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Et Tu Covad? 260 Central Offices To Close
Mr. Haplo writes: "It seems that Northpoint isn't the only CLEC going through troubled times, these days. According to this article, Covad Communications is planning on closing 260 central offices. This bodes not well for those of us trying to avoid the stranglehold of the ILECs."
ILEC = Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier - whoever owns the office, or "the pimp"
CLEC = Competitive Local Exchange Carriers - "the whores"
Does my bum look big in this?
That's why I never signed up with them even when i was begging for *DSL. Fortunately, my patience came through and I'm happy with Qwest for DSL.
I just about dropped my jaw on the triple-figure fees they were charging, which were slower than Qwest's. They even charge you if you aren
t aronud for the install. Do they credit you if THEY don't show?
I tried 3 DSL providers, Covad being one of them, until I finally got fed up and got Comcast. I normally get speeds around 1.5 mbps to 3.0 mbps, which is *much* higher than the rated speeds for the best ADSL connections (and a hell of a lot cheaper).
Let Covad die.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Then if you have something to say that's worth saying, use that account.
If you have something to say that isn't worth saying, then don't bother saying it under any name, including "Anonymous Coward".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Happened to me when PB installed other (non-DSL) service at my home. Took a couple of days to fix. Not surprised at all.
sulli
RTFJ.
The market as it is currently set up will offer us service from a very few providers, each of which will choose its own reaction to government oversight and regulation, copyright protection, file sharing, etc.
The market is currently set up as you state, however as far as choosing reaction, they pretty much go with the flow of the other telecom giants. Especially with regard to oversight, regulation and copyright protection.
The standardization of ISP services is at hand...not due to the choices of thousands of Internet users but because of a ruthless economic slowdown which is taking out businesses without a chance to test the true utility of their strategies, technologies and social models.
The standardization of ISP services is not at hand. Most successfull ones are very unique when it comes to HW SW, CABS billing and various services such as DSL. The ruthless economic slowdown which is taking out businesses without a change to test fully their strategies, technologies and social models will simply allow the stronger ones to survive. That's why the old guys, (Read RBOC's) will be the last man standing.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
ummm... just to clarify for anyone who might be misled by the above post: DSL does *not* have lower latency than cable modems.
DSL:
64 bytes from 151.203.46.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=30.910 ms
64 bytes from 151.203.xx.x: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=32.866 ms
64 bytes from 151.203.xx.x: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=94.914 ms
64 bytes from 151.203.xx.x: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=29.929 ms
Cable:
64 bytes from 146.115.xx.x: icmp_seq=9 ttl=255 time=22.306 ms
64 bytes from 146.115.xx.x: icmp_seq=10 ttl=255 time=86.162 ms
64 bytes from 146.115.xx.x: icmp_seq=11 ttl=255 time=29.843 ms
64 bytes from 146.115.xx.x: icmp_seq=12 ttl=255 time=16.554 ms
OK, yeah, the cable modem *is* getting a bit slow right now, but the inate latency is much lower (usually 15ms~20ms vs. 30~40ms.)
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
The point of the closures isn't that it is Covad losing business and going down or anything bad that you suggest by saying "it serves them right." If you had understood a word of the article, you would've noticed that they only closed down offices in small markets in podunk towns. When Covad opened shop a few years ago, they opened up a billion offices all over the place. In the small markets, nobody was really buying DSL so it doesn't make sense anymore to keep that office open. They still have a ton of offices in major markets and are still the market leader of backend DSL providers.
IANAL, but I play one on
All your high-bandwidth wire are use Marxist dielectric.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
That's basically what we are getting at work only it's a T1 with ISDN backup. Cable modem actually is reliable enough for a high usage residential link, in most areas where I've seen it (I have what was MediaOne and is now AT&T Broadband in the Boston area and the service is phenomenal, even their tech support isn't all bad, adding and removing MAC addresses to their DHCP tables and the like is usually easy). By contrast, even supposedly business grade DSL (the SDSL we have currently at work) goes down like a 2 dollar whore once every week or two for up to 3-4 hours at a time. And the ADSL I have from BellAtlantic/Verizon in New York is the worst excuse for high speed internet access I've ever seen. Wouldn't touch that shit again with a ten foot pole. Have had up to three straight weeks of down time with them. It still regularly goes down for an hour at a time (at least two to three times a week that I notice) and sometimes will be out for a whole day. Awful, awful service.
Just so everyone knows, cutting 260 COs will only affect roughly 4% of Covad's customers, even though it is probably 10% or more of their COs.
So obviously, they weren't making very much money on these COs, and it is unlikely that any given person will be affected. Specifically, if you live in anything like a real city, you will almost definitely not be affected.
Market failure: the inability of the market to provide for the effective distribution of some goods, especially social goods.
One social good the market will not provide is choice.. the choice to select cheap, independent online service based on telephone lines. Existing telephone lines, which are regulated, not owned by one company or a few companies, like much of the new cable that is laid every day.
The market as it is currently set up will offer us service from a very few providers, each of which will choose its own reaction to government oversight and regulation, copyright protection, file sharing, etc.
The fewer such providers there are, the less options we will have in terms of specialized services, additional security, unorthodox attitudes towards security and privacy, etc.
The standardization of ISP services is at hand...not due to the choices of thousands of Internet users but because of a ruthless economic slowdown which is taking out businesses without a chance to test the true utility of their strategies, technologies and social models.
Once it's safe again to start something up, we will have to re-invent the wheel, to recreate the quality service and specialized perspectives of the small ISP's-- if the regulatory regimes crafted by the monopolies will still allow it.
Goat sex free since 2001
I was very impressed with the level of service I received throughout the signup process, and when I spoke with the installation guy, I thought "hey, these people are on the ball."
So I bought some stock. I'm still holding onto it in hopes that Covad will do better, but the important point here is that Covad offers excellent service. My DSL has had no problems. I've needed no technical support. Everything just works as advertised.
I have friends who are *still* having problems with their PacBell connections, months after going through nightmare installation processes.
Yet Covad is still undergoing financial troubles. Good technology and service alone aren't enough to get ahead.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
AT&T or factions of the monolith will be the last one standing. They, even though deregulated have been lobbying very hard for 10 years to create a climate in which ILEC's and CLEC's cannot survive do to legislation such as schools and library taxes and surcharges. Look they own the last mile and as owners are charging the CLEC's and other local resellers out the yaya. Basically the CLEC, within the law only make about 0.02 on the dollar as it is. AT&T for all it's bumbling has proven to have stood the test of time by sticking with it's strategic direction. Long live the monopoly of AT&T, they are the only ones who will truly keep our local access rates down./
Hey, out of curiosity, how much "extra" do you think they charge for T1 connectivity? I mean, let's forget the local loop part -- that's a given. But $750/mo for 1.54Mbps? I get calls EVERY WEEK from DSL-equipped CLECs/ISPs offering me 2Mbps bidirectional for $500/mo including the router (which is probably some cheesy desktop thing with no features, but hey).
I think "T1 internet access" is, other than the loop, a royal butt banging. I *know* I'm not getting any better technical support out of the deal and the "free" CIDR blocks that come with it are nice but don't really cost the ISP anything. SMTP queing and single name DNS hosting? Yah, more "high cost value added."
Given that any ISP with anything more than wet dreams about competing in the corporate ISP field needs AT LEAST one DS3 or even OC-3 and a couple of T1s to multiple providers, it's not like they're starved for bandwidth, either.
I'm starting to think that T1 ought to be dirt cheap, at least cheaper than 2Mbps DSL. The tech is as old as the hills and the equipment to support it at high densities should be at least as cheap as DSL if not cheaper. The local loop will probably never be cheap, but at least the net connection ought to be.
The problem you're describing is a problem not with Covad, but with the monopolistic phone companies (ILECs). When a phone company does an install, it is a good install 90% of the time. When Covad has to do an install, it is good only 70% of the time. The reason is that Covad has to go through the ILECs to get you service. The ILECs don't like this and don't do a damn thing to help (and are even being accused of harming). This is a major issue and Covad is taking the ILECs to court over these issues.
IANAL, but I play one on
The closing of 260 offices isn't all that significant to Covad or the DSL future picture. All the closures were in markets so small they couldn't support an office. Markets in cities or college towns support the market fine so they are open. Podunk towns where only five families have signed up are closing down.
When Covad started business a few years ago, they opened offices in thousands of markets big and small. The smallest markets are just not worth it so are closing. My best friend works at Covad and he said the 260 closings are not all that significant a percentage of Covad's total market.
IANAL, but I play one on
Several of my friends have had 3+ mbit cable modems for quite some time now... and while browsing at the magazine section at B&N yesterday I noticed mention of 16-25 mbit broadband in MaximumPC. How far off are these from nationwide deployment? Are they available in major cities yet? What medium do they use (cable, xDSL, fiber-to-the-house)? I recall some marketing propaganda over the past year from both RoadRunner and Covad talking about 8+ mbit (1 MByte) access coming in the "near future". Does anyone have this sorta "mega broadband" yet, and if so, how's it been working for you?
Please note, I'm talking about --CONSUMER-- broadband, not multiple T1s, a T3, or OC3 to a household (regardless of what Rob Malda and countless dot-com folks can now afford).
Also, does anyone know of some GNU/Linux friendly broadband (1.5 mbit +) ISPs that I can recommend to new linux users?
The largest benefit of a T1/DS1, T3/DS3, or OC-class circuit is the quality of service. You get a point to point connection with loads of guarantees. Hardware troubleshooting (on both ends) is usually available around the clock, often with little more than 15 minutes of leadtime. Bandwith almost never an issue as most Tier-1 providers (sprintlink, uunet/worldcom/mci, cable&wireless, etc) have enormous headroom, oftentimes over 40% above any concievable usage. If a problem occurs, it's fixed fast and by someone that knows what they're doing. -- MOST of the time
This is not to say that many xDSL and cable setups *aren't* good. There are MANY excellent such setups, some even offering quality guarantees and excellent service, often times providing MUCH better bang for the buck.
It all comes down to the reputation, support, quality, and even scalability. If I were to start a large business, I'd probably get a fractional T3 from sprintlink. The pair of fiber (who uses a pair of coax anymore) that would come to my office could then easily be upgraded to support full or muliple T3 circuits in the future. AFAIK, a typical cable or xDSL circuit will probably never support more than 25 mbit, which, even then, would probably require the user to be 50 feet from the CO.
Bottom line, try to get a reputable cable or xDSL setup until you can afford or need something better. Wait for that IPO before you order a full T3 for the den.
Where do you live? I really, really wish I could get cable from one of my local CLECs. In my area I can only get cable from TimeWarner ($38/month for expanded basic + $19/month for RoadRunner cable modem access). We have several CLECs, though based on the services they're providing I have had no reason to switch from Southwestern Bell.
I remember reading several months ago that Covad sued PacBell for various dirty deeds they were doing to screw up Covad's customers.
They won a settlement of several million dollars and then, I think, PacBell appealed.
So what ever became of that? Does anyone know?
Personally, I think SBC communications needs to be slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit much more than Microsoft. I have a friends who is an installer for PacBell and another friend who is an installer for Covad. You would not believe some of the stories I hear them tell.
The whole problem is forcing PacBell to do what they don't want to do: serve their competitors.
If you have six pairs of wire in the average phone box, is it any surprise that PacBell DSL customers get the best ones and Covad customers get the ones with interferrance? If there's a bad port at the CO, do you think it will be a PacBell customer who gets told "sorry, we have no ports available until we install a new backplane"?
My PacBell friend has even witnessed other PacBell installed pulling pairs that have Covad tags on them off the screws while winking and saying "Oops". Of course when the eventual repair report is filed, it's "Covad tech failed to secure wires properly" and such.
It wasn't enough to divide PacBell the phone company from PacBell the DSL company. They still operate as one and will always operate as one.
Look at California. Since 1996 PacBell has been required to allow other companies to provide local phone service. At first, there was Sprint, GTE, and AT&T all getting into the local market. Now, four years later, it's only PacBell because the other companies couldn't keep customers due to PacBell persecution.
I think that local governments should use the power of emminent domain to buy all the first-mile infrastructure and then PacBell and Covad and everyone else will finally be competing on equal ground.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Yes, we're finally seeing that DSL just doesnt work. DSL isnt the future, Cable modems are.
Thanks to those big thick wires, they can deploy to oodles more customers, and more cheaply as well.
Face facts, even DSLReports is admitting that cablemodems are a better deal. Higher speed, better latency, way way cheaper, and much more widely available. Additionally, you're dealing with big, deep pocketed ISPs, not the fly-by-night operations that inhabit the DSL world.
DSL is a trick, just like ISDN, 56k modems, and "shotgun" connections -- a trick to try and use quirks of the phone system to try and stave off the (now) obvious obsolescence of the phone companies.
DSL's going on the technological scrap heap alongside BBSes and tracker music. A bump on the
road to universal cable-modem goodness.
I think you are misunderstanding me. It seems that you reading my initial post as "It's about time I posted first!", when actually it is intended as "It's about time Covad went down!" Agree or disagree with my post, but don't knock me for simply posting.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
I worked for Covad in a position that gave me a unique perspective in where the company was going and what their business plan was. Fortunately, I got out last year when I saw warning signs, months before the axe fell. What has happened is just a symptom of a fundamental shift in the marketplace.
Covad was the first major CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in the DSL marketplace. CLECS were essentially created by the Telecommunications Act of '96. Basically, the Telecommunication Act allowed two main changes in the law:
1> It allowed for local phone companies to offer long distance service.
2> It allowed for CLECs to exist, essentially using phone company lines for a fair market value. It made the right for phone companies to offer long distance contingent on them opening their lines up fairly for CLECs to do their job.
Covad started in the San Francisco bay area, fertile ground for a DSL company. They were first in the market, with about a 6 months lead on Northpoint and Rhythms when it came to their number of subscribers and their ability to roll out services effectively. They have done a good job of maintaining that lead, too.
Originally, DSL companies competed for business locally... but when the glut of investment capital came rolling in, it became obvious that there was a huge demand for broadband and not enough supply. The way that DSL companies dealt with this was to spend billions on rolling out their networks and putting equipment in as many central offices as possible. In many cases, these central office deployments were redundant... Small marketplaces would have the choice between 2-3 CLECS, plus the local phone company in order to get DSL.
Why were companies like Covad willing to put equipment in locations that wouldn't return a profit anytime soon? Because, in a bull marketplace with a glut of investment capital, what was going on was essentially a landgrab. The first person to "drive their stake" into a marketplace and to get their message across would be the dominant player in that market... eventually. How could they be sure? Because, once people have DSL, they don't want to go back to dialup, and they rarely ever switch DSL providers.
As we all know, the stock market soured and the venture capital money has dried up for the time being. Now, the stakes are higher for these companies... they either have to achieve profitability before their warchests run out (say, 18 months for Covad and Rhythms)or they have to sell out all or part of their business to their current phone company competitors.
When I was at Covad last year, I could tell you... they brought on a ton of people, constantly. They developed an absolutely annoying, gluttenous amount of middle management in no time flat. The people who really knew anything were stuck in meetings all day and weren't able to get anything done, and there were a lot of new people who were very inefficient, often causing more work than they were performing.
In other words, I'm glad that Covad has laid off so many of these new workers. I'm glad that they're willing to pull the plug on deadbeat customers... and I'm glad they are willing to remove equipment from locations that just don't pay. I am certain that Covad will be the first CLEC to achieve profitability... and profitability will give them the creds to get back in the favor of investors and VC's... the first to reach profitability gets to grow again, essentially.
Not that Covad won't grow this year... it will concentrate on what gets them the bucks: business installs easy residential customer self-installs. If you want to be profitable in a short amount of time with a DSL company, you can't be rolling out a install truck a half-dozen times just to set up a line for a customer paying $45 a month. That's why self-installs are so important. Covad has great testing and line qualifying equipment. They can easily determine whether a residential customer's line is able to be handled with a self-install or not. If it is, they do the deal, if not... let the local phone companies pay to fix up their crappy lines! Covad has been very successful with their self-install program, which gives them an edge over Rhythms in this respect.
Covad also is and has been very successful with business customers. Business customers are very important, and the DSL lines offered to business customers bring in more revenue and more profit than residential customers. If you want to maximize profitability, you have to concentrate on businesses first.
What are the longterm ramifications of the DSL CLECS falling on hard times? Probably this:
1> Some CLECs won't survive. Some will sell out to local phone companies, too.
2> Phone companies will get a larger proportion of the DSL marketplace than they might otherwise have gotten.
3> In the short term, there will be less of an incentive for broadband providers to compete with each other on a price level. Don't expect price cuts anytime soon on broadband. Demand still outstrips supply.
4> DSL will take somewhat longer to catch up with the growth of cable-based broadband in the U.S. All statistics still point to DSL access growing faster than cable broadband access, however. Cable-based broadband is also expensive to roll out service for, and money is tight everywhere. Eventually, DSL should outstrip cable in the marketplace. Let me make one thing clear... there will be no winner in the broadband marketplace until there is a clearly superior technology. Neither DSL or Cable will "win"... but we will see profitable companies in DSL, cable, and wireless.
What should be the biggest concern about this issue for consumers? Ultimately, it's all about choice. Choice means competition and lower prices, after all. It's that much more important to pay attention to the decisions in front of the FCC and Congress and to make sure that the interests of consumers are met and that the marketplace is kept friendly for CLECs and, ultimately, for competition. Normal people can and do influence FCC decisions, and it is worthwhile to point out that some of the worst decisions by the FCC are those that only get a handful of responses from the public. Want to make your opinion actually count? Don't just voice it here. Go to http://www.fcc.gov, keep up on what's REALLY happening, and let your voice be heard on the issues there. The last I heard, it was your government, after all...
IANAL, but AFAIK, I have no idea what he's trying to communicate when he says "CLEC" and "ILEC."
This is, of course, IMHO.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
SpeakEasy (the BEST DSL provider, IMHO) has a great dictionary for keeping your acronyms straight:
l
For the link-fearing:
http://www.speakeasy.net/dsl/dsl_dictionary.htm
Or click Here
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I think they had trouble staffing up quickly to grow quickly. I have (I think, who knows when it will die) Covad-supplied DSL and when I first got it I got real morons for the "install" (plug in equipment), clueless dorks for the tech support when it didn't work (one "escalation engineer" kept running traceroutes on his console telling me he was getting through; I kept telling him the traces WERE FROM HIS PC, *not* mine, and he kept insisting they were mine..).
Other than the initial 3 months of groveling, insulting, threatening and otherwise hating them the service *has* been rock solid. Few outages, speed at the rated limit and no need to call tech support.
The next logical step is to get both a cable modem and DSL, and terminate them both into a router. The combined MTBF might be acceptable.
Covad doesn't compete much with cable modems or cheap consumer DSL. Their main business is SDSL to business. Rather oversaturated; several CLECs (not usually ILECs) sell in that space, and there's not enough business to go around. Covad might end up the survivor though.
Is this a result of the dot-com crash? I mean, I gather most of these huge clec's didn't actually make any money yet... they just banked on market-share and figuring out how to make money later?
Have they run out of public funds?
The Incumbent LEC is the local telephone monopoly. A Competitive LEC is a company that leases your telco's infrastructure, e.g. NorthPoint, Covad, Rhythms, etc. The big ones are focused on DSL, but there are plenty of smaller CLEC's that are more interested in local phone service alone, or as part of a more comprehensive package they can provide (e.g. long distance, wireless).
--
I work at an ISP that offers DSL. We give the EU a choice between the ILEC (PacBell) and the CLEC (New Edge).
PB: DHCP dial-up wanna-be DSL crap + CPE: $150
NE: always-on, permanent static public IP + CPE: $400.
However, to be competetive and make a profit, we use static public IP's on PB orders too (which is why PB ISP/DSL is cheaper).
This is just for the initial setup (CPE = customer premise equipment). When we offer our customers the choice, guess who they want to use. They see only "$150 vs $400." Some want to skip us as the ISP all together and go PB all the way (ha!).
PB also screws up NE's orders ALL the time. Or they won't let us provision the line or do other stuff if that phone # is in use by PB somewhere in the "system." Or when a PB DSL goes down or can't be installed b/c of a short in the lines in the house, PB won't fix it 'cause it's NE DSL (but PB ownes the lines...). Etc, etc. I could go on all night.
NE recently had a promo with free equipment/install, and we signed up a LOT of people with it. PB doens't like that of course, and we're still trying to get these things installed.
I currently have NE DSL. Free Efficient Networks router/installation and an IP bound to a p166 that's been running 2 domains on one web server, a ftp server, a mail server, firewall, NAT server, roger wilco base station, and an occasional delta force server 24/7. Can't beat that I guess. Does PB let you do that? Does Covad? I'm not sure, please let me know.
Oh, and here's the kicker. When there's bridge taps or load coils on the line PB removes them for their customers for free. And they charge us (our customer) $200. How sweet of them. I believe there was a lawsuit in Texas about BellSouth removing stuff from a phone line for DSL, charging $200, then charging anyone else in the neighborhood the same amount to remove the same piece of equipment! So say 5 houses on a block want DSL, and there's a load coil, they'll charge $200 per house, even though only the 1st $200 would remove it and the other 4 EU's would be ok. I think they lost, or at least I hope they did.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
From Everything2:
CLEC: An acronym for Competitive Local Exchange Carrier which is a telephone company that is independent and challenging a monopoly and or mainstay carrier in the business of telecom service.
ILEC: Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier. Perhaps an RBOC, basically, well, the Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier.