My recommendation: Swith to anything else.

I have been saying for years the cable and telco operations should be broken into 2 components – content provider and bandwidth provider. Bandwidth provider part should be regulated like the common carrier or public utility that it is and the content provider part can compete against Google, etc.

Bill_Bowen on August 29, 2008 at 12:09 PM

I can’t support that after seeing what that did in my state for natural gas. As soon as gas was “deregulated,” the total bill amount easily tripled. All of the “competing” service providers charge the same (high) price, while the delivery provider gets quite a share as well (about $28/mo for residential service). My average total winter gas bill went from about $75/mo to $260/mo. I costs me $50/mo just to run a water heater in the summer.

I’m a Comcast customer and I use easily at least 150GB per month. I work from home providing server and workstation support, so I depend heavily on desktop streaming, VoIP, and file transfer. This cap will be a problem for me since DSL available in my area has only about 60% of the available bandwidth of Comcast cable. I guess I can live with slower DSL, but I shouldn’t HAVE to. Furthermore, I’ll be forced into buying a telephone line for $45/mo–that I have absolutely no use for (I haven’t had a POTS phone since 1998)–AND paying for DSL at another $35 on top of that, as well as the usual $50 for cable or satellite TV. So, this means my overall cost will increase for lower speed Internet service. Thanks Crapcast!

I wish we had FIOS here. I’d be willing to pay even more than I pay now for it. But, alas, I am stuck in AT&T country and AT&T is still stuck in 1974.

Really?! Come on fourstring, you are going to try to tie Barack Obama to Comcast? It sure is a leftist tactic to make unpopular corporate decisions. Nice work there.

Anything to smear a Democrat, eh? Unbelievable.

http://thepajamapundit.com/

thePajamaPundit on August 29, 2008 at 9:58 AM

why do you add your website in each post?
isnt it linked to in your name?

Give me a jingle at MaruAdventurer@gmail.com. I have a client that would love to get biz FIOS but is getting nowhere.

jmarcure
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jmarcure, hate to say it but you may not be getting the full benefit of your HD channels now. Another words the applied compression is reducing your HD quality.

As a consumer you should be pushing for a low cost data transport from the carriers. Like $30 from the cable co’s just for transport. Then you go and get your own service layers as you want it, ala carte. There’s nothing technologically to doing this. The Suites just want their channel line ups to pay for the 2 martini lunches.

LimeyGeek
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False actually. With the proper investments the bandwidth available is nearly infinite.

* Spread Spectrum roaming for wireless space. 3/4′s of the bandwidth allocations in this country go UNUSED in any instant of time. The DoD already does dynamic spectrum allocation as theatre requirements dictate.

* DWDM can provide a 100x increase in bandwidth over the same fiber that in the ground.

* An Australian research center has an experimental wireless architecture that provides 5Gbs/sec using existing chip systems.

One way to raise rates is to generate a perceived rarity to a resource. Caps can foster that perception.

But by no means is bandwidth a zero sum gain. Especially for wireline services.

Yes LimeyGeek, lazy. Their solution is DOCSIS3. That means they ship some new modems to their some of their subsucribers and drop a few new router cards in their POP at the office. Their line infrastructure, eg cable, does not change on wit.

Compared to the work being done by Verizon and AT&T with FTTP; yes it is lazy.

If you have a small business and want to explore the options Verizon has available, maybe the website people can direct your inquiries to me. I’ll check on the options and let you know.

(I’m feeling pretty good about the Veep pick. How about you? I have my reservations, but she seems pretty impressive, so far.)

http://www.wowway.com

See if you have anyone providing FiOS in your area. Sometimes there is unlit FiOS in your area and you can pay for last-mile connectivity. It’s kinda tough to arrange but well worth it.

ADSL speeds have also really improved in recent years. I would recommend Verizon business-class DSL. I use it and am quite satisfied.

HebrewToYou on August 29, 2008 at 1:23 PM

Thanks for the info. I’ll give Verizon a call!

Internet access is not a free market, pussum207. There are barriers to entry that cannot be overcome without government interaction. That is the problem. People in the sticks, if they even have broadband in the area, are limited to pretty much one ISP. That makes bandwidth caps all the more troubling.

Actually, it is a free market in that there are no government-imposed barriers to entry and retail prices are unregulated. It may not fit the textbook definition of perfectly competitive markets but few markets do. To the extent that there is government intervention in the telecom markets, as in wholesale markets, it has undermined the economics of entry and investment and thus reduced choice.

On the question of rural customers, I would note that the choice of where to live is ultimately up to the individual. Living in rural areas has advantages and disadvantages. For example, among the advantages are vastly lower costs of housing. Among the advantages of urban living are lower costs and better choice with respect to a wide variety of other goods and services, including telecommunications. Providing broadband-capable access in rural areas is much more costly and much riskier due to lower customer density. This is unfortunate in one sense but also an unavoidable result of what makes rural life otherwise so appealing to those who choose it – fewer people, greater isolation, peace and quiet, etc. It is not reasonable for rural residents to want to benefit from all the advantages of rural living and, at the same time, expect others to defray the costs of that choice.

We’re paying over $100.00 for basic cable and internet connection with Comcast. Can anyone recommend a better, cheaper alternative?

See if you have anyone providing FiOS in your area. Sometimes there is unlit FiOS in your area and you can pay for last-mile connectivity. It’s kinda tough to arrange but well worth it.

ADSL speeds have also really improved in recent years. I would recommend Verizon business-class DSL. I use it and am quite satisfied.

I’m completely against the whole concept of a cap, especially since the services are always advertised as Unlimited*… It’s that darned asterisk that gets you.

Hopefully there are enough alternatives to Comcast that their customer base will bleed away and hurt them for this choice. However, if my experience here has been any indication, their competitors will now all move to a cap system too.

*Sigh*… Too bad the capping companies own the infrastructure or else someone could snap up all the irate customers by offering truly unlimited access.

It is what it is.

HebrewToYou on August 29, 2008 at 12:05 PM

That it is. You would be the exception to the rule, I’d think. I’m also thinking that if there are legitimate users needing that bandwidth, there would be exceptions to Comcast’s rule. Glib, yes. Naive? Possibly. Realistic? Most assuredly.

Comcast is pulling the plug on rat college kids who move petabytes of primarily illegal downloads which effects their entire network. They should have the right to do with their cable lines what ever they want. They went to the expense of laying them, and they are private property.

These kinds of cheap shots like Morrisey is giving into plays right into the hands of Soros and the piglets at the FCC.

Would Morrisey rather just switch providers or have Kevin Martin tell him what he can and cannot do on the Net?

Bandwidth is not costless, capital available for infrastructure investment is not limitless, firms in free markets have a moral and legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits.

Internet access is not a free market, pussum207. There are barriers to entry that cannot be overcome without government interaction. That is the problem. People in the sticks, if they even have broadband in the area, are limited to pretty much one ISP. That makes bandwidth caps all the more troubling.

We must find new and alternative sources of internets.

I hope the lightworker will imbue us with a new and clean source of internets for all to use.

I detest socialism as much as you do, but regulating a public utility is necessary to prevent the kind of predatory practices that monopolies are prone to exhibit.

Wise, wise words, Bill_Bowen. We — the American people — have granted private utility companies special privileges. If they abuse them we need to act quickly and firmly to right such wrongs. Comcast is abusing their position in the industry and they need to be stopped.

This isn’t like Microsoft versus Apple; some people simply don’t have a choice for broadband.