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AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

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Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#101

Post by l33t7332273 »

solatic wrote: post #96
sschueller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least every home that has copper should get fiber. The excuse that the US is too big or we can't do it is bull. You did it before for electricity and telephone. It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Don't get me wrong, the services provided on the infrastructure can definitely be for profit but not the glass itself.

> It just requires competency, money and an infrastructure that isn't for profit. Or massive government financing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act

Money and an infrastructure that isn’t for profit pretty much directly implies massive government financing.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#102

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

rconti wrote: post #85

I'm lucky that I am in Sonic's service area and get 10Gbps symmetric fiber service for $50/mo. It exposes the lie of the incumbents slow-walking new tech and bandwidth increases. They _just don't want to_ because they _don't have to_ compete with anyone, and they'd rather print cash for their shareholders. They have the capital to build these networks far faster than a small regional ISP can. Multi-gig speeds, FTTP a…

They won capitalism. The prize is you don't have to compete anymore, you don't have to innovate, and you get to charge more and deliver less.

Getting companies to this position is foundational to the incentive structure of our economic system. Once they win, that's it. They get to stay there forever.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#103

Post by icedchai »

Nullabillity wrote: post #72
sys_64738 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if that's because the USA is that stupid The USA is a continent made up of 50 countries [states]. Think European Union. Most people don't grasp or understand the sheer size.

So.. the USA failed 50 times instead of 1? Not sure how that's supposed to be an excuse for anything.

The bureaucracy of state governments is almost unfathomable unless you've experienced it first hand. Start with a meeting to discuss a meeting about another meeting... When you get to that last meeting, a supposed "working session", there's 20 people there supervising and note taking, and the one actual person who seemingly does anything has called out for the day.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#104

Post by dsr_ »

solardev wrote: post #65
_Algernon_ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding people to obligations they themselves have taken on seems like a reasonable thing to do, but what do I know. TFA even illustrates why it is necessary. Pereira got her landline cut without a suitable replacement in place: >Pereira has relied on her landline for 58 years. She got a cell phone for the first time last year when her landline got disconnected, but she lives in a dead zone for cell phones. CBS13 had…

I wonder if it'd be cheaper for AT&T to just partner with Starlink and pass through a part of the subsidy?

The more people who use Starlink, the worse it performs and the higher their profits.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#105

Post by Apes »

rconti wrote: post #85

I'm lucky that I am in Sonic's service area and get 10Gbps symmetric fiber service for $50/mo. It exposes the lie of the incumbents slow-walking new tech and bandwidth increases. They _just don't want to_ because they _don't have to_ compete with anyone, and they'd rather print cash for their shareholders. They have the capital to build these networks far faster than a small regional ISP can. Multi-gig speeds, FTTP a…

It's not quite that simple.

Sonic focuses their fiber services only in areas that are most profitable to install fiber. As far as I know, they only install fiber on telephone poles that have free space, in areas that are high density. The cheapest install option for the highest possible revenue. I live right next to an area that has Sonic fiber, but there's no telephone poles, and an install would require an expensive underground installation. As a result, my area isn't even on their roadmap for future development.

If you're outside the areas covered by their fiber service, Sonic feels it's still perfect fine to charge $50/mo for a 50 mbps asymmetrical DSL connection.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#106

Post by philistine »

sitharus wrote: post #54
h_tbob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's because the USA is that stupid, or if it's just not as population dense as other countries with faster speeds? According to this statistic, it's not very dense, meaning it's super expensive to build broadband. Because it's pretty much a question of physical area covered, not number of people serviced. This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.…

New Zealand is way lower than the US on that measure - almost half the density - yet around 87% of households here have access to FTTP with speeds of up to 800Mbps/500Mbps (you can get a slower plan for lower cost, but the lines all support at least that). Around 40% have actually connected, mostly because people don't have a reason to change from VDSL2. That metric isn't the right one to look at.

Exactly. Look at population density inside those cities. You'll find the US is living in what they call cities, but that they are all far from one another compared to the rest of the world.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#107

Post by vel0city »

arcticbull wrote: post #42
h_tbob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's because the USA is that stupid, or if it's just not as population dense as other countries with faster speeds? According to this statistic, it's not very dense, meaning it's super expensive to build broadband. Because it's pretty much a question of physical area covered, not number of people serviced. This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.…

> This stat says the USA is on the lower end of density Yes, but America's population isn't evenly distributed across the entire dry surface area. The population is clustered tightly in cities like it is in many other countries, it's just that the cities are further apart from each other. [1] The better metric, IMO, is the percentage of people who live in urban vs rural areas. [2] The US is 85.8% urban, which is righ…

It's hard to compare housing styles and density when you only have a binary choice of "urban" and "rural". One form of "urban" areas could have extremely different costs per customer to service than the other. Think dense condos and townhouses versus every house with 1-3 people on nearly acre lots. Both are often considered "urban".

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#109

Post by vel0city »

istillwritecode wrote: post #28

My wife keeps a land line because of superior voice quality for calls to her family. I find it handy because I can give a number to businesses when they demand one. We never answer that phone (it has been silenced from ringing). AT&T has no broadband service in my area - they offer only DSL and I live in a fairly rich area of silicon valley. The problem is that my utilities were put underground when the house was bui…

POTS would have had the same voice quality as a decent VOIP provider, as upstream from your home they were converting it to ulaw anyways. This would have been better than the early GSM codecs. But these days with VoLTE "HD Voice" uses a superior codec. Most chat apps will use a codec that's better than ulaw as well. So there's a lot of places to go that offer significantly better voice quality these days.

Re: AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California

#110

Post by notwhereyouare »

josh2600 wrote: post #30

I'm fine with AT&T no longer supporting landlines if they start supporting fiber to every household. US broadband is a joke compared to many other parts of the world.

> I'm fine with AT&T no longer supporting landlines if they start supporting fiber to every household.

that actually did happen with dad. He was working and off a sudden his internet stopped working, put up a screen saying he was on "vacation hold" and to call in and remove it.

He called in, got it removed. Next day, he can a call from AT&T retention telling him he needed to upgrade to the fiber and they were discontinuing their copper plan

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