competition

California's broadband competition outlook dims as telcos head for the exit

20 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

The market for high speed, residential broadband service is not competitive in California, and the problem might be getting worse rather than better. That’s one of the conclusions of a draft decision prepared by an administrative law judge for consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Although a typical household might have access to more than one kind of service, most have no choice – or no availability – when it comes to getting Internet access at 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds.… More

CPUC considers manifesto for broadband regulation

19 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Not this Karl.

California doesn’t have a competitive market for broadband service, and the distinction between it and phone service is essentially irrelevant. With all due regard for the danger of trying to boil down 168 pages into 20 words, that’s the bottom line of a proposed decision by a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge.

ALJ Karl Bemesderfer was given the job of sifting through mounds of data, testimony and arguments submitted in the course of a CPUC investigation into whether there’s sufficient competition among telecommunications companies in California.… More

Google Fiber tries cheaper service tier in Kansas City

12 April 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Google Fiber is pulling its 5 Mbps data plan off the market in Kansas City. It’s often mischaracterised as free, but it wasn’t quite that. The deal was that people living in a soon-to-be blessed fiberhood could pay a $300 installation fee and get 5 Mbps service for seven years. Speculation is that Google Fiber is trying to pump up revenue by steering low end subs to a $50 a month, 100 Mbps plan with free installation.… More

FCC tells big ISPs to tell the plain truth

5 April 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

By definition, competition requires market information. Internet service providers, like pretty much any business, have a natural tendency to want to reduce competition. So they make it very difficult to do comparison shopping. Try going to Comcast’s or AT&T’s website and get a fast and straight answer to a simple question: what’s the monthly price for a service package? It takes tenacity to get it, if it can be had at all. It’s one more way to protect a monopoly business from the perils of competition.… More

Gigabit competition upsets cozy pricing equilibrium

15 February 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

It will come back up, eventually.

Big incumbents are cranking up the marketing volume on a gigabit services in urban areas with high revenue potential, but there’s very little, if any, gigabit-capable infrastructure actually deployed yet, except for Verizon’s FiOS systems. So pricing for some is still conceptual, and high, while others are already fighting it out on the ground.

Comcast is talking about charging $299 a month and a $1,000 installation fee for its 2 Gbps service.… More

Big incumbents turn up giga-game heat

11 February 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Comcast and AT&T see high speed broadband opportunity in many of the same places. The two companies will go head to head with gigabit offerings (or at least giga-somethings) in five markets, according to a story by Sean Buckley in FierceTelecom…

Comcast has made its intent clear: it’s finally going to bring its DOCSIS 3.1-based gigabit broadband services to five cities this year, a move that directly challenges AT&T and Verizon and their FTTH buildout and pricing strategies.

… More

Cutting the cord doesn't really mean cutting the cord

18 October 2015 by Steve Blum
,

It’s still a battle.

Nearly a quarter of the U.S. population doesn’t have a pay TV subscription, via cable or satellite. A report published by Forrester Research and reported on by the FierceOnlineVideo and the Wall Street Journal says that 24% of U.S. television viewers don’t buy linear cable or satellite packages. What’s interesting, though, is that the number of people who have never been subscribers is three times as high as people who have bought it at one point and then cut the cord, as they say in the cable business.… More

Comcast exec says yeah, competitition made us do it

15 October 2015 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

The only sure way to respond to a threat.

Comcast has a habit of upgrading and extending its infrastructure when the threat of competition raises its beautiful head. That’s a deliberate strategy, and not a coincidence, according to a Comcast executive quoted by FierceTelecom…

Speaking to attendees during the opening afternoon sessions during SCTE 2015, Jorge Salinger, VP of access for Comcast, said that the cable industry’s development of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification has come together very quickly and is being driven by an emergence of new broadband competition from Google Fiber and telcos like AT&T and CenturyLink.

… More

AT&T goes to the mattresses in North Carolina

21 July 2015 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

AT&T is putting a move on Google Fiber and Frontier, inside of Frontier’s territory in Durham, North Carolina, according to a story by Lauren Ohnesorge in the Triangle Business Journal (h/t to Fierce Telecom for the pointer). The story quotes a local AT&T executive as saying that the company will soon be offering its Gigapower service, apparently via fiber to the premise technology and on what appears to be a limited basis…

AT&T has the resources to spread its technology more broadly.

… More

Mobile operators are short term cure, long term cause of broadband divide

Wireline upgrades get low priority on the wrong side of the divide.

Mobile broadband networks are increasingly ubiquitous throughout the world, and are the most widely used way of accessing the Internet in developing countries. But that’s despite high costs and stingy caps on data transfer. As a solution for increasing primary household access to broadband and encouraging people to use it, mobile networks have limited potential, according to a South African broadband policy study…

Of the access mechanisms, mobile coverage is the most extensive, but mobile broadband access is limited to lucrative urban areas and data costs are relatively high.

… More