by wifi4milez See Profile:

I would pay that in a minute. Right now my bill from Time Warner is $130 per month, and that only includes basic cable plus HBO and my 4m/384k internet connection. If I could switch to Optimum Online I would simply because they are much cheaper than TWC.
TWCNYC is the most overpriced and crappiest service I have ever seen, I agree. TV picture quality is shitty, channel packaging is really confusing and shady, cable upspeed is pathetic (usually less than 512), customer service simply lied about a promotion.
I'm a former Voom sub - after I tried TWCNYC, I disconnected and went for Dish. Dish is also arrogant to some extent but at least cheaper and has better PQ and channel lineup. Unlike TWCNYC they don't offer free (rented) HDDVR but TWCNYC's HD lineup is really pathetic inferior quality compared to Dish anyway.

jarablue
Always be true to yourself

join:2001-06-11
Worcester, MA

Symmetrical

Does that mean 20meg up as well? Wow.

imtim83
You All Deserve The Economic Meltdown
Premium
join:2001-06-03
Kenner, LA

Re: Symmetrical

said by jarablue See Profile:

Does that mean 20meg up as well? Wow.
Yes.
--
Thank God i am not getting married, having kids, going on a date, etc! Oh Thank God!
jstack

join:2001-12-09
South San Francisco, CA

Re: Symmetrical

My uncle has the 10mbit tier. What they don't tell you is that there is a 30gb cap.

Anti_Cyrix
Premium
join:2003-03-06
Sacramento, CA

Re: Symmetrical

said by jstack See Profile:

My uncle has the 10mbit tier. What they don't tell you is that there is a 30gb cap.
I currently have their 10 mbit tier. The cap is 40 gigs, and if they didn't up the cap (or remove it) there is no point in upgrading to 20 mbit.
Does anyone know anything about current caps? Or do I have to call them?

Anti_Cyrix
Premium
join:2003-03-06
Sacramento, CA

Re: Symmetrical

Ok, I just called tech support.
The 20mbit tier has a 40 gig cap also. The cap is unidirectional, calculated by upload OR download, not both. "Power users" have a 75 gig cap. As I understood, power user 20mbit tier is $100 a month.
Also for regular users, if you go over the 40 gigs the first time, you get a warning. Second time you are charged $2 for every gig after the 40Gig mark.

EdibleTarget
Real Gamers Dont Use Consoles

join:2004-12-02
Lowell, MA
hmm, id rather have capped speeds than that...
joshj

join:2001-10-30
Antelope, CA

There are two Surewests

There are two kinds of Surewest: Good Surewest and Old Surewest.

Good Surewest is the areas of Sacramento and Elk Grove that have this fiber system. Insanely fast Internet and pretty good cable TV also.

Old Surewest is the parts of Roseville, Citrus Heights, etc. that have had Surewest/Roseville Telephone as their phone company for decades. We don't get any of that stuff. What we get is overpriced telephone service and expensive DSL service. We'll never get any of the Good Surewest stuff because, after all, why would they? We're already a captive customer base for them. Not too much competition.

Now, I do have to give Old Surewest some credit for recently upgrading their DSL speeds from 1000/128 to 3000/768 for the same price. It finally makes their DSL service a "decent" value, but when they're charging $49.95 a month for DSL and neighboring SBC (which we can't get) is charging only $14.95, it's more than a little irritating.

Oh well...

xyrx

join:2001-08-07
Sacramento, CA


1 edit

Re: There are two Surewests

The "Good" surewest you speak of is actually WinFirst, which SureWest bought out a few years back. The "Old" SureWest is probably the same SureWest just prior to the Winfirst buyout, which means no fiber, plain DSL and phone services, etc etc blah blah blah.

Rob916

@comcast.net

Re: There are two Surewests

Yes but the "good" Surewest has changed ALOT of things from what Winfirst did, they changed the infrastructure dramatically, the TV was originally over coax and not fiber but is now on fiber, they have changed hardware around and basically the whole network. I wish they still had the coverage map on the website, the coverage area is huge right now, even offering service in areas people don't know about.
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20

A better way of looking at it is..

Roseville Telephone / WinFirst.

Surewest, a.k.a. Roseville Telco simply bought bankrupt WinFirst and took over the build.

But people, before you all get happy about the 20/20, one thing the paragraph above forgot the mention was, oh my, those damn CAPS! SOLID AND SET CAPS! Andy why caps? Because Fiber deployment compares with cable in the sense that it's share bandwidth. Granted, much faster.

I rbing this up as a good point because people bash cable tv on the fact that it's a shared environment.. also I have heard over and over the arguments about when Comcast and others speed up it means just getting to the caps faster... well? Here you go!

AlphaOne
I see
Premium
join:2004-02-21

Awesome .. if it's available

We can't get it though. Our neighborhood is fairly new, about 6 years but can't get it as Surewest is not available.

Unfortunately, only the new developments are lucky enough to have fiber installed.
--
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known - Carl Sagan
Poomfasa

join:2003-04-13
Rocklin, CA


1 edit

Re: Awesome .. if it's available

Like every other company that's in the communications business, they're going to serve the wealthy people before the middle/lower class. It sucks, but that's how it goes. Surewest has a little bit of fiber in Roseville just to the west of the Galleria Mall. I lived in Rocklin (not far away) for a year in one of then apartment complexes that was supposed to get fiber a bit off Blue Oaks Blvd, but it never came while we were there. Still isn't there even now (a year later after moving away). We had Starstream there because Surewest DSL was a pathetic 1500/128 for the same price.

The mrs works in management at Surewest so you'd think she'd have a good idea, but it's almost as if the company itself doesn't know what it wants to do. Part of the problem boils down to Surewest hasn't been so profitable as in the past and they haven't been spending as much $$$ to increase the reach of their fiber network. So they're being picky about who's getting the upgrades. Simple as that.

As a side note, Surewest has the capacity to do 100/100 both ways. Right now. Guess why they aren't doing it? Because really nobody else in North America is already doing it. They'll keep adding faster speeds just to stay slightly ahead of their competitors (mainly SBC, Comcast, and Starstream in the Sacramento market).
jdir

join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA
Hey, what do you expect. Sacramento area is not what you call the high tech center.
rprather12

join:2005-03-12
Modesto, CA

Re: Awesome .. if it's available

I guess you don't know much about the Sacramento area.

schnuggles
Stays Crunchy In Milk

join:2003-06-07
Deming, NM
An incredibly moronic statement - perhaps you should do some basic research prior to climbing out from under your rock.
--
Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex-Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
the niTz
Premium
join:2004-07-05
Sahuarita, AZ

mmmmm

i just got a upgrade from cox but i want that

TheSaint

join:2002-01-25
Hanover Park, IL
clubs:
·Charter Pipeline
·Comcast

Caps?

30gb cap isn't that much for someone who does a lot web browsing, gaming and some downloading/voip. The price is very good considering the speeds, but the caps would be enough to drive a lot of power users away.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --- Edmund Burke
Kill your TV, then Internet Explorer: »www.mozilla.org
Newegg
Supreme Ideology

join:2004-11-14
Atlanta, GA

2 edits

Re: Caps?

They do have caps. I know for the 10Mbps tier it's less than 100GB and that's bullshit.

»testmy.net/forum/index.php?topic=4949.0

TheSaint

join:2002-01-25
Hanover Park, IL
clubs:
·Charter Pipeline
·Comcast

So you can have a sports car that can drive 200mph, but can only be used for short trips to the store? (Whoops, we're out of fuel on our network, please wait until next month for your ration).

Crazy.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --- Edmund Burke
Kill your TV, then Internet Explorer: »www.mozilla.org

JoeyDee
Premium
join:2004-07-23
Las Vegas, NV
·Cox HSI
·Comcast

Re: Caps?

said by TheSaint See Profile:

So you can have a sports car that can drive 200mph, but can only be used for short trips to the store? (Whoops, we're out of fuel on our network, please wait until next month for your ration).

Crazy.
So, the last song I downloaded from MSN Music was "Remember When" -- 5 meg.

That means they snivel when I download around 8000 of those. I got that right?

I can live with that sort of limitation....

Joe
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20

said by TheSaint See Profile:

30gb cap isn't that much for someone who does a lot web browsing, gaming and some downloading/voip.
Well well well.. now doesn't fiber start to rear it's ugly little head! And actually 40gb is fine for the use that you stated.. (also, it's 40, not 30). AND, they are straight forward about your throughput on the advertisement screen of the site.

Fiber has caps, yup! just like cable... Wanna know why? Becuase fiber, like cable, is a shared pipeline in the neighborhood. If they didn't place caps, then there would be hogs on the pipes as there can and are with cable.

But I find if funny your lists of activities.. a lot of web browsing (doesn't take much and is considered "average use"), gaming (again, doesn't take alot of bandwidth) and SOME downloading (which CAN take alot of BW) oh and VoIP, (again, uses 90kbps or about of bandwidth..

Busy servers, for one, hog bandwidth - but nothing you mentioned is considered a high use anyway.

For the record, Surewest doens't throttle down users anyway, they simply charge for extra use - and to this day, those caps are VERY LOOSLY enforced at best and rarely ever charged. But the point is that they do exist in case the really need them.

The price is very good considering the speeds, but the caps would be enough to drive a lot of power users away.
Now ask yourself, do you think they really care? This isn't going to bother them... Think they really REALLY want the power user anyway? No, they want average users willing to pay the retail price. Power users means more expense for them anyway.

jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx

Re: Caps?

i read your post thinking you'd tell us what the per GB overage charges are. do you know?
Bryan001
Premium
join:2002-08-17
Saint Louis, MO

Re: Caps?

$2 is what I hear
--
imtim83 for MVM
B777300

join:2002-01-02


1 edit
said by TheSaint See Profile:

Fiber has caps, yup! just like cable... Wanna know why? Becuase fiber, like cable, is a shared pipeline in the neighborhood. If they didn't place caps, then there would be hogs on the pipes as there can and are with cable.
Pretty much BS.. cable internet is limited bandwidth due its medium (coax). Fiber on the otherside can have so much bandwidth.. You can do 10Gbps ethernet on a single fiber pair for cheap really.. The real reason is cause surewest doesn't really have competitors in the area and they are greedy.. look at their DSL service.. 3000/768 for $49 compared to SBC's $14.95!
--
Can you say fiber optics?
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20

Re: Caps?

Pretty much BS? No, not pretty much BS.

The real reason Surewest doesn't open the pipes is not lack of competition. That's absurd. Please don't tell me you are one of those people that think that what makes fiber so great is the fact it's fiber.. It takes more than just fiber to run a network. There is the head end and processing equipment, the staff that runs and maintains it... and once it gets to Surewest head end, then what? Think it's still free and wide open? Give me a break. Surewest isn't a backbone provider so they have to purchase badnwidth to sell to their customers.

Please, when you post such nonsence and half baked reply to a valid post, at least make sure you keep in mind the WHOLE infrustructure and not just the part you care about.

COST is what drives policy too you know.

Surewest and other fiber providers have bills to pay too and some of those billes are based on their useage. You are just a user on their network.. the overall use by the customers is one part of what dictates the cost to deliver the service and what restrictions is places upon the customers.

You also shouldn't compare an industry giants DSL prices to that of a small local ILEC because Surewest can't afford to take the hit that SBC can. That's a no brainer. But with your own example, Surewest DSL is $49 compared to Comcast's 4000/386 for $42 so what's your point?

JoeyDee
Premium
join:2004-07-23
Las Vegas, NV
14.95 doesn't get you 3000/768... unfortunately :-(

NXds

@rr.com

LoL

Caps are gay. I want my fios please finish up Huntington Beach up a bit faster Verizon.
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20

Re: LoL

said by NXds:

Caps are gay.
Really? Caps are attracted to caps of the same sex? I don't get it.
nasadude

join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD

it can be done...

...the big boys just don't want to do it.

10M/10M for $50/mo is almost enough to make me move out there.
Roop

join:2003-11-15
Ottawa, ON
·Cybersurf Corporat..

Re: it can be done...

said by nasadude See Profile:

...the big boys just don't want to do it.

10M/10M for $50/mo is almost enough to make me move out there.
10M/10M with a 40GB cap is not worth anything. what good is that bandwidth if you could use it in 9 hours? they can give you a gigabit for all i care, all it allows you to do is hit the cap faster. now if they either had no cap or a realistic cap i might be intrested.

my cable isp offers 60gb on their 3mbit/384kbit package which i think is reasonable. they also offer 60gb on the 5mbit package which is weak, but the absolute worse is the morons have it on their 256kbit package too.

if you want to visit morons r us, i.e. rogers, check out www.rogers.com.

bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Loveland, CO
clubs:
·Comcast Formerly ..

Re: it can be done...

said by Anti-Cyrix:

Also for regular users, if you go over the 40 gigs the first time, you get a warning. Second time you are charged $2 for every gig after the 40Gig mark.
Sounds prety reasonable to me. Atleast they don't throttle or kill you alltogether if you go over, they just charge you alittle more.
--
Pura Vida!
jdir

join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA

I lived down the road from Surewest

And couldnt even get their DSL or Symmetrical Fiber. Worse yet, they limit how much you can download a month with their fiber.

SureWest Fiber is all hype.

Assault

join:2001-12-14
Garland, TX

40GB cap

I'd rather have AOL broadband.

pokesph
It Is Almost Fast
Premium
join:2001-06-25
Sacramento, CA
clubs:
·Comcast

Only fast if u can get it...

I live in one of the areas that it's offered in yet I can't get it..
I can SEE the fiber line on the pole right outside my window, yet they REFUSE to set up service.. (says it's not available here.. yeah right.. I WATCHED them install the fiber trunk lines..)

too bad too.. 20Mbps symmetrical @ $90.00/mo is screamin..
--
Webmaster Steve
- - - - - - - - - - - -
»ppnhosting.com
»sphenterprizes.com
»pokemonpalace.net

See 10 replies to this post

prestonlewis
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-13
Sacramento, CA
·VoiceStick
·Comcast
·Pacific Bell - SBC
·DSL EXTREME
·Vonage
·VoicePulse

Surewest/Winfirst Fiber

No Surewest Fiber in my nieghborhood (Foothill Farms). The best I can do is infostations.com (a wireless ISP) in Roseville. I have the 3,000/3,000 package for $69/month (no contract) and I'm really happy with it. The upload is really nice. Sure, I'd like Surewest if they ever come to my neighborhood but I don't see that happening anytime soon

On a side note, the WinFirst purchase by Surewest has been a financial drain for them. Laying fiber is not cheap and they are paying a heavy finacial price for doing it. I respect them for trying to bring the best internet to the people they are able to. Many companies wouldn't take the financial hit they are taking for this venture.

ReVeLaTeD
Premium
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA

If Cox ever offers something like this...

I'd be set. I already have their TV, internet, and phone. To think I could take advantage of symmetrical speeds...oh, the glory. And my VPN *might* just function a lot better too.
Forums » SureWest: 20Mbps Symmetrical Fiber


Tuesday, 10-Nov 07:26:18 Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Hosting by www.nac.net - DSL,Hosting & Co-lo | feedback | contact
over 10 years online! © 1999-2009 dslreports.com.republican-creole