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Broadband Usage Up 42% In The U.S. In 2003
Kickassthegreat writes "As reported here by Reuters, broadband usage in the U.S. jumped 42 percent in 2003 as compared to 2002. As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?"
Never. Just like CDs are still more expensive than tapes.
the RIAA drops the prices on CD's to compete directly with cassette tapes.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
It would be nice to know what they took as "broadband" speed. I know that the speeds of broadband in Japan are blinding compared to what we have in the U.S.
If they raised their standards perhaps we would see quite a different deployment figure.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
You forgot the golden rule of monopolies. The more customers, the higher the prices!
yeah just like we see lower prices at the petrol pumps when the price of oil drops
companies are so desperate to make money, you really think they will drop the price when they can increase ROI for no extra investment at all !
never underestimate greed, especially in USA
As soon as enough people have broadband you can be damn sure ISP's will start introducing draconian bandwidth limits.
"Well Mr. Jones, I know that people are signing up in droves, and many of our markets are over-capacity which is requiring us to upgrade our local services. But I thought it would be nice if we cut the price 75% to compete with AOL's dial-up."
Not in this lifetime, I'm thinking.
Comcast has special introductory offers of $20/month to compete directly with dial-up. It wouldn't make sense for them to drop the price to $20 as it would eliminate their profit margin. They're providing about 100 times the bandwidth of dialup for only twice the price and you complain about value?
If you think broadband is expensive, look at the rest of your cable bill.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?"
Why would they? More people are signing up to these cable companies (such as Comcast) daily. Why compete with dial-up when people are migrating from dialup?
Damn if I know when Comcast will drop their prices but damn they're expensive!
I've had three broadband connections (that I've actually payed for). DSL at home in NJ which has good pings but wasn't high bandwidth, Time Warner RR cable in Rochester which was pretty good in both respects, and now Comcast in Boston. If someone had told me in advance that my Comcast connection would be 9Mbits/second I'd be less irritated with their absurd fees.
Damn bastards usually want $60 a month plus all kinds of installation fees and shit. Fortunately I'm getting it for $20 a month for 3 months, and that's as long as I need it. But in the end their customer service still blows chunks.
What gets me is that in different regions around the US the same service can vary in price by $30 dollars. DSL in some places is $30 a month and in others it can go as high as $60, for the same speed! And I'm not even referring to people who live out in the boonies who may have to pay a premium which is somewhat understandable.
Presently here, but not there.
We have *free* broadband :D
(eg here)
how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?"
When the companies stop seeing 43% growth. People obviously like the broadband at current prices. If you have a hot product, why lower the price? When growth stagnates, then the companies will start gettng aggressive -- adding services or reducing prices to either make new customers or steal customers from rivals.
In the long run, doubt that broadband will ever be the same price as dial-up because it both costs more and is more valuable to customers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
There's no pressure for Comcast et al to lower prices. Right now, they simply need to show up and in many areas (like mine) DSL isn't available.
It'll happen, as the market saturates and competition finds a way to penetrate the markets. Also, as additional services come up (perhaps like Comcast offering VOIP) they'll probably come up with package deals to make the combo very attractive.
blenderking.com over 50,000 blenders can't be wrong
First of all the cable companies will want to recoup their investment. Then they'll want to make a profit.
The only thing that will drive down prices is direct competition and, as I understand it, cable companies don't have a great deal of overlap. Now, if you were able to pick from half a dozen plus companies to provide broadband connectivity to your home (just as you're able to pick literally dozens of companies to provide narrowband connectivity to your home), then you'd have some active competition between companies, which would lead lower prices. But in a market where you're options are limited to one, two, maybe three companies tops then you're unlikely to see any really aggressive pricing.
And that's before you even start talking about what sort of value people attach to having broadband. If 19 out of 20 people have an expectation that broadband will cost $40/month then that's what it will cost. The fact that the last person in that group wouldn't pay more than $35/month for the service is irrelevant.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
In the UK, you can get basic broadband setups for the same price as dial up (around 14 per month). The only trouble is that all of them have ridiculous bandwidth restrictions such as 1Gig per month (I get through about 8Gig a day).
But most 'average' people will be happy with an always-on connection, regardless of capping downloads
Thus I think economies of scale will probably lowers prices. Since even the government want people to have access to high-speed net connections.
Why do some gas stations in the middle of nowhere charge $0.25 per gallon more than gas stations near cities or in a large cluster of stations near an overpass? Simple - because they can. Now I'm no fan of Comcast, but if they're the only major high-speed player in a market, they can set the price. If TimeWarner moves in, they have to cut prices. Supply and demand, no different than any other commodity product.
...they have the infrastructure to support a flood of users all abusing the speed of their connections at the same time.
At least with dialup each client was physically limited to ~5k/sec.
WHen will broadband companies truly serve the populace by providing broadband capability to all, not just the city folk?
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?
As long as dial-up is around, I don't think that broadband prices will drop to its level. However, a major step in the right direction would be for state and local governments to allow for competition in the cable market by beginning to let others install fiber lines.
Seeing how there would probably be quite a few closed roads and other disturbances, it would be up to those two forms of government to make sure that minimum disturbance would be created. Once the government-allowed monopoly on the cable market is over, you're bound to see some steep price drops and probably better service, too. With more fiber roll-outs taking their share of customers, less bandwidth would be utilized.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
why would they want to lower prices? Its obvious that people will pay for it at the level it is right now...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
As technology develops, DSL will be available over longer and longer distances. Currently, you can manage a 192kb DSL line over about 21000 feet, if I am not mistaken (which I might be, but these numbers feel about right). I wouldn't be surprised to see that number double in the next few years. Also, as WiFi stuff gets so ridiculously cheap, all that would be necessary would be to put a repeater on every few power poles and voila, rural internet access.
Broadband + Wireless == Today's standard internet connection.
Now, the problem is, there are a lot of wireless adapters that desperately need better Linux driver support.
Comcast recently boosted my download speed from 1.5 Mb/s to 3 Mb/s without raising the monthly fee. Of course I would love to pay less, but right now I'm happy paying the $40 or so for that kind of speed.
So that's what the question was!
'By how many percentile points will US Broadband usage increase in 2003?'
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
I would like it if this would happen in countires other than the US, since out here in Australia, there is broadband which competes with dialup in a price perspective, at AU$29.95/month, but only has 200MB limits (hard limit, not a bandwidth throttled limit). What I would like to see is not an overall price drop, but an increase in usability (ie. not a download limit which can be used up in one night)
The question is, when will METERED broadband access be in place? Probably when no-one uses dial up any more, although with reference to the last article, we (UK) may be paying for phonecalls by the MB by then anyway.
If I promise to be a good boy can I have some better karma?
Cable companies will never drop their prices until we start seeing small neighborhood WiFi ISPs as described by Bob Cringely in his past two PBS columns. I've thought about this for a few years now but, alas, I'm no entrepreneur.
But drop their prices to compete with dial-up? They don't even need to drop their prices to compete with DSL. Where I live, Cablevision gives me speeds of 5 Mbps down and 900 kbps up for $40/mo (with TV service; $50/mo a la carte). Verizon DSL is $50/mo and the best speed would be 625 kbps down. Cablevision could raise their price to $60, $70 per month; you name it; and my only alternative would be a dog slow DSL or dial-up connection.
I'm hooked on the fat pipe and they know it.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
If broadband were actually to compete directly with dial up, the amount of virulent spam infections would increase exponentially. And even without the virulent spam, it would mean more potential pc's for spammers to relay off of. Besides that, there's internet accelerators like proxyconn that can speed up dial up (and broadband). It's not fantastic but it makes things a little better for those of us riding the waves on our 56k surf boards. (I'm posting this as AC because I moderated in this discussion)
Australia, the Broadband backwater
As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?
Perhaps when the growth rate slows down? Seems like they don't have much to gain at the moment by dropping their prices. Of course, by the time their growth rate slows, they might have killed off all of their dial-up competitors.
dennis
It all depends how much competition the government will allow amongst broadband providers. Not so much DSL and Cable which already are competetors, but allowing or requiring cable to allow other companies in.
Plus you have other technologies trying to become involved such as broadband over electric lines. Anything that may actually drive consumers to another company will drive prices more competitively, otherwise we're looking at high prices for a while.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
In my area, we've had high-speed cable internet available for 7 years, and DSL the last 4 years.
Both DSL and Cable have been increasing their bandwidth to compete with each other, Cable just changed to 5mbit/s, DSL is 4mbit/s. Pricing has remained relatively flat, about $40can/month for both services. However recently Bell has been forced to share their lines, as a result, 4mbit DSL can be found for as low as $30/month.
In Belgium the percentage of people who have ADSL or cable is pretty high, compared to dialup. At this moment 15,4% marketpenetration for ADSL. 4th world wide.
The main reason might be the monopoly position of Belgacom, the main Telecomoperator. They dictate prices between cariers and abuse their monopoly in every way they like.
Because of that there are so many ADSL and cable subscribers. So here is the proove that a monopoly IS good for the customer. Uh, wait. That can't be right.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
In canada, the price for high speed is already quite comparable with dial-up. For about $25 dollars a month, you can get high speed light, which is about 5 times faster then dial-up, more than enough for most people, and you don't have to tie up your phone line. This is competitive to big dial-ups like AOL, but quite a lot more than getting it off discount ones like Net-Zero.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's more likely that broadband companies will try to takeover other broadband companies or big media companies(Comcast/Disney). To increase revenue, they will need to bundle services. Maybe they'll start offering VoIP phone services at less than what the phone company charges. If you paid 55$ for your cable internet service and 55$ for your phone service, they'll sell you a "bundle": internet service + phone service at 90$.
The phone companies were a day late and a dollar short in rolling out DSL. Time Warner came out with Road Runners years before the phone company would sell DSL for residential use.
In the years between the Road Runner roll out and the start of DSL roll-out, everyone that wanted broadband signed up for a cable modem. So (very) recently, Verizon started trying to roll out DSL and guess what; most of their potential market no longer needed their service, as their Cable modem was great. The residential DSL around here seems to have taken the lower bandwidth, lower price and cable, but still faster than dial-up approach.
Where as Time Warner only needed to announce they could deliver broadband to get potential customers (literally) calling them begging for service, DSL providers are begging for customers to sign up.
DSL is dropping prices (and bandwith.) Cable just raised their rates ($5) and doubled the speed of their pipe and modem connections.
Ma' Bell missed the boat big time. The slashdot summary talks about lowering rates. That's only the ugly step-sister. Cable prices (and service) are going up where I live.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
"You forgot the golden rule of monopolies. The more customers, the higher the prices!"
;), thats one of his jobs.
That goes for any business not just monopoly.
The essence of monpoly is to reduce the quantity of the item supplied (monopoly controls supply directly since they are the only provider) which raises the price. The rule is marginal revenue = marginal cost.
If you own a monopoly higher an economist, he will help you maximize the gouging
I know people who pay us$26/month for dial up. What a joke.
At least here, you can get 512Kbps/128Kbps residential DSL for us$21/month.
Duh?
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
In Spain we pay *40(~$50), excluding VAT, for a crappy 256/128 kbps ADSL line whith dynamic IP. Currently the major company has asked the CMT (Telecommunications Market Comission) permision to duplicate the downlstream bandwidth to 512, but that won't come probably until september. The fastest line available to the public is a 2048/300 ADSL for *150(~$180)+VAT. So please stop moaning.
/. apparently has banned telefonica's network from posting.
PS: I had to write this from my University because
I live up here in good old Canada. When more and more people sighned up to broadband it really enticed alot of new comers to the market as they saw they could make a profit and since that created more competition the prices of broadband here are rather reasonable with no caps. Any DSL service that starts capping bleeds customers almost immediatedly since even medium sized cities tend to have at least 20 broadband providers to choose from.
While I applaud our broadband overlords, I do take issue with the high cost. For me, broadband through Comcast is the only option. I expect to see Dick Cheney join MoveOn.org before I expect DSL in my neck of the woods. The local power company just started providing cable TV and theoretically will provide broadband within a year or two, but I'm not holding my breath. Right now I'm averaging $45 a month for HSI and that's insane.
My other problem with Comcast is their spotty CS. We here in Connecticut just went through a weekend of 50% packet losses and unexplained disconnects. Calls to Comcast resulted in suggestions to power cycle my modem. The problem was obviouisly my fault even though the top thread over at broadbandreports.com was about widespread problems in my state. The patronizing ignorance of most of their alleges techs was astounding.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
I've done some research.
2nd phone line: $20-$30/month
Year subscription to aol: $20/month (if paid in one lump sum $25ish otherwise)
Total: $40-$55/month connection slow (22.x-56k/s)
Cable Internet: $45/month (after entry rates)
Total cost: $45/month (initial setup may cost about $100) speed: Great for home (on average 200-350k/s)
As more people need the internet in a home and as the number of computers increase in the same home, the cost of cable is much better than the cost of dialup.
Infrastructure costs to the ISP are several times higher for cable than dialup or DSL. Also, there's value to the customer in providing faster connections.
That said, after watching my third web host lose data for me (yes, they said they did daily backups and I believed them) I decided to host my own domain, pitched my cable modem and found a provider that gave me a 768k SDSL pipe for the same price as my cable modem.
Comcast's pipe is four times as fast downstream but my pipe is considerably faster upstream - fast enough for me to host my own web and mail and pitch the web host. My DSL provider gives me a synchronous connection for $45 a month and doesn't care if I run a server as long as I don't exceed his rather generous bandwidth allocation. For me it was a win-win situation.
If the market will bear higher prices I guess it's reasonable to expect people to charge higher prices. Sad, but true.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
What, you guys still have dialup ? :)
Looks like the situation in the USA is worse than here, I live in israel and we pay between 120 and 180NIS (1 US$ = 4.5 NIS) for 1.5MBit download and 96KBit upload ADSL, dynamic IP (I prefer it that way), no bandwidth limit (I filled an 80GB hard drive in a week or so) and decent customer service, well actually the customer service is great, the only problem is that you gotta wait on the line for like 20 minutes before getting to talk to someone, but after that, I've yet to encounter a dumb customer service rep.
When I see US people talk about the cost of their broadband, I'm always shocked. Sure, we have some providers that are sub-par, but right now, I've got Bredbandsbolaget ADSL2+, offering up to 24Mb/s downstream and 1Mb/s upstream(I've reached around 22Mb/s down at most right now), no bandwidth cap, and I can host a non-profit, non-commercial server, and it costs around 45-48/month.
In Soviet Russia, Broadband owns you!
What do you think your digital cable box with 1000's of channels does all damn day with that bandwidth? Set up spam from China? Wouldn't suprise me much to be honest.
Dialup sucks ass. It's only used by those who can't get Fiber To The County or so, for the most part. I remember one customer yelling at me years ago because a sales rep said I'd go out there and install a cable modem and internet setup even though he lived some 10 miles from the nearest fiber optic node and didnt even have hard line ran near his zip code. He had a phone though. Imagine the trouble I'd got in for suggesting that he go through a competitor to get dialup.
Thats just a small testament to how lucrative that market is. They need every penny they can get and there is a huge job market for fiber splicers and installers alike. Problems only arise when there is only one company offering broadband in a given location. For years in mine we saw ads like "Time Warner Cable - Your Only Choice" with a big fuckin smile across it on bus stops and billboards.
There are of course the huge issues of how that bandwidth is used. Ideally we wouldn't NEED all that expensive head end multiplexing with GW/hr power consumption if there was not:
- spam
- media pirating
- worm ridden windows boxes
This is where a large part of the cost seems to emanate. The ISP doesn't even really care about how much you DOWNLOAD, its what you UPLOAD, and 2 of the 3 above are good examples of what problems should be dealt with first. I know you gotta upload it to download it guys but usually people who upload aren't real concerned that its going to cut into thier 56k modems QoS capabilities.It seems here we find the core of many many issues present in today's communications' agendas.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
As a Comcast customer for many years, I do not think they know how to lower the price of anything.
Well, there's an old saying, "You get what you pay for."
As long as broadband is a higher valued service, the price will reflect that. If an emerging technology becomes a disruptive technology, then the price wil go down.
Besides, broadband is a big fat cash cow giving lots of milk to fund the expanding infrastructure needs for the providers. It's also lining their pockets a bit. I doubt the price will go down but I do think it might get jacked up if nobody's watching. Utility companies love to pull that one.
--
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about broad bands.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Telstra made unlimited broadband cheaper then limited broadband as a deliberate ploy to get everyone over onto the same deal. Companies may do the same to get dial up out of the picture. Of course I immediately donned my tin-foil and said watch them bump up the price of the unlimited once everyone has moved onto it. But so far they haven't bumped up the price. And they were bumping up the price for limited broadband a lot more often then they have been bumping up the price for unlimited broadband.
Just by changing the protocol? When do we get it?
9 9. htm
We may see the return of modems sooner than you think!
http://www.ncsu.edu/news/press_releases/04_03/0
Bellsouth has a dsl lite option for about $25/mo, which is pretty competitive with dialup. Cable may compete pricewise with dsl providers where it makes sense to do so, i.e. they are sufficiently down marketshare wise.
One driver for increased broadband usage is the need of Microsoft OS users to constantly download huge patch files to fix the security hole of the week.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
So much talk about cable modems, and no mention of DSL. I'm in a somewhat "backwater" area as far as broadband is concerned, and have been hopping between different technologies as they become available in my area, including dial-up, MVL, cable, and now DSL.
I'm thankful to say that DSL prices are starting to become competative. My first DSL line (McLeodUSA) is $140/mo for 768/768 with a few static IPs. Qwest has been offering DSL in this area for over a year, but offering lower speeds (256/512) for higher prices ($200/mo) and no statics. Just recently they got their heads screwed on straight and now offer 900/1500 for $70/mo with statics. So the prices ARE dropping, and the providers ARE realizing they have to be reasonable to get more business.
When I talked with Qwest, they said the reason for the new plans was "to become competative with cable". Interesting, we've see how proliferation of dial-up affects cable prices, and now we can see how that is trickling down to the digital line rates.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
At this rate, we will run out of broadband within 2 decades. We must all conserve broadband and purchase computers which consume less of this finite resource. Additionally, we need to curtail use of broadband so as not to change the climate of the world.
$80 per mo for digital cable, with picture quality no better than my previous satellite carrier that only cost $55.
What a ripoff...
I went from (in france):
:)
Today -6 years: Dialup (56k) with per/minute costs, result: 180$/month bill
Today -4.5 years: Adsl connection (512/128kbs), 130$ setup fee, and 48$/month fee, which was dropped to 36$/month after a year or so. Today this same setup via alternate telecos you can get here for as little as 12$/month now.
Today: Adsl connection (2048/256kbs), no setup fee, 38$/month, & 100 television stations included over dsl decoder box, brings connection to 4mbps for the tv reception, plus free local/national telephone calls over voIP via the decoder box.
Personally i can't complain to 6 years ago!
But it gives a nice picture on how things have evolved over the years.
What would be more interesting is if we could have this statistic for other countries. Such as what percentage of Japanese internet users are using broadband? What percentage of Australian internet users are using broadband? You get the idea ;) I tried googling and found nothing.
Reason I ask is I know that most of the internet users I speak with all have broadband.
As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?
You won't. Cable companies are legally mandated monopolies. They control the cable leading into your house. There is no meaningful competion for service and price as with the dialup providers. Prices are high. >$40 for basic cable TV, >$40 for IP. Until the monopoly is broken, as with the phone system, prices will not drop. Some digital future, hmm?
an ill wind that blows no good
I do not care to go through my long story about my Comcast experience. To make a long story short, I have to contact the Governor or New Jersey and the Public Utility Commision to get resolution. But, you can only get that 19.99 rate if you cancel service for 6 months and then come back.
is have this motivate companies like Verizon to quit dicking around with 'business DSL subscription only' polices in my residential area so there can be actual competition with Comcast, thus lowering their rates.
no contest as to who really does a LOT more damage.
overpaying for broadband just helps to perpetuate the murder & mayhem of the corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable.
as for robbIE's fauxking pateNTdead PostBlock devise: pheWWW!@#$%
lookout bullow.
consult with/trust in YORU creators..... communicating at the speed of light since forever. never a subscription fee.
If anything, rates will increase over time. Comcast has had an introductory offer where you pay $20 for 6 months, $30 for 3 months, then $40 for the remainder of the year.
That was enough incentive for me to sign up. I have been on dialup since the early 90's, and I must say.. 21.95/month for Earthlink dialup, Vs. 3.5mb cable for $39.95/month? I mean, figure that one out. Who in their right mind would choose the dialup?
I love the fact that more people are getting broadband. That just sets the stage for the "killer apps" which will make the promise of the internet come true.
Also, for any of you newbie comcast users, or want-to-be customers, please keep in mind that they will enforce the DMCA, if prodded by the right people. I've received a letter in the mail regarding a NAUGHTY TORRENT i used. They haven't seeked any legal action, but please, be weary of what you get and how you get it.
that's yOUR creators... mynuts won, just in under the PostBlock(tm) devise.
Or does anybody believe there is another killer-app for broadband? All the broadband providers need filesharing to grow.
What I am waiting for is when the RIAA finally starts to impact broadband profits. I think by then broadband will be several times more important than the whole music and film business. Some people might find themselves between a rock and a hard place...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Technical Support for dumbass L-Users who should have never bought a computer to begin with - is much more expensive. They tend to stay in the dialup plans because they can't justify the cost of broadband. $10/month dialup plans exist for limited Internet usage. That's pretty cheap, and still gives you 10 hours / month for email and what not. Broadband is cheap - but not going to get cheaper. You'll see speed increases before you'll see prices drop. Example, charter's kick to 3Meg service. My DSL company just shifted all plans up by 256/256 without increases in price. So now I'm getting 1M/1M for the price I used to pay for 768/768k - $45/month. The 3 month deals are just a carrot - it's the big sharp stick that carrot is attached to that I worry about.
Cable net rates that complete with dial-up has happend in Canada, both http://www.bell.ca/ (DSL) and http://www.rogers.ca/ (Cable) offer rate capped services intended to replace dial-up.
We were paying $20/mo for dialup, plus $25/mo for the dedicated phone line. We're now paying $40/mo for 1.5M/256K cable.
I'm assuming you mean for the "casual user" who doesn't currently have a dedicated line. RSN, I think.
Agian, this is why we need to push for out local communities to build there own FTTC (Fiber To The Curb) infrustructers that the COMMUNITY owns.
Provo is already implimenting there plan to extend FTTC to EVERY residence of Provo, and while I absolutly hate Utah ( mainly because of the radical religious zealots who control almost every facet of the socity ), this they have right.
We won't get cheaper prices from Cable/Telephone companies as long as THEY own the infrustructre.
Of course, I still don't understand why Comcast charges more if you hook-up more than one computer to their service.
When will they charge less? What planet are you from?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
You're probably thinking of Korea:
1 97 a.htm
http://www.chiefexecutive.net/depts/technology/
Broadband speeds there average around 4 times what Comcast is offering.
Were I am at the cable company is switching channels to digital cable one by one and you cannot get them unless you rent their box. BTW, digital cable here is nearly $100/month (it's the top package).
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Pure and simple, its all about money. A business will sell its product for as much as it can get. The person who sets the prices has a graph of price and demand for the service and sets the price where they can get the most money. These are businesses who are out for profit, not to be our freinds. Most would sell the shirt off your back for quick buck if they could.
You only live once, so you might as well have fun before you die.
There is no reason for the broadband companies to lower their rates - at least not in their eyes. It would be foolish. If people are willing to pay the current rates, and based on the new subscriber numbers they clearly are, then the cable companies should NOT lower their rates (at least not from a business model perspective).
Sure, customers would love to see the rates drop. But, as long as people are willing to pay a certain price for a service and there is not sufficient competitive reason to lower the price the rate will stay much higher than dialup.
Quite frankly, I feel I get good value for my money paying the price I do for broadband. Granted, Im in the US and the rates here may (or may not) be significantly different from those elsewhere in the world - i dunno.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Heh Heh Heh Heh Ha Ha Ha Ha. Oh stop.. you're hurting my sides... Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha please... you should be on the Tonight Show. Heh Heh Heh Ha Ha Ha.
Most people on AOL have NO idea what they are missing my friend. I've heard so many new broadband customers ask me how they are going to get on the internet if they don't need to use the phone for it anymore. To them, AOL is all the internet has to offer, and its sad if you ask me. Sheer ignorance, and these guys at Comcast are betting on that. Once they are enticed enough to get away from the ISP for Retards AOL is they will be hooked, and this is a damn good way to bait them.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
Cheap? I don't call that cheap.... I still have it, but that's because dial-up would be more expensive for me (due to my insane amount of time online, I need to get a life)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I can answer when it can happen, but I've got no idea if this is the case now:
You may drop prices when there's heavy sign-ups if you're about to hit the "mass market" and is currently scratching the surface. Here I know many people have changed to broadband + cell phone (or just cell phone), no landline. With VoIP traditional dial-up might be obsolete.
The point is, if you can drop prices to compete with dial-up, you're suddenly also reaching a market that isn't really that interested in actually *using* the broadband, but if they can get it for "free", why not? Grandpa is still just checking his mail, but now the monthly fee is going to the cable company, not the telco.
In many cases there's also economics of scale (or in this case, concentration). If the cable grid is already upgraded to provide Internet, the cost to connect another modem is quite low. So while the total costs might go up, the costs per subscriber goes down.
Economics can sometimes be rather confusing in this way. Lower prices = lower profits? Sometimes it's far from it. Depends on the market elasticity, marginal cost, capacity and a host of other factors...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There several reasons why prices won't drop anytime soon:
- Networks expanding. Broadband means more bandwidth per customer. As more people use it, more websites get bulked up for broadband... more bandwidth used... more capacity needed.... then faster networks needed... websites bulk up more... cyclical
- Limited networks in competition. Most people don't have much broadband choice. Theres either cable (one provider), or DSL (if your lucky enough to live in DSL's short range).... soon power companies will join in, but the technology is still up in the air... and it's not cheap to implement, so I'd expect power companies in rural areas may jump in, but in areas where cable/dsl penetrated... doubt it. Most people have 1 broadband option. Lucky people have 2. Satellite is way to expensive for most people.
- It's a package deal. Cable networks sell packages. That's how they operate. Not ala Cart. They like to do services as well. That's why you have basic cable, premimum cable, sports packages, digital cable, HD TV packages, broadband packages etc. That's the business plan.
Comcast
New Jersey
I don't see anything here I like.
I'll throw in my stats. In a medium sized town in Ontario (that's Canada); I have cable internet service from Cogeco. The service is very reliable and there seem to be no caps. Yesterday (all day and night) I emerged kde and the big packages were downloading at 750 KBytes/sec. This costs $48 CAD / month (about $ 35 USD).
Cable companies never lower price. And, since Clinton signed them out of regulation in the 90s, they have no limit on high they can go.
He cited competition. I say "how many cable lines do you have going into your house?". My choices, Comcast or static.
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
this is like from 1998 or something... I mean, come on, I've been on cable broadband since then and the price has always been comparable to high-end dial-up service. I know these days you can get unlimited dial-up for $9/month CAD, but who wants that shiat? Would rather pay $30/month CAD for speed.
Meh.
Prices here in the midwest are already approching that level. I believe the cheapest DSL plan here runs about $27, just slightly above what AOL charges. If you're not getting that rate, call em up and they'll adjust your payments (although you may have to renew your contract).
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Sure, but that's 24Mb/s in some crazy foreign country... it's probably metric. What's the conversation rate between foreign Mb/s into good old American Mb/s?
Side note, jokes aside, what country are you in?
--
RumorsDaily
Cable lines cost on the order of $20,000 per mile. In the city, that mile of cable serves hundreds or thousands of customers. In seriously rural areas you might get a dozen or less - or even have to run miles of cable for one customer. It's just cost-prohibitive to serve wired broadband to _everyone_.
A friend wanted cable...but wasn't about to shell out $45,000 to string it along her 2.5-mile driveway.
Ironically, it was rural ranchers who first got full-blown (for the time) telephone service installed - because they already had many miles of barbed wire running from home to home. Maybe now we just need to figure out how to run broadband over barbed wire.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Hmmm... yeah....
So you mean as demand increases with a constant supply, we should start seeing price decrease?
Something sounds wrong with that...
All's true that is mistrusted
There isn't competition not because nobody is interested in competing, but because that is how the "utility" is regulated. Just like there is Verizon or nothing for telephone here.
That's not your neighborhood, that's every city in the USA. If your utility sucks, there's a committe you complain to. I haven't personally lodged such a complaint, but there is anecdotal evidence (ie slashdot posts) suggesting that such complaints are very effective at getting your utility to pay attention.
Think of it like a free-market, but one where you chose to buy from your city, and they're buying from the utility. That's how much of the free-market works too (try buying a Dell PC and getting them to install Linux on it for you). If you're pissed with the service, you complain to the city, and if they're any good they complain to the utility. If they're not, you should consider that a problem with the city, not the utility.
I agree it's not as competitive as I'd like, but try to imagine a city where five different companies are tearing up the streets to run new fiber all the time, and they're charging their customers to pay for all that extra infrastructure expansion. The utility model is just making the best of a tough situation.
Oh, and Verizon hasn't decided to run DSL out to my area since we're too far from the CO
That's not because they have a bad attitude, it's because of physics. The farther you are from the CO, the less DSL is gonna work. You want them to invest a couple million into a new CO and its associated reterminations so they can provide DSL to you and your neighbors, who will complain if it costs as much as your Adelphia cable modem service?
By being an unreasonable customer you just give the companies less incentive to improve. What's the point in giving you a 40% speed increase and a 20% price cut if you're just going to bitch about them not giving you fiber for $10/month?
Just try saturating your cable modem's bandwidth solid for a month or two, and see how the provider likes it. Most DSL providers frown on this too, despite their infrastructure being much better equipped to handle it.
Cable might burst 100x faster than dialup, but it's certainly not capable of sustaining that.
I've never found a dialup ISP who cared one way or the other about usage. Back in the day they might've gotten antsy about connect time, but that's moot now too.
Dialup ISPs also don't care what services you run or what ports you open.
The reason TV sucks is that there's a clear division between broadcaster and viewer. The internet was supposed to change all that, so that anyone can publish, every node is equal to every other node except maybe for speed. Peer to peer is what makes the network so cool. By preventing you from running servers, the cable ISPs (who are mostly owned by big media companies) are turning the internet into TV all over again.
Personally I think it should be illegal to call something "internet access" if it restricts what ports you can open or what services you can run. That's not the real internet.
Yeah as the fp said, never. The fact that cable's spreading and becoming the norm means they can charge a higher premium on cable vs dial-up.
You people should really take an econ course
I don't really understand all the complaints I'm seeing here about the cost of broadband. I pay something like $45/month for cable-modem, which gets me something in the neighborhood of 3 Mbps. That seems pretty consistent with the other posters I'm seeing here, but they seem to think that $45/month is really high.
Where did that perception come from? What are you comparing it to? In terms of personal value, I value my broadband Internet server WAY more than landline or cell phone service, both of which cost about the same. I value it more than my cable TV service, which costs significantly more. I value it at least ten times as much as I valued dialup, and it only costs about twice as much.
If they wanted to charge me $60/month for my cable modem, I'd probably still pay it. I'd be annoyed at the price hike, but it would still be a better deal for me than DSL (assuming it's even available) and definitely better than dialup. So in the meantime, I'm glad it's only $45. Sure, I'd like it if it was cheaper, in the same way I'd like it if I didn't have to pay rent and beautiful women begged me for sex. But what I don't understand is where everyone got the idea that this was normal, that we should expect $25/month for 3 Mbps service and that anything worse than that is terrible.
uhh ya it is true. I called every month to cancel and they kept extending me saying "what if we gave you next month for $19.99?". I just gave my reason for cancelling as "too expensive" every time. I had it for $19.99 for a year.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
to my rant to them about adding advertisement to their web-mail page: "These ads have been put in place to help subsidize the cost of this webmail service so rates for your Road Runner service do not have to increase." This is from Columbus Ohio, Time Warner Road Runner. Doesn't sound like they are going to drop rates anytime soon. They're still trying to "maximize profits". Someone there must have just gotten their MBA.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
Whats funny I only have to drive 1 mile to find a house in the range of DSL or Cable.
Like most folks we've all went to Directv or Dish. We were promised Cable over 8 yrs ago and Cable never showed. Our only option for broadband is Sat. at around $50 odd bucks a month. I would go Sat. if they would drop the pricing to around $40 a month...because Earthlink dialup is killing me.
I'm about to switch to Bellsouth dialup because they are offering $4.99 a month at a fixed rate. Current dialup bill from Earthlink dialup is $23.95
As soon as enough people have broadband you can be damn sure ISP's will start introducing draconian bandwidth limits.
The thing is that some competitors (wireless internet services) have already realized that people want a healthy bit of bandwidth - both down AND up. I'm just about ready to switch to a wireless connection myself because the uplink rates on my comcast line are way too low.
As people have more pictures they want to share, and more ways they want to use the network, they will start chafing at uplink limits or unreasonable bandwidth caps. Wireless will be the force that keeps them honest.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?
IMHO, cable prices are exactly in line, given the price-to-performance ratio. I pay about $40/mo for 3Mbps...isn't that ridiculously worth it (compared to dial-up)?
when will Ferrari drop the price of their sportscars to compete with the ford focus. I mean, they both drive on roads, so they should both be the same price, right?
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Broadband and Dialup will never be in the same price range (unless your AOL and still charging people $6 less than Verizon DSL for Dialup) because the broadband service has shown that it's accepted market price is $29 to $50 a month. The fact that it's market share keeps increasing at these prices shows that people have accepted this as the going rate. Same with CDs, people keep buying so the industry has no incentive to lower the price.
Look at the Rolling Ruler. It never really sold for $19.95 on TV, so they lowered the price to $9.95, it still never sold, now you see it in Dollar Stores nationwide...barely selling. The demand for the previously mentioned prices was too low, so the price got lower and lower.
So, if people keep buying broadband for it's current price, which they are, the cable and DSL companies have no reason to lower the price.
Want them to lower the price? Boycott all broadband for a few months, put up with dialup. When they ask why you are cancelling your service, say it's too expensive. They will lower the price to compete with dialup, because they want market share. It's better to have a smaller cut of the money for something you invested in than to have none of it.
Make America grate again!
People make the argument that since you get more from cable modems than dial up (faster download/upload speeds, always on convienance, etc) you should pay more. However since when has this been true in computing? All through history performance has gone up while prices have gone down. Processor prices, memory prices, monitor prices all drop and so will high speed connection prices. They should and will drop since competition and the law of supply side economics will force them down.
The performance has absolutely nothing to do with its price. Once the cable and dsl companies start meeting their break-even point prices will have to go down, especially to meet competition from the inevitable participation from "discount providers" which is what happened in the dial-up era. We saw providers such as AOL and CompuServe charging $9.99 for 20 hours of service, with 1 e-mail account and no WWW access per month back in the 80's and early 90's for 14.4 Kbps and 28.8Kbps access to what is running for $6.95/month for 56k access with often more than 1 e-mail account. The high speed internet industry will match this trend, especially with WiFi hotspots popping up around the country and are almost always free to use.
Being that this is being discussed on slashdot, it should then be assumed that the RIAA blames the 42% increase on music piracy. :)
The Docsis cable modem spec has plenty of room to increase speed, and most subscribers don't use all the speed all the time. The cost of upgrading cable networks for 2 way service has decreased dramatically not to mention that cable companies have already done most of the last mile wiring upgrades anyhow.
The only thing that would cause them to drop prices is if comparable speeds become available with wireless technology which will happen but not for many years yet. Once you can get MegaHighSpeed service with no wires, the cable companies will all become history (Or wireless broadband providers) because the asset they posess is in the wiring they've spent years laying all over town.
Some cable providers already offer reduced but stil fast speeds at dialup prices (around $21.95/month)
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
I've had SBC Business DSL(6 ip's, 1.5/256 up) for 79.95 for the last 2 years. I haven't had to call them for more than a year.
I had cable before but i had to choose my download times or they would take forever. I would rather have a constant download rate than one that fluctuated.
The only issues are having to NAT ip's on the router to my firewall and to get them to stop sending me those damn SBC-Yahoo DSL CD's.
The gains of broadband over dial-up are so clear and obvious that the cable companies could probably raise their prices. A few would revert to dial-up, but not many. Most would just bear the increase to keep their online surfing smooth.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
So what you get it "Multi-service discount". Like it or not, that's perfectly legal.
Tying by any other name is still tying, just as a "person with a growth deficiency" is still a midget.
The rise (or even the opposite) of usage isn't going to lower prices; when a company offers the only service you want, monolopy is king. If you have ever heard of Cebridge Connections (used to be Classic Cable), you know what I mean. This cable company is located primarly in the northern Texas area (around Dallas), but also have many customers are in Arkansas and Missouri too. Their standard service is 1mb down/256k up (was 512k down, 128 up, was just recently upgraded).
They charge $50-$70, depending on the physical location (varies state by state or city by city).
most dial up users i know and i still do know quite a few.. have dial up and a second phone line. That usually amounts to $40 a month.
Cable is $40 a month leaving your phone line open so you can drop the second. Looks like direct competition to me.
imply cheaper net ? That logic flies in the face of corporate profit. The greater the demand the higher the charge, and to boot the companies will then bill back the government in some really twisted legal and administrative moves, that ensure the 'de-regulated' industryis still primarily funded by our tax dollars due to the 'critical' nature of the infrastructure, then turned back to these new-age robber barons to to be manipulated for their profit at our expense, again...Why can't the damn companies come up with some peering agreements behind the scene so I as joe user can quit worrying about what FARKING service my 'data' recipients use ? We've payed billions for a VOIP network, and then pay extra so that I can talk to someone who chose not to be IN with verizon but gets better reception with brand x phone company or the increasing potential of a local provider..ie Astound/Seren in Contra Costa, CA and Some other county in Minn. Sigh or the criminal state of long distance calling companies for land lines in CA. The ONLY way I CAN NOT have a traditional long distance provider and be subject to the nickel and dime BS taxes, fees, surcharges, and OMG a 2.00 per month Farking BILLING FEE, is to disconnect my LAND LINE. I have not made a long distance call from my home land line in over 2 years, I use my cell, much better rates + free evening time..so I get the SAME FARKING CHARGES, and taxes + whatever the mobile companies can dream up, to heist from you + the number portability crap, onging for 2 years, for a service my provider STILL claims it can't support. Why don't we give the directory of numbers to an ICAAN or WC3 like group to manage and MAKE the cell companies own up like the DNS companies...holding my 1-800-support number hostage is as detrimental to my business or MORE so than domain jacking etc, or even postal redirecting. Some day the US is gonna wake up and start to take stock and demand an accounting of the hijacking of literally $$trillions$$ via legal loopholes and multinational corporate shell games...be it in cash, or the pound of flesh type. Sadly I think the time for reform via internal process has come and gone, the system has been SO-HIJACKED and derailed by an internal structure designed to complicate and produce expensive conflicts, that even OBVIOUSLY IGNORANT Legislation, that a supreme court justice called refered to as, 'so poorly written and conceived, to ensure further conflict, or obvious criminal malfeanse(sp?) to pay-back a monopolistic industry intent on ensuring we remain in the stone age vs spending some money to develop with new technology. We are actually losing ground here in the US...the new digital TV has failed to produce any significant quality, just allowing the networks to basically tripple the ad time by running multiple streams of the same programming with new ads. US networks are advertising the fact that they only have 12 hours of content per day as a FEATURE, ie the encore showing of the same movie for 3 nights running or the same shows at 01:00 in the as at 13:00, NOW they want to tell me I can't record or time shift digital cable via the 'so-called ' broadcast flag ? How does this IN ANY LIGHT BENEFIT the consumer IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM ?!?! How can the US corporate government have the NERVE to try and justify the fact that I cannot subscribe to directTV canada ? or SKY TV ? If the local slum lord provider can't compete then... "EXPOSE THE CORPORATES AND FEED THEM TO THE CHILDREN"
The US revolt from GB was as much about the chartered companies, read corpations abuses and the the crowns failure to hold them responsible for there actions as it was about the British crown. If the King had made Geo Washington, Earl of New cumerland or some such, and given the 'new' nobles the right to censure the chartered companies the US would still be part of GB in, as a protectorate of voluntary member like the Scott's or Canada. We want royalty here in the US SO BAD we can taste it....and All Geo Washington wanted was a chance to make it good, the propects of a distant son,
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Verizon which I just switched to offers 1.5/384 DSL for $29 a month. In your case Cable may be a little faster in the download department but certainly not in the value department.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Annoyingly "Kickassthegreat" was right that prices will fall but they're way off on the reason.
First, providing high-bandwidth internet is expensive, period. Maintaining the cables and handling all that bandwidth comes at a big cost.
Second, Comcast recently increased their prices! This is with the fall of dialup - the reason being that a large fallout in cheap DSL providers had lead to the inevitable result - low competition means rising consumer costs with no additional benefit. My Comcast bill went from $30/mo to $60/mo Jan 1 2004 - my bandwidth was also doubled, but I rarely can take advantage of the additional bandwidth, so the benefit is primarily theoretical, while my wallet is very tangibly more empty.
However, competition is really picking up - just within my neighborhood in Boston, there are already 4 fiercely competing broadband providers: Comcast (best quality), RCN, Verizon, and BELD.net (BELD is a non-profit that doesn't advertise and has low visibility). It's causing price drops, finally - RCN recently cut their subpar cable modem service in half. The cheap offering will inevitably cut into Comcast's margins - I'm going to seriously consider RCN's low prices (and poor service) in September, though I'll more likely end up with BELD. That sort of price war will coast prices down, thankfully.
Outside the city I'm sure competition is much more sparse, and so, in the 'burbs, I doubt any price fall is going to occur - if anything, the cost of dialup will rise to near the levels of broadband to price gouge locked-in residents into the higher-costing broadband services, as the move away from dialup causes dialup companies to fail, competition to decrease and end with one provider: the broadband one. Enjoy bending over, suburbia.
another clueless n00bg33k, ignorant of supply and demand.
When evangelizing people away from AOL, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have done at least some elementary school level cost-benefit analysis on continuing to pay AOL vs. notifying all contacts that somebody@aol.com no longer works. How should I play in to such analysis?
n/t
I use a 3COM to share my dialup. The other "cost" that people mention every time they want to make cable look good, is the second phone line. As you mentioned it can be cheap, BUT it isn't always necessary to have a second phone line. Simply have voice mail on the other end (V92 helps). Or do like we've all been doing since dialup was invented, and do without all that, just the phone line.
I understand how DSL works. Yes, I *DO* want them to invest a few million in that infrastructure.
Do you think at least 51 percent of the residents of your town would want a new CO as well and would be willing to pay their share of the tax hike that the city would need to levy in order to pay the utility to put in a new CO?
Telstra made unlimited broadband cheaper then limited broadband as a deliberate ploy to get everyone over onto the same deal. Companies may do the same to get dial up out of the picture.
I thought that United States antitrust laws made such dumping practices questionable at best.
"Wired" broadband providers will lower prices when there is a viable widespread competitor. That competitor will be the cellular network.
Think about it: The network has vast coverage, laptop market growth has outpaced the desktop market now for 3 years, and most people hooking up broadband at home want some type of wireless access. Verizon will provide a theoretical peak of 2 to 3 Mbps (with most people seeing around 512kbps).
Sure, wired access will always be faster, but for most people I know, wireless high-speed access anywhere you've got cellular coverage is a much better product (and the speed is good enough). I'll never get rid of my 10Mbps down 1Mbps up cablevision connection, but I know tons of people who would for Verizon's new product.
It's being tested in San Diego, CA and Washington, DC. It will probably roll out in the next year.
-ted
Speakeasy
Isn't Internet access heavily subsidized in Canada? When we were up there on vacation, there were Internet access terminals (a PC on dialup) in every small town, for rent at $2CDN per HOUR. (Compared to about $0.20/min here in the US) The literature on display at several of the terminals said that the Canadian government was placing the terminals all over the country to make the Internet accessible to everyone. Fabulous idea!
if they have done the cost analysis and they know how "Easy" it is to notify people that somebody@aol.com no longer works then they would have switched already
You mean by sending an e-mail message to everybody in your address book? Sorry, AOL won't let you do that because it assumes that anybody who would CC more than, say, 20 addresses is a spammer.
I know somebody who used AOL only because it had modem pools around the world, which is important for people who either travel or live in rural areas. Nobody wants to make a long-distance call to an Internet provider. I personally stayed with Verizon dial-up as opposed to DSL because I traveled back and forth between home and school, and for a while, the phone was more likely to be up than the residence hall LAN.
That competes with dial-up nicely in my opinion. I was able to cancel my second telephone line ($16/month) and my dial-up account ($17.95/month). It seems to me the price is just about right.
I have two 13" TVs, one in our bedroom and one in my fiance's little brother's room. I don't want to have to put a receiver that's the size of a DVD player when I bought these TVs for their small footprint.
:D
Dish network offers dual tuner boxes with two remotes, one IR and one RF. The cable runs into the box once and out twice, You put the box on your big TV's and use the IR remote there. You run the second out to a small tv and us the RF remote that goes thru walls with that one. The box contains two completely seperate tuners so the two TVs can be on different channels.
more info here
BTW I work for a satellite TV company, we sell DirecTV.
SMOKE... are ya smokin yet?
I didnt want Comcast to call my bluff, cancel my service, and then charge me a reconnect fee, so I never tried that until recently. I was canceling service at an apartment I was no longer living in and gave them my "too expensive" reason - the lady on the phone just said "okay" and nothing else. In fact, at my permanent residence (my parent's house) we had Comcast cable for 2 or 3 years at full price. I wanted a better deal, so I called Comcast up and told them we had been with them for so long and there are cheaper high speed options that we want to take advantage of their 6 month 19.99 special offers. The CSR said no. The only way I was able to get a special offer was by going to a Comcast field office and switching the name on the account to a different person in the household ... then I was able to advantage of the special offers (and without disconnecting/reconnecting).
Isn't Internet access heavily subsidized in Canada? When we were up there on vacation, there were Internet access terminals (a PC on dialup) in every small town, for rent at $2CDN per HOUR
I live in Ontario and have never seen a terminal that rents for $2/hour. Every library around here (even the small ones) has at least a couple of computers connected to the internet that can be accessed by anyone for free. That is a subsidized program.
I don't believe that DSL or cable internet access are subsidized though except that cable providers have a legal monopoly on their lines.
...company to make all the others look like dog crap.
Just one ISP decides to upgrade their bandwidth ahead of customer demand instead of imposing bandwidth caps, and users will beat a path to their door.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I live in Ontario and have never seen a terminal that rents for $2/hour.
Wow. Ontario is considered a "small town" now? I would hate to see what your big towns are...
Its ironic that you mention using barbed wire as a transmission media. Back when Elastic networks was still alive and trying to see us stuff one of their sales people told us you could bring up modems on their Etherloop products over 10 feet of barbed wire and get ~300k of through put. Of course we had to try this ourselves, and we found over new wire we could get ~300k at 20', oxidized and generally old wire didn't work anywhere near as well ;p
Cable-mediated Broadband won't drop its price until either:
A) Something competitive comes along (Sprint Broadband Direct, a fixed line-of-sight microwave service, stopped accepting new customers 2-3 years ago; it is not competitive in the pool of new BB users. DirectPC, a satellite service, is more complicated (being asymmetric and requiring both a dish and telephone line) and slower, so it is not competitive in the pool of BB users. DSL, a phone-line service, is slower, so it is not competitive).
B) The rate of increase of the user base begins to reverse in some subset of the users. Then the price drop will be purely retention. But, barring (A) above, there's really no reason for this to happen.
C) They decide to be kind to their customers. Don't make me laugh.
D) They decide to try to mine the last-few segment of the population. Depending on the breakpoints in their infrastructure expansion, they may already have written this segment off.
At least when you have a virtual monopoly on broadband as it does in my area (only cable provider and most homes too far from CO for DSL). I mean, why would you? I would say that most of the people who use dial-up now probably have no desire for broadband and only a small part of the market is stuck on dial-up because of broadband pricing being too high for them.
SIGFAULT
I live in a rural situation that will become more and more common as broadband spreads: I have no access to cheaper dial-up ISPs (none of the big companies, including AOL, have local lines here, so $19.99/month local options are the only game in town), but I do have one option for DSL and one for cable broadband.