dslreports logo
 story category
Wednesday Morning Links
view:
topics flat nest 

alchav
join:2002-05-17
Saint George, UT

-6 recommendations

alchav

Member

The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

I say the Competition Model is Dead, what is needed now is Fiber! Copper is Obsolete, and Communities need an HOA to bring in a Provider that will give them the Bandwidth they need. Cities can also design their own Open Fiber Network!
sd70mac
Premium Member
join:2015-10-18
Woodstock, IL

3 recommendations

sd70mac

Premium Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Co-operatives and even private companies, such as (for example) A2D in Georgia, can also run open-access fiber (and wireless) networks if they want to.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

1 recommendation

elray

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Coop is the way to go if you truly want "community" broadband. But most folks are way too lazy, preferring to whine and expect "the government" to simply provide the service and fix the price, regardless of the true cost.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

4 recommendations

tc1uscg to alchav

Member

to alchav
But coper is in place and guess what, it works. Cableco's have found ways to squeeze as much as they can out of something that's already paid for. Why would they invest in something that will end up being replaced with wireless anyway?

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

6 recommendations

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

HFC last mile coax has a ton of life left in it. The progress made with modulation will ensure DOCSIS stays ahead of any wireless tech.

Wireless will forever be limited by spectrum allocation and the terrain. A good HFC system has 860mhz-1ghz of bandwidth that can be rolled over to just data once linear TV is killed off. Imagine a no-split 1000mhz plant dedicated for full duplex data. The total bandwidth there will be crazy! 10gbps in both directions. Yes that will involve a plant rebuild but those are scheduled on a regular basis. Cell networks need to rebuild for 5g also.

Most cellular spectrum licenses range from 5-25mhz in width. The progress made on the wireless front is impressive but it will lag behind the progress on HFC.

Narrow straw in an uncontrolled environment vs wide pipe in a controlled environment.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

1 recommendation

elray to tc1uscg

Member

to tc1uscg
Don't know about your neck of the woods, but around here, Cableco never sat on its hands, instead, they've upgraded plant at least twice since deploying two-way service. That isn't "squeezing" something-thats-already-paid-for. The third wave of upgrades now yields gigabit service, and apparently, some folks are willing to pay the price; don't know if they'll turn a profit on their upgrade.

Competition works. Cable competed with telco and won.

Now telco is coming around, upgrading DSL and/or deploying FTTH.
Wireless-only is becoming a viable choice for some who choose to truly "cut the cord" and lose the cable-modem.
sims
join:2013-04-06

2 recommendations

sims

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Suddenlink 15/1.5 here in town but altice says they are going to skip docsis 3.1 and go with fiber so hopefully they will remember us eventually.

The caps on wireless significantly limit how much you can do online, like don't plan on replacing your cable sub with on demand video like netflix or youtube.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

2 recommendations

tc1uscg to elray

Member

to elray
I'm talking about delivery. Think about when DSL first came out. People were skeptical about how much speed twisted pair could provide. Then look at where it ended up. Coax the same. But I'm saying fiber isn't the unicorn for saving money. Not many if any home users need it, so, why would cable replace coax, that is already paid for, for something else? And don't count wireless out. People out in the country would gladly use wireless vs having to pay for a cable or fiber run. Wireless has it's use and limitations. And just like taking the same coax that use to handle 10mbps now can handle a gig, yes, because the "plant" was upgraded. There's an application for all, but for home, my 500/50 is overkill but price wise, is cheaper then then my 150/25 I had with Comcast.
lmrtrsp25
join:2018-07-04
FFFFFD

lmrtrsp25 to elray

Member

to elray
said by elray:
Don't know about your neck of the woods,

Competition works. Cable competed with telco and won.
Don't know about your neck of the woods, but where did the telcos compete v. cable?????????

They. telcos rolled over and plaid dead! And still are.

But but Fios... limited footprint, and they coudln't stomach it...

But but UVerse... limited footprint... and they might might, maybe have realized they should have done this.

You can rinse repeat with any number of other telcos from form ILEC to CLEC's. They are cherry picked things, and then that was it.

Thanks to this "competition" some areas have one choice, and some have no choice, as in no HSD.
said by elray:
Now telco is coming around, upgrading DSL and/or deploying FTTH.
Wireless-only is becoming a viable choice for some who choose to truly "cut the cord" and lose the cable-modem.

Don't know about your neck of the woods, but the only one who is maybe waking up from their stupidity, ATT. VZ is still sold like you on the 5G Sprinkle Express. They blew it, they could have been the first to replace everything with fiber and then rip the copper down and sell if off for scrap value or sell it in place to some sucker. The copper POTS plant regardless of carrier makes the early days look like the 21st century!

I am not getting any wireless to supplant my wired connections. I might get it to add further redundant options.

In a real competitive market I could pick from an list of ISP's on a fiber network. Actually, we could have done that in my area in the past on cable. The others had their contracts yanked, other than EarthLink, which you can still do in many areas.
WhatNow
Premium Member
join:2009-05-06
Charlotte, NC

WhatNow

Premium Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

To get what people posing here want the best way is to go to a private company or government that provides a dark fiber to the house and then any ISP can provide the inside work and content to the customer. Sort of like the power company provides the power to the side of the house and the customer does everything inside. The fiber company would have to provide a fiber to every place that the power company offered service in a county or region. That would mean everyone would get service not just in town.

One of the reasons upgrades have been slow is the cost of the lasers on both ends have been very expensive until recently. The other is with cable and telco you are building to networks on top of each other and only get around half the customers. Just think if 2 or 3 power companies offered service to your home.

I have been told that the telcos and cable companies will not offer service over a muni owned fiber network.
xpertiseit
join:2018-07-16

xpertiseit

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Here we go again spending tax money. Tax money is not the answer. Stop making people who don’t want it pay for it.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

SimbaSeven

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

said by xpertiseit:

Here we go again spending tax money. Tax money is not the answer. Stop making people who don’t want it pay for it.

I don't want to pay for the $700B military budget, but I have to.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

-1 recommendation

tc1uscg

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Not really. You can always move to another country that doesn't tax it's people for the security of your nation. (but good luck finding one). Or, we can be like Costa Rica. No military at all. But don't drink the water (seriously).
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to xpertiseit

Premium Member

to xpertiseit
said by xpertiseit:

Here we go again spending tax money. Tax money is not the answer. Stop making people who don’t want it pay for it.

I bet ya more people would want dark fiber with lots of ISP choices paid for with their taxes than want a Wall with Mexico or more money pumped into military industrial complex pork.

I did not want an Iraq invasion but I pay for it.
lmrtrsp25
join:2018-07-04
FFFFFD

lmrtrsp25

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Don't bet on any of that, not one bit. You can read between the lines.
lmrtrsp25

lmrtrsp25 to xpertiseit

Member

to xpertiseit
said by xpertiseit:
Here we go again spending tax money. Tax money is not the answer. Stop making people who don’t want it pay for it.

OK... Well to turn your idea around. My tax money gets spent on

Schools
WIC/EBT

I don't wish to pay for those things.You can move mine to muni fiber, defense, public safety, or send me a refund.

The same can be done for all the little HOA NIMBYazi's and that is to take their cell phones away! Can't have a cell phone, if you are against towers being built. And I am so sick of those fugly cross hide a tower sites.

None of that is going to happen, but if they want to spend tax money on a muni fiber network in my area, I am 1000% OK with that. Those that don't want to pay, no problem fill out a form online. You will be denied access to the network when built.

Fiber networks and./or HSD add value to homes. Don't have it, then you reduce your value. I'd move out to about 500 acres in the middle of no where in a hearbeat, won't be happening , no HSD. For some that might be selling point. But farmers need HSD to get wx data, hog reports from Les Nessman.com, order fertilizer, sell hogs/cows., order feed etc.. Sure you can do that on a cellular/VSAT setup, but going much further than that, lets say oh, upload of say 384KB/s 24/7/365, nope. Use of video services like netflix will be limited before you are either FAP''d out, cap and then depriortized and/or slowed to molasses.

If there is one area I am OK with spending tax money this is it. Even to go as far as a New Deal type TVA setups to do it. As for doing other things that programs like that did, hell no!
lmrtrsp25

lmrtrsp25 to WhatNow

Member

to WhatNow
said by WhatNow:
To get what people posing here want the best way is to go to a private company or government that provides a dark fiber to the house and then any ISP can provide the inside work and content to the customer. Sort of like the power company provides the power to the side of the house and the customer does everything inside. The fiber company would have to provide a fiber to every place that the power company offered service in a county or region. That would mean everyone would get service not just in town.
I will be the first person to tell you that the system of BS we have now is just that BS...

I am for a Rural Broadbandification Project which basically means running a fiber(s) to every little shed, shack, outhouse out there.

All too many on this site don't get that in 2018 HSD is a requirement, even out at the farms and BFE. Their solution is 'move.' Well I've got the same solution for them, move out to some of my area, you have a choice:

1) Dial up at 28-53K if you can find an ISP
2) VSAT aka HugesNet/ViaSat
3) Cellular
4) None

1 of these is practically worthless, 2 more have issues with cost, caps/FAP, speed.

What I am not interested in having any form of is HOA's involved.

Another pat answer is too much area in the US to cover. BS!
said by WhatNow:
Just think if 2 or 3 power companies offered service to your home.
Actually one area I lived in you potentially could have done this. But their were backroom deals, and PUC involvement which prohibited, even though there is this nice line going right by me. The local co-op in that area is a joke.

Well Bonded
join:2015-10-17
Naples, FL

3 recommendations

Well Bonded to WhatNow

Member

to WhatNow
said by WhatNow:

One of the reasons upgrades have been slow is the cost of the lasers on both ends have been very expensive until recently.

That is simply untrue.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

SimbaSeven

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

said by Well Bonded:

said by WhatNow:

One of the reasons upgrades have been slow is the cost of the lasers on both ends have been very expensive until recently.

That is simply untrue.

I concur. I can buy 10GbE LR SFP modules on eBay for cheap, and the equipment to handle it. Don't feed me that line.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

-2 recommendations

elray to lmrtrsp25

Member

to lmrtrsp25
Cable competed with telco, not the opposite.
Cableco invested in plant ("2 way cable") over and again, and introduced themselves to the marketplace for broadband.

Verizon did compete early on with CableCo; they still do, to a lesser extent.
AT&T has come back to compete after a long winter's nap.

"Picking from a list of ISPs" sharing the same fiber - is not competition; it is wholesale price regulation. Certainly a case can be made for re-regulating the last mile in unserved/underserved markets, but be careful what you wish for.
lmrtrsp25
join:2018-07-04
FFFFFD

2 recommendations

lmrtrsp25

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

said by elray:
Cable competed with telco, not the opposite.
Cableco invested in plant ("2 way cable") over and again, and introduced themselves to the marketplace for broadband.

Verizon did compete early on with CableCo; they still do, to a lesser extent.
AT&T has come back to compete after a long winter's nap.
Mostly this is on the mark...
said by elray:
"Picking from a list of ISPs" sharing the same fiber - is not competition; it is wholesale price regulation.
How so?

If I can choice from 10 ISP's all having say 10 differing prices for the same thing, keeping it simple here, how is that not competition???

Lets say that City Electric owns, runs the fiber ring, they offer HSD, voice, video. InternetJunction comes along and offers HSD only, SuperSwan same...etc.

So instead we should have each and every company overbuild and run fiber 2,3,4,5,6 times over?

Lets talk about the basics of that alone... For one, lets start with pole space There might be room for 2-3 on a pole(s) in my area. some might take more as they are taller as the have not just local distribution on it but area dist on it for the next area.

Now lets talk about underground... how many times do you want the stuff dug up, or even horizontal boring done to do this? The more times you do this the more changes you will hit something, sewer, gas, power, water...

Its just like cellular, building the same things over and over for 3-4-5 carriers is wasteful.

Now lets talk about the costs to do this building 2-3-4x over. Thats a big barrier to a start up/new company.

I don't know that I really care who builds the fiber ring, but having more choices on it versus just Fiber Inc.s offering would better.

Also makes switching easy too.
said by elray:
Certainly a case can be made for re-regulating the last mile in unserved/underserved markets, but be careful what you wish for.

There are lots of issues in this, but the chasm that exists just a few miles from suburbia in my area is pretty stark. Just driving a few miles in suburbia and you go from 2 choices to 1 for HSD. Then a little further and its zero wired. Its cell, VSAT or dial up. Go about 20-30 miles theres the potential for a WISP, but they are barely, barely holding on to keep what they got going, and thats with the few options available to those in the area.

alchav
join:2002-05-17
Saint George, UT

2 recommendations

alchav to tc1uscg

Member

to tc1uscg
said by tc1uscg:

But coper is in place and guess what, it works. Cableco's have found ways to squeeze as much as they can out of something that's already paid for. Why would they invest in something that will end up being replaced with wireless anyway?

It works today, but what about tomorrow! Remember what they said about Memory and Hard Drives in Computers, Technology waits for no one. Bandwidth needs are going up exponentially, and only the people with Fiber will be able to keep up. Wireless is only good for Mobile Devices, but if you can't get Fiber you'll have to settle for it!
xpertiseit
join:2018-07-16

xpertiseit

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

And that same copper will be there tomorrow as it was 5years ago. Fiber isn’t the answer to all.
lmrtrsp25
join:2018-07-04
FFFFFD

1 recommendation

lmrtrsp25

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

said by xpertiseit:
And that same copper will be there tomorrow as it was 5years ago. Fiber isn’t the answer to all.

Dont bet on that. The stuff is rotting away! Years and years of neglect by VZ and others then hand it off to Frontier, and it will be falling off the poles and molding in the ground with a nice orange garbage bag on it.
xpertiseit
join:2018-07-16

xpertiseit

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

I didn’t say twisted pair. Copper as in coax will always be there until they can’t get anything else out of it. Cable has easily another 5+ years on it.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

1 recommendation

SimbaSeven

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

said by xpertiseit:

I didn’t say twisted pair. Copper as in coax will always be there until they can’t get anything else out of it. Cable has easily another 5+ years on it.

Here, Copper = Copper Pair, not Coax. Coax = Coax (or cable) here.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

tc1uscg

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Coax is shielded better vs T1 2.5 pair. Now, DS3's used a shielded cable/coax since it had to carry 28 T1/s (or 670+ DSO's/Phone lines if you want to count it)
tc1uscg

tc1uscg

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

For the MAJORITY of home users, the ONLY THING fiber would be better for over coax is that late evening drain on the bandwidth, which reduces throughput at the users end. Maybe a few more NODES in the 'hood would fix all that. Naw, just go mow the lawn or sit outside and run the neighbor crazy blasting Morse code while sipping some cold brew.
tc1uscg

tc1uscg to alchav

Member

to alchav
said by alchav:

said by tc1uscg:

But coper is in place and guess what, it works. Cableco's have found ways to squeeze as much as they can out of something that's already paid for. Why would they invest in something that will end up being replaced with wireless anyway?

It works today, but what about tomorrow! Remember what they said about Memory and Hard Drives in Computers, Technology waits for no one. Bandwidth needs are going up exponentially, and only the people with Fiber will be able to keep up. Wireless is only good for Mobile Devices, but if you can't get Fiber you'll have to settle for it!

What about tomorrow? They will just boost the speed on coax, like they have for the past 20 years. Remember DSL, no one thought they would need more then 2 or 3mbps. That same coax that gave me my 10mbps is now handling 1gig. Now, want to talk capacity, fiber will win and it won't be as temperamental to that evening bandwidth drain. Just saying, sure, fiber may someday replace coax when it gets too expensive to maintain whats paid for itself many times over. As long as these companies cherry pick markets, yep, many of us will keep our coax. But since I don't upload gigabytes upon gigabytes, can you tell me what 1gig coax can't give me that 1gig fiber can?
xpertiseit
join:2018-07-16

xpertiseit

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Fiber will always have a drain like everyone else. Max out that headend backhaul and your fiber is going to see it. The same as DSL sees it. That old dedicated claim is false.
dplantz
join:2000-08-02
Bradenton, FL

dplantz to tc1uscg

Member

to tc1uscg
I gig cable can't give you 1 gig upload speeds without massive upgrades to the plant.

••••
sims
join:2013-04-06

sims to tc1uscg

Member

to tc1uscg
said by tc1uscg:

What about tomorrow? They will just boost the speed on coax, like they have for the past 20 years. Remember DSL, no one thought they would need more then 2 or 3mbps.

Coax is getting to where they have to have really high quality end to end for it to work requiring plant and amp upgrades I think further upgrades will be possible but will only get more expensive and invasive to do. IMHO whatever is after 3.1 FD will be the last one they are able to do without requiring a full end to end rebuild and that may still yet require it.

xDSL isn't getting any faster at the far end of it's working distance even with the newest in development specs so you either build more hubs to reduce the distance or tell a lot of people that they aren't going to be able to upgrade past the speeds they had before.
said by tc1uscg:

But since I don't upload gigabytes upon gigabytes, can you tell me what 1gig coax can't give me that 1gig fiber can?

Not really you can do pretty much all the same things but slower.
35Mbps is a pretty good upload speed unless you want to host a server or upload excessively large files in a timely fashion.

tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Gulfport, MS

tc1uscg

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

FWIW, I watch HD streams off my home media server when I'm traveling. I was FTP'ng a crap load of large files the other day off my home NAS box while the wife was working from home. Not that she's doing anything major other then being connected to some "main frames" working on some software patches, and I didn't get a text "What the hell is wrong with our internet? It's soooo slow".. LOL.. I've not had more then two uploading at the same time so not sure what the breaking point is for my system. I only have 50 up from WOW.
sims
join:2013-04-06

sims

Member

Re: The American Dilemma: Competition, or Fast Broadband?

Yep you can do that even with HD files with 50Mbps. You can probably even stream a raw blu-ray disc on that but if you wanted multiple people to be able to do that? Probably not.

It's very good but it's not my other LAN is my WAN good.
lmrtrsp25
join:2018-07-04
FFFFFD

2 recommendations

lmrtrsp25 to alchav

Member

to alchav
said by alchav:
I say the Competition Model is Dead, what is needed now is Fiber! Copper is Obsolete, and Communities need an HOA to bring in a Provider that will give them the Bandwidth they need. Cities can also design their own Open Fiber Network!

I was with you till you used the three nastiest letters ever! H,O, A! NO *&**^%$* THANK YOU! They should be banned for the greater good of humanity!

Everything else I agree with, but not that part.

••••
xpertiseit
join:2018-07-16

xpertiseit to alchav

Member

to alchav
You can do open network over copper. Plus who is footing the bill for this network? Taxpayers again?

••••••••••••••••••••
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Don't buy BlackBerry Key2

What's going on? Don't you love Blackberry? LOL

»youtu.be/Olnd3t01Pic

Anon40b22
@spcsdns.net

Anon40b22

Anon

Fastlanes

Get ready for internet fast lanes.

•••

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

-4 recommendations

trparky

Premium Member

Surveillance

As a person who lives in a city that damn near had a terrorist attack occur during the Fourth of July week I have a different idea of surveillance. The only reason why that attack was stopped was because of surveillance.

To which I say, keep doing it. We need to make sure that the bad guys don't win.

••••••••••••••••