Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 194 posts

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#121

Post by rayiner »

andy_ppp wrote: post #117
rayiner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, "if this is true?" I linked my sources (Akamai and OECD)--you can see for yourself. As far as that perception goes, my suspicion is that it has to do with the tech press/readership skewing young and urban. The U.S. is highly unusual in making the actual building of wires largely a state/local issue, and also in treating cities as ghettos instead of national priorities. Maryland, where I live, is a m…

So what you’re saying is averages don’t give the whole picture?

If you're talking about how well a national regulatory regime works, nationwide or statewide averages are probably more relevant data points than anecdotes about specific cities.

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#122

Post by rayiner »

Latty wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the big European countries (Germany, the U.K., Spain, France, and Italy) require unbundling cable lines: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf . Unbundling of POTS in the US was not much of a boon, because DSL was a dead-end technology even then. What Europe does isn't really a good benchmark for how to structure a telecom market, because all the big European countries have slower broadband than in the US…

I'm the UK, the vast, vast majority of cable infrastructure is owned by openreach (BT) because it used to be a government run service. While it's not a general requirement, it is one for them, which in effect means it is general.

Does BT have cable, or just DSL and fiber?

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#123

Post by [deleted] »

alexanderstocko wrote: post #24
kodt wrote: post #4

This does not surprise me, in fact a Comcast technician told me they do this (on a much smaller scale) by disconnecting or cutting competitors' cable runs to buildings they are working on (and also sometimes their own). I lived in a multi-unit apartment building and one day noticed my internet was down (I was a Comcast subscriber). I was suspicious because a Comcast technician was just out earlier in the day installi…

Something similar just happened to me yesterday. My condo building has multiple providers: AT&T, Comcast, and Gigamonster. Apparently a Comcast technician "accidentally" disconnected my 1gbps Gigamonster service while setting up a new Comcast client in my floor's Telecom utility closet. I've lived in highrise complexes for the past decade and have experienced this type of outage four times. The common denominator see…

[deleted]

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#124

Post by TillE »

rayiner wrote: post #93
pjc50 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something akin to software-defined networking What you want is "local loop unbundling". It's how this works in Europe where you have artificial non-free markets with real price competition, rather than natural monopolies without price competition as in the US.

None of the big European countries (Germany, the U.K., Spain, France, and Italy) require unbundling cable lines: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf . Unbundling of POTS in the US was not much of a boon, because DSL was a dead-end technology even then. What Europe does isn't really a good benchmark for how to structure a telecom market, because all the big European countries have slower broadband than in the US…

VDSL is certainly not a "dead end". 50Mbit is available in most of Germany, with 100Mbit slowly rolling out.

A lot of people will opt for the cheaper standard DSL though (<16Mbit), which I suspect is what brings down the average. In the US you have little choice but to pay obscene prices for a very fast cable line, usually with a monthly cap.

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#125

Post by nyolfen »

pwerner2 wrote: post #109
pwerner2 wrote: post #7

Former Comcast cable technician here. I was an in-house tech, and corporate has ludicrous quality standards and nitpicky, white-glove QC's after an in-house tech leaves a job. However, the company obviously employs a TON of _independent contractors_. Some of these contractors are excellent at their jobs, but a lot of them aren't, and as they're not subject to any real oversight by the corporation, you really don't kn…

I am astonished. This is not a complicated issue. This is sensationalism. Before any of you "vote" on anything, consider exactly what it is that you're criticising. As it is, I'll bet almost all of you have never turned a wrench, let alone crawled into some ungrateful asshole's filthy attic or appalling, sewage filled crawlspace to replace a corroded cable fitting so said customer could spank his monkey at 3am to shi…

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

-dril

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#126

Post by resf »

rayiner wrote: post #122
Latty wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the UK, the vast, vast majority of cable infrastructure is owned by openreach (BT) because it used to be a government run service. While it's not a general requirement, it is one for them, which in effect means it is general.

Does BT have cable, or just DSL and fiber?

They do ADSL, FTTN/VDSL and FTTP (very sporadically).

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#128

Post by ferongr »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
javiramos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this happened to me about a month ago. I switched from Provider_A to Provider_B. Provider_A totally sabotaged the connection hardware when it disconnected the service. Provider_B's technician had a very hard time redoing the connection hardware. It's amazing to me that all these connections are still physicial (as opposed to some software-defined switching between providers). Something akin to software-define…

> Something akin to software-defined networking What you want is "local loop unbundling". It's how this works in Europe where you have artificial non-free markets with real price competition, rather than natural monopolies without price competition as in the US.

LLU still requires connecting the "loop" from its original termination point in the exchange to the space your ISP rents for its DSLAM racks (usually the next room or the same room, just a couple of corridors away).

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#129

Post by ozaark »

djrogers wrote: post #89
doctorshady wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you not been paying attention to what the FCC has been up to recently?

Recently? How about the last 20+ years?

At least they would listen to the public and revert rather than continue on sidelining stolen identity en masse for ISP support.

Today it's people vs corporate lobbyist paid accounts/bots and the ability to spam conversation.

Re: Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

#130

Post by rayiner »

TillE wrote: post #124
rayiner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the big European countries (Germany, the U.K., Spain, France, and Italy) require unbundling cable lines: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/2-7.pdf . Unbundling of POTS in the US was not much of a boon, because DSL was a dead-end technology even then. What Europe does isn't really a good benchmark for how to structure a telecom market, because all the big European countries have slower broadband than in the US…

VDSL is certainly not a "dead end". 50Mbit is available in most of Germany, with 100Mbit slowly rolling out. A lot of people will opt for the cheaper standard DSL though (<16Mbit), which I suspect is what brings down the average. In the US you have little choice but to pay obscene prices for a very fast cable line, usually with a monthly cap.

In the US, 100 Mbps availability hit 60% in 2014, and the next milestone is gigabit.
Post reply on HN