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Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

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Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#331

Post by bonestamp2 »

linsomniac wrote: post #329
nostromo wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true for Century Link. Lots of people in Seattle, and a growing number of other cities, have Century Link gigabit fiber to their residence. I pay less than $70 a month for this. Comcast is losing marketshare fast in Seattle because of this. https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/img/Gigabit-Launch-Map-res...

I don't understand, what are you referring to that isn't true?

I guess he's opposing the statement that they're doing as little as possible to upgrade their service.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#332

Post by linsomniac »

cptskippy wrote: post #313
metalliqaz wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber is slowly making its way through my town and I'm looking forward to the speed, but more than that I'm looking forward to telling Comcast that I don't have to put up with them anymore. I picture it like that episode of South Park, except with the roles reversed.

In the late 90s fiber was widely deployed by Telcos in the US in anticipation of future demand growth that never occurred due to the ability to extract greater bandwidth out of single fibers. Bellsouth had fiber laid in much of suburban Georgia in the late 90s that remained dark. In the early 00s they were offering internet to some communities by running fiber to a box on the side of the house that converted it to 10…

The stories I heard about the expansion that was anticipating growth that never came was all about long-haul fiber: Fiber between cities and across the country. Some of that, one could speculate, was because these long haul fibers were being sold to businesses, who were paying ~$100/mbps, but the residential endpoints were still very slow (1.5Mbps DSL was blazing fast in 1998, if you could even get it), because the telcos were holding onto their in-ground copper investment.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#333

Post by ehsankia »

nostromo wrote: post #323
linsomniac wrote: post #269

CenturyLink, in particular, but also Comcast, has brought this upon themselves... They are doing everything they can to protect their existing infrastructure and do as little as possible to upgrade services. I'm thinking of back in '98 when QWest was rolling out DSL, the would only connect you to a central office. They refused to put DSLAMs in the pedestals, because if they did that they had to allow CLECs to do the…

This isn't true for Century Link. Lots of people in Seattle, and a growing number of other cities, have Century Link gigabit fiber to their residence. I pay less than $70 a month for this. Comcast is losing marketshare fast in Seattle because of this. https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/img/Gigabit-Launch-Map-res...

But are there competing gigabit internet in Seattle? Obviously they will stay competitive, that's beside the point.

It's like how Comcast happened to bring cheap gigabit internet to every city Google Fiber entered... The fact that it takes a local competitor to get these big companies to bring cheap gigabit is exactly the problem. Your anecdotal evidence about a city full of competition doesn't really prove anything.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#334

Post by pdmccormick »

wlesieutre wrote: post #265
toomuchtodo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

APM Marketplace [1] just had a researcher on the program the other day sharing that most Americans don’t use more than 20Mbps of bandwidth, and paying for anything above that as a typical internet user is throwing your money away. Power users, businesses, researchers, and others might expect more, but not the majority of residential users. Muni fiber investments will last quite a while. [1] https://www.marketplace.or…

One reason for getting a faster link is that most broadband connections in the US are not symmetric. Comcast in my area doesn't even make claims of upload speed anymore, but my recollection of when they used to is that it was about 10% of the download speed. If you want more than 2 Mbps upload, that 20 Mbps plan wouldn't cut it.

Part of the reason for asymmetric cable modem (DOCSIS) speeds is due to the coaxial medium being essentially half duplex. Operators split the RF spectrum into a lower frequency range for upstream, and a higher frequency range for downstream. Increasing the width of the upstream range would eat into the available downstream bandwidth, and also has other implications in terms of power, noise and overall network design.

There is a full duplex version of DOCSIS, but its adoption faces some challenges due to how operators have to re-architect their physical networks to support it.

There is also currently a push to extend the downstream spectrum up to higher frequencies, enabling both more downstream bandwidth and also the ability to move the upstream split higher, therefore increasing upstream bandwidth.

(Disclaimer: I work with a client who develops products in this space.)

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#336

Post by linsomniac »

bravoetch wrote: post #311
thedaemon wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have CenturyLink 1Gbps in Colorado Springs. Not sure what you mean about not upgrading their infrastructure. The price is $75 fixed forever as long as I always pay my bill on time.

Centurylink in Fort Collins offer 'up to 40 mbits' but it's rarely that fast and costs about $48 a month. Plus router rental. That's what we mean about them not upgrading infrastructure. They had their chance, and now the city will compete with them.

They used to quote their speeds in ATM frame rates, not in IP speed, and ATM has a lot of overhead. 15%? I wonder if their 40mbps is still quoting frame rates rather than actual IP throughput. Not sure, because 40mbps isn't enough for my home use, so I haven't even talked to them.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#337

Post by js2 »

I'm glad the telecoms weren't able to buy the legislature in CO like they did in NC in 2011: Under H129, municipal broadband programs like Wilson's "Project Greenlight" would be pretty much impossible to replicate if a cable company serves just 50% of the households in the area with "high-speed" internet.

https://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/9625657/

Fortunately, NC is now considering loosening the restrictions: House Bill 431, the FIBER NC Act, would allow counties or cities in areas with little or no broadband service to spend taxpayer dollars to build their own infrastructure for it and then lease the network out to a private service provider.

https://www.wral.com/plan-to-allow-municipal-broadband-syste...

That said, I'm fortunate in my town to get AT&T 1Gbps for $70/mo. The alternative, Charter (which I had for years when it was TWC), is awful on both pricing and service. I think it was the threat of Google Fiber that got AT&T to move its feet. Years later, still no Google Fiber anywhere near me, though supposedly they are still expanding in the area. A few miles away in a neighboring town, folks have access to Ting Internet (1Gbps for $89/mo) and seem happy with it.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#338

Post by tryptophan »

shmerl wrote: post #324
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #294

We really need to start voting against politicians that are in bed with comcast and At&t. Is there some kind of list or online database where we can see which of our local politicians are supporting comcast and at&t with these horrible regulations that prevent open competition?

Some details here: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/

Net neutrality is a completely difference issue. It has nothing to do with why its hard to make an ISP competitor.

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#339

Post by linsomniac »

Aside: I can't figure out what I'd even do with 10gig symmetric at home for $300/mo. I'd be tempted to run a distro mirror for the city, the last time I ran a mirror I had 30mbps I could give to it. I'd push for 10gig at the office when it comes, but we'd have to upgrade everything except a few dev servers...

Re: Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps for $60 After Years of Battling Comcast

#340

Post by _b »

nostromo wrote: post #323
linsomniac wrote: post #269

CenturyLink, in particular, but also Comcast, has brought this upon themselves... They are doing everything they can to protect their existing infrastructure and do as little as possible to upgrade services. I'm thinking of back in '98 when QWest was rolling out DSL, the would only connect you to a central office. They refused to put DSLAMs in the pedestals, because if they did that they had to allow CLECs to do the…

This isn't true for Century Link. Lots of people in Seattle, and a growing number of other cities, have Century Link gigabit fiber to their residence. I pay less than $70 a month for this. Comcast is losing marketshare fast in Seattle because of this. https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/img/Gigabit-Launch-Map-res...

Century Link expanded its fiber network in Seattle when it seemed likely Google Fiber would come, but in the last 4 years while it has been clear it wouldn't, it seems like CenturyLink has stopped expanding their network.
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