Originally posted by 0thehero
But how is Verizon rolling it out? What is their plan? I don't seem to be able to get it here in Boston, in the city itself, but relatives in the sticks have been able to get it for over a year. Have they just not run the fiber yet or what?
If we had a population as small, as urban and as centrally located as that of Sweden (or South Korea), we could do that. But we have 300 million people, in places like Kansas and Alabama and Montana with populations spread in rural areas over huge distances that make regular market forces inapplicable for most utilities; if companies didn't have franchises, they wouldn't bother with Americans located out in the sticks and even in many suburbs. I'm all for competition, but this is an expensive business and FCC requirements for service availability don't make it any cheaper. And the courts keep shutting down co-op networks started by localities, which is friggin' criminal.
That said, I'd love someone to actually provide a viable threat to Comcast and/or Verizon. Thanks to the myopic Telecommunications Act of 1996, our cable rates have increased at double the rate of inflation every year since 1996. And we just don't have any choice.
Hi 0thehero,
Your point about population density is a classic talking point of the same companies you feel frustrated with. It's part of their game plan to avoid investment and keep you helplessly trapped in an overpriced duopoly of old infrastructure being milked for every penny and enforced by the FCC. There are no market forces at work. The duopoly takes your money and lobbies with it to strengthen their grip on you through the
appointed FCC, state and local boards. Their purpose is to protect the industry, not advance competition.
The density argument falls apart in the first part of your post. Why isn't Boston and every other high-density urban area wired as it should be? Because they simply don't want to spend the investment. They would rather pocket the profit without reinvesting. Even their employees, the Communication Workers of America, understand this and their recent report reflects it.
"The U.S. invests relatively less on telecommunications as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. Indeed, we rank behind South Korea, Great Britain, Spain, Canada, Japan, France and even Mexico."
I have a place in the mountains far from any urban area with 40Mbps DSL, and 100Mbps fiber (up
and down) at my other place that is over an hour drive to a major city, and have 3 fiber competitors to choose from. Anyway, I understand your frustration, but density or market forces are not the main reasons for it.
