what if, you are told that you gonna lose your broadband soon?

[zassou]

so this is a painful reality for me. 

 

as you probably know, isp in small places are quite scummy. lack of competition makes them extra greedy. 

 

the one I'm using is fibre to home, FTTH, provided by isp A, and they have been somewhat an underdog, losing money on remote clients like me and always failing on the competition. B is the big local isp, has big coverage and big money too, for the same product they cost almost 3x to A. therefore, being a multinational giant corp like A made the most rational move:pulling out. 

 

so few moons ago A stopped making new contracts, and sent notices that states they will cease to operate in my area in2 years. existing (home) clients can renew their contracts for 1 extra year, and 1 year later that will not renew any contracts, not even business ones. 

 

for long contracts like 10 years, the contract will be handed to B, which also have gov contract, no surprises. billing won't change but I'm pretty sure B won't renew your life contract with A 's prices. 

 

the local gov thinks there re 3 isps in the area, 2 land-line and 1 cable so there isn't monopoly. so everything is a-okay then. 

 

so in a year i have to decide what i gonna switch to:

1. go wireless with an expensive unlimited 4g plan, with no guaranteed bandwidth and bad latency. 
2. go cable with a cheap(on paper) tv subscription with hundreds of shopping channels that I WILL DEFINITELY  BINGE, and enjoy the fast and "totally usable at 6-12 in the evening" cable network
3. or simply beg B extent their service area to my home (spoiler they won't)  and pay 1/4 of my monthly income to them

 

final nail in the coffin. some old fart asks in city hall: why do you need broadband where you have wifi? 

 

[Donut417]

39 minutes ago, zassou said:

so this is a painful reality for me. 

 

as you probably know, isp in small places are quite scummy. lack of competition makes them extra greedy. 

 

the one I'm using is fibre to home, FTTH, provided by isp A, and they have been somewhat an underdog, losing money on remote clients like me and always failing on the competition. B is the big local isp, has big coverage and big money too, for the same product they cost almost 3x to A. therefore, being a multinational giant corp like A made the most rational move:pulling out. 

 

so few moons ago A stopped making new contracts, and sent notices that states they will cease to operate in my area in2 years. existing (home) clients can renew their contracts for 1 extra year, and 1 year later that will not renew any contracts, not even business ones. 

 

for long contracts like 10 years, the contract will be handed to B, which also have gov contract, no surprises. billing won't change but I'm pretty sure B won't renew your life contract with A 's prices. 

 

the local gov thinks there re 3 isps in the area, 2 land-line and 1 cable so there isn't monopoly. so everything is a-okay then. 

 

so in a year i have to decide what i gonna switch to:

1. go wireless with an expensive unlimited 4g plan, with no guaranteed bandwidth and bad latency. 
2. go cable with a cheap(on paper) tv subscription with hundreds of shopping channels that I WILL DEFINITELY  BINGE, and enjoy the fast and "totally usable at 6-12 in the evening" cable network
3. or simply beg B extent their service area to my home (spoiler they won't)  and pay 1/4 of my monthly income to them

 

final nail in the coffin. some old fart asks in city hall: why do you need broadband where you have wifi? 

 

Do you know for sure the cable network is over loaded? Im on Coax myself, I get no slow downs during Prime time. Hell Comcast gives most of its customers 20% more speed. I have a 200 Mbps plan and do see 220 Mbps and sometimes a bit more. The only down side to cable is higher latency and shit upload rates. 

[Animal901]

Cable just got upraded in my area.. i pay 35 a month for 100mbps. If you accept tv and anything more than what you want then you cave in easily and you probably don't deserve what you want... sorry but internet is tough buisness.  Get it together. Tell them what you require. They want your money... sign a 1 year contract to lock them down, cause they're full of shit and the contract actually means the service has to work or they have to let you go. I played that card one time and they sent a service guy to fix a cable they misclipped the next morning. 

[Ezzy-525]

I shit on my ISP regularly but they are good when it comes to the actual product.

 

I pay them for 300mbps and I regularly get 450mbps and also upgraded everyones upload from around 10mbit a few years ago to 30mbit now just as part of the natural upgrading of the service. And whenever there is a problem they have an engineer out to fix it within an hour or two.

[spartaman64]

1 hour ago, Ezzy-525 said:

I shit on my ISP regularly but they are good when it comes to the actual product.

 

I pay them for 300mbps and I regularly get 450mbps and also upgraded everyones upload from around 10mbit a few years ago to 30mbit now just as part of the natural upgrading of the service. And whenever there is a problem they have an engineer out to fix it within an hour or two.

i was thinking WTF what isp is that then i see your location 

[Ezzy-525]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

i was thinking WTF what isp is that then i see your location 

Is that good or bad? How does that compare to US service?

[spartaman64]

1 hour ago, Ezzy-525 said:

Is that good or bad? How does that compare to US service?

i pay for 100 mbps and for a month i get like 103 but now i get 80 with it dropping to 50 at peak times and the upload which is supposed to be 10 was 12 for a month and now its like 6. i had packet loss problems in the past and when i call them they say its my modem's fault but i have a cm1000 and restarting it doesnt fix the problem. when i call back multiple times to different people they all say different things. some blaming my modem and saying theres no problems with their network. some saying theres problems with a node. some saying that theres damaged lines.

[Ezzy-525]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i pay for 100 mbps and for a month i get like 103 but now i get 80 with it dropping to 50 at peak times and the upload which is supposed to be 10 was 12 for a month and now its like 6. i had packet loss problems in the past and when i call them they say its my modem's fault but i have a cm1000 and restarting it doesnt fix the problem. when i call back multiple times to different people they all say different things. some blaming my modem and saying theres no problems with their network. some saying theres problems with a node. some saying that theres damaged lines.

I actually got mine wrong. Thought I was on the 300mb package but they must have upped it to 350.

 

 

This is with 2x YT 1080p Streams and 1x Amazon Prime 4K stream going at the same time.

 

They cost a lot but they do provide.

[The1Dickens]

1 hour ago, zassou said:

the local gov thinks there re 3 isps in the area, 2 land-line and 1 cable so there isn't monopoly. so everything is a-okay then.

What do you mean 2 land-line and 1 cable? Like, 2 phone service and 1 cable provider that each also provide internet access?

 

46 minutes ago, Animal901 said:

Cable just got upraded in my area.. i pay 35 a month for 100mbps. If you accept tv and anything more than what you want then you cave in easily and you probably don't deserve what you want... sorry but internet is tough buisness.  Get it together. Tell them what you require. They want your money... sign a 1 year contract to lock them down, cause they're full of shit and the contract actually means the service has to work or they have to let you go. I played that card one time and they sent a service guy to fix a cable they misclipped the next morning. 

Except you missed the part about:

1 hour ago, zassou said:

so few moons ago A stopped making new contracts, and sent notices that states they will cease to operate in my area in2 years. existing (home) clients can renew their contracts for 1 extra year, and 1 year later that will not renew any contracts, not even business ones.

 

 

Also, that infrastructure for fiber isn't going to just go to waste. Company A will either rent the fiber equipment to Company 1, 2, or 3; or they will outright sell it to recoup some of their losses from investing in that area. I imagine that in this 3-5 year transition period, one of those other companies will soon offer fiber service that you can then sign up for.

[Kawaii Koneko]

Is relocating an option?

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Trolling isn't allowed, all replies quoting troll replies were also removed (seriously, don't feed the trolls).

[Yoinkerman]

You don't have to connect the tv box at all

[Founders]

9 hours ago, Ezzy-525 said:

Is that good or bad? How does that compare to US service?

I have Verizon's fiber gigabit connection for $100 a month. But it hugely depends where you are.  

[mr moose]

I don't envy your position. I remember what it was like only having 3 choices for internet.  If there is anyway to get a naked Internet package out of the cable company and can you find out the evening speed averages that might be the best option. How congested is 4G where you are? and what is the forward prospects of it getting congested to the point of un-usability?

[Kawaii Koneko]

22 minutes ago, Ehmc130 said:

I have Verizon's fiber gigabit connection for $100 a month. But it hugely depends where you are.  

I'm in a rural area and it is almost $80 for 50 Mbps on fiber. 100 Mbps is $130. Gigabit? You have to call for pricing and I don't even want to know lol.

 

 

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, Kawaii Koneko said:

I'm in a rural area and it is almost $80 for 50 Mbps on fiber. 100 Mbps is $130. Gigabit? You have to call for pricing and I don't even want to know lol.

 

 

At least you get Fiber. My only real option is Coax. 

[Kawaii Koneko]

24 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

At least you get Fiber. My only real option is Coax. 

I'm still not quite on it yet. They ran it to my home but have yet to do the actual home install. It's partly my fault as I just haven't set the appointment up yet. There really isn't a reason not to since I'm getting much more for like a $7 more than I am paying now for 20 Mbps down and 5 up. In reality I'm only getting 18 down and 3 up because of how far I am from the junction box.

[zassou]

the downside of living in half rural area in some holes as certain orange moron said, is i don't have real option here. the tv network is aging and not targeting young people, only for old folks posting facebook on their decade old optiplexes and pavilions. yes i checked, throttles like crazy in rush hour. 

 

we don't have this cable cutter thing like the states, either you have it or not have it. for someone like me who don't have a TV, paying ~52 usd atop of the internet package of ~17 usd is plain stupid. 

 

and, the fastest option is 50mbps, which probably doesn't sound bad, but considering it's coaxial, all the bandwidth is shared and uplink is fixed at 500kbps. that's why this is not an option.

 

unless you're 60 and all you need is gardening programmes and a wire to post some stupid cat pics on facebook.

 

[Zodiark1593]

I've given my former ISPs the boot for substantially lesser reasons. The most recent, I had a plan locked down for a year at $30/month for 10 mbps. Next year, they started billing for $50 without warning. Don't care who it is, that's a pretty guaranteed way or drawing my ire. I told the retention guy I want the old price, or cut it and refund my month. 

 

I got my refund, but at the cost of booting literally the only home ISP here. I'd been using cellular and abusing T-Mobile's Binge-On ever since.

[Kawaii Koneko]

4 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I've given my former ISPs the boot for substantially lesser reasons. The most recent, I had a plan locked down for a year at $30/month for 10 mbps. Next year, they started billing for $50 without warning. I told the retention guy I want the old price, or cut it and refund my month. 

 

I got my refund, but at the cost of booting literally the only home ISP here. I'd been using cellular and abusing T-Mobile's Binge-On ever since.

Was it your first year with them? It isn't uncommon for the first year to be a promotional rate and after that you are billed at normal pricing. That's pretty standard stuff and usually is disclosed in writing either in fine print or sometimes they make that caveat a little more noticeable.

[zassou]

so this is how the 4g plan works. 

 

there is no real data cap, but after 500 gb per month they limit your speed to 25/5 mbps. which can be unlocked for a price. 

 

you sign up a 3 year contract with the operator, ~184 usd a year, they give you a crappy phone which you can "resell to that guy next door" for an instant rebate, buy a 4g modem router combo from them and it's done. 

 

since it's a "pure" data plan it has issues, like no roaming data, very little call time and sms msgs.  and above all, it's cellular network, so if the weather is bad or in tourist session, my connection will be affected. 

[zassou]

11 hours ago, The1Dickens said:

What do you mean 2 land-line and 1 cable? Like, 2 phone service and 1 cable provider that each also provide internet access?

 

Except you missed the part about:

 

 

Also, that infrastructure for fiber isn't going to just go to waste. Company A will either rent the fiber equipment to Company 1, 2, or 3; or they will outright sell it to recoup some of their losses from investing in that area. I imagine that in this 3-5 year transition period, one of those other companies will soon offer fiber service that you can then sign up for.

1. landline means phone line (dsl) or fibre optic connection. tv coaxial not included since they are created before the internet.
2. territorial, tribal, like stone age. A owns the area so even they left, B doesnt necessarily willing to cover the area despite the vacuum. after all paying someone to fuse the fibres is too expensive, why going so much trouble just to get some peanut money where you already have piles of cash coming to you bank acc by doing nothing at all. and being no competition you can raise the price whatever you like.

[Salv8 (sam)]

On 11/4/2019 at 2:01 AM, zassou said:

-snip-

i don't live in the u.s but this is easily a monopoly in your area, even if it's unintentional.

my suggestion?

move.

if you are a freelance IT specialist or programmer then it might be a good idea for you to move somewhere else.

if you aren't then your work may not mind paying for an internet connection for your work, that's another option but it's very rare unless you are a very important part of the company that requires an internet connection to do work. (like a remote sales person or something)

in the end theirs not much you can do, you can consult with a lawyer on how to prevent something like this and fight it saying that they can't pull out due to ISP b's monopoly of the area but considering that the head of city hall thinks broadband and wifi are the same, probably don't even bother and move...

don't waste energy fighting fights you can't win...

[Donut417]

6 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

n the end theirs not much you can do, you can consult with a lawyer on how to prevent something like this and fight it saying that they can't pull out due to ISP b's monopoly of the area but considering that the head of city hall thinks broadband and wifi are the same, probably don't even bother and move...

don't waste energy fighting fights you can't win...

Generally in the US, providers have an agreement with the government. Generally a fee is charged to the ISP/TV provider for each of the residence who has the service. The company generally will pass that along to the consumer. These agreements can be done city by city in some places, in others it a state wide agreement. But in the end, the city cant force the ISP from pulling out. So a lawyer cant do shit. Anti Trust law can only be envoked by generally the Federal Government. No way they are going to get involved for some little shit like this. Any way to slice this, the OP is fucked. Moving is really the only option. 

 

Like I said above, I have ONE real option where I live. The OP has 3. Choose the less shity of the 3. Thats all you can do. 

[Nine Tailed Fox]

https://www.t-mobile.com/ISP