Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
And Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc aren't in a hurry to upgrade if it will mean more people canceling TV cable service for Netflix $7.99 streaming.
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All the more reason an ISP should also not be providing Telco or TV services. It's the very definition of duplicity. Before I sold my place my ISP was a company based out of the LA area that offered all DSL service totally uncapped and for far less than the same service on Verizon, AT&T or other major provider. I had service with them for over a decade and never did they drop the ball. And they are a company which now services millions of home in the US.
But what I did learn when there was a service issue with the Verizon provided lines was that Verizon had so oversold DSL service here in our small town in CA that I would likely not even be approved for the level service I was on which was the fastest DSL we can have in my town at just 7.1Mbps/768kbps.
The worst part is one of the primary backbones for CA, which services the coastal part of the state, runs right through the center of town. In fact Verizon touted it would enable them to offer us FIOS as if we were in a big city as part of compensation for the nearly year long disruption of traffic in the city due to them tearing up the main streets in town as well as two of the three roads in/out of town burying the cable. Sadly Verizon never intended on providing that service...EVER. At the same time they have done NOTHING to build the service here. I knwo because the tech who came to help me ferret out the issue I was having is an old softball & bowling buddy who has been a TelCo tech for many decades. But he told me of the internal stuff. Worse yet was my line actually tested out at 12Mbps/12Mbps symmetric. He showed me the line test results right as he took them.
The issue is NOT over bandwidth or system capacity, it is all about the ancillary services these companies sell. They can't compete with the Netflix, Hulu's, iTunes and Amazon's of the world in terms of content so they are now looking to extort people who have dared come to use the service we all pay for for their own benefit. It's all about this ever spiraling out of control need to accelerate growth year-over-year rather than live with mere profits. So the actual consumer gets hosed.
I don't and won't afford cable of any sort as the content is not worth anything to me. I choose instead to go the streaming route. I am sure many others are doing the same. so rather than improving service by offering higher speeds and being able to charge more for those higher tiers, these Telco's are squeezing from the middle.
This is all no different than 3g/4g providers who tout these high speed mobile broadband rate yet having a 5GB cap. You can blow though that cap in the course of an hour of an HD movie. I hate to use the term but it's a bait-n-switch at it's slickest and slimiest.