Bell Companies Blamed for D.S.L.'s Woes

yep, the bells won. they didn't provide good connectivity or customer support. they just sat their and waited while providing the least possible support for other companies. service by the book.
even better: for a one-time $1.5mil-fee the government sold them protection from lawsuits. "what do you want? we didn't provide the proper service and you can prove it? we were already punished and had to pay pocket change as punishment. want your share of the money? go to the government."
it reminds me of the german industry that had to pay reparations to people they incarcerated in camps to work for the german war machine during world war II. now this group refuses to pay out the very low amount of money to the few survivors because foreign governments are not willing to pass laws protecting them from future lawsuits.
it amazes me how little money buys you the right to be an exception from the law.

a

After three attempts by Verizon to provide a working loop to Covad for my ISP www.charm.net, the Covad technician gave a loop length to the successful Verizon tech who discover an insect colony on the pole. Earlier Verizon techs insisted the loop was fine even when it failed continuity test for Covad. I had had intermittent DSL for almost a year until the total failure. With yesterdays bankruptcy claim by Covad residential user will all lose fixed IPs since Verizon is still insisting on floating IPs. This prevents using FTP servers to transfer data in and out of DSL connected computers remotely.

In the quest for lower prices people overlook the fact that these are businesses, out to make money. Period. I'm sure that if you want static IP's Verizon will be willing to sell them to you at a nominal cost.

How quickly people forget what it was like in the early days of Road Runner and Charter Pipeline. Most of these TelCo's and companies are spending massive amounts of capitol to build infrastructure to support a relatively new technology. SBC Communications alone has committed $6 Billion to the projects.

As has often been the topic of discussion in the past on these forums DSL is not a profit producing service at this time. No one is making money off of DSL. It's "Cash Burn" at it's finest. I just hope that is all gets squared away in the next 2 years.

$30 per month for DSL provisioning is unfair because the ISP must add another $30 to make money??? These are ISP's that provision thru ASI, hence they aren't installing or maintaining any network elements at all. Why is it that the ISP can make money on $21.95 or $19.95 when it is dial-up, but they can't make any money with the same price with DSL?? Adding $19.95 to $30 (for line provisioning) comes to $49.95.

It seems to me that the ISP's are complaining that RBOC's have more money than they do, so they are acting anti-competitively by not GIVING the ISP's money to survive an economic downturn. Here's an idea... If you can't afford to go into business offering a product, you shouldn't try to do it.

I would LOVE to open up a Denny's downtown in my city. I have NO way of affording this, and if I took all my life's savings to open one, Perkin's KNOWS I would have to charge at least $7 for a Grand Slam Breakfast. All they have to do is act as a monopoly would and keep their Trememdous Twelve meal at $5.50- cuz they would outprice me and still make money... AND, they are selling more of their much more expensive Steak and Eggs- which I could NEVER afford to sell- I am just a food service beginner- a Mom and Pop if you will. I have heard their servers recommending Steak and Eggs OVER Tremendous Twelve to keep me out of business... I will have to go bankrupt. I can't compete. I am going to complain to the media!

Come on people... being a large enough company to not go bankrupt in a bad economy (AND to know the timing as to when to invest and when not to- and neither Qwest nor SBC are staying out of DSL- they are both deploying at neck breaking speeds) does not make you a monopoly because the smaller companies that might like to compete with you can't afford to keep up.

I will say that statistically it is going to happen that AT LEAST ONE technician is incompetent, at least one order gets lost, etc... Technicians have no way of deciding not to do an order because of the ISP chosen- Technicians don't know who the ISP is. Technicians go out to crossboxes, they connect cables and pairs, they change binding posts. They have nothing to do with the ISP that ASI is connecting a customer to for DSL. I find it amazing that this article suggests that tech's are abandoning orders in an effort to hurt other ISP's.

Just how many ISP's are complaining that tech's are holding off on orders because they heard a customer is going to use another dial-up company?

This sounds like alot of finger pointing to me, IMHO.

boogie74

You're missing the point completely, and you better read the article again.

said by boogie74:

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$30 per month for DSL provisioning is unfair because the ISP must add another $30 to make money??? These are ISP's that provision thru ASI, hence they aren't installing or maintaining any network elements at all. Why is it that the ISP can make money on $21.95 or $19.95 when it is dial-up, but they can't make any money with the same price with DSL?? Adding $19.95 to $30 (for line provisioning) comes to $49.95.

---

Easy, on a dialup, the ISP doesn't need the Bells to do any line reselling, all they need is some modem banks and to pay for multiple phone lines or a T1. The problem in the DSL is that the Bells are charging the ISP's a lot more for line provisioning that they charge to their own ISP unit. Add to that the fact that on a line share circuit there is barely any increased cost for them but they charge high fees for this lines to competing ISP's and it becomes a problem.

said by boogie74:

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It seems to me that the ISP's are complaining that RBOC's have more money than they do, so they are acting anti-competitively by not GIVING the ISP's money to survive an economic downturn. Here's an idea... If you can't afford to go into business offering a product, you shouldn't try to do it.

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If you READ you'll see they are complaining about the excessive fees they charge to ISP reselling their lines. Add to that the recent reports on how SBC, for example, is also trying to force these competing ISP to sign a new agreement where SBC also can provide $premium$ services on these competitor lines. So not only the competing ISP pays more on fees, but also the Bell gets to use the BANDWIDTH this ISP is paying for to offer $premium$ services with the ISP receiving nothing in return to allow this.

said by boogie74:

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I would LOVE to open up a Denny's downtown in my city. I have NO way of affording this, and if I took all my life's savings to open one, Perkin's KNOWS I would have to charge at least $7 for a Grand Slam Breakfast. All they have to do is act as a monopoly would and keep their Trememdous Twelve meal at $5.50- cuz they would outprice me and still make money... AND, they are selling more of their much more expensive Steak and Eggs- which I could NEVER afford to sell- I am just a food service beginner- a Mom and Pop if you will. I have heard their servers recommending Steak and Eggs OVER Tremendous Twelve to keep me out of business... I will have to go bankrupt. I can't compete. I am going to complain to the media!

---

Uh, bad analogy and it has nothing to do with the article. First of all, last I check Perkins is hardly a Monopoly, unlike the Bells. Second, you're not using Perkins kitchen nor are you reselling their food, which would have been a better way to put it. It did make for a good laugh.

said by boogie74:

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Come on people... being a large enough company to not go bankrupt in a bad economy (AND to know the timing as to when to invest and when not to- and neither Qwest nor SBC are staying out of DSL- they are both deploying at neck breaking speeds) does not make you a monopoly because the smaller companies that might like to compete with you can't afford to keep up.

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The Bells ARE monopolies, even before this all started, what are you talking about?

said by boogie74:

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I will say that statistically it is going to happen that AT LEAST ONE technician is incompetent, at least one order gets lost, etc... Technicians have no way of deciding not to do an order because of the ISP chosen- Technicians don't know who the ISP is. Technicians go out to crossboxes, they connect cables and pairs, they change binding posts. They have nothing to do with the ISP that ASI is connecting a customer to for DSL. I find it amazing that this article suggests that tech's are abandoning orders in an effort to hurt other ISP's.

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Wrong, the order info makes it easy to know if it is from a competing ISP or not. And what the article says about how some Bell techs do without installing lines for competitors is just a few examples. You say you find what the article suggest amazing? I guess you've never ordered a dsl line from a Bell competitor.

said by boogie74:

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Just how many ISP's are complaining that tech's are holding off on orders because they heard a customer is going to use another dial-up company?

This sounds like alot of finger pointing to me, IMHO.

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Do you know how dial-up works?

NO Way.

Here is a better analogy.

You want to open a grocery store in you town, The only place that will let you buy supplies for your little mom and pop grocery is the local super food store across the street, and you have to pay their prices. Which means that you are forced to charge more for the same products. Oh, did I mention that the local super food store gets to put their value added gas station on your property free of charge.

You both have valid points. But I can tell you that ASI techs don't care who the isp is they just want to do the orders. You are a fool to think that ANYONE at a tech level cares who the isp is. Get real.

You can also add that the large grocery story makes you wait 2-3 days just to get the same products that their normal customers can have on the spot. Even though you are paying through the nose for them. Plus, they give you the spoiled produce and then force you to buy more. People we need to socialize the entire telecom and cable industry. Monopolies have no accountability or credibility.

ASI is a unit of the ILEC that provisions reselled DSL lines, I don't think they do the actual loop delivery. The actual loop delivery is made by the ILEC and as it is well known, the number of loops from ILEC competitors that fail their delivery date is VERY high. And I've seen business orders that were not delivered with a customer no-show as a reason countless times, when the install attempt took place during business hours. Try and convince me or the end user that the ILEC tech didn't care that this was a competitor loop. Get real.

Any experience in that area my friend? I run an ISP supplying Covad service. When I ordered a line for my own house, the installer came out and after about 1.5 minutes said, "You'll need to get trenching done." and tried to leave. When I protested, he said that if I had ordered Pac Bell DSL, they would have figured out all the engineering ahead of time! I never told him who the order was through...

I eventually figured out what needed to be done (without $$$ trenching) and got service, but if I were not an employee, the suggestion to go to Pac Bell DSL would have been a very powerful one.
[text was edited by author 2001-08-09 13:22:59]

Bullsh*t, the ILEC's are making money off of DSL. The copper lines have been paid for years ago. The equipment cost to provide DSL over the existing copper is minor compared to the recurring revenue. After figuring in hardware and bandwidth access our per Mbyte cost for internet access was $5.00. What cost us the most to provide service was the monthly lease line price.

The problem has to do with the bullsh*t wholesale price the ILEC's are charging CLEC's. We use to get copper from Verizon that was installed in the 1940's yet they would charge us $30 dollars a month to lease the line. Why?!? There should be a one time charge and not a recurring charge.

The amount necessary to make a profit might vary, but consider that the line charge is not the only cost of providing a DSL line. ISPs also pay a large fee for the line which backhauls the data traffic to their offices (probably between $4,000-$10,000/month). [post edit: I forgot to mention the "per central office fee" for the privledge of being able to offer services from each CO. And did I mention that if you exceed the CO limit, you need a new backhaul?] These lines don't have an unlimited capacity, so more than one might be required. Now add in the cost of bandwidth for carrying the data to the Internet. Now support costs, equipment costs, marketing costs. It adds up.

I'm not saying that $30 is what it comes out to. Personally, I'll compete with the phone company any day at a level that is profitable for them. Of course, I mean their "ISP entity", not their telco side. The ILECs make their money and their goals by moving the profit to the line side where they have no competition. My low overhead, small organization can out-profit any telco on an even playing field. They need 10 people just to man a copy machine. (OK, exaggeration).

As others have mentioned, your analogy is seriously flawed. Another person used a grocery store analogy which was close, but rather than that superstore opening a gas station on your property, it's actually more like all of the high-margin impulse items at the counter have been usurped by the superstore and they will be taking all of the space on those racks and setting up a register right next to yours so that your customers can "benefit" from the added services that you would have provided anyway.

We are not asking the ILECs to give us money. We do, however, expect that they should obey the law. You DID know that it's the law, didn't you?
[text was edited by author 2001-08-09 17:12:45]

Copper at $30.00/month? Where do I have to move?
Here (in northern Vermont) we get a $200.00 install
fee and $51.00 month. And you'ld like a guarantee of
a data quality line, would you now? On the other side,
the techs have a sense of humor and drive nice trucks.

Oh, and can I get two more pairs for $620.00/month
for my T1? Why yes, $620.00/month does sound fair.

They're worried about me? Are you kidding, I've got to
be worth a couple of hundred long distance customers!

While I have no intention of getting into an argument with you on this issue I feel compelled to point out a few things.

1.) You paid $30 a month for the line. You expected to have that a one time charge. OK, who pays for the power to that line? Who performs maintenance on that line? Who replaces the copper should it be damaged? You want all that for a one time charge of $30? I think not.

2.) ILEC's are making money off of DSL. Misconception. It cost's SBC an estimated $350 per line installed. That is if the customer elects to do the self install option. This is excluding maintenance costs. Most DSL circuits will not turn a profit for at least 1-2 years. Right now SBC is burning cash like every other ISP. The difference is they have much deeper pockets to dig into.

The ILEC's are following all FCC guidelines to the extent of, in SBC's case, creating separate CLEC's to resell the DSL service. TANSTAAFAL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

quote:

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I'm sure that if you want static IP's Verizon will be willing to sell them to you at a nominal cost.

---

Nope. "Verizon Online Business DSL Plus" -- a "business" service -- is dynamic addressing even if you pay for the "Power Plus" tier. But you get 6 verizon.net mailboxes! Wow!

»www.bellatlantic.com/sma ··· cing.htm

Now Boogie, here is some info for you to ponder, ok.
I worked for a little know CLEC a little while back called Teligent. I did order entry/tracking. The number of times I got sucked into a conferance call because we had infrastructer in place to handle the service but no phone number was astounding.
Ameritech, SBC, Pacific Bell, Cinci Bell, Verizon, Quest you name it. Ameritech was the worst.
You place an order wait two weeks no phone number ported, they hadn't let go. We would have the Radio up, everything in place, and it would all be costing us money sitting there waiting on the ILEC to port out the number. I had orders go a month when it shouldn't have gone past two weeks at the outside. 1 ANI orders that took months, the customers would just say oh did we order from you?
Don't ask me how they decided what orders to hold and which not to, but they DID! It was to frequent to be coincidence.

In business terms we had overhead but no revenue and the ILEC's loved it.
So aside from management that couldn't get dressed on there own in the morning that is why Teligent went bankrupt.

The problem for DSL companies like Rhythms, Covad and Northpoint is due to the fact that bell companies were ordered to "open" their lines and equipment to competition but there was no restriction on pricing. The bells say "Sure we'll lease you some lines but they're gonna cost you $X per month." So they lease the lines at unresonably high prices (there's no price restriction right)which the ISP's and ILEC's (Rhythms, Covad Northpoint) cannot possibly pay for and be profitable, and then offer their own DSL service for a lot less because they own the local equipment. With Northpoint and Rhythms.. both who did NOT used a shared voice/data line like Covad in some cases had to have a second line dropped at the customer location which they had to pay the bell company to do. Rolling a "bell" truck to drop a line aint free ya know.... Then a "truck roll" had to be ordered for the tech to come out and evaluate/install some IW (internal wiring) and configure the DSL router. Gezzz!! A truck roll costs almost $300. And if there is a problem and the tech has to come back then it costs another $300!!! Nobody can be profitable having to pay a truck roll cost, a line lease cost and maintain they're networks for $39.95 a month. It's impossible!!! Covad Rhythms and Northpoint were doomed from the start. Is it the "bells" fault? As far as unfair pricing... yes it was. But it was also the ENTIRE DSL business model that was at fault. Technologicly DSL is WAYYY ahead of it's time. It would have worked A LOT better if everyone had waited until voice over IP had been perfected then an ILEC would simply send a DSL router to the customer who simply plugs it in, it downloads from the DSLAM at the CO and bingo bango the customers is online. No truck roll. No special wiring installations.

said by Echo Mirage:

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While I have no intention of getting into an argument with you on this issue I feel compelled to point out a few things.

1.) You paid $30 a month for the line. You expected to have that a one time charge. OK, who pays for the power to that line? Who performs maintenance on that line? Who replaces the copper should it be damaged? You want all that for a one time charge of $30? I think not.

---

Uhm....power to the line? They're paying $30/month for dry copper...ie, no power, no service...just raw copper wire, nothing more.

said by Echo Mirage:

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2.) ILEC's are making money off of DSL. Misconception. It cost's SBC an estimated $350 per line installed. That is if the customer elects to do the self install option. This is excluding maintenance costs. Most DSL circuits will not turn a profit for at least 1-2 years. Right now SBC is burning cash like every other ISP. The difference is they have much deeper pockets to dig into.

---

This all based on, no doubt, SBC's accounting information that they provide to state commissions? And you believe that fiction?

said by Echo Mirage:

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The ILEC's are following all FCC guidelines to the extent of, in SBC's case, creating separate CLEC's to resell the DSL service. TANSTAAFAL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

---

Again...I'll point out that this is not an FCC wide mandate for ILECs, or even RBOCs, to do. BellSouth sells FastAccess DSL Internet Service to end-customers, copper UNE's to CLECs, and whole sale DSL lines to ISPs, all from the same company, BellSouth Telecommunications.

Verizon and SBC may have separate affiliates to do it, BellSouth doesn't.

Jeff

I used to work for PhoenixDSL in St. Louis and these guys have never gotten along with CLECs of ISP resellers.

Bell does whatever they can to trouble the install process in hopes the customer will break down and just rely on Bell for services.

Bell may have been broken up by the telecom act of 96 but their tactics remain the same.....its like they were never broken up at all.

I try to avoid them at all cost.

-THE BIRD
Fighting Liberal Tyranny Online
www.thebirdbath.com
Sworn enemy of Bartcop.com
»www.bartcop.net

»www.bartcop.net/HTMLobj- ··· iGif.gif

said by boogie74:

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$30 per month for DSL provisioning is unfair because the ISP must add another $30 to make money??? boogie74

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Your entire argument is out the window due to the following fact.

ASI sells DSL for $39 per month. While my company has a SIGNED CONTRACT stipulating $35 per month, all lines we have provisioned get billed at $39, including those recently provisioned, months after the contract was signed.

Meanwhile, Pac Bell Internet has and continues to offer service at $39.95, just 95 cents for bandwidth, support, services, etc, which no ISP can hope to compete with, and they even toss in free or discounted equipment and eat the installation costs. While the general price was recently raised, you can still get the $39.95 deal by signing up for certain other services on the POTS line provided by the ILEC, which of course ISPs can't offer or participate in.

I defy you to justify or argue that PBI, ASI, or SBC is NOT taking money overcharged to ISPs and independents, and subsidizing their internet division and undercutting their own customers.

This is the same old dumping / dominate the market routine practiced by Wal-Mart and other companies; nothing new here. They are overcharging the wholesale rate, undercutting any valid competition at the retail level, then when all the competition is either out of business or otherwise frustrated out of the DSL market, they control the market and raise prices. Any time there is little or no competition, they can and will raise their prices. Just look what happened to your cable bills in the late 1980's to mid 1990's.

The monthly rate for UNEs is not what's killing Covad and other CLECs.

What's killing them is the delay from customer order to billable installation, and the high percentage of orders cancelled for lack of facilities. Additionally, a substantial installation cost is usually levied by the RBOC; colo space rental fees are high and generally borne by a relatively small number of customers at each CO; and the CLEC has to expend a lot of call-center and installation-tech salary overhead to implement each order.

To be fair: the RBOC doesn't make much, if any, money selling UNEs either. The entire "business model" is a lose-lose for all participants.

The problem with that is that 9 times out of 10, the customer went to you because the baby bell rejected them. 99% of people have the same progression of requests.
1. cable company
2. RBOC
3. CLEC
99.999999999999999999999999999999999% of people will take the first one available on the list. It's just that simple.
The fact that every single person at the above companies doesn't realize this is why deployment has been so slow. The best broadband access is the one available first. When are these boneheads going to finally realize this. They should be spending 99.9999999999% of their money on deployment and just pay one person to take the calls from the whiners who complain that their service is running to slow.

Ok, I'll correct that. The CLECs also need a significant percentage spent to terrorize and destroy the baby bells until they comply with the laws. As well as terrorize any and all congress(wo)men who even have a tinge of thought of voting for Tauzin-Dingell. They also need to work-up a lobbying group to push for either a break up of the baby bells or a socialization of the baby bells.

Verizon likes ISDN beyond 16,200' and nothing else, so far at least anyway, Where I live dsl is still not available through them, But then They can charge by the minute for ISDN( and about $49.50 for access per month too ) and as far as Verizon is concerned It's either dial-up or ISDN here, Although Charter Pipeline is coming and for $39.95 per month I'll take My chances, after all $39.95 is better than dial-up or even ISDN.

Victor Bobier
Webmaster: »www.supermanthemes.com/

First, I do work for one of the companies being slammed and have put in many 80+Hr/7Dy work weeks making sure there is parity & all ISP's are treated equally. It is easy for people to offer up partial information that supports their point of view, it is tougher to just provide some details and let people make up their own minds

DSL costs include (but not limited to): DSLAMS, ATM back bone networks, ordering systems, operational support systems, billing systems. When provided by a Bell company there are also costs for regulatory compliance and system enhancements to allow competitors to use the system. This does not include the staffing overhead, maintenance and space required to house equipment and people throughout a region.

All of these costs come from shareholder equity, not the rate payer base. Yes, as an advanced service DSL costs can not be underwritten by the regular rate payer base.

So would you invest in a company that is mandated to offer the use of your shareholder equity (dividends & profit) to competitors at a reduced price? Would you invest in a company that has to spend millions of dollars so competitors can access their systems?

Or, would you prefer to invest in a company that gets to use your equity to increase profits or provide you with dividends?

Do some employees make mistakes? Yes. Do some mistakenly try to push their company ahead of another? Yes, you would too! But for every employee who makes a mistake or doesn't operate as expected there are 20 other employees working overtime to fix the mistakes!

said by Skier:

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All of these costs come from shareholder equity, not the rate payer base. Yes, as an advanced service DSL costs can not be underwritten by the regular rate payer base.

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Of course, you think I bash RBOCs and cable companies now?? You couldn't fathom the protest I would make if the poor pitiful souls like me who are too far from the CO were having our rates increased just so the lucky few could have DSL. However, that's exactly what happens in cable, and is exactly why I bash Time Warner constantly. They made us pay for everybody else to get cable modems before us. That is an outrage.

said by Skier:

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Do some employees make mistakes? Yes. Do some mistakenly try to push their company ahead of another? Yes, you would too! But for every employee who makes a mistake or doesn't operate as expected there are 20 other employees working overtime to fix the mistakes!

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Are you implying that this is doing the CLECs a favor??!?!?!?!?! Yeah sure they screw up the job intentionally and are more than happy to fix it while they are on the CLECs time-clock. That's exactly why the CLECs are going bankrupt. They have to pay twice for each install whereas the technician would be fired if they pulled that for an RBOC's DSL service installation instead they are given a pat on the back and probably a bonus for costing the CLEC more money. They ILEC should be forced to give the install for free in that case and pay the CLEC the value of the install as a penalty automatically with no appeal allowed. MONOPOLIES ARE ALWAYS GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT. THIS IS WHY THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY NEEDS TO BE SOCIALIZED.

Pac Bell sells DSL for $49, not $39...

Also, tech's don't have a clue who the ISP is. They don't have a clue what the content is. They don't care about anything but getting their orders done for the day. If a tech pulls a "no access" on a business for a DSL order, then they are doing it on all orders, RBOC or CLEC alike.

This whole thing is wrong anyways- none of you are realizing that it isn't about ISP RESELLERS! It is all about ISP's that use ASI to provision the DSL to begin with. ISP resellers pay what the loop costs, not $39 per month for the loop. On average resellers pay between $12 and $20 for the local loop.

Read the article people. Learn what you are talking about...

boogie74

boogie74

Yeah, except when the ISP and DSL is bundled the ISP's pay more like $39 per month to the ILEC for the line, and with the ILEC's DSL and Cable offerings varying between $39.95-$49.95 a month on average, there just isn't a lot of "room" there for the ISP to make *any* money. $19.95 for dial-up was close to break-even, just a little bit of profit, and it's based on the quantity over quality (little margin, but lots of customers). The DSL is different, a lot more bandwidth is needed for far fewer customers, and people are expecting the ISP to be able to survive charging $4-$14 a month tops?

Not likely.

The ILEC is getting too big a whack of the total.

quote:

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Uhm....power to the line? They're paying $30/month for dry copper...ie, no power, no service...just raw copper wire, nothing more.

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Do you think that it is just a block of copper they are buying in bulk? The local loop is connected to a network that runs data on it. The ISP is not reselling a local loop with their own network- these are ISP's selling ASI DSL...

boogie74

THEY PAY $39.

Why you in such a big hurry to defend SBC's practices, I have no idea.... Except maybe you're thankful someone came in and took over Ameriwreck, I see you're up in their territory, maybe you feel grateful to SBC for saving you...