Comcast Agrees to Buy Time Warner Cable

Verizon FTTH was suspended for a large period of time, and is only scheduled to hopefully hit 300k customer upgrades this year. That is an incredibly slow pace, and from one of the largest providers in the country.

The end result is still the same though. Say Verizon didn't offer service in your area. Would you drop Comcast for 10Mbps unthrottled, uncapped for $50/month for the next few years?

Chanur_sl said:

They should spend this 45 billion on infrastructure upgrades instead of trying to fuck consumers yet again. Wah poor ISP's have it so rough.


Oh and 10MBS with no caps is what I have. 50 bucks a month. Fastest offered in my area. Its a tiny bit pricey but works great. So your theoretical bullshit is dumb. People have it right now all over.

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You dont live in a DC suburb. Pricing would vary based on infrastructure costs....

Edit: reads as MBps not Mbps. You just proved my point?

Remit_sl said:

Verizon FTTH was suspended for a large period of time, and is only scheduled to hopefully hit 300k customer upgrades this year. That is an incredibly slow pace, and from one of the largest providers in the country.

The end result is still the same though. Say Verizon didn't offer service in your area. Would you drop Comcast for 10Mbps unthrottled, uncapped for $50/month for the next few years?

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That's because Verizon is making more profit on the wireless side than FiOS.

What we need is for the government to open cable lines for competition like phone lines were and we'll see faster speeds, uncapped bandwidth and cheaper prices for all. All this deal does is screw consumers.

Arative_sl said:

That's because Verizon is making more profit on the wireless side than FiOS.

What we need is for the government to open cable lines for competition like phone lines were and we'll see faster speeds, uncapped bandwidth and cheaper prices for all. All this deal does is screw consumers.

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I'm all for that. Phone line use for 3rd party DSL still isn't feasible in most areas (see Frontiers colo requirements for a DSLAM). Still does nothing about the oversell ratio or usage increase

Arative_sl said:

What we need is for the government to open cable lines for competition like phone lines were and we'll see faster speeds, uncapped bandwidth and cheaper prices for all. All this deal does is screw consumers.

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Counter point, as I had never really given this much thought. I dont know much about coax network design, but it was my understanding that it is more of a mesh topology with limited total throughput and overhead, vs dedicated pair from DMARC to CO like telephone lines. So, all competitors would be sharing the same tubes. How would maintenance/repairs be handled? In that situation I see Comcast leasing the coax to the provider (and Comcast would handle repairs). All providers would be limited/outaged under that setup, and pricing would most likely only go up as leasing costs are pushed onto customers.

Now they'll have a monopoly.

Remit_sl said:

Verizon FTTH was suspended for a large period of time, and is only scheduled to hopefully hit 300k customer upgrades this year. That is an incredibly slow pace, and from one of the largest providers in the country.

The end result is still the same though. Say Verizon didn't offer service in your area. Would you drop Comcast for 10Mbps unthrottled, uncapped for $50/month for the next few years?

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In a second. I was getting less than 10 with Comcast, and that was advertised speed at about 40 per month for internet. Effective speed was less, and on top of that they were traffic shaping. Comcast is the worst company ever. Except maybe like Nestle in the 70s when they were poisoning babies in South America.

chaos_sl said:

In a second. I was getting less than 10 with Comcast, and that was advertised speed at about 40 per month for internet. Effective speed was less, and on top of that they were traffic shaping. Comcast is the worst company ever. Except maybe like Nestle in the 70s when they were poisoning babies in South America.

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I mean present day Comcast, in your area. They got fined for the torrent throttling if I remember correctly, so they are probably at least a little careful to head down that road again (unless like I said, the risk/reward is totally worth it). Maybe I am wrong, but when people move out into my area from populated locations, they nearly shit their pants on the phone when I tell them my speeds vs the competition(we are very rural, as I had to build a 70 mile backhaul to hit fiber. Different market obviously, but comparable in pricing tiers). Then a few months down the road they call me back due to word of mouth reputation of actually delivering advertised speeds.


EDIT: Clarity

This thread turned interesting as shit. Keep going!

I live in Arizona, and a hot issue is talking about illegal workers. Everyone wants to pay $1 for that head of lettuce at the store, and don't really care how they get it.

I'd venture to guess that uninformed outside this forum feel the same way about their internet. They don't care how they get it, or that their streaming habits are a detriment to the "system" but damn it they'll be mad when it doesn't work!!

There is a balance that needs to be had but I honestly don't feel we will ever see it in America. I would feel much better about paying my monthly bill, or be ok with rate increases if in the end the company wasn't raking in billions of dollars. I'm all for capitalism but sometimes it gets a little stupid.

Crone_sl said:

This thread turned interesting as shit. Keep going!

I live in Arizona, and a hot issue is talking about illegal workers. Everyone wants to pay $1 for that head of lettuce at the store, and don't really care how they get it.

I'd venture to guess that uninformed outside this forum feel the same way about their internet. They don't care how they get it, or that their streaming habits are a detriment to the "system" but damn it they'll be mad when it doesn't work!!

There is a balance that needs to be had but I honestly don't feel we will ever see it in America. I would feel much better about paying my monthly bill, or be ok with rate increases if in the end the company wasn't raking in billions of dollars. I'm all for capitalism but sometimes it gets a little stupid.

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Yeah I mean don't feel bad for Comcast, that wasn't my point. They make fuckloads of money and occasionally do bad things, and probably have areas with really shitty CSR teams, etc.

But people see this and just say "MONOPOLY! WE NEED GOOGLE" when 1Gbps FTTH is not sustainable, feasible, or affordable in any way shape or form for a profitable business model. Traffic is fucking insane since streaming video. Yeah we need to deal with it. But there isnt a simple fix of just regulation that will magically send companies knocking down your door to get you great service.

How do you feel about Netflix taking on some of that cost? Or being more strict about their sharing? But again, no one wants that bad press or to be the ones that actually impose limits on people. We are Americans, damn it, and we'll burn anyone that tries to restrict what we do!!

I mean you said streaming 5 lines in HD, for 20 hours a day. Seriously? That's insane. Those are the people that need to be hit with a throttle.

Would it be cost effective to target the highest users? The ones that pay $45 a month, and expect no limits or caps?

Well where do you think technology is going to go? Eventually 1Gbps fiber will be the reality.Is it feasible today? Nah. Would I LOVE for Google to come in here and save the day? Fuck yes. But that isn't going to happen, Google's fiber is a side project they do with their "fuck you" money, like the wireless balloons and all the other crazy shit they do. There is a middle ground between live-saving superhero Google saves the day and the bullshit that is our current internet distribution system in the US.

BTW, yeah, I'd take 10Mbps over Comcast even today. But I hate the shit out of Comcast. The bottom line is that as a company they can't be trusted to even deliver what they promise or to be honest with you about what services you are receiving, so they can go to hell.

Crone_sl said:

How do you feel about Netflix taking on some of that cost? Or being more strict about their sharing? But again, no one wants that bad press or to be the ones that actually impose limits on people. We are Americans, damn it, and we'll burn anyone that tries to restrict what we do!!

I mean you said streaming 5 lines in HD, for 20 hours a day. Seriously? That's insane. Those are the people that need to be hit with a throttle.

Would it be cost effective to target the highest users? The ones that pay $45 a month, and expect no limits or caps?

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I cant think of a way for Netflix to cover any of the costs. Yeah it sucks that we are basically TV providers giving streaming sites free delivery to the customer (whereas before you had HUGE infrastructure costs, satellites or local copper), but then again I know they have insane bandwidth costs on their end too.

I would say 40% of my customers stream upwards of 10 hours a day. Stay at home moms, shift working dads, and TV to parent the kids. The unemployed it is more like 80+% stream 10+ hours a day. I have 1 house that just increased their plan from 1.5Mbps to 3Mbps because they could only stream to 3 devices, and they wanted it on 5. And really, the only time that it matters is 7-11pm, as that is when traffic peaks. But, thats when EVERYONE wants to steam. And they should be able to (but not to 4 devices for $50/month...)

The old target the 5% who use 95% is dead. That is what caps used to hit, the torrenters and useneters of the old internet. Now you would be hitting 40+% of your customers, and I think that is just bad for business.

chaos_sl said:

Well where do you think technology is going to go? Eventually 1Gbps fiber will be the reality.Is it feasible today? Nah. Would I LOVE for Google to come in here and save the day? Fuck yes. But that isn't going to happen, Google's fiber is a side project they do with their "fuck you" money, like the wireless balloons and all the other crazy shit they do. There is a middle ground between live-saving superhero Google saves the day and the bullshit that is our current internet distribution system in the US.

BTW, yeah, I'd take 10Mbps over Comcast even today. But I hate the shit out of Comcast. The bottom line is that as a company they can't be trusted to even deliver what they promise or to be honest with you about what services you are receiving, so they can go to hell.

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Well I am wrong on that point then. Their balloons look awesome though. They use the same radios as I do in their CPEs. Might be an option for flat areas with REALLY stupid zoning laws like no towers over x feet, no water tower access, etc

But there has to be a way to target some of those people that use so much? I feel like that's a better answer than just throttling everyone that's using Netflix, no matter if that was their first time turning it on that month, or the 20th hour of the day they had been doing it.

I'm a useneter, and for the last 2 years I was fine staying under my 250gb cap on $70 per month, 50down/5up internet from Cox Communications. I discovered torrents, and after 3 weeks I had to call and upgrade to the 150/30 plan not for the speeds, but for the increase to 400gb cap.

I'm pretty sure I can say that torrents are dirty, and the cause of our internet problems? Go usenets! haha

Their idea was using it to hit remote or impoverished areas, like third world areas. Forgetting or course that lack of a computer is probably a much larger barrier to the internet. The technology was really cool, though, I did a whole thing on it in one of my classes.

Yeah I'm sure the FAA would have a few problems with that in the US. I just hope they are working directly with Ubiquiti to solve some of their firmware issues

I hate torrents but only because of dumb end users. People that don't understand seeding so I get copyright violation notices I have to forward on or call to complain their Internet is slow when pushing 800 connections through their net gear router. Streaming is so easily accessible and will only grow, where as your average Joe doesn't even know what a torrent is these days.

I think the solution is sustainable advertised speeds, and that's what I started with 4 years ago. I don't even burst or allow higher speeds on off peak hours, as customers will complain during peak hours even if they are getting more than advertised speeds