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Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

arstechnica.com

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Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#21

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #15
yardie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just digging a tunnel in Seattle took us $2 billion dollars! Did the government dig those tunnels? No they hired a contractor who sold them on one price and then sent them a bill for a much higher price. So much for private enterprise saving the taxpayer money. > why not just have the public own the 'last mile', and then let private companies plug into the grid? This is how most municipal broadband works right now.…

>No they hired a contractor who sold them on one price and then sent them a bill for a much higher price OT: if everyone can do that, what's preventing everyone from bidding $1 on multibillion dollar contracts? surely there must be a way to uphold them to the amount they bid for.

[deleted]

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#23

Post by JustSomeNobody »

stilldavid wrote: post #5

Best phone call I've made in the past few years was canceling my ~$100 Comcast internet plan in favor of my municipality's $50 gigabit plan. A year in and haven't had so much as a hiccup in service.

I have Comcast and I WFH and at least once per month I have a daytime outage of several hours. They're response is usually, "it'll be back up soon, goodbye."

I would pay MORE to have municipal internet if I didn't have to put up with Comcast anymore.

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#24

Post by vvanders »

fps wrote: post #10
bpicolo wrote: post #2

Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

Some communities aren't profitable to serve with broadband. The first municipal broadband efforts I was aware of were created because no commercial ISPs wanted to compete in an area. Broadband, like water and electricity, is a natural monopoly - there's only so much room on the poles, and there's significant economies of scale by having everyone in a neighborhood connected to the same infrastructure. I hope that Muni…

Yup, this ars article about Orcas Island a while back[1] perfectly illustrates that you can build a good local service that out performs and is cheaper if you aren't chasing a profit motive.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/how-a...

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#25

Post by JustSomeNobody »

hood_syntax wrote: post #4
bpicolo wrote: post #2

Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

I've never understood this. If you have a real or de-facto monopoly, why would you jeopardize it by providing poor service/overpricing your product? That just draws attention to the situation. Keep things reasonable and it's a lot harder for people to make noise because the majority will be fine with the way things are.

Because they don't serve the customer, they serve the investor. In the short term (quarter to quarter), you'll make the investor happier which means more money (or at least not a drop in share price.) You can deal with the loss of any customers by slowly raising prices and charging extra made-up fees.

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#29

Post by corey_moncure »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #6
bpicolo wrote: post #2

Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

Just about every internet provider has shitty service. Time Warner Cable - the only option in many parts of New York City - is the bane of our existence. Literally, literally every time we move, we've tried to cancel the internet at our old apartment and set it up at our new apartment - and had them end up canceling the internet at the new place. (What happens with the old internet is different every time; either it…

Do you then have to pay the "installation fee" of $50 so a guy in a truck and a polo shirt can come out to your house and enter the numbers from the back of your modem into a cellphone?

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#30

Post by british_india »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #6
bpicolo wrote: post #2

Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

Just about every internet provider has shitty service. Time Warner Cable - the only option in many parts of New York City - is the bane of our existence. Literally, literally every time we move, we've tried to cancel the internet at our old apartment and set it up at our new apartment - and had them end up canceling the internet at the new place. (What happens with the old internet is different every time; either it…

Time Warner Cable bought Brighthouse, my local ISP, and promptly jacked up the monthly rate 50%.

I cancelled. I would rather go without.

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