What's incredibly unfair is that Austin will now have 2 Gigabits of internet while the rest of the world is bottlenecked at megabits.
AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
31–40 of 149 posts
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#32This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…
The city of Munich in Germany does something similar (though without the battles) with FTTB service provided by M-Net (regional provider, closely affiliated with local utility Stadtwerke München)
Yeah just got M-Net in January.
But we are blessed compared to the rest of the country.
Our genius federal government built the infrastructure first and then created a private monopoly who owns all of it. The worst of both worlds. The funny thing is they bought with all the money an US provider and are now the underdog over there.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#33Makes sense-- pretending to provide service is AT&T's core competency.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#34All marketing lies. Make any company seeking such guarantees put up a $1 Billion bond that will be forfeit if they don't complete in a few years and watch AT&T back down. And for pete's sake stop giving tax deferments on the FRONT END. If a company claims they are going to make jobs or supply a service do not give them the tax break until that actually happens.
All great ideas, except for lobbyists. In reality, it's probably not reasonable to force someone to put up a bond to build a network. And a billion dollars is probably an order of magnitude (or two) higher than what it'll cost AT&T to completely build out Austin.
I believe google recently said they could build out most of the major population centers in the US for 11 Billion, so that gives you some context for a single city out of the top 100 metros.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that would be us here in Canada :) Especially on pricing and caps it feels that way sometimes.
Internet prices in Canada are awful... Videotron is charging me 50$/mo for 10 down / 1 up and a supplement of 30$ for unlimited download... and the other provider in Montreal (Bell) has exactly the same pricing scheme... we have a lot of choices.
Start an ISP. You'll make a lot of money.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#36> AT&T's expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives. Sounds more like AT&T is expecting to make a deal with Google to resell bandwidth off Google's own fiber after Google puts up all the initial expense to lay it. That would indeed give them…
Hey, if they want to do that and Google will co-operate, sounds fine & dandy to me.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#37This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…
> The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP. This is the model I see as ideal and it always baffles me why it's so rarely mentioned as an option. Make the fiber network a public grid like roads, water, sewer, power. Then sell access to private companies to deal with the connectivity, services (TV/VoIP…
That is simple. The city doesn't know what it's doing. They know Google does. They don't have to give any money to do it, just not charge Google to put their stuff in. Essentially they have to do nothing, get an ass-load of credit for doing it, and if it all goes wrong... well how can you blame them for trusting the company that some people literally think IS the internet?
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The city of Munich in Germany does something similar (though without the battles) with FTTB service provided by M-Net (regional provider, closely affiliated with local utility Stadtwerke München)
Yeah just got M-Net in January. But we are blessed compared to the rest of the country. Our genius federal government built the infrastructure first and then created a private monopoly who owns all of it. The worst of both worlds. The funny thing is they bought with all the money an US provider and are now the underdog over there.
We can blame Thatcher for introducing wide-spread privatization for this.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#39This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network. Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum. The interestin…
We have basically the same model in Reykjavik, Iceland. High speed fiber managed by one company (owned by the energy company, which again is city owned), several ISPs compete for the customers.
Re: AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network
#40Even if they do end up following through on this, knowing AT&T it will be subject to the same 150 GB/month cap they have on U-Verse.
Let me just download this stuff at 1Gbps... annnnnnd we're out of internet.