[HN Gopher] Charter charges more money for slower Internet on st...
___________________________________________________________________
Charter charges more money for slower Internet on streets with no
competition
Author : CharlesW
Score : 256 points
Date : 2021-05-28 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| I don't play this game personally, but where I live in Canada, it
| seems that the main internet providers (Bell and Rogers) each
| offer heavy discounts if you bug them enough and threaten to
| switch. A year later your temporary discount expires, and you
| play the game again.
|
| We still have alternate ISPs that the above two have to share
| their last mile infrastructure with, and mine has no-BS pricing
| and policies so I stick with them. But a friend who does play the
| game routinely gets his internet access cheaper.
|
| Rogers is really offering heavy discounts in streets where Bell
| has just installed their fiber-to-the-home stuff.
| jogjayr wrote:
| No reason not to play the game, honestly. Even if it takes
| waiting an hour on hold (highly unlikely), a mere $20 discount
| on service is like earning $240/hour.
| colanderman wrote:
| So, I have the amazing luck of having _three_ wired broadband
| providers on my street in the US (Comcast, RCN, and Verizon
| FiOS). Competition is fierce and prices are low, yet, having
| attempted the above trick twice now (RCN - > Comcast, Comcast
| -> RCN), both times the reps I called were sufficiently
| clueless to _not_ try to offer me a discount incentive to stay
| despite my plain wording that I was switching to get a better
| price. And both times, I was contacted by a rep _after_ I
| switched, basically asking, "why did you leave? we could have
| given you discount X!"
|
| Like... _someone_ in their offices is clueless that the
| competition is very real in my area and that they need to
| empower /train their customer service reps to actually offer
| discounts to stay.
|
| Regardless we've been able to keep low prices just by
| _actually_ switching. I 'm keeping my fingers crossed that they
| never get the idea to collude with each other.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I've been told that the local offices do better at retention
| than the phone support.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they never get the idea
| to collude with each other.
|
| To be fair, that should be (and probably is) illegal,
| although good luck enforcing it if they're smart enough to
| maintain plausible deniability.
| ev1 wrote:
| What the hell is Bell offering? FTTH? FTT neighbourhood then
| copper?
|
| The product is called "Fibe" but their lowest plan is 10 Mbps
| down, 1 Mbps up? What on earth type of optics even offers that?
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Bell markets FTTN (i.e. VDSL) as "Fibe" and FTTH as "Fibre".
| Not the most ingenious branding IMHO. I'm on 15/10 FTTN and
| have no reason to go faster (it tops out at 50 down). Bell's
| new FTTH offering (conduits being buried on my street as I
| write this) starts at Can$85 for the lowest practical tier
| (150M and unlimited). Their nominal cheapest tier ($55) only
| gets you 100G/month which is a joke. Rogers offered my friend
| $39/month for 500M unlimited on his street, where Bell's FTTH
| service is already live.
| nick__m wrote:
| Fibe is an umbrella marketing term. In my neighborhood, they
| offer FFTN then copper , a few blocks away it's FTTH
| (speedtest at 900M down 800M up). In both case they call the
| service Fibe and charge a similar price .
| ev1 wrote:
| That explains a bit. Also very on point for Bell to
| advertise copper as "fibe"...
| mthoms wrote:
| In the West, Shaw is getting sued by Telus for calling
| their service "Fiber+" even though the "last mile" is
| copper.
|
| https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/06/12/telus-shaw-lawsuit-
| mislea...
| fotta wrote:
| This is a yearly ritual for my family on Comcast/Xfinity. The
| promotional offer ends, you call and say you want to cancel,
| get sent to customer retention, and re-up on the promo. I'm
| pretty sure they know the game since it's so common.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Careful with that! I once called up to do that retention
| routine and got a surprise. "Hi, I want to cancel because the
| regular rate is too expensive." "Ok, sir hang on, I will put
| you in touch with someone." So then I'm thinking yesss,
| retention team is going to get me the discount... Then I
| hear: "Ok, sir, we have canceled your service as of today,
| your final bill will come in a few days." Me: "uhhhh wait..."
| fotta wrote:
| Oh wow yikes. I've never not had the IVR send me to
| retention by saying "cancel service" to the bot.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| This has never worked for me, despite me always being kind
| and considerate to the phone support workers.
| hourislate wrote:
| I actually experienced an interesting incident that made me
| switch from Charter with no intention of ever giving them my
| business again. They had upgraded their default speed in my area
| from 200 Mbps to 300 Mbps but you wouldn't get it unless you
| called in for them to increased it. Then a short time later they
| announced it as a increase to service at no additional cost and
| it would automatically take affect. Then a couple of months later
| they reduced again and said it was never an option. I was just so
| annoyed I switched to 1 Gbps service for an extra $30. I really
| hope that one day cellular or satellite gut them.
| Charter/Spectrum is one crooked company that should be sued out
| of existence.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I had a similar experience with Spectrum. They offered a faster
| service at a cheaper price, but said they couldn't upgrade me
| because I was an old account from the Time Warner merger. It
| took a while, but I was able to get them to switch me to the
| faster, cheaper service. Then after a year my price went way up
| again, and since I have no other options at my home in Brooklyn
| I'm stuck paying $80/month for 200 Mbps.
|
| All these mergers have been awful for consumers in the telecom
| space. My relatives in Europe are always shocked at how
| expensive service is for such mediocre setups.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| ISPs are a rigged economy. Google Fiber showed competitors
| are blocked from entering competition. Or so much friction is
| injected that they effectively block competition.
|
| Contract log-in to block price shopping/switching. Gouge
| existing customers & lower price for people switching. Low
| prices on website, but existing customers can't ever get
| those costs.
|
| Very rigged economy. City level government often sells out to
| block competitors.
| bydo wrote:
| Same here. I was paying $45 for 40mbps through TWC, which was
| an introductory promotion, after which it would be $55, I
| think? Then they merged with Spectrum and the cheapest option
| became $65 for 100mbps (they also charged me $65 for the
| 40mbps service before I had to call to upgrade it). Then it
| went to $70. I was very close to just cancelling it and
| tethering to my (also exorbitantly expensive) cellphone plan
| when the pandemic hit and I realized that wasn't feasible.
|
| It's $75 now, by the way.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Where in Brooklyn? I've had gigabit for around 70 dollars in
| two apartments here in Downtown Brooklyn, and in general NYC
| generally does have pretty good fiber availability at
| reasonable prices
| dysfunction wrote:
| Downtown Brooklyn has a lot more new luxury highrise
| buildings with fiber wired in from day 1, as compared to
| pre-war brownstones in other neighborhoods where even _if_
| Verizon has fiber on your block your elderly out-of-state
| landlady and absentee super won't let them in to wire up
| the unit.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's building-specific.
|
| Also it's not like Verizon is your friend either; they just
| don't (yet) have any incentive to screw you.
|
| These companies are apparently all run by greedy scum. I
| would much prefer if it were run by lazy greedy bureaucrats
| instead; at least then theoretically I can write a letter
| to my local legislators about it and complain at city hall.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I'm in Williamsburg. It's definitely block to block,
| because other blocks in my neighborhood definitely have
| fiber. I've actually never lived in a building that has
| fiber -- the last one I moved out of literally got fiber
| the month I moved out!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I just got 250Mbps service from Spectrum with a two year deal
| for $35 per month then the regular price will be $65. The
| neighborhood is on the roadmap for a new fiber provider so
| hopefully I can get a better deal when the special rate
| expires.
|
| They can make money with cheaper service. I just had a fixed
| $35 200Mbps plan with Optimum in an area with overpriced
| competition from Fios. Verizon would send their minimum wage
| sales drones out to personally plead with me to sign up for
| $80. The new $50 subsidy is going to ruin cheap internet by
| setting an inflated price floor. I would gladly take 20 Mbps
| service for $20 per month but that is never going to happen.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Wow, that sounds pretty good. I'm a TWC legacy customer
| paying ~30/mo for 20Mbps, called Spectrum last month to ask
| about upgrade options (need upload speed to be .5Mbps
| faster for WFH) and they told me their cheapest option was
| 100Mbps which would be $80/mo after the first year.
|
| AT&T was only slightly less after the apparently mandatory
| monthly equipment fee, despite the fact that I own my cable
| modem. Right now I'm looking into EarthLink at "only"
| $68/mo for 35Mbps. As far as I can tell, cheap internet has
| already been ruined.
| ticviking wrote:
| Try 180 for 20mbps.
|
| At least they don't have a bandwidth cap.
| akersten wrote:
| They don't have a cap _yet_ because it was part of their
| merger requirements. That requirement expires in 2023 and
| they 've been pressuring the government to expire it
| sooner[0]. I let them know this was the reason I cancelled
| and switched to the local municipal fiber as soon as it was
| available.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/charter-
| seeks-fc...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > All these mergers have been awful for consumers in the
| telecom space.
|
| It has nothing to do with mergers. If there is 1 pipe/wire
| going into your house, and if the owner of that pipe/wire
| wants to extract as much out of you as they can, then you're
| in the same position regardless of how big the owner of that
| pipe/wire is. Unless, of course, the government regulates it
| such as utilities.
| rhizome wrote:
| >* If there is 1 pipe/wire going into your house, and if
| the owner of that pipe/wire wants to extract as much out of
| you as they can, then you're in the same position
| regardless of how big the owner of that pipe/wire is.*
|
| ...because the mergers eliminated their competition and
| loss-leader attacks on the market are still legal.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If there was only 1 pipe or wire going into your house,
| there never was any competition to begin with. And no one
| is going to pay to lay a new one regardless of merger.
| rhizome wrote:
| Check out this previous discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23910215
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| There's no "Unless" there. If the government regulates it
| as a utility, the government has become the de-facto owner
| of that pipe who can screw you in whichever way they see
| fit. The fact that government typically noticeably screws
| you in different ways than businesses (Spying on your
| flows, playing morality police) than businesses (mostly
| extracting cash and providing low quality of service) is
| almost artifact (because both government and business do
| all of those things and more).
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| If the government regulates it as a utility, they
| effectively set a price cap and minimum service
| requirements, and nothing else. It doesn't magically
| become the property of the government.
| lowercased wrote:
| Quick story.
|
| Got new internet service at the office a few years back, and
| got a bundled 'phone number'. One of the guys at the office
| (coworking space) needed heavy fax so... we got him the line
| and a fax machine. 18 months later, he left, and... owed me
| money. I tried to cancel the phone line part, but was told it
| was "bundled", and the 'internet only' service was now $10
| more than the old bundle service.
|
| I called every 4-6 months to ask for the service to be
| removed and to get lower pricing. Nope. Nope. Nope.
|
| A few months ago I called and explained the situation to the
| woman. I then said "fine - give me the higher price. I just
| don't care any more. Joe still owes me $500, and every time I
| see that stupid phone line on the bill, I think of Joe and I
| can't deal with that any more. Charge me more money so I
| don't have to think about Joe any more."
|
| She laughed. A bit. Well... chuckled any way. "hang on, let
| me look up some stuff..." Silence. "Are you there?" I asked.
| "Yes, just give me a moment". More silence. I waited. And...
| started to play guitar. Just strummed a few chords.
|
| She laughed again. "What's that?"
|
| "I'm playing my own hold music, since you don't have any on
| your end".
|
| I got a strong chuckle out of that.
|
| "Any requests? Any favorite chords?"
|
| "B".
|
| So I played a B chord.
|
| Then waited a bit longer.
|
| "OK, I can get you back on the previous bundled price, but
| without the phone line any longer. Will there be anything
| else?"
|
| SUCCESS! It just took 15 months of calling and a B chord.
| asdff wrote:
| I also have a spectrum landline I can't stop paying for
| because it would cost me $15 more a month to have less
| service, somehow.
| abawany wrote:
| Yeah, I love Charter's service (they took over Time Warner in
| this area) but hate their billing practices. However, with
| little choice in this area (the other one is 'AT&T' - automatic
| nein), one has to 'grin and bear it.'
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Spectrum did the opposite with me. Everyone got a "free
| upgrade" removing the plan I was on. Then a few months later
| they doubled the rate.
| [deleted]
| FreeFull wrote:
| Frontier is getting sued by the FTC and a bunch of states for
| lying about the internet speeds they provide, so hopefully the
| other ISPs will be similarly held responsible too.. It might
| take years, though.
| dboreham wrote:
| > one day cellular or satellite gut them
|
| Mr Shannon says no.
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| Yeah, no, not gonna happen, although I have heard of people
| getting better offers from incumbents by threatening to leave
| for Starlink.
| clairity wrote:
| i hate rentiers, especially greedy telecoms, and as such, share
| internet with neighbors, each using our own routers to create
| isolated networks behind the modem.
|
| most people typically use 5-10 Mbps, so 200 Mbps can easily
| support 20 people and multiple households (who won't all be
| online at the same time).
| asdff wrote:
| It's terrible internet really, too. Freqently drops and has
| slowness during the working day. On zoom calls, it tends to cut
| out audio for 5 seconds at a time, so I'm asking everyone to
| constantly repeat themselves.
|
| I can't even run from this. It's literally this or back to the
| stone age with AT&T DSL. These are my choices.
| eli wrote:
| Comcast does the same thing. I moved less than one mile but from
| a block that was wired with FiOS to one where Comcast was the
| only option and the same plan with 30% more expensive.
| [deleted]
| davio wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how the mobile based options drive
| competition. I think T-Mobile and Verizon are available in the
| $50-60 range at my house. At some point AT&T will have gigabit so
| I'll have 5 options with Starlink in beta.
| pgrote wrote:
| > I think T-Mobile and Verizon are available in the $50-60
| range
|
| 5G is unavailable in my area, so I haven't been able to see
| plans. Are there data limits? Throttling after a certain
| amount?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| No limits on T-Mobile Home Broadband. In areas without 5G,
| the device uses LTE and still delivers reasonable speeds.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > It will be interesting to see how the mobile based options
| drive competition.
|
| I've been watching market prices for ages, spent years as a
| broadband reseller. I've yet to see (or read about) an instance
| where wireline operators considered mobile data to be
| meaningful competition.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Well, only now is long-range wireless becoming a viable
| competitor. Kodak didn't see digital photography as
| meaningful competition, until customers switch en masse
| within months. Smith-Corona didn't see personal computers as
| meaningful competition, until customers switched en masse
| within months. Ditto MySpace, AOL, CompuServe, etc.
|
| Wired monopoly-based ~50Mbps service had no meaningful
| competition - until wireless modest-activation ~500Mbps is
| individually available at comparable cost.
|
| You haven't seen it because it wasn't here. As of a few
| months hence, it's here. Only reason I haven't dropped local
| wired service for Starlink is I get a substantial discount on
| the former; I'm looking for any excuse to switch.
| dboreham wrote:
| Except Kodak's competition didn't need to break laws of
| physics.
| zbrozek wrote:
| I've personally taken two properties off of DSL and onto
| cellular with pretty-respectable service quality. In both
| cases latency and throughput and cost improved. The
| competition from wireless is real and getting better all the
| time.
|
| That said, I think that's often used as an excuse to not
| invest in wired infrastructure which _should_ be dramatically
| superior, but often simply isn 't.
| acdha wrote:
| Back in the late 2000s we had Comcast for about a year prior to
| moving to a different city. During that point I had to almost
| monthly call someone in the executive office (I found contact
| info online) to get my bill corrected to show the rate we had
| been quoted rather than the much higher rate we were billed at.
|
| When we moved, I went with 8Mbps DSL instead of dealing with
| Comcast again. This was theoretically much slower than the 25Mbps
| Comcast we'd had but since this was during the network neutrality
| wars it was actually faster for Netflix since they weren't
| throttling it.
|
| We later bought a house in a neighborhood with Comcast, RCN, and
| FIOS (the rollout halted just south of us). Unsurprisingly, all 3
| deliver great service to our neighbors -- and Comcast and Verizon
| customers a few blocks away have reported that they are given
| worse service and higher prices because it's _very_ clearly known
| that their options are take it or leave it.
| bjt wrote:
| So that invites an obvious question: Why isn't the competitor
| available on that next street too?
|
| Some streets are more expensive to dig on than others. Perhaps
| prices are higher and competition is lower there for that reason.
|
| Don't get me wrong; I don't trust the broadband providers to do
| anything but try to extract maximum revenue from their customers.
| But I also don't immediately trust too-simple explanations that
| confirm my biases. The story here is more complicated than just
| moustache-twirling greedy corporations.
| torgoguys wrote:
| I live in a Charter area and can confirm similar pricing
| shenanigans have recently happened here. A fiber internet
| service is rolling out in our city, neighborhood-by-
| neighborhood. However, it is only rolling out in the CITY.
| There are pockets of land inside of the city that have been
| never annexed by the city and that still remain in the
| jurisdiction of the local unincorporated TOWN. You could never
| tell you were in the town, not the city, by looking at these
| houses and streets--they look just like the neighboring ones.
| (Our city has a no-forcible-annexation policy). The fiber
| company (a regional player named TDS) is not deploying fiber in
| those town-not-city areas yet. I suspect TDS will eventually
| roll out to these non-annexed areas, but for right now probably
| has deployment targets to hit in the city since they have a
| deal with the city (for easy right of access and such) and are
| too busy to take care of those extra houses.
|
| Anyway, all of that is preamble to point out that if you order
| service from Charter within one of those pockets of non-city-
| so-no-TDS-service-yet, you will pay a higher price than your
| neighbors on all sides of you that are in the city (and hence
| in the TDS service area). _That points to, yes, it is monopoly-
| power-moustache-twirling greed on Charter 's part here._ Or
| alternately you could just say the lower prices at the
| neighbors is competition doing it's magic.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Even on streets with competition, such as mine, they charge more
| than the competition so I'm not sure why you'd use them if you
| have a choice. I have the following three lines run to my house,
| so are active options:
|
| Spectrum 1Gig: $110/month
|
| WOW! 1Gig: $65/month
|
| AT&T 1Gb Fiber: $60/month
|
| Guess which one I have?
| nick__m wrote:
| WOW! ? 60$/y doesn't seem too expensive to avoid the
| incumbents.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| Not to excuse this or anything but aren't Verizon,
| Comcast/Xfinity, etc. also guilty of this? It's an issue with the
| industry as a whole not just Charter right?
| elliekelly wrote:
| Yes. The major ISPs in the US are territorial cartels[1]
| tacitly colluding[2] in restraint of trade with _juuust_ enough
| plausible deniability and a heavy helping of political campaign
| contributions to keep the gravy train running.
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
|
| [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion
| fortran77 wrote:
| The original article: https://stopthecap.com/2021/05/26/a-tale-
| of-two-homes-in-spe...
| minikites wrote:
| Basic utilities (electric, water, internet) should be run by
| government, not private enterprise, for the same reason we we do
| this for roads. Applying market forces to infrastructure has no
| benefit and many downsides. The value of infrastructure is
| multiplied by the number of people with access to it, meaning it
| should connect all of us. That's not compatible with a market
| system.
| jacob019 wrote:
| Unacceptable. Would you accept paying more than your neighbor for
| water or power? Why do we not regulate internet like water or
| power?
| nashashmi wrote:
| I think we regulate them like telcos. Verizon is supposed to
| provide everyone fios in my neighborhood but our dead end
| street is underground working. I don't get fios but the cable
| company thinks we do and keep offering great rates. I don't
| dare tell them that we don't get fios.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Funny coincidence: The same week that the city started running
| conduit in our neighborhood for municipal fiber, a Xfinity
| "account manager" came to our door and left a handwritten note
| saying great customer service was their goal and to call him if
| there was ever a service problem!
|
| Funny how legit competition makes them sit up and take notice...
|
| At some point after that, Xfinity dropped their gigabit service
| level from $190 to $70/mo (IIRC).
|
| In theory we have competition, but the alternatives are: Century
| Link 40Mbps DSL, or Rise Broadband terrestrial wireless (which
| hasn't proven a very good alternative for my coworkers).
| rhizome wrote:
| I use (10mbps by now, I think) DSL exactly so I won't have to
| give the dickheads a penny. I do fine, websites themselves are
| much slower than my connection.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I think antitrust jurisprudence in the US is far too heavily
| focused on consumer prices to the detriment of all of the
| "intangible" benefits of increased competition. (Thanks,
| Chicago Schoool!) Things like quality, customer service,
| responsiveness, and even transparency and data privacy are
| important aspects of competition and very real benefits to
| consumers but are completely overlooked in the antitrust
| analysis.
|
| I don't care if I'm paying the "market rate" if I'm having to
| constantly argue on the phone about charges or to adjust my
| schedule to accommodate an 8 hour service window. Those
| negative consumer externalities wouldn't exist (or would at
| least be far less frequent) if the market were more
| competitive.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's not even focused on prices. Charter charges a lot for
| what they deliver.
| randyrand wrote:
| also this just in - charter exists to make money!
| adamcstephens wrote:
| also just in - monopolies are bad and eliminate many of the
| positives in capitalism!
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| Monopoly seems to be the inevitable outcome of capitalism.
| theo-born wrote:
| Why wouldn't they?
| mikeweiss wrote:
| For everyone living in an area with no competition other than a
| singular incumbent telecom or cable company... or perhaps no
| broadband option at all.... I expect 5G fixed wireless to come
| into play in a big way over the next 5 years. T-Mobile, Verizon
| and AT&T are going to be eating the cable companies lunch. Likely
| coaxial networks will become an antique of an older era. the same
| way POTS (plain old telephone service) did.
| irrational wrote:
| I live in a concrete house. Our phones don't receive wireless
| signals inside the house and we can't get wife on any floor
| except the main one where the router is. At least for houses
| like mine, cat-6 will be around for the foreseeable future.
| suyash wrote:
| Make sure you know that with that you're also getting large
| amount of radiation...that is why I prefer fiber or cable
| internet vs antenna based.
| OJFord wrote:
| If you sign up early enough they might bundle a tin foil hat
| for free.
| dboreham wrote:
| Upon what physics do you base this assertion? To me (just an EE
| with 20 years experience deploying and running Wisp
| services...) it sounds delusional.
| function_seven wrote:
| I have no credentials, so correct me. Do the high 5G
| frequencies (Frequency Range 2) lend themselves to tiny cells
| with no contention? I'm talking a radio for every ~50/100
| subscribers or so, placed on light posts and telephone poles.
| zeroxfe wrote:
| ugh, would you please explain why you think that isn't
| possible instead of throwing around your credentials and
| calling gp delusional.
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| OP could've admittedly done a better job with this, but let
| me give it a try.
|
| The problem comes down to spectrum, how much power you can
| push across that spectrum, and how you share that spectrum
| with other devices. The more bandwidth you have available,
| the more power you can send across it, and the fewer
| devices you have sharing it, the higher your information
| rate between a sender and receiver.
|
| 5G, in theory, brings a lot of spectrum to the table, so
| they can talk about, say 1 Gb/s or 10 Gb/s connections. The
| problem is, you've got to find a way to share that among
| users. Sharing spectrum is never a 1/n process because of
| inefficiencies, so you end up with a bit under 1/n speed
| for n users.
|
| Meanwhile, cables might have less spectrum, but you can
| push comparatively more power through them, but more
| crucially, everyone gets their own connection and there's
| much less noise. So, more aggregate bandwidth across cables
| than over the air.
|
| This is all very handwavy, so if someone would like to put
| some numbers to this and/or fix any mistakes I made, please
| have at it.
| jellicle wrote:
| One phone company and one cable company is what most people
| have now for broadband competition. How will that change?
| mdasen wrote:
| Most people don't actually have a phone company for
| "broadband". Right now, "broadband" is defined as at least
| 25Mbps down and DSL often tops out at 3-7Mbps. While 25Mbps
| will fit a few HD streams and might (5 by Netflix's specs),
| 3Mbps DSL simply doesn't offer the ability to watch HD video
| and likely makes things like Zoom a very rough experience.
|
| I think it's also likely that a lot of people will end up
| seeing 2-3 wireless broadband options given that there are
| three wireless carriers.
|
| Maybe you live in a Fios area so you feel like there is
| competition. I wish I lived in a Fios area. For so many
| people, wireless home internet means getting another
| competitor (or another 2 or 3 new competitors). I have access
| to Verizon DSL at 3Mbps. I can't leave my cable company for
| that. I could leave my cable company for wireless home
| internet in the 25-300Mbps range.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Likely coaxial networks will become an antique of an older
| era. the same way POTS (plain old telephone service) did.
|
| DSL will become the antique thing since you can't go much more
| than 50 MBit/s outside of urban areas with short distances due
| to piss poor old cables, while DOCSIS can already deliver 10
| GBit/s over way longer distances because the shielded cable
| allows way more effective transmission.
|
| Upgrades (aka splitting the trunk to provide more bandwidth to
| the customers on one branch) are relatively easy to do, whereas
| upgrading 5G capacity is a legal hellhole - you need permits,
| pay rent to whomever's house you're setting up the cell, and
| the base station and antenna hardware is expensive.
|
| Don't get me wrong, 5G will be extremely useful for rural areas
| as it's way cheaper to build out than wiring up houses with
| DSL/cable... but where there is cable (and the cable is
| somewhat-ish affordable), people will choose cable over 5G.
| selectodude wrote:
| >but where there is cable (and the cable is somewhat-ish
| affordable), people will choose cable over 5G.
|
| I think you may be surprised. In my old area, people are
| leaving Comcast in droves for T-Mobile's 5G service, not
| because it's all that much better or all that much cheaper,
| but because they've been taking it from Comcast for two
| decades now and they finally have an opportunity to show
| their displeasure.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| That sounds like "where the cable is affordable _and they
| don 't have a long-standing, heavily justified grudge
| against the company running it_", which is a fair caveat,
| but doesn't seem to invalidate the parent's underlying
| claim.
| fencepost wrote:
| And if it doesn't work out after a few months they can go
| back to Comcast and qualify for new customer promos.
| There's no contract requirement on the T-Mobile service.
| asdff wrote:
| How many good years do we have left until comcast purchases
| t-mobile?
| drewg123 wrote:
| Do they have plans to raise or eliminate data caps? 10-20GB
| caps just don't work for home internet.
| ghayes wrote:
| I have a T-Mobile unlimited 5G data plan. Not exactly
| inexpensive, but whenever my Wifi acts up, I simply turn it
| off and barely notice.
| abawany wrote:
| The T-Mobile ISP plan doesn't have any caps afaik. Keep in
| mind that getting it requires a hard pull credit check. They
| do have other issues though (e.g. their modem selecting a
| sub-optimal band leading to poor service.)
| mdasen wrote:
| Home internet is a new business. T-Mobile already covers 30M
| households for home internet (around 20-25% of US households,
| https://www.t-mobile.com/isp). Verizon has a more limited LTE
| home internet program.
|
| T-Mobile is currently targeting areas where they have excess
| capacity, but their capacity will be growing a lot over the
| next year or two as they launch a lot of new mid-band
| spectrum. Verizon is also looking to launch new mid-band
| capacity, however that will probably be a couple years behind
| given that the spectrum isn't currently free and the fact
| that Verizon's new spectrum will require more towers for
| coverage. Still, wireless companies are looking at a lot of
| new capacity and looking to expand into home internet.
|
| Sometimes it's about the technology coming together at the
| right time to offer a new product. Think about the original
| iPod. Before then, MP3 players were either sad 32MB players
| that could only handle 10 songs or large and heavy boxes that
| weighed a pound and couldn't fit in a pocket. Then the 1"
| hard-drive came around and Apple shipped the iPod. Without
| the 1" hard drive, Apple couldn't offer a light-weight,
| pocketable music player with a 1,000 song capacity.
|
| Likewise, without new mid-band spectrum and new 5G
| technologies, it's very hard for wireless carriers to offer
| home internet without data caps. However, those new
| technologies come around and all of a sudden it opens new
| opportunities. T-Mobile has already started to use some of
| that new capacity. Their base plans include 100GB of premium
| data (deprioritized when the network is busy after that) and
| their new MAX plans have unlimited premium data (never
| deprioritized).
|
| The industry will be working toward home internet over the
| next 5 years, but it is a reality today for a lot of
| customers and that will start growing quickly.
| commoner wrote:
| Verizon now offers 5G home internet in the few areas where
| mmWave is available.
|
| https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/
| djrogers wrote:
| Most carriers don't have hard 10-20Gb data caps anymore, and
| the fixed 5G services that are rolling out from T-Mobile and
| Verizon don't either. That data cap thing was very 2015, and
| I haven't seen one other than a tethering cap for a while...
| drewg123 wrote:
| Thank you so much for pointing this out. I'd given up on
| something like this ever happening.
|
| I have a colleague living in the northern California
| wilderness who maintains a point-to-point wifi antenna at
| the top of a 300' redwood tree because he needs to use a
| WISP rather than an LTE provider to get uncapped data. I
| just looked at these plans and they look like a dream come
| true for him.
| selectodude wrote:
| And it's less of a tethering cap and more of a soft cap to
| stop egregious users. I tether pretty frequently on Verizon
| and have never noticed any slowdowns.
| mdasen wrote:
| Yes! T-Mobile is aiming to have 7-8M home broadband customers
| in 2025. Their home broadband business is relatively small
| right now, but it should be expanding fast. To put that in
| perspective, Verizon Fios only serves around 5M customers.
| Getting 7-8M customers would probably make T-Mobile the 4th
| largest home broadband provider behind Comcast, Charter, and
| AT&T.
|
| Verizon has also announced that it's looking to cover 50M
| households with home broadband in 2024. While not as ambitious
| as T-Mobile, that's still around 40% of households getting new
| home broadband competition.
|
| I'm less confident that coax will go the way of POTS. DOCSIS
| 3.0, 3.1, and 4.0 can offer pretty decent speeds and the
| networks are already built. I think the coming competition will
| push DOCSIS-based systems to actually offer better service.
| Comcast can and does offer gigabit service today, but they tend
| to charge a lot for it as a premium service.
|
| While I'm very bullish about wireless home internet (especially
| as carriers deploy mid-band spectrum with T-Mobile leading the
| way in 2021 and Verizon and AT&T following in the 2022-2024
| time-frame), I think we're still going to see certain
| limitations with wireless. I don't think that will matter to
| most people. Most people just want to be able to stream video,
| Zoom, etc. They don't need gigabit speeds. Heck, 5 HD video
| streams can fit into 25Mbps. Even if wireless home internet
| won't be a great option for some power-users, the fact that it
| will be an option for so many people will make it a lot harder
| for cable companies to be mean to their customers.
| OJFord wrote:
| Yeah? Wouldn't you? The greater the premium the faster
| competition should be encouraged to swoop in and slightly
| undercut, racing them down to the price of the other streets?
| barkerja wrote:
| I currently live in an area where Spectrum is the only
| "broadband" provider. I pay $75 for 200/10. My town finally said
| enough is enough and is now in the process of rolling out
| municipal owned internet.
|
| You can see the details for that here:
| http://dryden.ny.us/information/dryden-municipal-broadband-s...
|
| It's unfortunate that many states have passed legislation to
| block municipal internet. Corporations such as Spectrum, Comcast,
| etc. should not have that sort of lobbying power, but yet, here
| we are.
| falcolas wrote:
| "That's capitalism, baby!"
|
| That's how a company is "supposed" to act in a free market,
| right? They have all the only supply, and can thus "should"
| charge whatever the market on that street can bear.
|
| <s> I mean, it even creates a perfect opportunity for someone to
| come in and undercut Charter, amirite? </s>
| db48x wrote:
| Almost. It's how capitalism is expected to work when you have
| to get permission from the city before you can support
| customers on a new street. The existing companies could roll
| out fiber to everyone in just a few years if they didn't have
| to go through the whole process of getting approvals, waiting
| through public comment periods, rebutting stupid public
| comments, etc, etc for every single street. Or worse, getting
| approval from your direct competitors because you're required
| to use their telephone poles.
| bobthechef wrote:
| You have a point. We have been trained to think that "fair
| market price" is whatever the market will bear and that this is
| the just price. All you need is to sprinkle some "consent" on
| it. But a moment's thought shows that no sane person actually
| believes this. Consider:
|
| (1) A storm hits your area and destroys homes. Hardware stores
| ramp up prices way up, not because the cost of labor to produce
| them has increased, but to increase profits because everyone is
| in a bind and needs building supplies so they have a place to
| live. Libertarian Man will say "the demand will constrain
| prices", but it's not a question of constraint per se, but
| rather that prices are exorbitant (let's say it means the local
| populace will need to go into a lifetime of debt as a result).
|
| (2) A loan shark is approached by someone who can't get a loan
| from a bank, but desperately needs one. The loan shark charges
| compound interest that keeps this person in debt for a
| lifetime. Some might say "we have usury laws for that", but
| it's not a question of law per se, but rather that desperation
| is being exploited to fleece the loaning party.
|
| Now, in practice, the market may often be a relatively good
| mechanism for determining an approximate just price, but not
| always and maybe we just have to play this by ear and live with
| this kind of nonsense (the perfect is the enemy of the good).
| But let's not pretend the market is some magical force that
| guarantees the good. I say this as someone who prefers the free
| market (not unregulated, though) and recognizes both the
| benefits and how natural it is as opposed to something as
| dreadful, stifling, and inhuman as a centrally planned economy.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I downvoted this because the guidelines [1] specifically state
| "Don't be snarky." There are plenty of outlets for snark. I
| like HN for thoughtful replies, even when I disagree with them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#:~:text=Pl
| e....
| falcolas wrote:
| They guidelines also recommend not discussing downvotes.
| "Don't feed egregious comments by replying"
|
| Downvote and move on - comments like this feel like mob-
| mentality karma farming.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I wouldn't classify the comment I replied to as egregious.
| I can't find in the guidelines where it mentions not
| discussing downvotes. Perhaps you could cite that,
| specifically.
| move-on-by wrote:
| The only good thing about Charter is:
|
| * No data caps / usage-based pricing
|
| * No termination fees
|
| * No cable modem fees
|
| These three points were a requirement of their merger and expires
| in May 2023. We need to stop allowing these mergers to happen,
| they are not good for the consumer in the long term.
| leguminous wrote:
| My apartment building forced us into Charter/Spectrum "community
| wifi" and it's obnoxious. The speed is actually decent but they
| screw around with the traffic.
|
| * Everyone is NATed. There's no option to upgrade to a dedicated
| IP address if this is a problem. STUN works, but some things
| don't. Nintendo Switch online play doesn't work and I haven't dug
| in to figure out why. They know it doesn't work and have said
| that they won't fix it.
|
| * They intercept all (UDP/53) DNS queries. You can change your
| DNS servers and it won't make a difference because they will
| spoof 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 or whatever in response. They'll even
| spoof root servers, so you can get strange things like a "root
| server" serving you an A record for pages.github.com.
|
| * Of course there is no IPv6 support.
|
| * Everyone is on the same ESSID with the same PSK. I suspect
| someone could sniff their neighbors' traffic if they were
| motivated enough.
|
| It would be nice to have some competition here.
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| This seems like a logical thing to happen when the environment in
| the US right now is so pro-monopoly. Companies are stacking up
| vertically and companies are merging. The government has little
| interest in doing the basic work of preventing it. It seems like
| there is no way to actually stop this from happening every 20
| years
| geocrasher wrote:
| I wish I could be surprised or shocked at this. But my first
| reaction, just at reading the headline was "Of course they do."
|
| I may not ever use (or need to use) Starlink, but I hope it
| levels the playing field by providing competition where there
| currently is none.
| jraph wrote:
| For me, this is a textbook consequence of a "free market" based
| system.
|
| If you don't like this but believe in free markets, maybe think a
| bit more.
|
| If you see nothing wrong with this and believe in free markets,
| then you are probably consistent.
| djrogers wrote:
| The wired ISP market in the US is the exact opposite of "free
| market". It's government enforced monopolies, or in the better
| cases, duopolies. The point to it as a failing of the free
| market is to misunderstand how regulation and free markets
| work.
| goodpoint wrote:
| This is not correct. You can deregulate the market completely
| and end in a worse place for consumers.
|
| The idea of "free market" giving the best outcome for buyers
| requires:
|
| 1) virtually infinite suppliers
|
| 2) virtually infinite customers
|
| 3) fully fungible product/service
|
| 4) fully rational and informed customers
|
| In markets like ISP, real estate, water/electricity supply,
| wastewater/garbage/mail/roads the product or service is in no
| way fungible because is based on your location.
|
| E.g. you cannot pay for an ISP in Germany and use it from San
| Francisco.
|
| On top of that it's practically impossible to have a large
| numbers of suppliers in such markets.
|
| Finally, providing mail/electricity/water/Internet to small
| and remote town is rarely profitable. You can have so-called
| "market failures" where market equilibrium does not serve
| customers at all, or at unaffordable prices.
|
| This is why such services are provided by local governments
| in most countries or heavily regulated companies.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Really? Silent downvotes for this?
| tacostakohashi wrote:
| Your comment contains a number of erroneous assertions
| about requiring "infinite" suppliers/customers and
| products being "fungible".
|
| I am struggling to think of anything more fungible than
| electricity, and water, mail, and internet access follow
| closely.
|
| Rather, the reason that competition is problematic in
| these areas is because they are natural monopolies:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
| goodpoint wrote:
| What is not fungible is the _service_ you are signing up
| for.
|
| As a home consumer you cannot switch from your current
| electricity provider to a cheaper one... that operates in
| a different continent.
|
| The link you provided is spot on and does not contradict
| in any way what I wrote.
|
| "Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources
| of market failure as early as the 19th century"
|
| Another good page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_market
| cortesoft wrote:
| Complete deregulation would not solve this problem.
|
| The problem is that it is really, really expensive to lay
| brand new fiber in most places.
|
| If we had complete deregulation, the companies that already
| have the fiber laid would dominate. A competitor might look
| at a market, and see the price that the incumbent is charging
| and think they could provide the service for cheaper and
| still recover the cost of laying fiber. However, if they
| decided to actually start laying fiber, the incumbent would
| just lower prices and the new company would be unable to
| compete (since they have to recover the cost of laying fiber
| while the incumbent doesn't).
|
| The only way for true competition in this market is to do
| what a lot of countries do... have regulations that say
| whoever lays fiber has to agree to rent it to competitors at
| reasonable prices. That way, you don't have to keep laying
| redundant fiber just to compete.
|
| The free market would just lead to monopolies.
| jraph wrote:
| I'd like to learn more about this.
|
| Do regulations force ISPs to make people pays more when there
| are no competitors around? Do regulations set the the price?
| Aren't duopolies a possible consequence of a free market?
| aranchelk wrote:
| The regulations literally stopped any competitors from even
| being allowed in the same area. If you're genuinely curious
| about how that screws up industries (not just short term
| pricing) I'd recommend Luigi Zingales's A Capitalism for
| the People, it has a very thorough analysis of crony
| capitalism.
| jraph wrote:
| Yes, I meant it, thanks for the reference! My first
| message was needlessly provocative
| fchu wrote:
| Free market includes when competition can reasonably enter
| a market that's not structured through legislation to be
| overly favorable towards incumbents.
|
| Note that there are natural monopolies/oligopolies, which
| are the result of the nature of the market (eg need for
| scale) rather than legal lobbying.
| hansvm wrote:
| > For me, this is a textbook consequence of a "free market"
| based system.
|
| Free markets plus regulatory capture (and/or collusion). Unless
| you're arguing that those additional constraints are inherent
| to free markets then I think there exist other viewpoints which
| allow one to be self-consistent.
| jraph wrote:
| Indeed, collusions are part of the thing for me (wouldn't
| forbidding them be a regulation, which opposes free market?).
|
| I can understand that someone would want a free market but
| forbid collusions though.
|
| But are collusions a cause for an ISP raising there prices
| when there are no competitors?
| hansvm wrote:
| > But are collusions a cause for an ISP raising there
| prices when there are no competitors?
|
| I think the argument is that collusions are one of a small
| number of reasons there aren't competitors. I.e., the act
| of raising prices in the absence of competition is all fine
| and dandy from a quasi-free market perspective, but there
| should be more competition.
| jraph wrote:
| This would sharply contrast with me being fine with a
| service being provided without competition as long as it
| is good (and then yes, you probably need it to be public
| or heavily regulated)
| aranchelk wrote:
| 1) My evaluation of free markets is that they are poorly
| equipped to solve certain problems; IMO protecting/preserving
| the environment being the best example of this. Otherwise I
| believe them to be an incredibly powerful tool.
|
| 2) I think the whole system breaks down when companies lobby
| for and receive special governmental protections, which
| incumbent ISPs have done in the US since before they even were
| ISPs (phone and cable TV providers).
|
| I believe myself to be relatively consistent.
| jraph wrote:
| Do you believe in free markets, but with regulations? (which
| i can understand)
| aranchelk wrote:
| Yes, I think at absolute bare minimum you need regulations
| to keep industry from capturing/controlling government, or
| else the most powerful capitalists effectively become the
| government. I don't know a lot of people who like that
| scenario.
|
| Clearly IMO you need regulations to deal with issues
| markets are not addressing. Again, the environment being
| the prime example.
|
| My preference is for the government to intervene in other
| areas, e.g. capping prices on life-saving drug. In those
| instances I favor the simplest laws that achieve the
| desired result. My understanding is as laws become more
| complicated and harder to understand the more convoluted
| (and even bizarre) companies behave.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| And this, folks, is why local loop unbundling initiatives are
| important.
|
| Also:
|
| _> Dampier found that Charter offers 200Mbps service for $50 a
| month "[i]n neighborhoods where Spectrum enjoys a broadband
| monopoly." Charter charges $70 for 400Mbps service in those same
| competition-free neighborhoods._
|
| Honestly, even the lower-end prices are not great. In France you
| can easily get 2Gbps for $60 / month.
| geodel wrote:
| > In France you can easily get 2Gbps for $60 / month.
|
| In France I can get gasoline for $7 dollar a gallon. So save a
| bit on internet spend on different item and feel superior
| because EU is the best?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I would gladly pay $7/gal for 2Gbps at $60/mo
| geodel wrote:
| Well that would just show how disconnected from rest of USA
| you are. Whereas such expensive gas may ruin millions in US
| but you will be fine with your Gigabit broadband.
| jraph wrote:
| I live in France and I'm at loss on what a gallon is.
|
| I do feel EU is the best and the pricy internet connections
| in the USA are probably a hidden fine for the sin of using
| strange units.
|
| Sent from a train that does not require gallons.
|
| (I hope I sounded as annoying as possible)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| The train mention is important. My understanding (and my
| experience, from the few trips I've made to Europe) is that
| your transportation infrastructure is generally much better
| than ours in the US, and thus driving isn't nearly as much
| of a requirement. (Plus there's not as much of a sharp
| divide between walkable cities and car-dependent suburbs
| like we have in the US.)
|
| I'm sure there are significant regional differences within
| Europe, of course.
| jraph wrote:
| Indeed, especially in cities that are still riddled with
| cars but you can manage without if your job is not in a
| remonte location or doesn't require a car. In the
| countryside cars are still mandatory. Trains once were
| reachable from many small villages but many stations have
| sadly been removed.
|
| I hope the train network will improve, or at least not
| degrade.
|
| I like being able to go to work by train every day, and I
| also like being able to finish my day job in the south
| east of France and be able to reach north west by 11 PM,
| doing my stuff or sleeping during the trip, and planning
| to do this only a few days before.
| adventured wrote:
| > I live in France and I'm at loss on what a gallon is. ...
| probably a hidden fine for the sin of using strange units
|
| Strange units, as opposed to strange languages.
|
| Since language is far more important than measurement, the
| French should obviously abandon their entirely unnecessary
| national language and adopt either English, Spanish or
| Mandarin as a logical standardization improvement. As
| French will continue to perpetually decline in importance
| and use globally, I propose that French is a failed
| language and it would be wise of France to get out in front
| of that unstoppable trend and drop their national language
| sooner than later.
|
| Overall English is clearly the best choice as a standard,
| as it will be adopted by more people this century than any
| other language as the global population swells toward 10
| billion. Mandarin would be a solid second choice, however
| China's population will rapidly contract and the globe
| isn't in a hurry to adopt Mandarin given it's particularly
| difficult to learn.
|
| The vast inefficiency of Europe having and intentionally
| maintaining three dozen major languages is of course silly.
| Approximately half of the people in Europe can't
| communicate with eachother effectively because they share
| no common language. It's a very backwards approach.
|
| One might suggest that people can speak multiple languages
| and that that resolves the matter (it doesn't, the vast
| inefficiency of time, money & effort dedicated to
| maintaining failed non-English languages remains). However
| in that vein, it turns out you can utilize multiple
| measurement systems as well, as the US very commonly also
| uses the metric system where it matters to do so.
|
| The sole reasonable counter argument, the language-is-
| culture argument, applies exactly the same for non
| scientifically critical measurement references in the US.
| For example using yards, or feet which are tightly bound to
| US culture (from media to sports to history to routine
| conversation).
| jraph wrote:
| OK, French is a bit weird. I'll take your English. A bit
| quirky, but manageable. No genders. Usually. That's neat.
| Quite concise. I can do this if you meet me halfway
| through. There's this color/colour centre/center thing
| where it does not know how it should be spelt (spelled?
| Screw your irregular verbs especially if they don't know
| whether they are irregular), but whatever. I will not
| comment on your phrasal verbs.
|
| But we can do nothing about its pronounciation. Sorry. A
| catastrophe. Nothing that can be fixed.
|
| Spanish is very regular in its pronounciation, so let's
| use that instead of English's. Or German, actually it
| might make more sense to use it for pronouncing English,
| a germanic language.
|
| As for the vocabulary, I'm fine if we keep English's.
| It's ours anyway.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Focusing on cars is a very American thing to do, they are
| still important in Europe but I for example have no problem
| getting about in the UK and our public transport is pretty
| crap
| 8note wrote:
| Ideally it would be $20 a gallon and the related taxes would
| go into replacing the outdated fossil fuel infrastructure
| 988747 wrote:
| You do realize that a. People still need to commute b.
| higher gas price means higher prices of everything, due to
| transportation costs?
|
| Ideally, there would be 0% tax on gas, since it is one of
| the most essential things in the economy.
| [deleted]
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Ground transportation is easy to electrify.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Broadband infrastructure is expensive to install and upgrade,
| so it's expected to last a very long time to break even for the
| installer. Often, broadband speeds are more indicative of how
| recently the local infrastructure was upgraded than anything
| else.
|
| > Honestly, even the lower-end prices are not great. In France
| you can easily get 2Gbps for $60 / month.
|
| Broadband is extremely dependent on geography and the city.
|
| In many places in the US (my city included) it's easy to get
| gigabit broadband for similar prices.
|
| I have friends in remote areas who would be happy to have even
| reliable 10Mbit at this point, but their properties are so
| isolated that it's prohibitively expensive for anyone to run
| infrastructure out to service their sparse neighborhoods.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > In France you can easily get 2Gbps for $60 / month.
|
| _cries in German_
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > Dampier found that Charter offers 200Mbps service for $50 a
| month "[i]n neighborhoods where Spectrum enjoys a broadband
| monopoly."
|
| Wow, and that's _still_ a better deal than I can get from
| monopoly Comcast Xfinity service in Baltimore, where I pay $80
| /month for 100Mbps.
|
| You read that right. I am paying substantially more than the
| monopoly rip-off price in this article, and have no broadband
| choice but comcast...
| intrasight wrote:
| I think all businesses will charge more when there is no
| competition. It's basic economics.
| deepserket wrote:
| the invisible hand doing its work
| adamcstephens wrote:
| We just need to pray harder to the market god, and maybe we'll
| get competition?
| _jal wrote:
| Unfortunately, the reason you can't see the hand is because
| it is up the government's dress.
|
| If you think we have a free market in the US for telecom (or
| medicine, or a lot of other things), I have a monopoly to
| sell you.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Or maybe it is extremely wasteful and expensive to run 5
| different water pipes, 5 different sewer pipes, 5 different
| electrical lines, 5 different natural gas pipes, and 5
| different fiber lines to each house.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Obviously the solution is to give more tax breaks to these
| businesses. All that extra money will surely flow down in the
| form of lower prices to consumers, and not in the form of
| bonuses and 4th-homes for the company execs.
| andrew_ wrote:
| Experienced the same in Florida. We had to relocate while our
| home was being cleared of hazardous material. I had Spectrum at
| that location being worked on at one price. The temporary digs
| were about 3 miles away and the price was 1/3 more for the same
| service (this was not with a promotion at either location). The
| only difference is that the new digs had no other option, while
| our home being worked on also had a FiOS option. I pointed this
| out to the sales rep on the phone and they couldn't give me a
| reason why.
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