AT&T shelving DSL may leave hundreds of thousands hanging by a phone line

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

No, their employees were claiming that you had Fiber to your home, when you didn't.

I never had any reps or techs claim that but I'm not surprised if they did.

[SpikeSpiegel]

9 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Must live in a poor neighborhood. ATT only graces richer neighborhoods with fiber. Every one else is on xDSL or Wireless. 

No it's a high to middle class area.  It's just that the houses were built around 1994~2004.  Most of the houses built in the late 1990's are stuck with copper wiring.  Plus our HOA is trying to kick out AT&T for Comcast.

[SpikeSpiegel]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

comcast does some shady stuff. like 200% price increases in a year

Not really if you're not on a 1 year or  a 2 year agreement.  You can pick a price that doesn't change.  We waited after our 2 year agreement has ended and we're on a fixed price from 100 mbps DL/5 mbps UL to 200 mbps DL/12 mbps UL for $75.88.  And our 2 year agreement was $85.88. 

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Not really if you're not on a 1 year or  a 2 year agreement.  You can pick a price that doesn't change.  We waited after our 2 year agreement has ended and we're on a fixed price from 100 mbps DL/5 mbps UL to 200 mbps DL/12 mbps UL for $75.88.  And our 2 year agreement was $85.88. 

its right after the end of those 1-2 years the prices spike. and yes you can get them cut back down but its more pain than it should be

[Donut417]

Just now, CalintzJerevinan said:

uilt in the late 1990's are stuck with copper wiring. 

Not entirely true. If you have under ground utilities then I can see them not wanting to deploy fiber. But when utilities are over head, its pretty easy for them to deploy. I stand by my previous statement, PLUS your HOA is standing between you and AT&T upgrading the area. Its a known fact they heavily cherry pick fiber areas. They were called out for it several years ago. 

 

1 minute ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

HOA is trying to kick out AT&T for Comcast.

This is why I would never live in an HOA. Because HOA's are ran by morons or Karens. I never understood why anyone would subject themselves to an HOA. 

 

2 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Not really if you're not on a 1 year or  a 2 year agreement.  You can pick a price that doesn't change.  We waited after our 2 year agreement has ended and we're on a fixed price from 100 mbps DL/5 mbps UL to 200 mbps DL/12 mbps UL for $75.88.  And our 2 year agreement was $85.88. 

Comcast has a rep for changing below the line fees in a contact, thus raising the price. They also have been known to increase prices twice a year. We have internet only at $83 ish a month. The price has been that way for a while. But when we had internet only and their streaming service, they ended up adding the broadcast TV fee to our bill and it was like $12 a month when we told them to take that a shove it somewhere. 

[dizmo]

Unfortunate for those that use it, but I wonder what percentage of that 600 some-odd-thousand people can switch to a different service provider.

If it's not profitable for a company to maintain something like that, it's not surprising that they're axing it.

 

11 hours ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Sadly most houses built before the late 2000's still have copper wiring.  AT&T told us we can't get fiber.  So our last option was Comcast.  Going from 10 mbps to 200 mbps was a better option.  Also AT&T tried to upgrade our speed to 12 mbps and our connection/modem kept dropping like a rock.

Is it because of the wiring in your house that you can't get it?
You could always just upgrade the wiring. If it's just in for internet, it wouldn't be that expensive.

3 hours ago, Warin said:

I just did a speed test. 330.9 down and 338.53 up.  I am almost always amazed that people down in the US accept such pathetic speeds from what amount to telecom monopolies. The worst part is that the main reason there are monopolies is collusion amongst the telecoms to eliminate competition wherever possible.

Depends what country you're from. A lot of people from small European nations seem to think that it's comparable...but it's not. The US is huge, and thus building infrastructure is several times more expensive for the same amount of people you'd serve in other nations. A lot of rural areas, it makes no sense at all.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Just now, Donut417 said:

Not entirely true. If you have under ground utilities then I can see them not wanting to deploy fiber. But when utilities are over head, its pretty easy for them to deploy. I stand by my previous statement, PLUS your HOA is standing between you and AT&T upgrading the area. Its a known fact they heavily cherry pick fiber areas. They were called out for it several years ago. 

 

This is why I would never live in an HOA. Because HOA's are ran by morons or Karens. I never understood why anyone would subject themselves to an HOA. 

 

Comcast has a rep for changing below the line fees in a contact, thus raising the price. They also have been known to increase prices twice a year. We have internet only at $83 ish a month. The price has been that way for a while. But when we had internet only and their streaming service, they ended up adding the broadcast TV fee to our bill and it was like $12 a month when we told them to take that a shove it somewhere. 

Well AT&T kick out Google Fiber out of the ATL area.  And AT&T stop installing Fiber lines that aren't on the main streets in our HOA.  However houses like mine aren't able to get Fiber because we're not on a main street.  Which means we're going to have to wait for AT&T 5G which is mounted on telephone poles to an Antenna like device to sync to people's UVERSE modems.  Which they haven't even started yet.  Even our AT&T tech guy was being honest after our last service call.  And he full blown out and said "Just go with Comcast.  Because you won't get anything above 10 mbps."  At least he was honest about it.

 

https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/what-happened-google-fiber-atlanta/

[SpikeSpiegel]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Unfortunate for those that use it, but I wonder what percentage of that 600 some-odd-thousand people can switch to a different service provider.

If it's not profitable for a company to maintain something like that, it's not surprising that they're axing it.

 

Is it because of the wiring in your house that you can't get it?
You could always just upgrade the wiring. If it's just in for internet, it wouldn't be that expensive.

Depends what country you're from. A lot of people from small European nations seem to think that it's comparable...but it's not. The US is huge, and thus building infrastructure is several times more expensive for the same amount of people you'd serve in other nations. A lot of rural areas, it makes no sense at all.

AT&T said it cost too much per household and they won't do it.  Most people in our area are fed up with AT&T and those lucky ones who has AT&T Fiber are lucky.  Plus Comcast users are increasing.  I've seen the people in my area via our HOA Social Media group and 96.99% people are fed up with AT&T and they're moving to Comcast or waiting for AT&T Fiber.  So far no results from AT&T due to not putting fiber in our area.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Well AT&T kick out Google Fiber out of the ATL area.

Thats because AT&T has been in the game a long time. They have kissed the right peoples asses in congress. Google on the other hand doesn't have the influence when it comes to this game. Plus telecoms generally have to have some agreement with the government to offer service, its called a franchise agreement. Some times its done at the state level, or in the case of Michigan its done at the local level. 

 

Also you should have seen the time Google had in Nashville. I think Comcast and AT&T were blocking them. Because Comcast and AT&T owned some of the utility poles, meaning they were giving Google a hard time when it came to moving equipment to put theirs on the poles and not giving them access to some of the utility poles, etc. The incumbents always have the power to push out new guys. 

 

3 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Plus Comcast users are increasing.  I've seen the people in my area via our HOA Social Media group and 96.99% people are fed up with AT&T and they're moving to Comcast

Hopefully your HOA came to an agreement with Comcast so you all dont have data caps. Because Comcast has data caps in many areas. Not all areas, but many areas. But I have heard the HOA's and sometimes bulk agreements are exempt. Thats pretty much the only negative to Comcast's internet. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Not really if you're not on a 1 year or  a 2 year agreement.  You can pick a price that doesn't change.  We waited after our 2 year agreement has ended and we're on a fixed price from 100 mbps DL/5 mbps UL to 200 mbps DL/12 mbps UL for $75.88.  And our 2 year agreement was $85.88. 

Man, USA internet is expensive. I just renewed last week (250/50 Fibre) for $16 usd per month. 

[Bombastinator]

This is the same problem as was had with ma bell in the 70’s.  For a monopoly company it is more profitable to not install new or maintain old equipment.  So they just don’t. Profit trumps service.  Most of those copper lines were installed way way back.  They’re wearing out.  It was more profitable to simply use them, sell service from them, and not maintain them.  Keeping the section of money from fees that should have been used as maintenance as profit.  Back in the late 60’s cell phones were invented, but ma bell balked at the new tech because it was more profitable to continue to collect fees from old services than to roll out a new one. 
In the 1950s when air travel became possible train companies were offered airline service, and train companies balked for the same reason.  So pan am was created, and the train companies lost passenger service.  Train passenger service would have died totally in the US except for a government program.  The rail companies used to be gigantic immensely profitable enterprises.  No longer.  Cable companies dropping service entirely implies cable companies will die soon.  If satelite broadband doesn’t come in and fill the gap there is going to be big big problems.

[Donut417]

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Cable companies dropping service entirely implies cable companies will die soon.

Cable co's are not going anywhere. Cable TV however probably won't survive much longer. Cable CO's will just become ISP's. Phone companies like AT&T will just invest in Wireless services and offer that to customers. I have a feeling that some areas AT&T will sell them off like Verizon did. So some customers might be saved. 

 

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

If satelite broadband doesn’t come in and fill the gap there is going to be big big problems.

I dont see that happening. Even with the "New Starlink" service. While it might be less crappy, its still going to be crappy. Especially if LTE and 5G services are faster. T Mobile offers 50 Mbps no data cap for $50/m on 4G LTE. Likely we will just have major gaps. And rural customers will just be screwed. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Depends what country you're from. A lot of people from small European nations seem to think that it's comparable...but it's not. The US is huge, and thus building infrastructure is several times more expensive for the same amount of people you'd serve in other nations. A lot of rural areas, it makes no sense at all.

Flip side to that though is where I live we are almost entirely low density, even in what we would call high density, and majority rural with forests and mountains everywhere. We are majority Fibre to the Home and anything that is not has an active plan to be other than very rural which is currently service by fixed long range 700MHz 4G and will move to 5G.

 

The difference being we voted to pay for this with tax payer money, it was never going to happen ever by the business initiative of any ISP here.

 

There are some rather good economic and social benefits to having wider access to high speed internet but that's really nothing to do with an ISP's business so they don't benefit from it hence not a contributing factor against the investment cost.

 

Realistically as this is a national infrastructure thing, despite what anyone or any company wants to say, you and everyone else will need to pay for it to improve it. This is one of those cases where private business is not the better option, it can all still be privately run etc though.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

The difference being we voted to pay for this with tax payer money, it was never going to happen ever by the business imitative of any ISP here.

That will happen over the tax payers dead body here in the US. LOL. People won't even approve increases to education, no way in hell they are going to pay to have Fiber ran all over. 

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

That will happen over the tax payers dead body here in the US. LOL. People won't even approve increases to education, no way in hell they are going to pay to have Fiber ran all over. 

For us it happened because here the only option, the fastest you could get, was ADSL2+ so we had to do something about that. Also all the road side cabinets and cabling were not distanced for VDSL2 either, everything was decades old. So no matter what we were going to do it was going to involve digging up roads and sidewalks and starting again from scratch, at that point you might as well do FTTH.

 

Edit:

Basically we hit a critical failure point and something had to be done, do nothing wasn't an option.

[thechinchinsong]

54 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Edit:

Basically we hit a critical failure point and something had to be done, do nothing wasn't an option.

US would rather sit and wait for critical failure for a rather build/rebuild infrastructure. Which is a shame cause US infrastructure is rapidly heading that way.

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

That will happen over the tax payers dead body here in the US. LOL. People won't even approve increases to education, no way in hell they are going to pay to have Fiber ran all over. 

we already did pay and will continue to pay billions to get rural America connected with slow 25/3 plans

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/fcc-gives-isps-another-563-million-to-build-rural-broadband-networks/

 

there are plans that push for 100/100+ fiber build outs like this

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/100-billion-universal-fiber-plan-proposed-by-democrats-in-congress/

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Flip side to that though is where I live we are almost entirely low density, even in what we would call high density, and majority rural with forests and mountains everywhere. We are majority Fibre to the Home and anything that is not has an active plan to be other than very rural which is currently service by fixed long range 700MHz 4G and will move to 5G.

 

The difference being we voted to pay for this with tax payer money, it was never going to happen ever by the business initiative of any ISP here.

 

There are some rather good economic and social benefits to having wider access to high speed internet but that's really nothing to do with an ISP's business so they don't benefit from it hence not a contributing factor against the investment cost.

 

Realistically as this is a national infrastructure thing, despite what anyone or any company wants to say, you and everyone else will need to pay for it to improve it. This is one of those cases where private business is not the better option, it can all still be privately run etc though.

Low density, but also tiny area. You have to factor that in as well. It's still a much, much smaller capital investment. 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Low density, but also tiny area. You have to factor that in as well. It's still a much, much smaller capital investment. 

No it's really not that small of an area, that's not how population density works nor economical scale. New Zealand is very long country with difficult and expensive terrain, much of the US is vastly lower cost per distance. 

[Bombastinator]

Just now, leadeater said:

No it's really not that small of an area, that's not how population density works nor economical scale. New Zealand is very long country with difficult and expensive terrain, much of the US is vastly lower cost per distance. 

Cost per user is the metric needed though.  Back in high school there was a Japanese exchange student at the school.  For some reason they needed to drive from Fargo to Bismarck.  He reportedly spent the whole time with his face plastered to the window dumbfoundedly repeating “so much nothing” I believe someone took him on a fly in fishing trip to Canada just to really drive it home.

[leadeater]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

Cost per user is the metric needed though.  Back in high school there was a Japanese exchange student at the school.  For some reason they needed to drive from Fargo to Bismarck.  He reportedly spent the whole time with his face plastered to the window dumbfoundedly repeating “so much nothing” I believe someone took him on a fly in fishing trip to Canada just to really drive it home.

Yes, that's where population density comes in. Literally in every way New Zealand is a terrible cost return on FTTH.

[dizmo]

32 minutes ago, leadeater said:

No it's really not that small of an area, that's not how population density works nor economical scale. New Zealand is very long country with difficult and expensive terrain, much of the US is vastly lower cost per distance. 

You're kidding right? NZ doesn't even cover the east coast north to south if you were to overlay it, and is many times narrower than the width of the US. You think the US doesn't have difficult terrain? I guess you haven't heard of the Rockies. Or Appalachians. There are far more rural areas in the US than you'd have to cover in NZ. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

You're kidding right? NZ doesn't even cover the east coast north to south if you were to overlay it, and is many times narrower than the width of the US. You think the US doesn't have difficult terrain? I guess you haven't heard of the Rockies. Or Appalachians. There are far more rural areas in the US than you'd have to cover in NZ. 

So you're also going to ignore economic scale as well? NZ is the same land area and slightly less population than Colorado, however we are two major islands that are elongated not a nice square. Each side of each island is separated by huge mountain ranges, large portions of our country side are national parks and reserves.

 

So when Colorado gets FTTH to every home come back to me.

 

Does nobody here even try and think about scaling the discussion, US entirety being larger is actually irrelevant to the point. Land area size of the US is not the issue, it's an issue (of many) but not one that is actually stopping anything, only the desire to invest is.

 

Edit:

Also we started this is 2008, it's not complete yet, so don't think I'm at all saying it's easy or quick, just feasible.

[Donut417]

6 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

we already did pay and will continue to pay billions to get rural America connected with slow 25/3 plans

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/fcc-gives-isps-another-563-million-to-build-rural-broadband-networks/

 

there are plans that push for 100/100+ fiber build outs like this

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/100-billion-universal-fiber-plan-proposed-by-democrats-in-congress/

No Im not talking the about the government giving a few billion. Im talking about the government funding the whole project. Wiring up the US with Fiber, like they did telephone back in the day. 

 

The key word in the second article is proposed. They will never get it passed, not in todays political environment. 

[sof006]

In the UK we're in the period of trying to phase out VDSL technology in favour of "ultra fast" which in other words is true fibre, none of that FTTC rubbish. I am currently on a VDSL2 package and its decent and would consider myself to be one of the lucky people who can hit 70/80Mb which is roughly the maximum speed you can achieve on FTTC over here without g.inp, vectoring etc... 

 

In my area Openreach are in the process of rolling out fibre, id suspect its taking them longer with covid causing more problems. I personally hope to eventually move to an area that supplies Virgin Media, I know a friend who says he can get me a nice discount on their gig1 package (Gigabit broadband).