Time Warner Cable: You Don't Want 1 Gbps Broadband You Want What We Give You at the Price We Give It Last December Time Warner Cable Rob Marcus insisted that there was no demand for 1 Gbps service, though if there was the company would surely provide it. His evidence? Not many users are signing up for the company's fastest tiers, intentionally ignoring that it's likely the very steep price tag that keeps those users away. The comments generally weren't received well by users, and now the company's back for round two. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference this week, Time Warner Cable's Chief Financial Officer Irene Esteves was the latest company executive to inform consumers what they do or don't actually want. When asked about Google Fiber offering symmetrical 1 Gbps connections for $70 a month, Esteves repeated the company's line that consumers really just don't want those kinds of speeds: "We're in the business of delivering what consumers want, and to stay a little ahead of what we think they will want. We just don't see the need of delivering that to consumers. We're already delivering 1 gigabit, 10 gigabit-per-second to our business customers, so we certainly have the capability of doing it."..."A very small fraction of our customer base" ultimately choose those options, she said. "If Google finds the magic pill and finds applications that require that and develops a need for it, well terrific" she said. "We would build our product base in order to deliver that." Time Warner Cable wants the conversation to be about whether you need a 1 Gbps line, not about why Time Warner Cable doesn't offer the more reasonable rates many users want. Update: Judging from comments below, the distraction is working pretty well on some people. Time Warner Cable has been significantly slower than Comcast to deploy faster DOCSIS 3.0 technology because they see limited competition in most markets. That lack of competition has also resulted in higher prices, and those higher prices are why the company doesn't see users rushing toward those faster offerings. Like many phone and cable companies Time Warner Cable's upstream speeds in particular leave much to be desired, and aren't meeting consumer demand. The argument over whether or not you need 1 Gbps is irrelevant. Offering symmetrical gigabit speeds at $70 a month shows vision for the applications and content to come. Using regulatory capture and a lack of competition to drive up rates while failing to keep your network upgraded (or in some occasions and locations even adequately maintained) is the American status quo. Time Warner Cable, like most larger ISPs, would like you to applaud the latter.
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  mobOn the next level..Premium
join:2000-10-07 | Dearest Time Warner I again ask you to offer the same deal as Google Fiber. See how fast your take up rate is, then get back to us. | |
|  | Reviews:
 ·Frontier Communi..
| Dearest Mob Most consumers will not pay $70/mo for broadband service, regardless of how fast or slow it is. $70/mo in my neck of the woods buys you a 30mbit/s connection, which is not bad at all IMHO, yet the overwhelming majority of people still opt for the 5mbit/s tier. Hell, the 10mbit/s tier is only $5/mo more than the 5mbit/s tier, yet it sees significantly reduced uptake. Uptake of the 30mbit/s and 50mbit/s tiers is exceedingly uncommon, and the handful of people I know who have them got them through special promotions or bundles. Nobody called up and bought it out of the blue at full sticker price.
Make a case for why $70/mo provides enough value to John Q. Public to justify an extra $30/mo over a standard connection. That's $360/yr, which is real money to most people. Hell, I'm a geek with 13 years in Information Technology, and I'm too budget conscious to pay for such speeds. | |
| | |  banditws6Shrinking Time and DistancePremium
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Dearest Mob I'm with you on this one. Out here, $70 only gets me 20/2 with TWC. Since we now get 15/1 for $50, the $70 tier is really a lousy deal. And it's all uphill from there...
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"The counsel of fools is all the more dangerous the more of them there are." -Ólafr Höskuldsson | |
| | | | Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| Re: Dearest Mob There will be a market for faster upload speeds as "the cloud" takes off, but barring the next killer app I think we're fast approaching the "Who cares?" point with download speeds. In your instance I would think about paying the $20 for the extra upload, though I'd probably conclude that $20 for 1mbit/s isn't worth it.
I have a 8/2 business class connection for $60/mo with a static IP, could get higher (download) speeds with a residential grade connection, but no static IP, and the business accounts are prioritized over residential ones. I've yet to see less than my promised speed during peak hours or at any other time, something many residential customers can't claim.
Business account pricing seems more realistic IMHO, at least if you desire a decent enough contention ratio to achieve your promised speed without worrying about peak hour slowdowns. I'd rather have 100% of a slower connection 24/7 than some fraction of my faster connection from 8pm to 1am.... | |
| | | | | banditws6Shrinking Time and DistancePremium
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Dearest Mob said by Crookshanks:There will be a market for faster upload speeds as "the cloud" takes off, but barring the next killer app I think we're fast approaching the "Who cares?" point with download speeds. In your instance I would think about paying the $20 for the extra upload, though I'd probably conclude that $20 for 1mbit/s isn't worth it. I agree that the increasing push toward cloud services will be useless without a commensurate bump in upload speeds. I did indeed conclude that $20 more for an extra megabit of upstream was not worth it, as much as it hurts. My use of "cloud services" is still fairly low (almost necessarily, at speeds like this) but I have been using them more in the last year or two. If I could jump from 1 Mb to 5 Mb for $20 I'd probably do it, but I'd need to pay at least $30 or $40 more per month to achieve that.
I've seen Comcast becoming a lot more competitive in that particular arena and wish I still lived in a Comcast area, as much as I can't believe I'm saying that. The most data I ever used in a single month was only half of their 250 GB soft cap.
said by Crookshanks:I'd rather have 100% of a slower connection 24/7 than some fraction of my faster connection from 8pm to 1am....
Same here. Even though I am not on a tier that requires channel bonding, I got a DOCSIS 3 modem recently to bond enough channels to get around the peak time congestion issues (during which I would see 3-4 Mb/sec tops). Since we have so many downstream channels here in DFW I have never seen my line running at less than 100% since. Giving up Powerboost for this was unquestionably worth it.
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"The counsel of fools is all the more dangerous the more of them there are." -Ólafr Höskuldsson | |
| | | | | | Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| Re: Dearest Mob I pushed my cable provider to give a DOCSIS 3.0 modem for the same reason as you, thankfully they went along with it. They bond three downstream channels around these parts, and don't bond upstream channels at all. Somewhat surprised I haven't had issues with my 2mbit/s upstream, they are running with channel widths/modulations that only provide for a 10.24mbit/s of total upstream, so I can use nearly 20% of that if I peg my connection. Amazingly enough I haven't seen any slowdowns with my upstream, so I'm either on a node with people who don't use it, or my provider knows how to properly manage contention ratios.
My worst experience with oversubscribed DOCSIS was with Time Warner in Binghamton. One of my apartments was lucky to get >1.5mbit/s during peak hours, it was bad enough that you couldn't even maintain a low quality Netflix stream. They were ostensibly selling 10mbit/s connections, 15mbit/s for "turbo", but you could only achieve those speeds at 4am. 3.0/768 Verizon DSL was better than Time Warner's 10/1 or 15/1 products, since you at least got the promised speed with DSL. | |
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| | | | | said by banditws6:I'm with you on this one. Out here, $70 only gets me 20/2 with TWC. Since we now get 15/1 for $50, the $70 tier is really a lousy deal. And it's all uphill from there...
Now which one will you get if Google Fiber is available in your area? $70 for 1Gbps from Google or $70 for 20/2 from TWC? $50 for 15/1 from TWC or FREE (kind of) for 5/1 from Google? Free Internet is more like you pay $300 once for install fee or $25/month for 12 months with a price guaranteed for 7 years.
For people complaining about not really needing that much speed, what's your argument about Google's "free" service? Will TWC and the big ISPs offer you that?
»fiber.google.com/about/ | |
| | | | | mobOn the next level..Premium
join:2000-10-07 | Re: Dearest Mob No, the other ISPs in the area DO NOT match Google Fiber in any way. | |
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| | | | | |  EricthornIt only hurts when I laughPremium
join:2001-08-10
Paragould, AR | Re: Dearest Mob said by Crusty:And yet you forgot all the folks who are forced to pay $60+ for 10mbps connections. I am one of the tens of thousands, if not more, that would gladly pay $10 more a month to get a 1gbps symmetrical connection.
Haven't seen a speed increase in 5+ yrs but have seen a constant $$$ increase and yet, I must pay to stay connected. I"m so desperate to have a "fast" internet connection that i'd pay $100 a month for it. DSL isn't "fast".
I'm all in with Crusty on this. I pay 62.95/mo for a 4/1 connection, and that's on muni owned cable. Anyone bitching about paying 70$ a month for anything faster can bite me. If a 1gbps connection was offered here, I'd gladly pay 100/mo for it, probably more. It just means I skip going out to dinner one night a month.
I'm probably in the minority on this as far as what I'd pay. After 25yrs of living in LA and only ever having DSL, then the last 10yrs here in Arkansas and having only recently been bumped to a 4/1 (used to be 2/512), I've never had even a 10mbps.
If Time Warner offered the connection at 70/mo, plenty of people would scoop it up.
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Ever try stuffing a melted marshmallow up a wildcat's ass? It can be done, but you have to like your job. - This Is The Way The World Ends by James Morrow - Join a DC club, it can't hurt you! | |
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| | | | Could not disagree more. I live in Manhattan where I pay $100/month for 50mb down and 5 up, not because it is easy to rationalize or even afford such a cost, but because I need to utilize the high speeds on a daily basis. There IS a demand for this type of high speed internet in large urban areas and elsewhere; the problem is that the current pricing is unreasonable and prohibitive to a lot of people, and to top it off, TWC is the only high speed provider in my area so there is no competition and thus no reason to stop price gouging the consumer. I don't at all believe that there's no consumer demand; I believe that people can't afford the higher tiers and therefore don't consider them a viable option at this time. The only way I see this changing is by way of competitive pricing, and there first needs to be competition. | |
| | | mobOn the next level..Premium
join:2000-10-07 Reviews:
·SureWest Internet
| said by Crookshanks:Most consumers will not pay $70/mo for broadband service, regardless of how fast or slow it is. $70/mo in my neck of the woods buys you a 30mbit/s connection, which is not bad at all IMHO, yet the overwhelming majority of people still opt for the 5mbit/s tier. Hell, the 10mbit/s tier is only $5/mo more than the 5mbit/s tier, yet it sees significantly reduced uptake. Uptake of the 30mbit/s and 50mbit/s tiers is exceedingly uncommon, and the handful of people I know who have them got them through special promotions or bundles. Nobody called up and bought it out of the blue at full sticker price.
Make a case for why $70/mo provides enough value to John Q. Public to justify an extra $30/mo over a standard connection. That's $360/yr, which is real money to most people. Hell, I'm a geek with 13 years in Information Technology, and I'm too budget conscious to pay for such speeds.
Just because YOU don't think it is worth it doesn't mean that my life should be regulated to your feelings.
I pay $60 a month for a 50/50 connection already, so another $10 a month is nothing. Some people spend that much on coffee and cigarettes, every single day. Everyone I know has the fastest speed tier available from their carrier, and if they can get Google Fiber, they have it, or are waiting for the install.
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Ich habe kein Mitleid - Me
You're a daisy if you do. - Doc Holliday
And as always, have nice day. | |
| | | | | Consumers don't want milk! If they did vendors in Africa would be more than willing to provide it. But in the mean time it's easier to assume across the board customers would never drink milk if available and charge for water at 90%+ profit.
The whole idea of the cloud is that companies can often provide remote mass storage cheaper than you can. Plus there is security (fire, theft, etc) of remote backups. Imagine users backing up their whole computers over internet or mom and pop workplaces sharing local area networks regardless of having buildings spread out around town.
There are so many uses for high speed internet saying there is no desire for it is like saying someone who never tried milk (or say even rode in a car) could NEVER find a use for it if it was made available at an affordable price.
When useful services become available at an affordable price there is a adoption curve up to market saturation. The problem is these prices/speed go against monopoly low speeds and 2-5GB caps gouging business practices. So these monopolies will NEVER allow you so have it regardless of what you want or could use. They will say the only thing they are willing to say... Telling you/government that YOU truly would never want affordable high speed service. So why try break the caps model? 
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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the corporations discover that money can elect representatives to vote themselves a monopoly, buy media to blame 'The Godless' and forced price inflation on the public. | |
|
 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | True I have 30 Mbps internet from Charter. I could get 100 Mbps but I'm not paying $110 a month for it. Even if it was only $10 more than what I was paying now I wouldn't do it. What am I going to do on 100 Mbps let alone 1 Gbps?
What do people actually want. Well some would like faster upload. I'm fine with the 4Mbps upload I currently get but I do understand why many would like to see more symmetrical service.
How about no caps? Which I get TWC doesn't have. Once again I have never gone over the caps but seriously they have been around 250-300 GB for 4 years now on most ISPs. So if they insist on keeping them then time up them and not just by 50 GB.
Oh here's another one how about letting have access to stuff like WatchESPN without having to have cable. yeah know that's more's ESPN fault but if all these companies were to tell ESPN to go f--k itself unless they can offer it to internet only customers ESPN would capitulate. Same thing with HBOGo.
HBO says it doesn't want to make the cable companies mad or deal with billing or hosting. Fine let the ISPs handle it. If Charter can bill me for HBO they can bill me for HBOGo stand alone. Let Charter get a cut of the money like they do with regular HBO. Win-win for all. | |
| | | | Re: True Think about the way ESPN and HBO structure their deals. The watch anywhere apps are paid for by the fees paid by the cable companies (who negotiated that into their contracts). It's a mutual benefit to both ESPN and the cable provider to not allow the network to allow direct access. The cable companies would be ticked off if you could bypass them and would likely affect their relationships (and bottom lines). What irks me is that the cable companies are starting to charge "sports tier fees" on top of everything yet I can't watch my RSNs on my phone, iPad or laptop outside my house. YES Network actually charges a separate fee for that privilege yet ESPN has that essentially written into their contract. It's time the industry realized people are just not watching the way our grandparents did and most people have lives outside the house.
As for the speed issue, it will never change until there is true competition. Why invest if there's no return. Everyone here has it right that consumers won't pay ridiculously and unjustifiably high prices for gigabit speeds but if they did offer it at reasonable price and lower the price on their slower tiers, I guarantee you many customers will sign up for faster speeds.
Someone else said it best, "We'll tell you what speeds you want!" | |
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 IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA | 1 Gbps is overkill 50/10 is more than enough for residential use. The only users who need 1 Gbps are businesses and web servers. | |
| |  LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 |  Re: 1 Gbps is overkill
said by IowaCowboy:50/10 is more than enough for residential use. The only users who need 1 Gbps are businesses and web servers.
For most households, I agree with that. There may be some exceptions, where the household has 4 or more members using internet extensively. An example of those could be both parents working from home either as entrepreneurs or home office for a company requiring extensive downloads & especially uploads and a couple teenagers watching videos non-stop. But for the average home of 1 single parent with 1 or 2 kids, the std tier offered by Comcast for example of 20/4.5 is more than enough. Why would they upgrade from a $50/mo bill to even $70/mo for much faster speeds. It just wouldn't be needed with current online applications available.
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I will be perfectly happy if the budget cuts specified in the Budget Control Act go into effect. 3 cheers for the sequester. Take the money from the drunken federal spenders. | |
| | | | | | | Reviews:
·Insight Communic..
·Windstream
| Re: 1 Gbps is overkill said by trparky:we never even came close to maxing out the 50 Mbps downstream channel that we had. And that was with heavy downloading and use of NetFlix.
Not to be rude, but I call bullshit on this one. "Heavy downloading" alone will max out a 50mbps downstream easily. Whether using IRC bots, Usenet, BT, doesn't matter. It's extremely easy to max out 50mbps.
If you're just using Netflix, now that's a totally different story. But that's not what you said. | |
| | | | |  trparkyApple... YUMPremium,MVM
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
kudos:2 | Re: 1 Gbps is overkill I can't even get most servers to fill the pipe unless I make multiple connections to the same server with segmented downloads. Luckily, I have DownThemAll as a Firefox extension that facilitates segmented downloads. | |
| | | | | |  keithpsPremium
join:2002-06-26
Soddy Daisy, TN | Re: 1 Gbps is overkill I find that difficult to believe since I can easily fill up my 100Mbps pipe.
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RIP Dad (10-28-1955 to 4-10-2010) | |
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| | | | What is funny is if you have been around for 10+ years that was the Bells argument against deploying DSL for consumers. They said people would only ever use dial-up. Only business would ever have a need DSL speeds and should pay business prices.
People need to learn monopoly self serving arguments never ever change ever....
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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the corporations discover that money can elect representatives to vote themselves a monopoly, buy media to blame 'The Godless' and forced price inflation on the public. | |
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast
| For many folks, anything above 3 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up is overkill. This hasn't stopped anyone from offering something faster as a marketing edge.
In today's environment, an incumbent ISP is leaving money on the table if it has more than a handful of users on its highest tier. If there are twenty users on 100/5, there's a good chance that one of them would be willing to pay more for an even faster connection.
As far as overkill goes, could I do all of my work over a 3/768 DSL connection? Yeah...I've done it over 1.5/384 DSL. Doesn't mean it's pleasant. I've gone from 8/2 to 50/15 service from 2008 to 2012 and I had a use for 50/15 (and could have used more speed, but I wasn't going to pay $85 more for only 5 Mbps extra up). Whether 50/15 is overkill isn't as relevant as whether I'm willing to pay the price that they were charging ($115) for that connection. I was.
As a new entrant into a market (e.g. GFiber), you price yourself differently.TWC doesn't have to compete if they don't want to...but their lack of competition is mainly because they'd have to lower prices on high-end tiers, something that would cost them more money than attrition to GFiber at the moment. Now they can't come out and say this, but that's why they aren't lowering prices and amping up speeds. The needs of the mass populace for gigabit speeds has nothing to do with it. | |
| | rebus9
join:2002-03-26
Tampa Bay Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
·Bright House
| said by IowaCowboy:50/10 is more than enough for residential use. The only users who need 1 Gbps are businesses and web servers. So you speak for everyone?
There are plenty of us who strongly disagree with you.
I graph my home usage and track 95th percentile. My usage is significantly higher at home than most of the business locations my $DAYJOB manages. (all of which are monitored with Solarwinds NPM) | |
| | Kamus
join:2011-01-27
El Paso, TX | said by IowaCowboy:50/10 is more than enough for residential use. The only users who need 1 Gbps are businesses and web servers.
Whois gives a damn if it is "overkill". Why in the world would anyone with any sense would pay more for far less speed?
So, by your reasoning everyone In Silicon Valley should stop making things orders of magnitude faster than old technology, since after all, what they use right now is good enough for most people.
I guess that by now I should stop being surprised about comments like yours. I've said this before and I'll say it again, just because you lack the imagination on what this speed could be used for doesn't mean there won't be plenty of people that will have no problem doing just that.
The reason why you think that 50 megabits are enough for most people is obvious. The Internet is slow EVERYWHERE. So why would developers build applications for non-obsolete systems? Give all users non-obsolete technogy and applications will come very soon after. Of course if we leave that task to the incumbents it will never happen. | |
| | Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
·Verizon FiOS
 ·voip.ms
| The problem w/ TWC tiers in my neck is they go:
1/1 - No stream, no rich video
3/1 - Barely stream, no rich video
15/1 - Stream, no rich video, cloud apps suck
20/2 - Stream, marginal rich video, cloud apps still suck
30/5 - stream multiple, rich video (1), cloud apps marginal
50/5 - stream multiple, rich video (1), cloud apps marginal ($75 12 mo)
If you see no matter the offering today, cloud apps are going to be marginal and rich video/collaboration is barely passable. So I would call this quite poor if you want to do any rich video/.cloud which everyone is pushing today.
I myself have 25/25 and I can tell you there is a huge difference for cloud backup, rich video, P2P, etc with that symm upload versus the 15/2 I used to have w/ TWC. Add to the fact the PROMO rate is $75 for 50/5 and I would say this is simply a MARGINAL offering, one that say the US government would offer if they were running the show.
So essentially they would have you believe a C product is a B product, and certainly not an A product, for the price of an A product. Compare US: D product best, A price. TWC is not far off, and if they had no competition I'm positive they would be a D product, and not a C student.
For now, TWC is only a bargaining chip w/ Verizon for my FIOS which is simply a far superior product and ultra reliable. I would call it a B+ product (price is what kills it) where Google is of course A+ on all fronts.
I used to build datacenters, and Cu would put in 10GB links where they may only hit 20 MB/sec BECAUSE they didn't want the pipe to be the bottleneck. Remind you of Google.
I'm sorry to burst people's bubble, but a properly constructed network should be a minimal bottleneck AT most, and TWC's offerings from what I have experienced are typically bottlenecked most of the time. Yes QoS should kick in, but if I'm being throttled at 25/25 and my link is at 3% utilization, that is a SORRY SHAME. | |
| | | LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | Re: 1 Gbps is overkill What cloud apps are marginal at 50/5? | |
| | | |  elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | Re: 1 Gbps is overkill ever upload HD video to youtube 5Mbps up doesnt cut it | |
| | | | Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
·Verizon FiOS
·voip.ms
| Any of them that UPLOAD data to the cloud. That is the big sinister secret of cable marketing, it's not that the download is anemic (it's just OK), the upload is crappy.
Backup your data to the cloud
Remote desktops w/ rich video
VPN data transfer from source (your house)
Rich conferencing
Collaboration
Telepresence
Cloud synching apps (box, dropbox, sugarsync, etc)
itunes match, amazon
P2P (illegal or not)
Facebook coming apps
Sling media, etc. (Remote viewing of stored data)
Any of the yet to emerge cloud-based apps that don't exist because the upload speed SUCKS.
If I were to compare the relatively similar 20/2 or 30/5 to my 25/25, we are talking a factor of 12.5 to 5 WORSE performance for the approximate same cost. For a mere $10 Verizon is offering me to go to 75/35, but I am happy w/ 25/25 grandfathered for now because the UPLOAD speed is faster than generally any remote point I access from.
Really the fact that you still probably have a hard drive and have to manage unstructured data is a problem. I work for a storage company, so I deal with data ingest like it was a nightmare. | |
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| elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | 640kb of ram should be enough for any one
(yes i know its unknown if any ever said that but its still holds true) | |
|
 gaforcesUnited We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA | Growth Pick the plums first, then when they are gorged from all the money, pick the cherries, discarding anything that doesn't agree with the tummy er automatic wallet filler.
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Let them eat FIBER! | |
| | | TWC The people who demand 1gx1g only want it for the novelty to say they have it.
Though I find it kind of funny:
Karl Bode - TIMEWARNERCABLE IS A TERRIBLE COMPANY FOR NOT OFFERING THESE SPEEDS WE DEMAND IT BLAH BLAH BLAH.
DSLReports users - You know, they're kind of right, most people won't pay for it.
I guarantee you the vast majority of people do not want, nor need, or want to pay for anything other than the barest bones of service. The people demanding this service are a select few who just want to torrent more and what not. I can't fathom 1Gx1G right now.
My 30x5 is plenty for me. Hell, most servers won't even output at those speeds. The only consistent use for those speeds I can see are servers and people who torrent/file share. | |
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See 14 replies to this post | |
 gatorkramNeed for SpeedPremium
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
kudos:2 |  Missing the point
All this apologetic conversation about what people need. What about what people want? We as consumers don't need a lot of what we buy, but we buy it because we want it.
I myself, want the highest speeds I can get. Do I need it? No, but I sure as hell want it.
I could go on and on, and post about all types of things people spend money on, but it wouldn't make my post any more clear.
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What the heck is a GatorKram? »www.gatorkram.com | |
| | | | Re: Missing the point When .5% of the population wants something, it may not be worthwhile for a company to offer it to just them.
Remember you and your friends make up a tiny fraction of a fraction of cable users. | |
| | | | | Re: Missing the point 100% of customers would notice an improvement with 1Gb/s. It's not like TW Standard is 500Mb/s symmetrical: download is far from instantaneous, and upload crawls. | |
| | | | | When .5% of the population wants something, it may not be worthwhile for a company to offer it to just them. | |
| | | | | | Re: Missing the point Everyone because nobody wants to pay for anything. Ever. That's just typical self entitlement.
I was paying ala carte for standard for over ten years as both price and speed increased. I called once when I lost my job and they gave me half price for three months, never called back after that. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Missing the point Everyone because nobody wants to pay for anything. Ever. That's just typical self entitlement. | |
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| | Availability will create demand and services Right now, no, there isn't lots of demand for that speed, but, if it were widely available, it would prompt the creation of services that can use it, and those services would create the demand.
For example, we really haven't begun to tap into what a truly networked home can do. How about a smart thermostat that gets weather forecasts from the NWS, and, if it looks like there's going to be very cold weather, automatically activates heating elements wrapped around pipes to keep them from freezing. Or how about a tablet-like device in the kitchen that constantly pulls pricing data from supermarkets and tells you when and where your often-purchased groceries are on sale. And, although streaming video is nothing new, perhaps someone with an elderly family member living alone might want a continuous stream from their house--a low-res one when no one is in front of the camera, but one that ups the bitrate when someone comes into view. And, speaking of remote locations, people might want to access local newscasts from places where important events are taking place. And while that's possible in some places and often at low bitrates, if you kick that up to an HD broadcast onto a 55' TV, now you're talking more bandwidth. Then, while mom is watching that, dad is in another room, watching a movie, one kid of doing video chat with a friend, another is surfing the Web, and, in the background, the DVR is pulling down two HD movies that the family plans to let the kids watch in the car on an upcoming road trip.
The point is, all of these services require bandwidth, some of them more bandwidth than others. And while many people still use their broadband connections for Web surfing, that's changing, and it will keep changing.
And no, people don't want service that's priced insanely high, but saying that this means demand isn't there is ridiculous. That'd be like me opening the only pizza place in town and then saying that there's no demand for extra-large deluxe pizzas, never mind the fact that I'm charging $50 for them. | |
| | | | Re: Availability will create demand and services Hate to burst your bubble, but nothing you listed requires a gigabit symmetrical connection. Standard would handle most of that fine.
Higher speeds are going to be more required as more and more TV moves to the internet, downloading and possibly streaming games becomes more common. Those are your high bandwidth elements that normal people would use on a daily basis. The only one of those that might be soon is the TV over the internet using higher quality streams. Gaming downloads are common, but not gaming streaming (Dunno if that ever will).
Even high res TV streams wont' require anything near a gigabit data connection. 100mbit would handle 5 or 6 tvs with ease. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Availability will create demand and services Symmetrical 50Mb/s probably requires FTTH though, so there is no good reason not to install 1Gb/s. If people aren't maxing their connections because they have no use for it that just means that the ISP can invest less in the backbone infrastructure | |
| | | | | | Re: Availability will create demand and services Precisely. And either Lafayette's or Chattanooga's system (I forget which) gives you the full speed on their fiber network regardless of which Internet speed you have. This would be especially useful for a business with two offices, since they can do point-to-point VPN between the two and essentially have one LAN in two locations. | |
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| | | I'm not saying that these things alone would require that connection, but, when you start adding more and more stuff running in the background, you want to have more bandwidth available. And I know a couple who have 7 TV's in their house. Extreme, yes, but they have them. Can you imagine the bandwidth load if they have guests over, plus if they want their DVR to grab several more streams? No, it won't require a gigabit, but what bandwidth will we need when (and it will happen) 4k HDTV comes out?
But, as for Web servers, why not? Computing power is so cheap now that there's no real reason you can't serve a site from home. The only limitation is bandwidth.
As for anything close to symmetrical service, just about the only places with it have FTTH.
So, will people buy gigabit service with no caps for $70/month? Apparently, Google thinks so, and, if I could get it, I'd be signing up right now. Do I absolutely need it? No, but I'd sure find some uses for it. | |
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| | Wow Look at all the naive and short sighted people standing up for cable companies. How pathetic.
The history of technology shows us time and time again, that short sighted people stand around surmising that the technology they have today is all anyone will ever need.
You all say that today, there is no need for 1gbps. And that shows how ignorant you are. Of course there is no need, because nearly NO ONE has that kind of speed available.
You don't develop some technology for something that doesn't even exist.
You can rest assured that once 1gbps IS available to the masses, there will be services that will take advantage following right along.
Most of you come off as cable company shills, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit, frankly. | |
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 george357ius ad arma spondent libertasPremium
join:2009-09-18
Candler, NC
kudos:1
·Frontier Communi..
 ·HughesNet Satell..
| I would jump all over it! Maybe its the fact that I have only ever had a max of 5/1 but I would jump all over a 1GB line for $70 a month, even a hundred, especially if it was synchronous. the way I see it, its a no-brainer, content is going to get better and larger as time goes on, we've seen it and we will continue to see it. Many are question the need, "Why would you?" "What would you do with it"?
Because I can and anything I wanted!
Of course that is all based on not having any stupid, unnecessary caps.
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malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Cancer Cures Are Just A Crunch Away
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| | | Could use it, but how many sites support it 1gb is not a question of if, it's when based on Internet2 rolling out to the masses.
I see all these discussions as the service providers trying to squeeze the last remaining drops of tiered services and pricing before Internet 2 becomes a consumer product. Then the flat fee will truly rule as 1gb becomes the standard and a commodity... | |
| Reviews:
·ooma
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
| ? When the hell are they going to raise residential speed tiers?!?
Many competitors & peers are offering 100+ megabit speed tiers!! 50 megbit (TOP) residential extreme tier is PATHETIC for a 21st century cable company. After allegedly pioneering fiber optics in NYC of all places and one of the first cable systems to have a hybrid coax/fiber optic system then said, to hell with evolving the business model & innovation, nobody is competing against the company. IIRC, TWC was not the first to upgrade to docsis 3.. it was Comcast.
Consumers consume video via broadand, and nothing's going to change that, if anything consumers want MORE than 1 gigabit these days.. when it's affordable they will consume this data. | |
| elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Time Warner Gets It They know their audience.
They aren't going to invest in providing 1Gbps residential service, if we aren't willing to pay for those upgrades.
There's a reason Fios doesn't achieve more than 30% penetration. It costs too much.
Contrary to the daily dribble posted here, TWC seems to understands price-sensitivity better than any broadband provider - or at least, that is reflected in the prices they offer, which beat telco broadband by 2:1, even before you compare performance. | |
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| swarto112Premium
join:2004-02-17
Brookfield, WI Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| TWC build it and they will come...talk to FIOS Moving out of a FIOS/BrightHouse market into a TWC/U-Verse market is such a letdown. You can tell the difference in quality of service, internet speeds and price. Infrastructure is so poor. I paid about 150/mo for triple play on FIOS which included way more channels in HD that TWC could ever dream of offering, 50 mb up/down which in fact speeds always came in higher than what you paid for...usually closer to 75 mb. and of course unlimited phone (didnt really need but had a little one in the house and lots of calls to play, etc.).
TWC pay around 170/mo for triple play, half the channels dont come as they have bought pathetic hardware in tuning adapters and cable cards. Infrastructure leaks certain switched digital frequencies and generally dont care. If I didnt have a new TiVo that i paid a lot for before we moved...I would cut the cord. Too much online and OTA channels anymore that we can get most stuff anyways. TWC = old business model FIOS = new business model...thats why people love FIOS and hate TWC | |
| | | Customers Everyone keeps saying customers don't want 1 Gbps broadband, how about we let the market decide this and not have a company do it for us? And why shouldn't we let technology evolve? It's like a technology forum has become filled with luddites. It's bizarre the corporate apologism. It's no wonder our country is where it is today.
Everyone uses the $70 price point for Google Fiber, but let's remember the $120 for 1 Gbps internet and IPTV price point instead. You don't think people are looking for additional options and choices in their exploding cable bills? That is what should scare Time Warner Cable, because that price for what you receive beats theirs, and gives you more.
It's not like for $120 you're getting any premium movie channels with TWC anyway without some special promotion. | |
| |  LightSPremium
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX | Re: Customers I think people would love the speed, just not the price that incumbents would offer it at... I would love it, but I wouldn't pay outrageous amounts for it. Hell, $50/meg for a business-class fiber connection is ridiculous enough lol | |
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| | 1 Gbps Broadband for $70 sign me up!! 2 Things: 1 Gig Service for $70 is so cheap sign me up the other thing is this cloud. This Cloud Idea is BS just a pipe dream. Just think buying a new PC with little to no memory and being forced to save everything music movies onto this cloud. NO Way!!! | |
| | | | Reliable at any speed. Interesting discussion revolving around the usual that comes up. One thing that isn't touched upon with DOCSIS 3.0 and it's bonding is the connection is more reliable in the face of a less than stellar conditions. | |
| Reviews:
·DIRECTV
| I'll second that statement! quote:
For many folks, anything above 3 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up is overkill.
I currently have Charter now and they have basically FORCED customers like myself to either take 30mb tier or leave. I formerly had 3mb and was completely satisfied with it. I will be leaving them if they don't reintroduce a lower tier at a more reasonable price than nearly 50 bucks a month. I don't even use 90% of that speed. | |
| BiggA
join:2005-11-23
EARTH Reviews:
·Comcast
| Basically true As much as people don't want to acknowledge it, it's basically true. HD video is 10mbps at most, 4K is 38mbps with HEVC, and I usually can't max out my 25mbps connection (soon to be 50) on Comcast because the servers at the other end can't push that kind of bandwidth. | |
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In the back room....