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Verizon: FiOS Access For Other ISPs in the Works
Ant writes "According to Broadband Reports' story, 'Verizon has confirmed the claim made by a DSLExtreme representative here last week that the company has plans to offer other ISPs access to its new fiber-to-the-premises network.' A Verizon spokeswoman is quoted as saying, 'A couple of deals have already been signed and more are in the works.'"
AOL and MSN.
But how long will it be until widespread access becomes available?
this will help other ISPs, and it will keep costs down thanks to competition. thank god
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
for economic cooperation. Verizon provides, MSN/AOL provides the 'services', Google provides the searching, etc.
This is the right way to do things. Verizon would suck as an ISP, as would AOL a network provider. You get all the strong players together, resulting in a solid, enjoyable experience for a modest cost!
It's always nice to see open networks. They do come at a price, but it's pretty fair to build a business around. I have seen those Verizon Guys in front of my house hooking up the fiber. They told me it will be a couple of months until I can get the net with the fiber, but it's coming. I just hope I can use the upstream to host my web sites. I hate paying for hosts and all that just to have a presence on the web. Unfortunately the residential service my current Cable Modem provider offers doesn't allow any servers being exposed to the public. I mean it's great having an intranet at home, but with all the money I spend they could have at least let me setup a web server and open that up. It's only a personal site so I don't know what the big deal is really. I can see if it was commercial, but man they are rough.
So when they transfer everyone to digital (10 years or so) then maybe their bandwith will free up. For the future the Verizon solution looks like a good deal they already offer 30mbps down and 5mbps up for a reasonable price.
If they don't, then people will just implement other technologies that allow them to make an end run around verizon. That may yet happen, especially if verizon is as helpful to the ISPs who buy into this as SBC is to the other companies selling DSL on SBC copper, or for that matter to the ISPs selling dialup lines using SBC's modems.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why are you thanking God?
"'Verizon has confirmed the claim made by a DSLExtreme representative here last week that the company has plans to offer other ISPs access to its new fiber-to-the-premises network.'"
A company decided to allow competition. Otherwise we would all be cursing them, just like we do all companies that don't do what we want.
Also, is it possible to retain my email address with my former ISP (cox) for a small fee? I can't seem to find any info on cox's webpages about such a thing (which is to be expected; they don't want us to switch!)
But the promise of 15mbps, which is nearly 4x what I get now; and the major thing, 2mbps up, is really, really enticing. AND it would end up costing _less_ than what I pay for cable right now!
I could see major ISPs like AOL and Earthlink latching on to this as their dial-up customer numbers dwindle. They have no connectivity to compete with cable and DSL, so something like this could keep them alive.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Now slashdot will render in a tenth of a second rather than an eighth of a second like it does now! It is indeed a great day.
This, like DSL shared access, is not competition. For example, we sale DSL in Hell$outh and Verizon territories, and they charge us more for just the raw line than they charge customers for the line plus Internet access. We have to charge our customers twice as much as Verizon does just to break even. If it wasn't for our much better customer support, we would have been out of business a long time ago.
To explain this a different way. For DSL, BellSouth charges end-users $25 for a slow connection. BellSouth charges us $30 for the same speed connection plus we pay about $20,000 per month in overhead for our ATM connection to those customers plus we pay about $15k per month for Internet bandwidth to Sprint. As you can see, BellSouth is abusing their monopoly position. They aren't selling to us just to be nice, and there is no competition.
" If they don't, then people will just implement other technologies that allow them to make an end run around verizon. "
Funny how everyone gets the nerve to make an "end run around" when someone else already does all the hard work. This is "Fiber to the Curb" people. The "Last mile" that everyone has been complaining about for the last five years. You all have had plenty of time to do an "end run around" and you didn't.
How's about some linkage?
Verizon would suck as an ISP, as would AOL a network provider.
Are you implying by that statement that AOL does not suck as an ISP?
Parent poster is absolutely correct. I worked at another national ISP that no longer offers broadband services because we got burned in the same way. The carriers charged us more per customer than they did their own broadband division, so there was no practical way to compete. It's just a sham.
I am forced to use Verizon DSL because the apartment management provides their own cable TV via satellite. Even though cable services (from Cox) are available all around within a 100 feet or so. My dsl modem shows the bandwidth at 860kbps down, 140 kbps up. I am looking forward to FIOS.
Given that I did RTFA, and that it is exactly the same as the post...
Who are they negoating with, and when will my DSLExtreme connection become blazingly faster?
Does anyone here have this service that wants to share their experance?
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
"I hate paying for hosts and all that just to have a presence on the web."
Darn all those experienced web hosting companies.
"Unfortunately the residential service my current Cable Modem provider offers doesn't allow any servers being exposed to the public. "
YAY! Windows for everyone!
"It's only a personal site so I don't know what the big deal is really. "
Just wait till EVERYONE has one, and you'll find out.
"I can see if it was commercial, but man they are rough."
So's a slashdotting.
I really do hate these Verizon commercials with James Earl Jones talking about how they offer MSN Premium and Cable doesnt. While I believe Comcast isnt the best bang for your buck, I find the MSN Premium feature to be a joke. Plenty of AOL like features that I'll never use, and a DNS server that 'hic-ups' several times a day. No newsgroup server, no personal web space, no pop3 email, whats the freaking point?
Since I have gotten used to this stripped down ISP, I really think Verizon should offer this. No stupid AOL features, just no frills basic internet access with reliable DNS servers. Obviously at a reduced monthly rate because I dont want to pay full rate for features i'll never use.
DSLExtreme offers several packages with download speeds ranging from 192kbps - 7.1mbps.
Is just me who envy the people in South Korea and Sweden and their 100Mbps? I mean, I've got Rogers (Canada) for six years now, and what increase in speed have I seen since the start?.. From 3Mbps to 5Mbps... 3Mbps beat all Swedish ISPs back in 1999, but nowadays I don't even mention my speed to the folks over there.
Comcast ($65/month for basic TV + Internet)
zzapp.org ($13/month for backup dialup and email)
Comcast broadband is OK - fast downloads, pokey uploads and semi-annual short outages. I would drop it like a rock, though, if I could get broadband from anyone else, especially a cool local ISP like zzapp.
If Verizon fiber has reliability near to my wired phone, I'd consider dumping the land line and going with VOIP.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
If they named it FTTH then you would expect the appropriate speeds . I am talking 100 megabits/sec. Are they trying to 'dupe' rich middle class internet users ? I think so.
Extremetech article on Verizon's $ 44.95/month , 15mbits . And $39.95 for 5megabits/sec downloads.
Is this comparable to FTTH,Fiber To The Home ? Nope.
Thats why we need to keep 'PUBLIC SUPPORT' for 'Municpal FTTH' which is real broadboand and not the name hijacked variety.
Virtually 100% of telecom infrastructure (which includes internet lines) is already fiber. The only part that's still copper is the "last mile" from the CO to your house.
100 Mbps (Swedish) - 495 kronor (about US$73) in connection fee and 595 kronor (about US$88) per month.
And which host is that so I can sign up for right now and where I can see those specs? Sorry but no way your getting 2.4GB 120GB transfer for .83 a month. You may have gotten some deal for $1 a month for the first 3 months but no fucking way its only $10 per year with that many gigs and that much transfer bandwidth.
At that rate they'd either put every other host out of business or go bankrupt within 6 months. The cheapest you'll see with those types of numbers is $7 to $8 a month.
Yeah, I'll get right on that, Dr. Hose.
i forget
Wireless connections;
CO/WAN connections;
T1 was fine for many corporations 10 years ago. Many still use T1 lines...while wireless hubs are sprouting up either formally or informally. Driving around right now, it's trivial to get a wireless connection in many areas.
Say you are a co-operative group like Seattle Wireless, and you get some WiMax (or other equipment), why not just disconnect mostly or entirely from POTS and go peer to peer? Maybe you'll be able to offer the service for $10/month...after all, they are doing it now at lower speeds.
If you were a bell executive, what would you do? What would you do to keep your stock from tanking when WiMax (or any other tech) eats your customer base?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I'm sure by year 3000 Verizon will be able offer this service in New York, its core market.
DSL is still a "new technology" according to a Verizon sales rep who explained to me why they are not able to offer any SDSL lines > 768Kb/sec.
Meanwhile, if you want 1.5+Mb/sec synchronous line in New York, your best bet is probably with Covad.
so what.
It's still priced for the wealthy few.
We need to keep the Wifi muni , FTTH municipal movement going !
Guy from verizon came to my house and we had some chitchat, I was bringing up how I cant seem to get broadband, and he brought up fios, and mostly the reason verizon is doing this is because of cost.
Fibre is cheaper to run and maintain in the long run compared to copper. Mostly due to copper's physical limits, it's limited on speed and distance, and eventually has interference.
fibre has insane speeds, you need less repeaters on the grid, and you can run more cable longer without signal loss, and zero interference. That's mostly the reason for the move, that and microsoft's new IPTV "technology" they want to unveil, I think that's part of it as well.
I hope earthlink is jumping on this. Same with speakeasy.
In my area, verizon's TRYING to get it started, but they made a huge mistake and started with Chino Hills, who are charging THEM for putting in the lines, charging them for using the streets, and charging them for licenses to install to every house.. like $100 per house, then other fees.
If they had only started on this side of the Inland Valley, then it might be going somewhere. Cucamonga is growing faster than CH, and is more populated (thus has more potential customers)
oh well, I hope they learn.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/13/2 344254
If you look at the reply to comment 04-440 on the FCC web site this is Verizon's definition of an ISP [24]:
"With broadband, the role of the ISPs is primarily one of supplying content and applications, not in providing facilities-based Internet access services. This means that the major providers of broadband access services, including local telephone companies, have strong business incentives to provide consumers access to ISPs or other content providers..."
So Verizon has redefined ISPs as content proviers. To Verizon Yahoo, Google, Amazon and Expedia are ISPs. What you and me know are ISPs do not exist in this double speak Verizon world.
If Verizon gets their way nobody but them (and/or the lousy cable provider) will be able to provide broadband in the future.
Umm, the parent is wrong as far as I know. A quantum fibre-optic network only works when both parties, lets call them alice and bob, are directly connected with a link that can preserve those quantum properties. The reason quantum encryption works is because an intercepter, we'll call her eve, cannot measure more then one property of the quantum state of the photon without destroying other information. Now, any repeater / fibre switch / anything will destroy that information. IANAQP [I am not a quantum physicist], but from what I understand, the above is true. Feel free to correct me if I'm incorrect. --David Carne
..They do not mean you get fiber strands running into your house and you have to figure out what to do with all the blinking lights at the end of them.
You have some hardware in-between you and the blinking lights, and I'll wager THAT hardware does not understand quantum cryptography. In fact it's whatever was provided by the lowest bidder, so it probably will not understand much of anything.
Still, the fiber is all that much closer to you so in the distant future when all large backbone switches are optical perhaps you can get that as an option.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Would you stop cutting and pasting crap just to sound intelligent? We all know you're not a PHd. And who the fuck is modding up these posts? I spent the last of my mod points this morning modding your drivel Overrated.
I wish Verizon would concentrate more on rolling out the FiOS than selling access to their network.
Schrödinger's cat is dead. Someone need to call the ASPCA on him for illegal animal testing.
No matter where you go , there you are.
I hope that Verizon decides to start kicking the spammers off their network, because I shudder to think what one of them could do with that sort of bandwidth. That's not the only problem, either. I can only imagine the fun kiddies will have with armies of cracked computers on Fios connections. Verizon certainly doesn't care. Perhaps the damaged caused by drone armies on higher speed connections will result in enough backlash to make Verizon become part of the solution for a change...
Others have commented to the point that their pricing makes it hard to compete, but I know nothing of Verizon pricing.
I do however know that the four big telcoms testified in front of Congress recently and their testimony might be of interest in this discussion. I watched it on C-SPAN and liked what I heard for the most part.
Their testimony basically told us that their mergers aren't going to harm competition. I'm sure a lot is bull, but please listen to the testimony first. It's interesting if you have a fetish for networks, redundancy and interconnectedness like I do. Plus loving gov't in action helps.
There were a lot of good questions and some pressure for honest answers. Listening is better than reading because you can get tone and inflection. Good thing too because the transcript isn't up yet, all you have is Real Audio.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Verizon and SBC are ready to get into the wireless game.
I already pointed out that SBC, AT&T, Sprint/Verizon and MCI testified in front of Congress.
Well, they mentioned the reason for the bigger mergers is so that the telcoms don't die. They want to have hands in every market, as they should to stay alive. The mergers give companies like MCI the wireless technology and it's implemented network and MCI gives up it's wired network (huge).
They touched on WiMax, but they hinted that once the cell towers are up they will be used for Internet access anyway. We see this already with Cingular's new plan. Remember, you can get "cell" reception almost anywhere now, in most cities and states, and when the technology is at the right price point we will see highspeed Internet offered over those towers.
Sprint's CEO mentioned a few highspeed trials already, along with FiOS so I assume we are talking comprable speeds. Listen to the testimony to get an insight into their plans I'd say. They are really looking at it from a perspective that they should offer what makes the most economic sense on an individual basis. Wireless in sparse areas, mixed networks in high density areas and fiber in the suburbs (for example).
Get your Unix fortune now!
I live 7 miles from the largest Western Mass university, on a high-traffic state road, and Verizon can't be bothered to give anyone in our town DSL, ISDN, or fiber. We have no cable TV from any supplier also. It's dialup or satellite baybee,
Want to know what *I* think of Verizon? It's not SFW for sure.
KR
Three words: Long term strategy.
Two more, or three more: Triple play, or Voice, Video, Internet.
As other posters on earlier stories have pointed out, the cable companies in their shareholder meetings and elsewhere (10-Ks I think and elsewhere) have set a goal of getting every customer to pay at least $150 per month for their triple play. Their direct competitors are the bells. It is a matter of seeing the trees to assume that the bells have at a minimum the same goals. As has been obvious from their statements threatening to bypass neighborhoods and complete states (and fiber altogether) if they are required to share the fiber, line sharing is their biggest or one of their biggest problems standing in the way of achieving those economic goals. The problem they have run into in the past is the line sharing requirement, and Congress member and Senators unwilling to take the heat when cable/voice/internet fees inevitably rise when they get total monopoly/incumbent status. The court cases have been going their way, its just that the FCC in the past have been uncooperative. More recently, Powell made it possible for the bells to re-monopolize the services but only on a long term basis. This was done by requiring line-sharing of copper, but not fiber which hasn't been rolled out everywhere yet, or lit up if it hasn't been lit yet.
In the short term, they'll be willing to share the fiber. Why? Don't rock the boat till a) you are in deep water, b) you are wearing life vests and your competitors are not, and c) a boat is already standing by to pick you out of the sinking boat.
Those contracts are not perpetual. I'd be shocked if they were 10 years in length. More likely, just long enough to mesh with the rest of their long term plan. Which if you have any sense, you can figure out for yourselves,
1) appease Congress in the short term by allowing them to say, "see, they are sharing, no regulation is required",
2) stick with the lucrative dsl reseller contracts for the short term, which allow the bells to sell the service at the same rate to my isp as they sell it to me directly, and at the same time get the reseller to shoulder the costs of running dns servers, mail servers, purchasing and maintaining routers, switches and other expensive equipment, customer service support costs and related,
3) get the fiber rolled out in more areas,
4) begin to neglect the copper where fiber is up and running,
5) watch the resellers twist slowly in the wind as their service degrades along with the copper degrading (help it along a little as mysterious "drops" and other deniable filtering takes place on traffic just before entering reseller switches or just after coming out of their switches),
6) watch more and more customers flock to fiber,
7) watch more and more dsl resellers file for bankruptcy or sell their customers to the bells at a big discount to the current per-subscriber rate,
8) when the vast majority of them are out of business, start raising rates. They can raise rates to the same $150 for the triple play that the cable companies are looking for without fear of a price war since cable will simply raise prices along with the bells to hit their own target number. With the smaller "competition" gone, the cable companies won't have any problem splitting the baby in half and competing for customers using other lures (like tobacco on "flavor" and lifestyle ads, sports ads, lighter giveaways, sunglass giveaways, etc.) instead of prices. The tobacco companies perfected the model, where price increases are instituted across the US within days of each other or on the same day, miracle of miracles. Cable and the bells don't have to reinvent the wheel, the tobacco companies did it for them already.
Those reseller contracts only have to last long enough to ensure that the hated line sharing is killed off with absolute certainty. After that, the bells have the infrastructure in place already (paid for by decades of extremely generous
One reason that Time Warner cable (and various other cable companies) loved to work with Earthlink even though ELNK did nothing but slap their names on the bill (yes... an Earthlink cable install is a Timewarner/Comcast rep coming out to the install and repairs), is that they provide the email accounts and advertising. Earthlink's email network is one hellava setup and takes the stress and upkeep issues that are normally supplied by the network provider.
Trust me. Email servers are lords of pain when working with any network. That and you call Earthlink for support first and then they transfer them over if it is an connectivity issue (or not if the question was about email related issues or "how do I browse the internet..." questions)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I call bullshit:
Anybody paying attention in the last few years knows above,
Anybody following the ftth topic knows above.
A statement such as above was a good attempt at throwing us off your scent. We would expect such a retarded statement from a verizon employee.
More attempts at throwing us off your trail, we would expect such a statement on price from a verizon employee.
Another statement above, don't worry, you can probably get it that one would expect from a verizon employee, along with the missing space, fits what we've come to expect from verizon employees, good move.
The unraveling begins here. If you are an engineer dealing with their fiber network infrastructure rollout, you'd have to have some decent engineering schooling under your belt, I know a few engineers in your claimed position. Therefore, you'd know what a T-1 is, and is not. Without the uptime service level agreement, a T-1 is not a T-1. Without an uptime service level agreement, you don't have a clue about actual business costs and T-1 costs. You should have quit while you were ahead.
Then you further expose yourself in your follow up post, here
Unless you are an intern (which you didn't claim), I find it impossible to believe that a verizon fiber infrastructure engineer would think that dsl reseller physical access to internal CO offices or other verizon internal access would be required, or that somehow dsl reseller equipment would need to be installed for the dsl reseller to be able to use non-verizon ip addresses. Absolutely unbelievable. Anyone having even just a clue about networks would know that this was not the case. I have a verizon resold line, some reverse resolving shows as my local isp reseller, some shows as PSI, some as Cogent, depending on which hop you are looking at. The official reverse dns shows as my local isp, the netblock formerly was owned by PSI and may still be a subnet of PSI. Verizon doesn't show anywhere, except as one or two of the hops as soon as it leaves my isp's equipment depending on where I'm tracing to.
Yeah, and anyone paying attention knows this. I just posted on this here.
4b, by reselling the fiber to the dsl independents, speed up migration to fiber and speed timeline on getting maximum users off copper so copper (line-shared) equipment can be dismantled faster, enabling price hikes on fiber sooner rather than later.
"Look, Senator, the vast majority of resellers themselves are using our fiber lines because we are sharing without legislation forcing us to. Do you really want end users to end up subsidizing the maintenance of copper when only a small minority of resellers are using it and who can still migrate to fiber on favorable terms? While we'll never really admit the cost of wholesale copper or fiber, do you really want your constituents on fiber to learn that they are paying an extra (insert fantasy sum here) per month to maintain copper because of outdated line-sharing requirements? Or do you want to take the credit during your campaign for another term for enabling fiber to the home, and not see price increases until at least after your election when you'll be safe for six more years?"
"So can we pull the plug, or not, Senator?"
"Pull, pull!!"
btw, will you be joining us at our yearly winter holiday in Hawaii celebration/conference, all expenses including airfare once again paid, Senator? Our schedule once again this year is a 15 minute keynote brunch/talk on Monday, a fully catered dinner of caviar and lobster on Saturday which includes a few speeches, and nothing in between. Of course, you will once again receive the text of the speeches so you'll know the content in case any nosy reporter asks questions when you return to your district, and I have a feeling that the attendance taker will get lost again, so attendance to any talk is of course optional but in case attendance records are required to comply with "official business" requirements for our subsidizing of this event, I have a feeling that the attendance taker will be able to recall the names of all the officials who attend our fake/ahem, I mean boring talks. Just in case, I'll be sure to mention it to him to note you down as having attended all talks/meetings so your records don't get fouled up. We take care of our friends on the Hill who take care of us. Remember that Senator. Oh, yeah, and Jack, your former office assistant sends his regards, he's vacationing in the far east. He said the Orient Express was a blast. We're thinking of conducting our next junkett/meeting there, what do you think? I knew you'd like it.