Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#111

Post by atburrow » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

This is exciting news! In Chicago, I'm currently living in a high rise where the fastest plan I can get is 24 Mbps for around $80/mo. My high rise has an exclusivity contract with AT&T U-Verse. I've spoken with AT&T reps and they can't offer any higher speeds. I also talked to property management and they said there's nothing they can do for me. They are locked into an exclusivity contract with AT&T for the wires in the building.

Does anyone have experience dealing with properties who claim to have exclusivity contracts? I talked to people at Webpass, and they've stated it is available in my area. They'd come in and set everything up free of charge. I don't see the downside for my building to allow Webpass to come in. I do know the FCC has regulations about exclusivity contracts with video providers, but I couldn't find any documents on things like internet. It seems like my only option is to find a place that does not have exclusivity contracts with providers.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#112

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #87

nurblieh wrote: post #51

Huge fan of Webpass. 1 Gbps of IPv4/6 with great customer service for $55 a month. It can't be beat, if it's available to you. I hope this is a win for the Webpass employees, in the short and long term. Thanks for all the bits!

Is that a good deal in the US ? Wow, in France for $40 we got: - 12Gbps (100G Fiber at no additional cost in supported area) - Free landline call to a 100 countries and free cell calls to France - HD TV - and a media center with recording capabilities, a blue ray player, public FTP and network harddrive - for 3 more $, you get a cell phone line with 2 hours of communication and unlimited text, or for $20 unlimited ca…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#113

Post by warfangle » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #98

tssva wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Verizon FiOS. Installation of it was subsidized by targeted tax breaks, use of government owned right of ways, and laws which substantially limited their liability for property damaged done during installation. I'm also pretty sure Verizon used funds gained from their other services to pay for the installation.

In most places FiOS deployment involves huge taxes, such as franchise fees and forced build-out into neighborhoods that will be unprofitable. (Tax breaks, to the extent they exist, are often carrots for the latter). Also, in many (most?) places Verizon pays the utility pole or conduit owner (usually the power company) for access to those rights of way. In Virginia, for example, you'll get a line-item on your bill for…

In most places telephone deployment involved huge taxes and forced build-out into counties that would be unprofitable. Also, the telephone company paid non-discriminatory fees to the pole/conduit owner.

This was often paid for / subsidized by the Universal Service Fund, because telephone service was seen as something absolutely necessary for modern life. Back in 1934.

ISPs, unfortunately, are not able to be subsidized by the Universal Service Fund. AFAIK.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#114

Post by warfangle » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #79

gruez wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price discrimination. Businesses tend to be more able to pay than home users.

That plus one or more of: SLAs, guaranteed minimum bandwidth, much higher upstream, better tech support, etc.

And static IPs, and a lack of language in the contract stating that servers cannot be hosted on it, and so on and so forth.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#115

Post by jonknee » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

vially wrote: post #101

nurblieh wrote: post #51

Huge fan of Webpass. 1 Gbps of IPv4/6 with great customer service for $55 a month. It can't be beat, if it's available to you. I hope this is a win for the Webpass employees, in the short and long term. Thanks for all the bits!

That still seems pretty expensive. In Romania you get the same service (1 Gbps with IPv4/6) for less than $12 (45 RON).

What does the price of something in Romania have to do with the price of something in the US?

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#116

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

atburrow wrote: post #111

This is exciting news! In Chicago, I'm currently living in a high rise where the fastest plan I can get is 24 Mbps for around $80/mo. My high rise has an exclusivity contract with AT&T U-Verse. I've spoken with AT&T reps and they can't offer any higher speeds. I also talked to property management and they said there's nothing they can do for me. They are locked into an exclusivity contract with AT&T for the wires in…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#117

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

warfangle wrote: post #113

rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most places FiOS deployment involves huge taxes, such as franchise fees and forced build-out into neighborhoods that will be unprofitable. (Tax breaks, to the extent they exist, are often carrots for the latter). Also, in many (most?) places Verizon pays the utility pole or conduit owner (usually the power company) for access to those rights of way. In Virginia, for example, you'll get a line-item on your bill for…

In most places telephone deployment involved huge taxes and forced build-out into counties that would be unprofitable. Also, the telephone company paid non-discriminatory fees to the pole/conduit owner. This was often paid for / subsidized by the Universal Service Fund, because telephone service was seen as something absolutely necessary for modern life. Back in 1934. ISPs, unfortunately, are not able to be subsidize…

Note that the Universal Service Fund is funded by a tax on telecommunications service. So a big company like Bell Atlantic (Verizon's predecessor) never received a net subsidy--the government just forced it to take money from some of its subscribers to offer below-cost service to other subscribers.

That said, the USF is a big step up from the "forced build-out" into unprofitable areas, which is what used to happen with telephone, and still happens with broadband. It highly distorts the market. E.g. if build-out requirements were imposed on Webpass, it'd basically ban their business model.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#118

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

Tinyyy wrote: post #66

tbrock wrote: post #60

I hope this reduces the cost of their business offerings. I love the service, and the home offering is the deal of the century, but $500/month for 50Mb/sec symmetric or $250/month for 20Mb/sec symmetric is hard to swallow for our business (or any other). They offer faster service (gigabit and probably more) but what startup can pay 10k/month for their business internet? What's worse is monkeybrains and webpass should…

I'm curious, why is it that business plans are so much more expensive than residential ones?

Same reason a 64GB iPhone is so much more than a 16GB one.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#119

Post by codemac » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

danw3 wrote: post #104

codemac wrote: post #31

God, I hope the support doesn't end up like most other Google product's support. I have webpass and my heart dropped. My project fi experience has been bad enough already.

What issues have you had with project fi? I switched to it about 6 months ago and I haven't had any problems at all.

The issues are rather small. The support is what's bad. They expect you to contact them endlessly, through multiple mediums, to resolve the most mundane of issues.

Re: Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass

#120

Post by nimish » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

atburrow wrote: post #111

This is exciting news! In Chicago, I'm currently living in a high rise where the fastest plan I can get is 24 Mbps for around $80/mo. My high rise has an exclusivity contract with AT&T U-Verse. I've spoken with AT&T reps and they can't offer any higher speeds. I also talked to property management and they said there's nothing they can do for me. They are locked into an exclusivity contract with AT&T for the wires in…

Your property management company is likely receiving a significant sum of money from ATT to keep it this way. Unless you have access to their contract with ATT, you're SoL.