Sticker Shock: Telecom Service Prices Rising All Over

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Cox is doing it. So is Comcast. In fact, prices are rising all over the telecom industry as stock prices plummet and subscribers prove fickle (as AT&T found out with a loss of 3.9M landline customers so far this year). Many of them are also ramping up higher-speed tiers and premium services to pad the bottom line.

Unfortunately, prices are likely to continue to rise in our current anti-competitive telecommunications market. Byzantine phone regulations are used to block new voice carriers, the programming cartel consistently flexes its muscle to increase wholesale television rates and data providers continue to increase markup even as the wholesale rate of bandwidth drops to new lows. DSLReports lambasts the lack of competition in a scatching editorial that details why telecom has the lowest consumer satisfaction ratings of any industry in the nation. As we continue to support duopolies and exclusive providers via HOAs, the problem is only going to get worse.

Broadband Bytes: Monday Edition

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There hasn’t been any news in the broadband world the last few weeks. Just kidding. Here are some “morsels” for you to chew on:

  • A local telco in Monticello, Minnesota (Bridgewater Telephone, child company of TDS Telecom) lost a suit against a city-built Fiber-to-the-Home network. (A project very similar to UTOPIA). The judge dismissed Bridgewater’s complaint of competition by a governmental organization. Apparently, the incumbent telco, Bridgewater, wouldn’t build a fiber network so the city had decided to bond and build their own. I thought this network was interesting because the goals of the network read a lot like the goals of UTOPIA:
    • choice of service provider
    • competitive rates
    • local service
    • local ownership
    • economic development
    • economic returns to the community

    There is a site like FreeUtopia that is covering this network: http://www.monticellofiber.com/

  • Some universities seem to be cutting back on POTS (plain old telephone) offerings to dorms because of lack of use.
  • Cox and Time Warner were fined for implementing SDV and knocking CableCARD customers offline without proper notification.
  • It also looks like BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) is dead. Manassas, Virginia where the flagship BPL network was deployed has been turned over to the city who will keep it around until about 2010. For all you amateur radio (PDF) operators out there this is good news.
  • Apple is rumored to be working on a networked TV. That’s going to require a lot of bandwidth. In addition to normal TV functions, you could stream any content from iTunes like downloaded movie rentals, TV episodes on demand, etc.
  • Business Week recently did an excellent piece called “The Digital Divide” that talks about just how important broadband is becoming in spurring business in areas that have it, and leaving those that don’t in the dust.
  • President Bush signed the Broadband Data Improvement Act into law on Oct. 10. The bill will provide for improved data on the status of broadband deployment in the United States by forcing the FCC to make a couple of major changes to the way it puts together broadband information. This includes yearly metrics for “second-generation” broadband that can support full motion HD video and more granularity to for reporting of broadband broken down by ZIP+4 instead of just ZIP (as it is now). The bill also authorizes a program of grants to support public/private public partnerships to stimulate broadband deployment and adoption at the state level. I’m interested to know what this would mean for projects like UTOPIA. Thoughts?

The Need for Speed: Comcast Plans to Up Speeds, Qwest Putting FTTN on Ice

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As a sure sign that the souring economy is causing broadband issues, Qwest is planning to ramp down deployment of their FTTN-based ASDL2+ service. While one of their supplies cites the coming winter weather as the reason for the slow-down, but analysts are reading between the lines that plunging landline subscriptions paired with a slowing economy means rough rides ahead for telcos. AT&T is also seeing some effects of slowing subscriber demand. It’s good news for ISPs, though: the wholesale price of bandwidth continues to drop and consumers are more willing to drop cable TV than high-speed Internet, especially as Comcast continues to raise rates.

Meanwhile, details of Comcast’s new DOCSIS 3.0 deployments is coming to light and, while good news for current subscribers or those switching from DSL, it’s hardly competitive with offerings from UTOPIA. In addition to a 50Mbps/5Mbps tier at $150/mo, Comcast plans to upgrade current subscribers to 12Mbps/2Mbps at $42.95/mo and offer a 22Mbps/5Mbps tier at $62.95/mo to compete with a similar offering from Verizon. Compare that to a 15Mbps/15Mbps plan at $40/mo or 50Mbps/50Mbps for $55/mo from either MSTAR or XMission. Just be thankful you aren’t a SureWest customer. They charge around $192/mo for a 50Mbps connection.

The Final iProvo Sale Documents

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Thanks to the power of GRAMA requests, I’ve obtained all of the final documents related to the sale of iProvo to Broadweave. If you want to take a look at them for yourself, you can download them here (14.2MB ZIP). Be warned that this ZIP file contains 48 separate PDF files, so this is only for the highly curious and those needing to be put to sleep. If you find anything particularly interesting while browsing through them, do let us know in the comments.

Perry City Council to get UTOPIA Update on October 20

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I got a note from a reader that the Perry City Council is expecting to receive an update from UTOPIA on their progress in the city during the city council meeting on October 20th at 7PM. If you’re looking for information on when UTOPIA will be available in Perry, you should make you’re at this meeting.

h/t: Al, the reader who let me know about this

U-CAN Report: September 2008

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The name of the game is frustration. Residents in Brigham City are eager to see UTOPIA get deployed, but they’re a bit sour on the Real Soon Now(TM) deployment date, one they’ve heard and seen missed before. Many aren’t going to wait around forever, instead going for cable modem, DSL and even wireless or cellular connections to sate their high-speed cravings. Some have even gone so far as to use ISDN to move away from dial-up connections.

The problem is the uncertainty. Without certainty of a specific date and location of deployment, residents are willing to sign lengthy contracts with existing providers instead of holding out for UTOPIA service sometime in the future. I’m personally confident that Brigham and neighboring Perry will see the first homes and businesses lit by year’s end. That means little to residents that want to support UTOPIA but feel as if they have been left in the dark for far too long. There’s also still lingering questions on what the install fees will be, if any. Qwest and Comcast hammered UTOPIA on the possibility and that leaves residents spooked.

Still, it’s encouraging to see that residents are supportive of UTOPIA and are eager to see it come to town. What it will take now is walking the walk, hooking up services to subscribers, in order to win over the city.

The Story Behind the iProvo Portals

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A lot has been made of the issues with phone service on iProvo and the blame laid at the feet of World Wide Packets (now owned by Ciena). After getting a techincal overview of what’s going on with the devices, it appears that the blame is well-placed. As promised, earlier, here’s the explanation as to why the WWP portals are a big bucket of fail and how UTOPIA managed to dodge most of those issues.

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