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California Orders SBC to Split Phone, DSL Service
An anonymous reader points to this report at overclockersclub.com which begins "The great state of California has ruled that SBC Communications must sell local phone service and broadband service separately. This gives SBC customers the option to change local phone providers and/or choose any DSL company they wish."
Because when I had SBC's DSL in Michigan, it was way oversold and sucked.
Once again, California is one step ahead of the rest of the country.
They sign contracts with new apartment complexes, new housing developers, even new business centers and offer them a package deal. The providers come out and install only their equipment, phone lines, cable (very cheaply, or even free I might add) and that is the ONLY service you can sign up for. Of course the developers and landlords will make a profit on the customers that sign up. Plus the customer sometimes does get a savings when compared to the cost of each package had you had a choice in the matter. Want COX Cable, but Qwest telephone? Sorry... But we only offer Qwest here. This is more prevalent in newer apartment complexes.
Hmmm.
The great state of California has ruled that SBC Communications must sell local phone service and broadband service separately. This gives SBC customers the option to change local phone providers and/or choose any DSL company they wish.
I had this option when I used Verizon in Bowling Green, OH for DSL. It was nothing but a hassle compared to getting DSL+ISP through Epix in NEPA or cable through Roadrunner or Comcast/ATTBI. Any issue that would come up with the Internet connection would result in fingerpointing at either the ISP or the line provider.
At least with cable there is only one person to blame. Slow speeds? It could be my computer but I doubt it. It's likely an issue w/the local lines or the ISP. I don't have to pay two separate bills. I don't have to call two separate companies when I want to cancel (signing up amazingly enough is dealt with through a central location in my experience).
I find DSL to be nothing but an overly expensive hassle at least in the areas I have lived (I realize that out west they seem comparable to Cable, if not better). I despise Comcast and what they have to done to dominate the local market but at least I can hate one company w/o a doubt rather than having to play catch the monkey if you can w/DSL.
A bit longer article is here at ZDnet from 6/14/2004.
Go Pistons.
Even though they are evil, SBC's DSL service is relatively affordable. It would be nice if California would also require that they not discriminate on the pricing side. This will be a moot law when SBC offers DSL for $150/month. It'll be cheaper to get the phone line and DSL bundle.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
But doesn't this infringe on the company's constituional right to screw over their customers?
I recently tried to get DSL from Verizon and was told that I could get it, BUT since I am not a Verizon customer I would have to pay an outrageous fee on top of the monthly DSL charge. I prefer not to have a home phone since my cell phone is superior in value, performance and usability for my needs. Hopefully, this will make these types of fees disappear and anyone will be able to get DSL whether or not the have a landline through the company or not.
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
I personally know 7 or 8 people who only have a land line because they need DSL. I know several more [myself included] who went for cable because there was no 'naked' DSL option. In San Francisco cable internet has been very slow to spread because the cable system is so old and hacked together.
That said, I'm never giving SBC a dime of my money again if I can help it.
that they were selling the benefits to the customer of only having one bill. I can see it now. "We're splitting your bill in two to better meet your needs."
Drill baby drill - on Mars
This would also not allow discounts for bundles of phone + dsl. I, for one, like cheap broadband.
Life is everything but nothing.
Qwest has been working on headless DSL service. Speakeasy is looking in to it. It won't be long before I won't be required to pay $16 to SBC just to keep a line open for my DSL service.
Is being able to have DSL without ANY local phone service. I'm happy with my cell as a primary phone, and want DSL without having to pay for the phone line.
You only use 2% of your DNA
I love the "we have no competition so we'll do as we please" comment. You gotta love hubris of this scale. Too bad when competition does come (wireless anyone?) that same mentality will be their downfall.
Does this allow you to have a DSL connection without a local land line?
I disconnected my phone and DSL when I moved recently, and the DSL stayed up after they had transferred the phone line. Something like this just makes me curious. Not that I'd want to disconnect my land line in favour of one of those cancer inducing cell phones, but you know...
Will this allow me to get a different DSL provider, such as SpeakEasy, without having phone service?
I could care less who me DSL/local/longdistance carrier is as long as it works reasonably well. If California gets rid of the discount for getting all 3 through SBC it would raise my bill by 40 bucks a month! Sometimes regulation is not worth the taxes we pay for it, and this is one case where I don't think anyone will save money (unless they are willing to put up with a great deal of angst).
At first thought, it sounds like something of this magnitude (atleast in CA) might cause consumers to end up paying more in the long run, but I don't think that will be the case. I just cancelled my ADSL a month ago (but kept local phone service) through SBC because another company just finished running fiber to my neighborhood (offering phone, television, and internet). I think once the DSL side of SBC is required to compete on fair grounds with everyone, they will not only introduce new services (maybe through something OTHER than copper?), but I think it will give companies - not only DSL competition - but other service providers a fair chance to compete.
PS - Company I am getting fiber through is Surewest Broadband. They do have bandwidth caps, but they are not enforced very stricly, and they actually post what their monthly limits are. When you get 10Mbps both ways, you have to expect this. But with the Television service as well as Internet, Surewest so far has been great, and I am glad I made the switch from SBC Internet (and Comcast for television).
This is why cable has such a huge advantage over DSL: it can offer plans to combine it with cable tv, and cable companies usually have a monopoly. But DSL companies rarely do.
Hence, I see cable being a LOT more popular than DSL in the future.
I wish Adelphia woulkd be forced to follow suit. I don't really want cable TV but am forced to get it just to have the broadband cable access.
I used to have SBC until April of this year.
For $49 a month (which they say was discounted because I signed up for a year with Yahoo) plus $34 for local service, I had ISDN speed that they claim was 348kbps. I NEVER saw any speed faster than 100kbps. Their website test said the speed was 340kbps, but DSL reports.com and manually clocking my downloads told a different story.
I cancelled their service and ate the $200 cancellation fee for not using their service for a year. I'll never use SBC again.
I now use Wide Open West cable for my cable and broadband.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Wasn't this supposed to be the age of convergence? Getting everything from one provider? I now get my telephone service from cellular. Television service from Time Warner Cable. And might get my internet service from SBC.
Having to have a phone line in order to have DSL is the only thing keeping me from dropping phone service and using my cell phone full time.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
The only way to create a level playing field is for the people who own the wires (SBC) to not be the ones selling DSL. There are a million subtle ways SBC can make life difficult for Covad (and any other third-party DSL providers that enter the market). As long as SBC sells its own DSL service they will have an incentive to do so.
I know this first hand from being in the middle of a he-said-she-said argument between Covad and SBC, with me and Speakeasy in the middle. I tried really hard to make it work, since I genuinely *like* Speakeasy and their customer support so much.
Now I use Comcast internet service. I'm no fan of our local cable monopoly, but they do run a cheap, fast pipe to my house. Even when its clogged up w/ traffic, its twice as fast as my DSL line was. After learning their internet service worked so well for me, I disconnected my phone line and use Vonage for voice service. I can assure you, I was filled with tremendous geek joy when I called SBC and asked them to shut my service off.
The state of California has also ruled that SBC has an unfair adventage versus competition in the accidental severing of network backbones. The government of California has ordered SBC to let passers by operate their equipment so that all unskilled people who wish accidentally sever buried lines have an equal chance.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
This is similar to all those 'frequent customer' cards at stores today. If you don't have the card, you can still buy a 2 liter bottle of soda, but it will cost you $1.78 instead of $0.99. In return, they get valuable marketing/demographic information.
Making you give up choice or information in return for a discount is not an incentive to buy, only a disincentive to buy from somebody else.
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
quite sometime, like 4 years now. I was not even aware you had to have SBC phone to get their DSL. I have Astound phone service and SBC DSL from way back, static IP and no LAME enternet software. If they force me to change I'll just drop them and keep the covad sdsl connect I have or the Astound fiber/cable connect I have. The DSL service is not the fastest I've seen but is ROCK steady and the downtime is very minimal.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Comcast sells their cable and their internet separately. As a result, they have to keep their systems separate. When you call Comcast cable to inquire about your bill, they can't help you with anything related to the Internet charges - and vice versa. Maybe it's just how they have it set up (badly) or maybe it's a consequence of having the two areas split.
In a similar vein, but unrelated to these industries: My car/home insurance is through GMAC. I bought my insurance through their website. My fiancee bought hers through GMAC over the phone. Our accounts are completely different, are not accessible to each other, and the GMAC web reps cannot access phone-created accounts and vice versa.
Is it just me, or do these companies run their systems badly?
The current big issue in California telecom regulation is the "Telecommuncations User's Bill of Rights", a very mild set of consumer protection rules the industry is fighting.
The CPUC has announced its intent to regulate some DSL-related issues, mainly in the service quality area.
I lived through the Pacific Telesis split-up that birthed AT&T, Pacific Bell, etc. Now we have Verizon buying up all the small guys... GTE, Airtouch, NorthPoint, etc. I applaud the decision to reign SBC back in a bit, but when is someone going to put a smack down on Verizon. They're international, doing local, long distance, cellular, wireless, and DSL. They are exactly what everyone feared Pacific Telesis would be which is why they were split and deregulated. If we're not careful, the world will soon be SBC and Verizon only.
I live in the Bay area and have had great SBC internet service for many years. My same account, and email address have followed me without a hitch to residences in SF, Oakland and Berkeley. There was zero downtime in my internet service when I made my last move. It was on as soon as my telephone line was on, which was the day I moved in.
While choice is nice, I really doubt that having separate phone line and DSL providers will be able to take an existing account and transfer it to a new number in a new city with zero downtime.
And also I'm not sure what they mean by allowing people to "choose any DSL company they wish". My neighbor has DSL through SpeakEasy and my workplace has it through EarthLink.
I get 1.5 meg on my SBC DSL and good cheap phone and long distance service. As usual, the state should just shut the crap up and get out of the market.
This state is run by a bunch of socialist baboons whose then wonder why every business that can afford to gets out as quickly as possible.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
"Verizon and QWest is already ahead of the game since they are already offer "Naked DSL" options that allows users to buy broadband services alone." Verizon does not offer the option of naked DSL in California. I know, because I just tried to order it and was told it is not available. I know they plan to test the concept in some eastern states. I'm now wondering if this decision would force Verizon to begin offering naked DSL here as well.
It's always been possible to get DSL from a 3rd party via SBC's copper, but as the posters attest it's a circus of finger-pointing if you have trouble. I went though a miserable experience with Earthlink - switched to SBC - and voila - no more line problems. Coincidence?
What this give our household the opportunity to do is cancel our overpriced land line service, which we never use, and has a "list price" of $35 per month when you add in all the junk fees.
But SBC currently can stay competitive in spite of this ruling: I get the mandatory POTS line and 1.5/ DSL for $55/mo - still $5 less than what Comcast charges for internet alone.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Comcast should have to separate their internet service and their cable. I use directv/tivo so therefore I must pay a penalty extra price for cable internet access. If DSL and phone run over the same line, but are separate features, then cable and internet access over the same cable should be separate features as well. Customers shouldn't pay extra for internet just because they don't want to use one of your other services.
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
I have Adelphia cable internet with no TV service here in Los Angeles. I assume it works the same way everywhere else. It's not really a very good deal, considering I could add cable TV for maybe another ten bucks a month, but I never watch TV so it doesn't matter. If I could've purchased SBC DSL for ~$25/mo without a landline (don't have one of those either), I'd have done that in a heartbeat.
A few years ago I signed up for residential DSL with Covad. Since I already had two phone lines into the residence, it was fine to just make one of them the dedicated DSL line.
Unfortunately when the situation changed and I needed to use DSL and voice on the same line, SBC told me it was impossible to do so unless I switched my DSL over to SBC. Needless to say, this pissed me off to no end, because I had three static IP addresses with Covad and their service had been fantastic.
After several hours of screwing around, mistakes, and general incompetence on the part of SBC, I finally got my new account set up. This was immediately prior to SBC's rollout of their wonderful goat rodeo known as SBC/Yahoo service, so at least I avoided that nightmare.
So last year I move to a new house. There is no broadband cable here, and I can't use another DSL provider with my SBC land line service, so I have to go with SBC. SBC is so incompetent that it takes me six weeks to get DSL installed, because their billing system doesn't think that I'm a customer with them. After over a half-dozen lengthy phone calls with tech support, billing, et. al., I finally get them to realize the problem and initiate my service. Needless to say, all of the time I wasted during my work day with this crap is essentially money down a hole.
SBC is a classic example of a local monopoly that is flourishing simply because of a tilted playing field. In the early days of DSL they buried Covad in the residential market by overpromising so that customers would sign up for service with SBC, then wait for months before SBC had the capacity to initiate service.
Splitting phone and DSL service is going to help shake at least some of their complacence in the DSL market, and hopefully real competition from Comcast cable broadband will help as well. SBC is badly in need of a wake up call, and consumers should really benefit from this, provided SBC's competition takes advantage of it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I had to switch local carriers to get the DSL product from them - it was required by my ISP/Phone company.
I see why - Internet and Phone service is so competitive that many CLECs lose money on the DSL product but make up for it on the voice services.
SBC blows - I was glad to dump them for my current ISP. But I wonder if the CLECs are held to the same ruling if we'll see naked DSL prices skyrocket?
They should not be allowed to bundle. The only reason I get cable is because WOW offers it for $15 if you've got internet through them. If they couldn't tie these different things, they'd probably lower the cost of each one to accomodate the large number of people who want both (not equal demand of course so the price of TV and net wouldn't be equal).
...but then no DSL. In my area the Cable was just to unreliable and BellSouth had a great deal. Maybe this precedent will carry over to the rest of the country. My cell + Vonage is quite enough phone service for me.
SBC came up with the creative scheme where it was cheaper for you to go through them for all three services instead of going to seperate firms. This law will force them to first of all split these services up and price them differently. Its purely up to them whether to stick with the high price these individual services would in turn cost or to price them competitively so that the customer gets the best of both worlds.
When I was comparing DSL and Cable, the reason I didnt choose BellSouth in Atlanta was I had to sign up for a phone line if I just preferred DSL. I have two cellphones and they pretty much fulfill every need. I shouldnt have to go for a bundle unless I needed them both.
I would say its SBC's choice from now on as to whether they charge their customers the humongous price of all three services combined or to bring the individual prices down to a better competitive rate. The price of the bundled solution may go up a bit, but it would help the consumer in the long run in providing him with far more choices than he originally did.
Rapid Nirvana
If they have to un-bundle it, they'll probably just dump it. Sell the DSL business off to some other company.
Contrary to popular belief, DSL service isn't very profitable compated to phone/long-distance. That's why they bundled it in the first place.
I switched local phone providers away from SBC a year or two ago. Service just as good, and $10-$15/month cheaper.
Then I dropped cable internet in favor of DSL (from the same alternate provider). Their DSL normal rate is the same as SBCs "introductory" three-month rate (I didn't even look at what the SBC "normal" rate would be, and it certainly wan't obvious).
What's most funny is the commercials that SBC was running for awhile, picturing burly linemen putting up telephone poles, complaining that their competitors were operating "over OUR lines, over OUR networks". Uh, you bought the baby bell like a couple of years ago. I doubt you've wired 0.5% of the damn network.
Wow, it must suck to be you.
I have SBC DSL (I'm in St. Louis County) and I pay $50 a month for it. I get 1.5/384. One thing to note, DSL reports is dog slow in this area.
dslreports.com consistently reports that I'm getting 128k down, yet all my downloads are in the 160K range (no, k isn't the same as K). Based on the conversion from k to K and the expected packet loss (they told me when I signed up to expect 30% at worst), it comes out right. I'm guessing the problem lies with dslreports.com's distinct lack of a midwest test server (at least the last time I checked).
On top of this, I have the benefit of good service (YMMV, of course. Look at all the problems other people have with them!), a stable connection (only 3 outages in 3.5 years, and one of those was a power-surge-toasted modem), and they let you run servers! Yes, web servers. Port 80. And I don't have to give my money to Charter Cable. Compared to them, SBC is fricking Mother Theresa.
I just don't see why SBC is evil. To be honest, the government needs to declare their stuff to be "infrastructure" and make it all government property, make SBC itself a department (think Department of Transportation here... roads are infrastructure too), and make telephones a proper monopoly instead of a total clusterfuck of capitalism where none belongs.
Would this be the same CPUC that allowed the taxpayers to be royally raped by Enron and associates? Or that "demanded" that Northpoint continue to provide service for 30 days after they decided to unplug their network? The same CPUC that can't be bothered to negotiate with our neighboring states for water rights?
I'm sure they'll be just as effective in this as they were at all of those. Perhaps for their next act, they'll pretend they're King Canute, and order the tide not to come in?
CPUC is a joke. They're among the worst and least-effective agencies in this state, which is known for its bloated and useless government agencies.
Hey, if anyone wants a cushy government job, they're looking for a new executive director.
Does anyone have a definitive source other than some article from overclockersclub.com ?
It's been offered this way in other countries for a while. So if California is a step ahead of the rest of the country, the USA is a couple steps behind europe. And we are supposed to represent the ideal example of a capitalistic society? not if we keep letting companies pull BS like packaging services liek that, and mandatory bundling services was declared illegal a long time ago.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
Google news finally picked this up- interestingly the first link is to overclocker.com, instead of this one which has much better coverage of what actually happened :-/
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
No one said it doesn't make business sense, we were talking about how the ruling is toothless and a real world example is Comcast, brainiac.
Stay anonymous, you don't want to embarrass your family.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I've been reading some of the SBC forums on DSLReports, basically there was a period of time in which they were offering the 3Mb/300kb package when they didn't actually have such a thing in place on the systems, so everyone who subscribed for 3/300 got 6/600. Just becareful, if you change your service in any way you will likely lose this 'upgrade'
QWEST has already been offering DSL seperate from their phone service and did so with out a court order.
I'm not cheering for QWEST, just pointing out the facts.
Or this story this article. about Georgia Public Service Commission ordering BellSouth to offer naked DSL back in October 2003.
And of course, let's not forget this article.
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
I live in the sf bay area, not only am I paying for a land line which I don't even a phone hooked up to, but I am also paying for all the yahoo crap. like I really need a 100GB junk mail folder and all their multi-media broadband "features", little of which works with a mac or on linux.
all I want is a DSL network connection! totally naked please!
Back in February I switched my DSL service from SBC to Sonic.net. SBC was charging way too much for a static connection ($65/month) that was too slow (128k upload cap) while at the same time dramatically dropping the cost of the dynamic service and increasing the bandwidth.
Sonic had a special. Up to 6meg download and 600k upload for $45/month. I signed up immediately. I'm getting about 5Meg/500k and the service is great. During the signup process they asked what OS I was using. Gritting my teeth I said "Linux". Instead of the usual "we don't support that", the guy said, "cool, which distro?".
When I saw some funny stuff (IIS targeting viral infection) from sonic netspace in my apache log I emailed sonic's abuse department. The next morning I had this reply, "We tried to call the customer but were unable to contact him, so we disconnected his service until he resolves this problem." Yep, they actually disconnected a customer because his system was infected with a virus that was attempting to infect other systems.
The only problem I have remaining is with SBC. They still insist I have DSL service with them and keep billing me. I even received a nasty payment demand from them on the same day their marketing department called to sell me DSL service. I've contacted the CPUC to get this resolved since SBC refuses to fix the problem.
-- Will program for bandwidth
A local telco consists of two businesses: one that builds a telecommunications network, and one that handles billing. The only way to get real competition is to seperate the two companies, and have the company that maintains the plant charge uniform rates to everyone. As long as the ILECs can control both ends of the business, there will never be true competition.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
We've had this kind of law in Oregon for around 2 years. We have dozens of DSL providers, even though there are only 2 or 3 phone providers in the major metro areas.
The system is setup so you pay the line provider separately from the ISP, which are not integrated. Really nice - you can get DSL for around $30/month, plus the normal phone fee on top of that.
Anyone who uses Vonage, has thought about using Vonage, or currently uses Vonage should think again. I only say this because people leaving comments have suggested abandoning POTS and going with Vonage:
p
Their terms of service are horrid and do not give you any of the rights and/or protections afforded to POTS users. Behold, the terms of service that read more like an EULA:
http://www.vonage.com/features_terms_service.ph
"1.3.1 Prohibited Uses
You agree to use the Service and Device only for lawful purposes. This means that you agree not to use them for transmitting or receiving any communication or material of any kind when in Vonage's sole judgment the transmission, receipt or possession of such communication or material (i) would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or (ii) encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law. Vonage reserves the right to terminate your service immediately and without advance notice if Vonage, in its sole discretion, believes that you have violated the above restrictions, leaving you responsible for the full month's charges to the end of the current term, including without limitation unbilled charges, plus a disconnect fee, all of which immediately become due and payable and may at Vonage's discretion be immediately charged to your credit card. You are liable for any and all use of the Service and/or Device by yourself and by any person making use of the Service or Device provided to you and agree to indemnify and hold harmless Vonage against any and all liability for any such use. If Vonage, in its sole discretion believes that you have violated the above restrictions, Vonage may forward the objectionable material, as well as your communications with Vonage and your personally identifiable information to the appropriate authorities for investigation and prosecution and you hereby consent to such forwarding.
Yes, that's right folks: They reserve the right to monitor your phone calls, make a judgement as to whether or not what you say on the phone is OK, then forward copies of your phone calls and your personal information to police/FBI/etc. There ain't no wiretapping order required here.
I don't use my phone service to do anything illegal, but I don't want the boys in the Vonage NOC listening in on my phone calls either, nor recording them (which the language implies that they do both.)
But it gets even better:
"3. CHANGES TO THIS AGREEMENT
Vonage may change the terms and conditions of this Agreement from time to time. Notices will be considered given and effective on the date posted on to the "Service Announcements" section of Vonage's website (currently located at http://www.vonage.com/features_terms_service.php ). Such changes will become binding on Customer, on the date posted to the Vonage website and no further notice by Vonage is required. This Agreement as posted supersedes all previously agreed to electronic and written terms of service, including without limitation any terms included with the packaging of the Device and also supersedes any written terms provided to Retail Customers in connection with retail distribution, including without limitation any written terms enclosed within the packaging of the Device.. "
Ah, wonderful. They want the right to post copies of your phone calls on their website? All they need to do is mofify their "terms of service" and give themselves that right.
I don't put up with this kind of crap in EULAs for software, and I sure as hell won't put up with it from my phone company!
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
If it costs you 5 bucks a kilowatt hour to buy the power, you can only charge your customers 1 buck per kilowatt hour!
:
.008275 = $8.275.
I suspect you're illustrating a point, but let's pretend you aren't. Sorry if this is offtopic, but sometimes I need to respond to an inaccurate post with real data. Either either your numbers are off, or your units are.
Here in Illinois, we get power from Commonwealth Edison. The summer rates are (direct link HERE):
Summer Months (June 15th to Sept. 15th):
For all kilowatt-hours: 8.275 cents
Other Months
For the first 400 kilowatt-hours: 8.275 cents
For all over 400 kilowatt-hours: 6.208 cents
SO: 5 BUCKS per kilowatt hour is a bit steep, as is 1 buck.
But, a Megawatt hour is 1000 *
A $1 / MWh rate is way-way-way cheap !
I heard on NPR that the Enron fscks were charging Calif. consumers up to $250 per megawatt hour. That's about 25 times more expensive than here in Illinois.
This is a strong argument for well-managed deregulation; let some real economists work on this. I believe The Economist might have some good opinions about how to make this regulatory mess work. Regulation of monopolies (like power and SBC DSL / Voice) is always an exercise in big-dog-fight scepticism.
So, California: Good luck with that. I hope you succeed, since we have SBC Ameritech here in Illinois, too, and I hate the fsckers monopolistic arguably anti-competitive practices here just as much as y'all probably do.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
to me it was much simpler 6 months ago: if you wanted DSL you needed a phone line, and if you wanted Cable you needed, well, cable. now it's still most of that way but since there seems to be a lot of interest in naked lines (ooh so sexy) i began to follow that. after all, i don't watch tv much nor do i talk on the phone (at home) enough to justify having cable tv or local phone. naked lines would suit me just fine, if i did need a landline i could a) wait for VoIP to work (yeah, right) b) pay Vonage c) find one of the ~10 programs that will do it on Mandrake & SuSE (LindowsOS 4.5 installs with a fully working phone program) d) use an IM/chat service that allows dialing so to me you don't really need to get anything as a package. does it cost (a lot) less to get it that way? in 70% or more cases, yes. but you're forced to pay for useless or 'extra' services to get the options you want. i know all this seems off topic, but think about it. the more we move toward digital technology, the more obsolete the current phone system becomes. digital phones run on ethernet cables, and even though they're too expensive to be widely used in homes yet, they will relatively soon replace the existing system. you can set up a 'local phone company' for your house/small office using a server and a single phone line now, i'm eager to see the time when any service that comes into a home will be digital and have all the content you want to pay for, with nothing more or lacking, regardless of the company you choose to provide it.
--- I fix computer problems for a living. yes, they do pay me.
A few weeks ago I was looking into getting DSL. But they all require you to have local phone service, which is bogus (I'm cheap and don't need a phone enough to pay for it). I told the lady from SBC I wanted to know the price of local phone coverage if all I wanted was a phone number so that I could use DSL. It's like I was speaking in Greek. She gave me the price for the unlimited local phone, like $21/month after tax. Later I find out they offer metered phone (like 1 cent a minute for local) for $5/month... I wonder if that doesn't work for DSL or if the (soon to be striking, it happened later that week) lady on the phone was lieing to me.
/after/ already having Cable TV, so it's more like an extra fee. I ended up going with cable since it appeared to be cheaper and without yearly contracts. I was of course pushed to spend an extra $7/month to get basic cable, but I wasn't about to give those bastards more money.
Its the same with Cable internet from Cableone. They effectively charge you an extra $10/month for not getting cable TV. Its supposedly like a package deal, but they always advertise the price
BellSouth (and others I'm sure) flat out LIE about how DSL works. They maintain that it is simply impossible to have DSL without a phone line. "Without a phone number to map to, how would we know where the DSL circuit goes?" The public mis-information campaign is stunning.
I have started asking The Georgia Public Service Commission to promote a similar mandate in my area. My problem was that not only did I have to use BellSouth for Local and DSL, but they were my only choice for cable TV as well! Of course, they didn't offer high-speed-cable-Internet so I was stuck. Thanks to their monopoly, they have been incrementally turning up the price -especially over the last 12 months- on ALL three services. Sure, sat-TV providers seemed to be offering "high-speed-Internet" but at the end of the day it appeared they were just bundling/reselling traditional services like Earthlink which still req'd a local phone line.
FINALLY, another cable co. moved into my area and they started offering high-speed-cable. Now I've fired BellSouth as my cable TV provider, and fired BellSouth as my high-speed-Internet provider. And thanks to cable-Internet, I don't need a local line at all thanks to cell phones! Thanks Adelphia!
oO(Who would've thought I'd be singing the praises of any cable co?)
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Broadband is a luxury item - we don't have an inherent right to cheap and/or fast internet service. Why is the government getting involved in it instead of waiting for the market to work things out (which may take a few years)
You may like your bundle, but all I want from SBC is DSL for $25/month, without the extra $10 for phone service that I don't use and then additional $10 in taxes and fees that are charged on top of that phone service I don't use.
If it's true, this will immediately save me $250 or more every year.</I>
It's more like $120 in savings a year... Or do you think the taxes on the phone line use and maintenance charges won't apply to your line just because it's data and not voice being carried over it?
And that's before SBC adjusts its regular vs. bundled pricing to accomodate the court order... naked DSL is probably going to cost a hell of a lot more than the $26.95/month I'm paying to SBC.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I live in Silly Valley and my wife and I use cell phones exclusively. But we have a land line because...we wanted DSL! (And NO we do not have cable, for cable is 3vi1.) They wouldn't even talk to us about DSL until we got a land line for something like $15/month. Since it's there we do have a phone on it for emergency purposes (whatever that means) don't use it for calls and we turn the ringer off to avoid evening telemarketer abuse. Waste of resources and money.
If this ruling stands my land line is history. Now, how will I have it terminated without losing my DSL? Sure there is no connection between the two, but mark my words SBC will find a way to make this hard for me, just like they did when I brought the DSL in originally.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
I just moved to the city of Chicago (from the suburbs) and surprisingly you have no choice other than going with SBC. I have not owned a phone line in over 6 years because Ameritech (now SBC) is a shady company and screwed me. I absolutely refuse to use them whatsoever.
I called them last year sometime to resolve some issue with dsl and was told to hang up and dial the other number on the bill. While I was getting everything on one bill, aparently the two divisions didnt share any info.
Right on. I don't mind having a computer read my mail for keywords, as long as _I know it's doing it_ and _agree to it happening_. I think it's good to have a legislature that has some regulations; eg regulating against unauthorized reading of emails. But if I want to get rid of pop up ads at the price of getting targetted admail, I think I should be able to! If I don't like it, there are a lot of other email providers out there.
SBC bought out Ameritech in the midwest a few years ago -- and sadly Ameritech did a better job (which isn't saying much :).
... I need to get a SBC POTS line too. No thanks.
I try to get my brother SBC ISDN and due to their own problems state that it'll cost an extra $150/mo to have this line as it needs to be fed from the next town over (also in SBC land). No thanks.
I already had a SBC ISDN line (dual home phone lines and good for backup Internet as needed). With SBC DSL backup Internet was very much needed. I tried their DSL offerings both as a residential customer and a business line (both stunk).
My DSL @ home mysteriously went from 768/~600 to 384/128 and their answer was to ask me if somebody else in the neighborhood got DSL? I wasn't looking at my effective download speeds, but my uplink to them. Then I can't bundle another DSL provider to my SBC ISDN line
SBC gets $0 now. Wireless 10Mbit uplink with my numbers ported to VoIP does the trick. I'm their worst nightmare of a customer come true... heh
Try Alabama $0.06645/kWh is What I pay and no rate ups.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
For more information, see: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/static/industry/telco/index .htm
How do you figure?!
Here in Atlanta, Bellsouth has been selling DSL and land line sseperately for quite some time! Though, I can't imagine why anyone would want to use someone else for a land line being that my experience has been sorry quality with every company I've dealt with EXCEPT Bellsouth and the prices aren't THAT much better.
DSL on the otherhand I can understand.
Derek Greene
Your signature is interesting, being that people making 75 to 100k a year are technically well into the top 25% of income earners. Go figure.
I'm posting AC because I'm an employee of Charter Communications. They're about to add a penalty fee for certain subscribers, and I forsee SBC and others doing the same thing once the services are split.
Later this year (I don't have a specific date), Charter is going to add $10 a month to the Internet services bill of anyone who is NOT also a Charter TV subscriber. I thought cable companies stopped adding this "no cable tv" penalty charge YEARS ago. *sigh*
I'm trying to convince the local managers at my office, which is in a large college town, to waive this fee. Because a lot of people I know here have only Charter Internet and no television because many college students can't afford tv (or just don't want it), but the internet is almost a necessity for school work.
If they have to pay an arbitrary $10 extra (up to $52.95/mo for 3Mb/256k!) a lot of people will get pissed off and cancel the service and just use the free university wi-fi which covers most of campus and all of the (rather large) downtown area.
I can see why the number-crunchers at corporate want to add $10... they see it as a way to get back at all the people who switched to satellite for their tv viewing... but still keep Charter for the internet. But at least here where I am, I'm almost positive that more people that would be penalized have ONLY internet, and not internet + satellite.
If you are a Charter customer, PLEASE go to charter.com and contact your local area customer service and complain about this upcoming fee! I don't want to pay it any more than you do!
I don't know if it applies everywhere but the toll-free number I have for Charter is 1-800-800-CABL
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Err AllTell here in Lincoln.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
I had no problems with SBC while I was with them. But once I switched, I also had the problem with being billed for service I no longer had. I have fixed it since with much effort.
Sonic.net has been great. And I love the fast connection. Did you notice the rate for 6mbps/608kbps service now? $200/mo. SBC has raised the line rates a lot. I hope it comes down before my contract is up.
The government didn't "subsidize" putting up all the lines, the only subsidy that the gov't gave for the bell's was to pay to wire rural areas that weren't economic enough to run wires to. But anyone who lives in a city/town with more than like 10 people isn't using that subsidy money. Yes there was a subsidy, but it is exteremly narrow. The gov only subsidized lines that the telecos would have otherwise refused to lay.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I see TONS of problems on a daily basis due to my companies so called 'rule' you have to have sbc phne server to have dsl with us.. It's ridiculous, and it's really quite simply if you dont have phone services with us to offer you dsl... I agree wholehartedly with this ruling and hope it goes nation wide at some point..
Unfortunately with the metered service, they consider using the DSL connection as "using the phone". So for every minute you are using the dsl, they charge you that 1cent a minute or whatever the price may be. This is all on top of a $10 a month base fee, and all the associated taxes (almost another $10).
So basically you would end up spending more having the metered line. But now since a voice connection is no longer a requirement for dsl, I imagine things may have changed. For the record comcast does the same thing regarding cable here. $10 extra for not having cable tv (which is exactly what their limited basic service costs- go figure). The difference though is that neither one of these options (either dsl or cable) has any yearly contracts. In fact, I haven't heard of any lengthy contracts in a long time outside of cell phones. That's here in the midwest so things might be different on the coasts
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Ahhhh, now speaking from the war front as a DSL support person for Verizon DSL Most of the folks who use DSL, don't need it. Honestly, don't need a computer. Two things, Windows ME, sucks as an OS, and most people seem to call in with, it's never acted up before. Just stay away from DSL, hell log off of the internet all together. --- Osi --- Militant Agnosticism --- I speak from the mind of a dead zebra, to hear my voice, you must stick your toe in the mouth of the archangel gabriel and scream.
Osi Osi Osi Osi Osi
Before the inevitable stream of "SBC sucks" comments, I'd like to throw in my hat for those of us who find SBC not that bad for what we are paying for. SBC, for their standard rates, gives me:
* Bridged DSL - No PPPoE crap (the right way to do it)
* A proper CIDR subnet to my end (didn't even ask, came that way)
* 2-bit connection subnet for the above (again, the right way to do it)
* CIDR reverse DNS delegation (done in under an hour from asking)
* Doesn't care if I have servers (yes, they know)
And they'll do this on any level account. It was impossible for me to find a provider that offered the same service in my area. One local ISP, when asked if they would do reverse CIDR delegation, didn't know what that was. (Yep, their "system admins" didn't know.) Needless to say, they would not get my business, aside from being three times more expensive than SBC.
SBC isn't that bad when the DSL service in your area is done right. Most of the outages I've had were due to people with shovels or backhoes digging up phone trunks, and the few that were their problem were promptly fixed. (One bad RT card, one bad DSLAM port.)
I realize we're all supposed to follow the party line of down with big corporations and up with Speakeasy around here, but there isn't anyone I could find that serves my area that can beat SBC's service offerings.
this is my sig
A few years back I wanted to keep my ADSL service, loose my land line, and get a cell phone. The phone company here on the east coast of Canada, Aliant, unfortuately told me that it couldn't be done. Well the CRTC was VERY responsive when I brought them my concerns. Aliant back-peddled slightly; informing me that it was the technology they used, they were considering a new technology that would work without requiring local phone service, yadda yadda.
I didn't pursue the matter then, but in light of this post I might just call Aliant and see if they have that "new" technology rolled out yet...
echo $wittysigline;
Well, in Tennessee, we get our power from the Tennessee Valley Authority - a federal agency. It's distributed by a local government agency, the Knoxville Utilities Board.
My electricity is 6.357 cents per kilowatt hour, all year. I'd say that's a pretty strong case against deregulation, as a government agency is keeping rates LOWER than private industry can manage.
It's only common sense that it would be lower, because the government not only has no profit motive, it is not legally allowed to make a profit.
So careful regulation or even nationalization of all production would be a much better way to go than any sort of deregulation when it comes to utilities.