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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

#441

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…

Saskatchewan has a government run telco called Saskatel, that's why you're inlaws have decent service. Every where else in Canada has worse service than Comcast.

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

#443

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…

I'm in a combo CenturyLink / Comcast market, and it's AMAZING what competition between even just those two firms does to my offerings. Switched from Comcast's $90/mo gigabit with a 1 TB data cap and only 90 Mb/s upload to CenturyLink's $60/mo symmetric gigabit with no data cap. I have a contract-less "lifetime price guarantee", they did free install (which included running a fiber line from the pole to my house with…

"threw in a free fiber endpoint box (I don't know what it's really called)"

PON ONU. Memorable, it isn't.

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

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber companies aren't interested in spending the extra money for conduits and vaults. They just want to get quick cash to feed to their investors.

They're currently installing fiber in my area with vaults that, according to my partner the engineer, are way closer together than they need to be. I wonder if something else is going in them as well...

Possibly your municipality is requiring them to do that in the build-out to make them future-proof.

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

#445
post #356
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My block is surrounded by blocks that all have gigabit fiber, but my block never got hooked up. Every year I ask, every year they have no comment.

If you can set up line of sight to an acquantance's home on a block with gigabit, you can spend a few hundred and connect up an Ubiquiti point-to-point connection.

I did that recently with their Litebeam AC. I have always found Ubiquiti's products to be technically great (superb reliability at a reasonable price, configuration is fairly straightforward although may take some googling). Unfortunately their product range is insanely confusing: even with some familiarity using their products and knowing the exact product exists, I always struggle to find the model I need.

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

#446
I find it so hard to grapple that much of SF / Silicon Valley (supposedly the "innovation hub of the world") is subject to near-monopoly by Comcast. AT&T's offerings are 40mbps/5mbps in 2019. So that's obviously not an option. Even Comcast only has 250mb/10mb. In _silicon valley_. In 2019.

I had WebPass in one building I was in in 2014, and had symmetric gigabit for $40/mo. Nothing like that has existed in any of the other buildings I've lived in.

It's gotten to the point where I'm seriously considering relocating away from the Bay Area due to the lousy internet here.

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

#447

For 60$ you have a Freebox delta in France (sorry only in French https://www.free.fr/freebox/freebox-delta/ ) . It includes 10 Gbps (via fiber cable) + a sound system ( from Devialet, an equivalent to Bose system) + Alexa on the remote controller + 500 Go HDD for video recording or music playback + 200 (international) TV channels + Netflix SD , all inclusive ?! For the little story, french people said 60 $ for all of…

Prices vary from country to country on lots of things. How much does gas cost in France vs the USA?

he was not trying to get into a pissing contest, just showing what real competition can lead to.

Another data point: I live in Hungary and pay $10 for a 1000Mbps up/200 down internet (plus I think they threw in a landline too, wasnt bothered to check) and could choose from 3 providers.

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

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but everyone in Ft. Collins is a cow herder so this town label is still appropriate. (sorry this is a bad intra-Colorado rivalry joke, please ignore)

Sko Buffs! But also Fort Collins has a lot of beer production, so they are ok in my book. It’s still not Boulder though...

Careful not to spill your quinoa smoothie on your bespoke Macbook when you type your comments.

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

#449
I don't understand why Comcast has such unbalanced offerings. In the Bay Area, a top tier package (over $100/mo) is 250mbps down / 10mbps up. They claim that most people don't need to upload things, so they allocate "more of the pipe" to download. This seems like bs to me. I upload things all the time.

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

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why we are stuck with these options (in the town referenced in the post): 1gbps Comcast and 40mbps CenturyLink.

Colorado has laws that give monopolies on the infrastructure to whoever owns it. But in order to get around anti-trust laws (or for some other cynical reason), so in your case, there is really only one provider, but they share their infrastructure with their competition and throttle them to nothing. So your options are "whatever comcast offers" and "whatever comcast decides CenturyLink can offer"

I don't understand. Comcast has their own infrastructure: a bunch of coax in the ground. Century Link (previously known as: QWest, USWest, and Ma Bell) has their own: Cat-3 coppter in the ground.
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