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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."
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.
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
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...
I'm not sure if that was meant sarcastically...
I kinda think it was.
This side up.
One problem (atleast in California) in the past has been that SBC the Phone Company is providing the lines to a division of its own company (i.e. SBC Yahoo DSL), the Internet Service Provider, who in turn is in competition with other Internet Service Providers. So you will see shit like finger pointing, but one would hope that this "Order" by California is to split up SBC the Phone Company and SBC the Internet Service Provider for good.
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.
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.
Up and until this past week I would have agreed with this. I have speakeasy DSL on a QWest phone line. Good service from the former. The later has a real bad track record.
No matter what when there are two seperate companies controlling the fate of your connections reliability or speed you will never get an honest answer from either.
Verizon was overselling bandwith in Bowling Green. Supposedly, for 768/128k DSL, they were to be using one rack per T1 at the DSLAM. Instead of doing that they were using 1 T1 for two racks. I was averaging about 35kB/s to 40kB/s on most downloads. Finally the DSL connection went out completely showing that there was a problem w/Verizon. When the DSL tech came out he admitted they had been overselling bandwith and splitting the T1 between two racks.
The speed issues continued and when RoadRunner came to town we were the FIRST people to sign up.
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.
Take the Gmail legislative initiatives here in good old CA. While SBC is for all practical purposes a legal monopoly, Google is not... especially for email. Yet our enlightened legislature still feels the need to regulate it to death. First step in the country, but totaly unnecessary and harmful to a California business known to employ many of the best and brightest.
So the legislature was trying to regulate a free email service on the Internet that is in "beta" and still hasnt even gone public yet? Was this some collective effort here, or just some whackos in the legislature trying to get some PR?
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.
"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.
Huh? When I moved from carlisle, pa to elizabethtown, pa, I was able to stay with my (SMALL!) ISP, planet cable, even though I have sprint phone service, and sprint has their own DSL offering.
Regulation is the only way a small ISP can even stay in business now. My ISP is called "planetcable" because they USED to be a cable provider. Guess what? When comcast took over the local cable, they forced planetcable to become a DSL provider, because they weren't about to let a local company instead of themselves offer cable Internet access.
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
Why would that be good?
Maybe there will be some competition? As it is, everyone points fingers at eachother. SBC Phone Company provides service and support to SBC Internet Service at discounted rates (and in a more timely manner) compared to other Internet Service Providers. How is that good?
As a california customer of SBC DSL/phone service, let me tell you something you may find interesting - I pay 45 bucks a month average for combined services, and I get 1.5 download, 128 upload. It never goes down, except once when my modem died. SBC has not cooperated in giving out the identity of their customers to the RIAA.
What's so evil about SBC? Should I pay charter cable the same price for half the service (768k down)? It's a free market. I can choose another provider if I want, and I choose not too.
If there's others that don't have a choice - look at at Directway, Sprint Vision, etc. Oh wait thise are even more expensive.
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.
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!
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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