TDS Telecom Launches 50 Mbps Fiber

...the average customer needs a maximum of 512/128 for normal internet habits...

nuff said

I guess that all depends on what you consider "normal internet habits".

Where'd you get that quote? I'd go with 1.5/512 BTW, though if I was in Monticello you could bet $500 on me getting 50/20 service at that price.

I hope that's sarcasm. What is YOUR speed by the way? Better not be over 512 kbps. 512 kbps won't even allow you to watch Hulu. Even videos on ESPN.com and NFL.com stream at 800 kbps. gee at 512 kbps it will only take 9 hours to download that movie I bought at Amazon.com and it's not even HD.

If that's good enough for you, then good for you. But I'd be miserable on 512/128. Hell, I might as well go dial-up for that and stick my thumb in my mouth for that. It's 2009. We should be moving towards GIGABIT, not 100 MEGABIT in the country that freakin' invented the internet. We've been outpaced by every other country in the game we started.

It's obvious what happened here. Competition happened and forced TDS Telecom to offer higher speeds at lower prices to remain viable in the market place. That's how the market should work. If it was like that every where, then we might have some decent internet stateside available instead of the excuse for it we have now.

We're not outpaced by everyone. Just Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and a few countries in Europe. Everywhere else is just as slow, if not slower, than we are.

A bette rquestion might be to ask what the average speed of other people in doing the things they do on the internet. There are a lot of servers that are stateside, so a gigabit symmetric connectionw on't do you any good if your out-of-country speed limit is 20 Mbps.

That said, 50/20 for $50 is what the rpice and speed should be everywhere in the US where cable, DSL or fiber internet is available. Yes I know cable and DSL can't support 20 Mbps up, at least not in most cases. That's what upstream channel bonding and fiber are for.

Anyway, if the entire US had a 5/2 tier for $20, 10/5 for $30, 20/10 for $40 and 50/20 for $50...that would be awesome. Add in a 100 Mbps symmetric tier for $100 and a gigabit tier for $300 and you've got something truly awesome.

Did you check the TDS website?

The attached image is an excerpt from TDS Telecom Website for Monticello, MN.

As you can see, 50mbs is not the ONLY tier just because DSLR reported on it. Customers can choose a lighter, cheaper tier if so desired. I would have to say those are some of the best deals in the country though. Hell, the fastest tier I can get is 10/2 at ~$60/month... or the business class: same speed with static IP for ~$120/month.

Um, is this 1999?

No, it's actually 2009, though I wish it was 1986 and I was a Freshman in High School, I miss those days and times!

Looks like some TDS exec said "**** it, open up the pipes." Which is a very, VERY good thing for subscribers in the area. That pricing for 50/20 service is better than ANY fiber provider I know of when you throw in the free local calling service. The bundled service is...wiat for it...an even better deal, al things considered.

Seems like this isn't the first time TDS has poured the gas on in Monticello; they had previously offered 25 mbps down and 10 Mbps up as the top tier, which is still quite good when you take everything into account...

IS it a good thing for subscribers?

1) Muni fibre offers fast, cheap service
2) Compete by undercutting muni fibre, driving it out of business
3) Once muni fibre is no longer a thread, raise prices.

Any time you see that the new service/price is only available in a certain area, you've got to be suspicious that it's a temporary thing.

Absolutely. However at those prices you can get TDS and the muni fiber and bond 'em into a super-connection

1) Hopefully
2) Competition is good, some say it should be done in the public sector.
3) Same could be said for the city

Discuss at »monticellofiber.net

except when it's more the equivalent of driving a Ferrari on the typical 45mph (or slower) roads you typically find yourself on. 50mbps doesn't have a lot of usefulness, insatiable speed-wise, when the sites you visit limit bandwidth to only a fraction of that--either on purpose or due to congestion, unless you're doing a lot of concurrent browsing/downloading (which a family of 10 or 20 might actually be doing ).

Still, that's not a bad price for what you get (if you do actually get that).

The 50mbps might not serve to be very useful for a single user, but when you've got a household with multiple users [computers, xbox, etc] accessing larger sized content, I'd imagine the added throughput could serve to be useful.

And even if not the downstream, the 20mbps of upstream would be a very nice step up from the average upload speed of most connections. Uploading any large sized file from a 512kbps connection SUCKS.

Whether or not you happen to find faster "roads" to travel on, it's like getting a new Ferrari with the same gas mileage and price as a Nissan Sentra. There are plenty of Autobahns out there to take advantage of this performance. I had FiOS 50/20 and had absolutely no problems finding ways to max out my connection without using any P2P applications, with the exception of Opera Unite, when I distribute large files to friends and family.

It's really nice to be able to send a 600MB HD video from Virginia to Florida to someone, using just my own browser. If they have a fast enough connection, they are able to get nearly all of my current 25Mbps upload speeds.

My main "point" is not that such a connection could not be well-used by some (only a few get to hit the Autobahn all that often--none in the US), but that "the need for speed" is *not* "insatiable" (except for a few). On the other hand, the need for value (and economy) is in far more demand... and that demand is seldom being met. If you want 50/20, and you can get it, then more power to you; but way many more people would really like something (much) slower and (much) cheaper. The lower end of broadband is being washed away by rhetoric and marketing due to the "need" for revenue to finance all of those getting-cheaper-all-the-time network upgrades (or was that for some CEO's yacht upgrade?).

Fiber is expensive. Dialup is cheap. 768k DSL was $20 last I checked.

Fiber isn't expensive; build-outs are expensive. But customers buying something is better than no customers buying nothing. Frankly, it's kind of pitiful that 5/2 for $30 isn't available. I like my 30/5 FiOS, but I know plenty of people (tech people, like me) who neither need nor want to be on the bleeding edge of ISP hype or ISP revenue streams.

True. However fiber buildouts are expensive and thus your commercial entities building the stuff out tend to want quick ROI, hence FiOS's perennial price hikes (though the speed gets hiked as well).

A few years ago, Fiber buildouts were cost prohibitive.

Now fiber build-outs are cheap or cheaper than copper. The problem is, existing companies already have a significant investment in copper.

Discuss Further: »monticellofiber.net

The problem is a chicken-and-egg affair. There aren't any compelling applications that need high bandwidth because few HAVE high bandwidth. How about remote secuirty? Remote backup? Video over IP? There are scads of applications that just aren't possible without high sustained bandwidth.

Yea fiber! Yea Minnesota!

Heh, I thinkk TDS even beats Paxio on download Mbps per dollar on anything below the package you're on. Which is pretty impressive

I know that with a 20 Mbps connection a lot more of my stuff would be "in the cloud." That's 20 Mbps symmetric...I have 22 down right now. If I could get 50 Mbps symmetric I'd be in heaven. Alas, such a connectionw ould run me $2000 per month here.

According to the original poster, you are not "normal". *rollseyes*

He probably thinks you are a media pirating whore. *rollseyes again*

I know of many legitimate uses for such an connection and we are in the HD media age where content will be delivered more and more online. MLB, NBA, NHL, and the NFL are some pro sports leagues that stream games live (or achived) in HD for a fee. Let's not forget those video delivery services either: Netflix and Blockbuster.

Personally, I'm more interested in upload than download speeds. I game alot here at home on two XBOXes and my 1 MB connection is not even enough.

But then again, I'm not normal either for consuming the bandwidth that I do.

*end rant*

(1) Never assume
(2) Read more
(3) Wrong on all counts

1. Most sites are nothing but words, graphics, and such. Most sites have reasons for not needing speed.
2. Unless your mind is stuck in 1999, you will find PLENTY of ways to use 50 mbit (and more). HD videos, gaming, downloads, voip, lan parties, uploading, streaming (of practically anything), etc.

And this is all for one person. While your stuck in the middle ages, visiting text based web sites from 1992 and using rotary phones, others can talk, visit websites, and have new games and movies downloaded faster then you can get on the horse.

(Last paragraph is not being serious in case you say anything)

Well, yeah, please feel free to buy everything from your ISP that your ISP says you need (aka the 1972 telco mindset). I stream plenty of SD video, which peaks at about 2mbps or so; HD video at maybe a little more than twice that. So, a typical 2-person household would "need" all of 10mbps (max) most of the time to do all of the typical things that make an Internet connection useful and entertaining. Sorry, but the huge majority of customers aren't gaming or taking part in LAN parties; most don't upload much at all. As I said before, everyone has the right to want whatever speed they want, to do whatever they want with it; but the number of customers who can, or want to, find all of the uses to maximize a 50mbps (or better) connection are very much in the minority; and their "insatiable" needs... aren't. Most people don't "live" on the Internet... they just use it; and the less they can spend to do the things they really "need" to do, the happier they are. But for those who want to drink the ISP kool-aid, enjoy that UBB, too, when it comes rollin' in.

You mean drink the kool-aid that most other countries want, at cheaper rates, that is setting us behind on innovations?

Or maybe the one drinking the 'ISP kool-aid' is the one who is claiming that most people wouldn't need fast speeds (You)? Perhaps thats one of the reasons ISPs don't move people to fiber and lower prices like large parts of the rest of the world?

And just because most don't, doesn't mean most wouldn't. Talk to me when we have 20+ mbit connections in most areas, and at the rates other countries have them. Since most people don't even have access to 20 mbit in the states, your assumptions about how people would use 50 mbit are way off the say the least. Just because people can only visit normal websites in the US means nothing when people in other countries can easily find ways to use the bandwidth, except to say that the us has terrible broadband.

And since we are on the subject of needs, when I was kid I surfed BBS's on a 9600 baud modem, which was fine for the time. I checked email, played games, even early MMO types (LORD).

So was that all anybody needs as well since we've decided to be so thick-headed and obtuse?

Your argument doesn't even BEGIN to give answers to what people need when large portions of the country can't even get 5 mbit, or future needs, etc. You may as well be telling us that all we need is 640k of ram.

Here's a clue: Stop talking about websites. Again, the ones based around text and graphics can easily be ran on 256 kbit dsl.

Sites requiring large download capabilities are growing fast and will be upgrading as time moves. Again, your outdated argument is based on ignorant assumptions of what people need and is based at around 2006.

You are using a limitation of speed to say that people who have slow speeds at high prices wouldn't find ways to use high speeds ALL BECAUSE RIGHT NOW THEY CAN'T USE THOSE OTHER METHODS, while clearly ignoring what countries like Japan does.

All you're saying is that things change over time. Duh. All I've been saying is that there are always going to be those that want the fastest connections possible--some who'll be able to max it out and some who just want it (which is fine)--as well as those who just want a connection and don't really care about how fast it is as long as they can do what they need/want to do. No matter how fast the fastest connections available are, there are always going to be more people who want better value instead of faster speeds, and ISPs are always going to be pushing to get people to spend more on their products (because that's what "business" is all about). Yeah, a lot of people can't get any broadband at all--thanks to ISPs that don't care because the ROI isn't enticing enough. You need to stop assuming things for and about others based on your (limited) personal experience and/or learn that there are many more people out there who *aren't* you and don't want what you want. ISPs *never* have your best interests at heart, only their coffers, and the only thing "insatiable" in this discussion is their desire to stick their hands in your wallet. You need to take you head out of the sand. (BTW, for future reference, your arguments will work better when they don't consist of putting words in other people's mouths. In other words, I really feel no need to defend a position I never took.)

You originally stated that 50/20 was not useful because of congestion and bandwidth limiting. Having had such a connection, I merely pointed out that this was not the case, and even provided an example off the top of my head.

I think that was the meat of the follow ups, but things got a bit clouded and off the beaten path.

The fact that the US ISPs seem to be competing in services, rather than prices, is something I completely agree with you on. There really aren't too many options for affordable plans that are "good enough" for 95% of the people. It's overpriced and overkill, or back to dialup, it seems.

That's not actually what I said. I said it doesn't have a lot of usefulness (as in, not as useful as you'd think by just looking at the number: 50mbps) when (as in, if) there's congestion and bandwidth limiting--which can be rather frequently... or not, depending on where you're going (as in, the sites you visit). Your statement implies that I think that's always the case, when I was only being "conditional". As far as the "family of 10 or 20" goes, I was being more facetious than not: . And compared to my 30/5 for $55, their price for this offering is pretty good (presuming they deliver speeds approaching what they're selling). My only real contention with them is their statement about the "need for speed" being "insatiable"... that's just marketing hype... get people "hooked"... then jump on the UBB bandwagon which more and more ISPs are clamoring for (which is, yes, a presumption... but a rational and reasonable one given the statements made over the past year or so by all of those "poor" little CEOs in "need" of more money).

how about providing 3 Mbps DSL to ALL your areas FIRST. My friend that lives on the western edge of our country is supplied by TDS for some reason. No DSL. A mile away in the next county they have DSL. So screw TDS and their 50 Mbps.

I could say the same of all incumbent telecoms. I can't even get Verizon FiOS, let alone DSL.

Verizon in my town of 10,000's county fair parade had a truck pained with "High Speed Online coming soon." Yeah that's right, they don't have DSL AT ALL in my area. DSL service is provided by a company that is now part of Windstream. The service is solid but not widely available (due to a crappy telephone network) and maxes out at 1.5/512 for $50 (minus overhead makes things closer to 1.25/400). We'll get sold to someone else before we get FiOS. I guarantee it.

Fortunately, despite the lack of competition, TWC has a 2 Mbps up tier for $50 (residential customers only...business has to pay $300 or so for the privelege). 15 Mbps down + PowerBoost. But in today's high-bandwidth economy it'd sure be nice to get another megabit or three on the upload side.

This might be one of the few instances when I feel a telecom did the wrong thing by offering FTTH. If TDS actually cared about being providing faster and better service to their customers they would be wiring cities that don't have a FTTH alternative.

After fighting, delaying and losing FTTH all in an attempt to maintain their monopoly, TDS has developed a new strategy. Undercut muni FTTH till it fails. They can subsidize FTTH in monticello with money from the rest of their network. As soon as muni fiber fails they can shut down or raise price of their own fiber network.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Monticello MN population 10,000 (very rural) is such as lucrative market that TDS is a visionary by offering FTTH. That must be why verizon wires only rural cities and sells off urban and suburban ones.

If I were a resident of Monticello I would stick with muni fiber. If they don't the real joke will be on them once the project fails and they are stuck with the bonds from the failed fiber project and increased rates from TDS. The only way this project cost tax payers money is if it fails.

All true.

However what speeds/prices does Monticello's own fiber project offer?

That's the thing when you're competing against a telco; if they're laying fiber and you want to lay fiber to compete, you're playing with fire as far as speed competition goes. Cable can mostly only compete on price when things come down to the wire, assuming you're in an area wired with fiber. Case in point: Cox in Lafayette tops out at 50/5 internet. The only way they're competing is by upgrading areas to D3 that aren't wired for LUSFiber yet.

Great points. Fair competition benefits the consumer.

FYI: I don't think the city is providing promised services yet.

Discuss Further: »monticellofiber.net

TDS may offer 50/20 but I bet they don't have peering arrangements that support multiple users at that data rate.

I don't even think Akamai would allow a single IP to pull on their farm at that rate.

It's a step in the right direction, but it may have some marketing hype than any practical value in the short term.

TDS has plenty of peering:

»www.robtex.com/as/as4181.html

I know, I checked earlier today when I saw the post come online.

And I had no problem maxing out my 50 Mbps Comcast connection when I had it. Just depends on where you download from; there are plenty of servers on 100 Mbit ports now and a few on gigabit.

From the State that brought you Jesse Ventura, Independent gov., then railroaded him out of office (good job scumbag democrats and republicans). One of the few states where citizens can actually get pissed off at something enough to be activist about it... telcos didn't stand a chance. See what happens when Verizon and AT&T have no say in what gets built. Telco & Cableco charge 2-3x as much for anything near 50/20 megabit, if they offer it at all. I think 2010 is time for that to begin happening in the northeast.. Maybe in MA and work it's way down to NY.