The Turf Wars Between Phone and Cable

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Time is carrying a story about squabbling between phone and cable companies, now that they're sharing the same 'turf.' While it may sound humorous, it's anything but for customers. Bad blood between the cable providers and the bells has resulted in shoddy work, slapdash repairs, rumours of sabotage, and (of course) higher costs." From the article: "In some cases, cable and phone companies accuse one another of ripping out equipment. In others, wires were reportedly left exposed and ungrounded. Elsewhere, Verizon asserts that dozens of times this year, Comcast and other cable providers ran their wires down phone company pipes instead of installing separate conduits. Verizon said that in one case it sent a letter to Comcast asking that the practice be stopped, but that the paperwork and repairs that followed not only cost hundreds of dollars, but delayed installations for its customers."

Comments

Same old same old.

[Woodie]

This reminds me of when telecom was deregulated... Here in Boston with the transient student population - telephone, and DSL services are installed and uninstalled rather frequently. I heard so many stories of various telecoms just nipping and ripping cabling from competitors. As soon as you got DSL, your downstairs neighbor was out of luck - and when their repair person showed up - bam he'd just rip your cables and hook his customer back up. Covad, Concentric, Verizon, all of them constantly shooting each other in the feet. Right now we have RCN and Comcast for cable choices - and they do the same thing to each other.

I can't wait for it to start between them and the telco providers. It will be so much "better". Competition is good. Competition without oversight and some rules to limit bad behaviour sucks. And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.

Re:Same old same old.

[Fred_A]

Competition is good. Competition without oversight and some rules to limit bad behaviour sucks.

What ? Are you some kind of pinko anti american pro-government euro-socialist ? ;)

The market will regulate itself whether it likes it or not ! Whether it benefits the populace doesn't have anything to do with it. Didn't you learn anything during endoctrinati^Wschool ?

Re:Same old same old.

[__aaclcg7560]

Comcast does a good job of screwing itself without any competition. Whenever I saw a Comcast truck in the neighborhood, I knew that my cable internet service was down and out. One time it took two weeks to get them to send out a truck to the street box to confirm that the last technician installed a part backwards and a service rep "accidentally" deleted my modem info from the system because I spent 45 minutes arguing that the problem was on their end (as a certified network technicain I was able to troubleshoot my end) that left me without service for a month.

Re:Same old same old.

[bladesjester]

That's part of the reason that I liked my old ISP. Pretty much everyone who worked there from the owner down knew me socially (in fact, I was invited to basically all of the company parties as well) and knew what I did for a living.

If I called, they took it seriously and the problem was resolved about as quick as possible. It was a nice thing.

Re:Same old same old.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Virginia and have a detached house with a crawl space underneath (not a full basement). The house is 25 years old, so it does not have any Cat-5/UTP wiring and also does not have any "home run" wiring (neither for telephone nor television).

Cox Cable ripped up the Verizon telephone cabling underneath my house when they converted the previous owner from Verizon telephone service (POTS) to Cox telephone service (Voice over HFC, not VoIP). This has forced me to use Cox telephone service, even though it is more expensive than Verizon (until I get a wiring contractor to visit).

What's even more frustrating is that I have FIOS (FTTC) ready at the curb from Verizon, but I can't convert over to that -- because Verizon won't (at any price) repair the telephone wiring underneath
my house.

When I do find a wiring contractor who doesn't think my re-wiring job is "too small", then I'm going to have both Cox's wiring and Verizon's wiring relocated inside my Garage, with my very own patch panel next to them. This way neither provider has any reason to go underneath the house and touch the wiring ever again. Instead, switching providers will just be a matter of switching which service is connected to my patch panel.

A word to the wise, if building a new house, having all the telephone/data/television wiring pulled back in a "home run" to a patch panel and have the various service provider demarc boxes installed next to that patch panel. This should be *inside* the house, so that the bored teenager down the street can't easily mess with your wiring. Although wireless Ethernet is quite popular today, it is still sensible to at least run Category-5 UTP wiring between the patch panel and (each bedroom, study, family room/den) so that you have options later on (e.g. if there are wireless coverage issues, which might happen later on even if it isn't a problem now).

Re:Same old same old.

[thc69]

I'm sorry, there must be something I don't understand about telephone wiring. I've only done it as an amateur, installing and troubleshooting entire systems in a mere three houses.

That said, how the hell do they have that wired? Was Verizon's original wiring just haphazardly spliced off underneath the house from the line in from the street? If so, why didn't Cox just cut it and use your existing wiring on the far side of their digital -> POTS device? Why can't Verizon just cut your Cox off* and attach their wire to that?

I can't imagine what kind of bizarre wiring would be in your house that can't be attached to either service. I have Cox phone service in a house that originally had Verizon, and there is one place where Cox's digital stuff goes into a box and comes out compatible with POTS; I can't imagine any other way that would work with standard telephones.

Finally, I don't know what kind of magic you think a wiring contractor is going to do, but here's how you can do the wiring yourself:
Choose where you want your patch panel. Pull Cat5 from there to each room. Either star or daisy-chain topologies work fine. Strip the ends of the wires and screw them into the back of the phone jacks. Voila!

POTS is >100 year old technology, is very simple, and is very robust.

The wikipedia article on POTS includes this link to self-wiring instructions:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/phone_wiring.h tml
That page additionally notes that "reversed polarity can reportedly damage some kinds of phone equipment", although I've never met any device that knew the difference.

*Get it? Pun? Hahah? No? Bah...nevermind.

Re:Same old same old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats wrong with being a socalist? We have great healthcare, educaton and transportation system here and even gret unemployment benifits!

We also have a narrow gap between those that have and have not. Perhaps it is that that you don't like, the fact that we care more about people than "corporations" and less about "personal gain" over somebody elses "loss"? Which is it?

Re:Same old same old.

[RobertLTux]

if yuo have comcast and a router (this sets your ip to the correct range) then follow the hints on http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7363 to peek at your modem
this of course puts the problem in their turf.
the correct restart drill is depower all the stuff (cable modem router computer) then wait five minutes restart the cable modem wait five minutes restart the router wait five minutes and restart the computer.

Re:Same old same old.

[jrmcferren]

The worst that reverse polarity on a phone line can do is make some early (60's and maybe 70's) touch tone phones not work. Most phone cords actually reverse the polarity so the cord does not have a twist when stretched out with the top of both connectors facing you.

Re:Same old same old.

[MourningBlade]

And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.

Let's say you wait too long to get to the gas station and you run out. So you walk up to the first car you see where the owner isn't around and siphon out a gallon of gas. There's no regulation saying you can't do that.

...of course, it's theft. So it's illegal.

"Let the market regulate itself" is an advisement against creating additional rules over and above the law that applies to everyone - I'm not really sure why people keep mistaking this for advocating exemption from the rule of law. In this case there is no market to regulate - you have two co-owners of access points who are destroying one another's systems. We don't need additional regulations - we need to ensure that the current law is applied to this situation.

Re:Same old same old.

[conradp]

Vandalism and destruction of other people's property is not "competition", and bureaucratic "regulation and oversight" to restrict competition is not the answer. Like any crime, enforcement of existing laws is what's needed - start getting these uniformed vandals on camera and arrest and fine them, maybe with some sort of sting operation.

Re:Same old same old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, telecom has never been "deregulated", meaning no government intervention except to simply keep the peace, i.e. enforce the principle of voluntary association. The press (and government's) idea of "deregulation" is more like letting your dog off the leash in your fenced backyard.

Just a little historical fact for those of you who might have thought that actual "deregulation" has ever actually ocurred in the US.

Re:Same old same old.

[Dachannien]

Hey, reversing the polarity always worked for The Doctor, so why shouldn't it work for your telephone, too? 8)

Re:Same old same old.

[Mistlefoot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fiber_coaxial

Coaxial cable is often used by cable companies when providing phone service.

This is far different then telephone lines provided by the telco's....as you are surely aware, coaxial cabling and phone lines aren't the same.

Re:Same old same old.

[thc69]

I'm quite aware of that -- but how do you recommend I connect that to my telephone?

HFC only goes as far as an interface box near where the line comes in from the street. HFC goes into the box, and POTS comes out, to be connected to plain old telephones. One can simply attach Verizon's POTS-from-the-street service to the POTS wire that currently is on the customer-side of the HFC->POTS box.

That is unless Cox made you buy proprietary HFC telephones, or an adapter to be used at each phone. I've never heard of that, and I suspect the hassle of having heavy, stiff coax going to phones would be awful.

My Cox digital telephone service works as I describe, with various and sundry plain old telephones and the same POTS interior wiring that worked (and would work in the future) for Verizon service.

Coax and POTS copper aren't the same, but going to devices inside a house, phone service is only POTS copper.

Re:Same old same old.

[Mistlefoot]

My phone through my internet provider uses coaxial outlets from my wall. The same coaxial cable they use to feed my cable TV and my Internet.

My phone line actually relays information on the way to my phone via the Motorola Surfboard SB5100 Cable Modem which only has an "in" outlet in coaxial format.

You asked why cable might be different and rather than accept that cable might be different simply want to explain once again how yours is. Not everyone has your set up or can utilize your setup.

Re:Same old same old.

[thc69]

I must be missing something still. How do you attach your phone to it? Do you have a SB5100 at every phone in your house?

I can accept that your cable telephone system might differ from mine, but I have a hard time believing that your actual phones differ from mine, unless (unlike the AC to whom I originally replied) you're using VOIP and have VOIP handsets.

Re:Same old same old.

[TheLink]

I thought you had laws regarding trespassing, destruction or theft of stuff that is not yours in the USA.

Maybe you have so many laws that your lawyers and judges can't find those.

Actually, I think you need fewer laws, and better judges.

Re:Same old same old.

[Detritus]

The problem is that, even with evidence, you are going to have a hard time convincing the police and state's attorney to take action over "minor vandalism".

Re:Same old same old.

[n1234b]

Having worked for Cox Communications in the past as a telephony tech, I know that a tech would not have randomly "ripped up" the other cabling(because they use the SAME WIRING). They install an interface box as close to existing telephone cabling as possible and then disconnect the leads from telco block and connect them to the interface they just installed. All cabling for the phones inside the house is THE EXACT SAME. They get paid per installation, which means they are not going to make the job more difficult. And no, they don't use proprietary phones. You say it was done while the previous owner was there, from experience I can tell you it was the customer not the tech that damaged the wiring. You are correct about "home run" wiring being the best way to go. It saves alot of time and allows for a cleaner installation. Most cable companies don't allow their techs to run cable in the walls(for fear of the electrical wiring being installed incorrectly), so cabling must be run under carpet, along baseboards, along eves, or through the floor. All new construction should have home run wiring, unfortunately building contractors are cheap and often skimp on wiring.

Re:Same old same old.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I can't wait for it to start between them and the telco providers. It will be so much "better". Competition is good. Competition without oversight and some rules to limit bad behaviour sucks. And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.

You do know that sabotaging other companies' (or peoples') equipment is vandalism, which is a criminal act, right? How many more 'rules' do you you think are necessary?

Re:Same old same old.

[SpecialBrownies]

Vonage has gotten flakey. First dial always
is an error,no such number. It happens every
time .

Adelphia Comcast transition has me waiting for
Opera to load a page.

New behavior, Vonage conversation breaks up while downloading.
***********
Cable Choice please?
Choice would create a competitive
market that would rush to system upgrades
to win customer loyalty.

I believe a
"Public Antenna" Role is also required.

Anyone connects any TV to a RF cable line,
it is in Antenna mode.
Anything the Antenna picks up,
is tuned UHF/VHF.
Local Super Antenna service.

Who would Not vote for that?

Given the overwhelming public support for this,
why the utter silence? Wild Gue$$?

It is the right, proper thing to do,
right now.

PPV dlds of publicly aired TV shows.
is what we have right now.
Absolutely Outrageous.

Re:Same old same old.

[kmeister62]

I live in Virginia. My house is a tad newer so I have the DEMARC boxes installed on the outside of the house. When I finished off the basement I installed a cat-5e and 2ea RG-6 COAX runs from the outside DEMARC to a patch installed in the basement. All the wiring in the original house is run in series to the demarc with 3 drops installed. One to the 2nd floor and one to the first floor. The third drop is coiled in the attic. When Verizon installed FIOS, they pulled a single CAT-6 run to my patch (along with power) to the new FIOS box. The FIOS box had three RJ ports for the existing telephone drops. Cut-over was easy. The changeover from Adelphia to Dish to FIOS for TV was just as easy. The cable demarc was for two TV sets we have wired in the house. Each repairman just changed where the inside drops were connected to. FIOS does require a COAX drop from the inside router to the outside DEMARC. I found out that the set top boxes have their own IP addresses to receive the TV guide info. Verizon FIOS TV installs a cat-5 to COAX bridge by the data router. Verizon, for some strange reason does not install all the required drops at once. Since I already had the COAX run from outside the TV installer didn't have to run another cable. If you plan on getting both FIOS network and TV installed, request them to install both lines at once. Its easier to haul all the required cables at once rather than pulling a new one later. Saves on additional holes on the outside of your house.

Re:Same old same old.

[bobcat7677]

True... I worked in the telecom industry for a few years and encountered countless instances of phone companies "shooting themselves in the foot" by techs ripping out wires indiscrimantly, hooking up things wrong and other nice things (mostly baby bells). Little of it had to do with any sort of politics or grudges or anything. 99% of the time it just came down to sloppy techs that were too lazy (or hungover/high) to do a decent job of it.

Re:Same old same old.

[jotok]

GK Chesterton had words to this effect in The Outline of Sanity. The whole point of capitalism's advantage over other economic systems is that consumers and suppliers negotiate for goods and services, none with any concern whatsoever for the common good, but that the common good will benefit anyway. If the common good is not served as a by-product, then you have the need for regulation.

A great example is environmental regulation--there is little or no incentive on the part of corporations not to dump mercury into the river, unless they are forced not to by the government. Neither will they avoid breaking the law by damaging other vendors' equipment if they can get away with it. They can get away with it because the government is being paid off--which is itself more socialist than capitalist.

Chesterton also said that when the capitalists start using socialist tactics and justifications, then Capitalism was dead or dying...I definately see corporate welfare and the blind eye turned to this kind of "competition" between telcos as indicative of such. You are not paying a lower price due to competition, you are paying the same price so that employees of your telco provider can sabotage the other telco provider. This is not the good nor service I want to pay for!

Re:Same old same old.

[unitron]

"A word to the wise, if building a new house, having all the telephone/data/television wiring pulled back in a "home run" to a patch panel and have the various service provider demarc boxes installed next to that patch panel. This should be *inside* the house, so that the bored teenager down the street can't easily mess with your wiring."

'fraid not. For new construction all demarcation boxes (the phone company sometimes calls it the "subscriber network interface" - SNI) should be located near the electric meter so that they can be grounded (via short runs of wire) to the main building grounding electrode, to which the electrical service entrance is also supposed to be grounded.

Those boxes are where the wire owned by the phone and cable companies stop and the wires owned by you start and the cable and phone companies need to be able to get to them occasionally whether you're home or not. If you're worried about vandalism you can protect the wires entering and leaving those boxes with PVC conduit.

And to think...

[sarhjinian]

And to think we only had to worry about intra-company squabbling, sabotage and incompetence prior to this. (hello, Bell Canada, I'm looking at you!)

I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Dachannien]

Remember, these are the same companies that are running ads claiming that network neutrality is somehow bad for the consumer.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[GigsVT]

It is. It's the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Dachannien]

You're welcome to explain your position, because I'm confused how anybody who's not working for the telecom industry could possibly be against network neutrality.

Network neutrality ensures that broadband providers can't leverage their governmentally-created regional duopolies for nefarious purposes. The phone and cable companies want to be able to (a) double-dip by charging both their home consumers and content providers (who, by the way, already pay their own ISPs) for the same bandwidth and (b) shut out online content providers that threaten their governmentally-created regional monopolies in telephone service (VoIP) and television service (VoD).

Claiming that government interference is always a bad thing is pretty much a colossal load. We already have (much needed) antitrust laws to prevent natural monopolies and cartels from becoming too powerful. In this case, governmentally-regulated wire access creates a situation where there is very little competition in the marketplace, and just as with other monopolistic utilities, broadband access requires legislation to ensure that consumers aren't overburdened by a noncompetitive market.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[GigsVT]

Claiming that government interference is always a bad thing is pretty much a colossal load.

I'm a libertarian. It almost always is.

However, I believe that natural monopolies are a place where government intervention can be justified sometimes. A larger coercion can exist when someone has no choice than the minor coercion of a use tax with equality of access.

I believe in the concept of net neutrality, I don't agree with the current legislative attempts to enforce it.

The solution is as someone else mentioned here, just municipalize the last-mile. It's the only place where the natural monopoly exists. The backbone (commercial bandwidth) market is competitive, and there's plenty of choices there. The market will work there if anyone attempts anything funny.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Jason Earl]

Exactly. I live in Orem, UT where project Utopia is busy wiring houses up with fiber. There are plenty of service providers competing to provide phone, television, and Internet services over this fiber including what is in my opinion the best ISP on the planet, xmission.com.

If projects like this make economic sense in Utah, then they almost certainly are a no brainer anywhere else.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Anonymous Coward]

You're welcome to explain your position, because I'm confused how anybody who's not working for the telecom industry could possibly be against network neutrality.

Network neutrality means there will be a Network Performance Commissioner with AT&T's dick planted firmly in his mouth. His job will be to shut down and fine into bankruptcy anyone who offers value-added private network services. It scares the big telecom behemoths shitless that an agile startup might figure out what telecom customers really want, and give it to 'em. Remember, the telecom execs who now want to bill Google until recently wanted modems to be illegal. They have the imagination of turnips, and their only skill, aside from occupying perfectly good skin, is perverting government regulations.

Consider an ISP who licenses a local cache of Google Movie to improve customer performance, with a dedicated pipe for priming the cache. That's illegal under network neutrality. Consider a company who runs their own fiber across town to link two sites. Illegal under network neutrality, because TCP/IP is only permitted to run on publicly-accessible links with zero quality-of-service guarantees. Anything else would be unfair, you see.

Network neutrality ensures that broadband providers can't leverage their governmentally-created regional duopolies for nefarious purposes.

What governmentally-created duopolies? If you have cash, lawyers, and willpower, you can peddle bandwidth. And people are: DSL, WiFi, cable modems, fiber, satellite, you name it. These are the Halcyon days for gonzo networking, with opportunity practically dripping from the ends of fibers. We should worry about figuring out what is even possible, before we spend a lot of time worrying about social-justice-through-billing.

The phone and cable companies want to be able to (a) double-dip by charging both their home consumers and content providers (who, by the way, already pay their own ISPs) for the same bandwidth...

And? A network company that pulls that will hemorrhage customers. If they somehow succeed in getting what they want, the logistical difficulties will burn them to the ground. (Just how is AT&T going to bill a porno vendor in Elbonia for bandwidth surcharges, anyway?)

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Dachannien]

What governmentally-created duopolies?

There are only two (duopoly) broadband ISPs in most US markets: your cable company and your phone company, where, in each case, we are talking the company that actually owns the wires going to your home. In the spheres of cable TV and telephone service, these are each highly regulated monopoly utilities that derive their monopoly power from physical limitations that the government acceded to decades ago.

And? A network company that pulls that will hemorrhage customers.

Crap, my cable company is throttling my Google access because they won't pay. I guess I'll have to switch to my phone compa - oh, they're doing it too? Never mind.

Consider an ISP who licenses a local cache of Google Movie to improve customer performance, with a dedicated pipe for priming the cache. That's illegal under network neutrality. Consider a company who runs their own fiber across town to link two sites. Illegal under network neutrality, because TCP/IP is only permitted to run on publicly-accessible links with zero quality-of-service guarantees. Anything else would be unfair, you see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Network neutrality is a lot simpler than you are trying to make it out to be. If I am a customer of your ISP, then network neutrality requires two things: one, you don't throttle my access based on the type of data I am transmitting. And two, you don't throttle my access based on whether a particular content provider is sending you a kickback. Nothing about that prohibits you from contracting with content providers to provide better-than-baseline service to them, and nothing prevents you from providing better-than-baseline access to your company's VoIP/VoD services. But if your ISP is the limiting bandwidth factor in a connection to any two hosts that aren't on your network, then I had better get the same QoS to those two sites.

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Some_Llama]

is that you maddox?

Re:I'll take hypocrisy for $200, Alex

[Jason Earl]

Nope, just another happy XMission customer.

The war is won

[El Lobo]

The glory of the Internet is its openness to innovation. As long as you conform to some basic technical requirements, you can send any sort of data and create any service you want. E-mail, streaming video, online commerce, and the World Wide Web itself were all started by groups, companies, or individuals who did not need permission from regulators or network owners. E-mail, streaming video, online commerce, and the World Wide Web itself were all started by groups, companies, or individuals who did not need permission from regulators or network owners. The action took place on the very same lines that carry telephone and cable-TV traffic. But unlike those services, Internet activities were never subject to stifling regulations, which is why innovation was able to flourish.

Re:The war is won

[headkase]

The real innovations you're talking about takes place in a completely separate domain than the physical connections that make the Internet possible. When people use Internet protocols such as http to share information they are receiving programming of some sort (video, audio, text, image). The routers and service providers do not examine the information flowing over them and therefore do not benefit from what they carry. So, isp's have a low learning index from the information while people have much higher learning index for the same information that travels over the wires. Innovation occures where there is a high learning index so the isp's are just carriers and deserve to be relegated to utility status to improve the domain where the real innovation is: people.
;)

Easy Solution

[no_pets]

Don't run your cable down the other guy's conduit if you don't want it ripped out.

east coast

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like something that is limited to the east coast of the US. Union mafia types fooling around on the job. Why do think jobs are being outsourced from the US? You don't have half-drunk forklift operators organizing racing leagues on the factory floors of China. Ripping cables out is obviously against company policy. Get back to work and act like adults.

Re:east coast

[b0s0z0ku]

This sounds like something that is limited to the east coast of the US. Union mafia types fooling around on the job.

Organized crime exists in other countries, including Asia and Russia. Ever heard of the Yakuza? The "Russian Mafiya?" I'm sure China has its own homegrown organized thugs along similar lines.

-b.

Re:east coast

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure China has its own homegrown organized thugs along similar lines.

Yes. They're called triads.

Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Lenolium]

So, over here in the flyover country in a little state called Utah, a bunch of the cities have gotten together and done something great. These cities have decided that letting one company run the phone and another run the cable TV has gone on long enough. They have run their own fiber, and operate it like the roads. Equal access from anyone to anyone. Their website is http://www.utopianet.org/

Now, instead of getting crazy plans with no upload and bad ping times, I have my choice of four different providers for data, three (soon to be four) for voice, and three for video. All running on the same set of community fiber. The data plan I'm on right now is 15mbps SYMMETRIC for around $45/month. Business plans through this same company ( http://www.xmission.com/ ) give you a full 30mbps for $110/month. Oh, and I get a 26ms ping time to google, and 2ms ping time to my ISP.

If you had options like this, you wouldn't need to worry about the net neutrality bills, because if your service provider started degrading service for something you liked, you could just jump ship because there would be plenty of other options for you. You wouldn't be stuck under the iron fist of some "controlled" monopoly.

Seriously, call your city council and ask them why your city isn't this cool yet. I mean, if Utah can do it... what's stopping your state?

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[b0s0z0ku]

So, over here in the flyover country in a little state called Utah, a bunch of the cities have gotten together and done something great

Don't knock Utah, esp if you live there. It has a large Mormon population, and whatever else you say about them, Mormons are practical, hard-working, and (yet) community-oriented. This is actually one of the few places where something like that would work and go through without the large corporations lobbying it out of existence.

$45 for 15mb symmetric? I'm jealous, cos I'm paying about the same here for 3mb downstream from Verizon! Ah, good 'ol NJ :/

-b.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[hclyff]

Sounds very nice. It has however "socialist idea" written all over it. And you aren't a filthy freedom-hating commie, are you?

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[teh kurisu]

I had to read that twice... 'flyover' means 'overpass' outside of America, so you gave me an interesting mental image of Utah.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Ant P.]

Intelligent design? We'll have none of that here!

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Anonymous Coward]

From the description it sounds like that only the infrastructure is public, but that the services are provided by commercial companies. That sounds like the best of two worlds. You get an independed reliable infrastructure AND free competition.

Imagine how it would look like if the Internet was built by the telecom companies... We wouldn't have the society we have today. Unfortunatly the big companies have bought the politicians, so we are in danger of going back :(

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Anonymous Coward]

"Liberals" live in flyover states, jackass. Look at the red and blue map again, and realize that isn't indicative of anything but how some people felt on that one day. Most people don't vote, some don't vote the party line, mistakes, etc, etc. There may be a liberal majority in a lot of those "flyover" states, but if they don't vote, it doesn't get perceived by people like you.

You can't gauge an entire population without a better rate of participation in the process. What was participation, anyway? Less that half registered, and about half of those vote? Adding in voter fraud to that 1/4 sample means we have no idea what any population really thinks about anything. Only because some well-paid idiot on television who gets paid to create controversy and ads come up with a meme about conflict, it is the gospel. Think for yourself, don't let them do it for you.

I'm in a flyover state and quite content. I sometimes wish there were more interesting people to talk to, but I'm not going to move to a dirty, nasty place (a real city!) with people climbing over one another just to get some better conversation.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[zoftie]

Like in toronto, only company allowed to lay fiber is bell, which is beyond me to understand, i can lay whatever the hell i like if I got permission from whoever owns the conduit. Apparently they will come down with order and snip your cable and remove it, without your permission. This braindamaged way about cable laying is not limited to United states.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[SCHecklerX]

Sounds great, but what are they blocking for that $40/month to force you to use the $125/month business class line instead? It's become nearly impossible to host your own mail/web servers on your home broadband these days. The market will not correct this, unfortunately.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Lenolium]

Some of the other providers will block things, but XMission doesn't block anything. Well, I believe they block port 25 outbound to anything other than their mail server if you get any abuse complaints, but other than that I have not noticed anything.

I run my own email server (with greylisting), a web server which I have both my personal site and do demos for clients. A few of them have remarked on how fast my demo server is. The only limit I have is a 100GB/month total transfer limit. Another one of the providers is cheaper and may do some blocking and only allows for 5GB/month transfer.

See, having the choice gives you power. Had I wanted a slightly slower, and slightly cheaper account, I could have gotten it at the expense of a smaller transfer limit and some port blocking. I decided to go the slightly more expensive route (I think it's about $5 more a month) and get everything that I wanted.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Karrots]

No blocks but there is a 100 GByte monthly limit on personal accounts. That can be increased for a minimal cost. That price also includes a static IP. There are 3 other providers on the Utopia network. MStar (Data, Voice, and video), Veracity (data and voice), and AT&T. Xmission is a very customer oriented company they have always been a pleasure to work with. I just wish my city was on the Utopia list. Unfortunately I have to live with Comcast.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[GeorgeS069]

Try these guys if you want to host servers on a "home" connection http://www.speakeasy.net/

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Anonymous Coward]

The lesson here is that the cities are merely imitating what the free market would have done in the first place, if it wasn't hampered by government. After all, it was government that granted monopoly status to the cable and phone companies to begin with. If there were no special rules for cable/phone companies, and if roads were private, the cable/phone companies would have to negotiate with customers in order to run fiber. The inevitable deal between customers and the cable/phone companies would generally be that the companies would have to play nice and work together on a single set of community fiber. Why? Because property owners (i.e. the customers) no reason to allow companies to lay more fiber than necessary on their property.

However, when government grants special powers to cable/phone companies (e.g. the phone companies own the actual phone lines, even when the poles are on your property), and the government uses its power to stifle competition (e.g. competitors can not run fiber over public roads without the local government's permission), you get our current system. What we need is less government, not more.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Spazmania]

Equal access from anyone to anyone.

Be nice if that was true. From their web site, emphasis mine:

Service providers who want to offer services on an open network are welcome to apply to UTOPIA. While the network is being constructed and the number of users is limited, practical necessity dictates that the number of service providers will be increased gradually. For service providers to be added to the UTOPIA Community MetroNet fiber-optic network, they must meet the following criteria

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[ivan256]

That's what it means here too. As always, some people think they are clever though.

Re:Stop letting the companies control the wires

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you are unaware that the third entrant into Commercial Internet Services, and always in the top three backbone providers globally by customers and reach since then, is -- hold your breath -- Sprint.

Sprint -- a bona fide telecomms company, with interests in long distance telephone service and local monopoly (!) telephone service, and nowadays lots and lots of mobile telephony -- was one of the three founding members of the Commercial Internet eXchange, acted as the CIX's first chairman, was the first backbone provider to sell to downstream "ma and pa" and other local/retail ISPs, and the first commercial provider with intercontinental connectivity.

Ask around. Most "old farts" will tell you that Sprintlink was -- and remains -- innovative on lots of fronts, from products and services to engineering.

Several other big U.S. telecomms players followed not long afterwards (mid-1990s) with some innovations of their own (InternetMCI, ATT.NET) and even more foreign ones did so in their own (extended) markets.

However, with the exception of Sprint, most of the big players have been acquired through M&A activity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It's hard to spot real innovation in the current "AT&T" products or what the "other" regional monopolists Verizon and Qwest operate today. Even China Telecom, China Unicom and France Telecom of all things do more interesting and intelligent stuff. The first two are aggressive competitors despite the funny sort of common ownership they kind-of share, which encourages them to go head-to-head. FT faces competition in its primary market from a host of foreign former incumbents and some home-grown networks taking advantage of deregulation.

The problem is not just the big bureaucracies inherent in a large old telecomms company. The problem is also the monopolistic mindset in both the incumbent last-mile monopoly operators and their tame regulators.

And to think...Eye-witness Blues.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And to think we only had to worry about intra-company squabbling, sabotage and incompetence prior to this. (hello, Bell Canada, I'm looking at you!)"

Hello sarhjinian. Yes we can see you too. You might want to have that eye looked at?

Anecdotal Cable vs. Telco in Rural Areas Post

[Joseph W. Stalin]

I live in an area outside of the city. Until recently, the only available ISPs were long distance Dial-Up ISPs. The local Telco has been hesitant to provide new services to customers. They have refused to repair their lines that are so noisy that Dial-UP connections get dropped. They rolled out ADSL service recently, but the service is unreliable and you can't download anything faster than 12 KB/second. This makes downloading a Linux distribution take a very long tie and require frequent use of wget'c -c parameter. They claim that Verizon's outages are to blame for their frequent down times. Adelphia (now Time Warner) began offering service here. Their service is much faster, however, the service can have downtimes that last several days. When I ask for an ETA on the repair, they often tell me that they don't know when they will be able to get someone out to start working on the problems. Reliability doesn't seem to be very high on these companies' list of priorities.

Re:Anecdotal Cable vs. Telco in Rural Areas Post

[__aaclcg7560]

Reliability doesn't seem to be very high on these companies' list of priorities.

It can be a numbers game to get the most suckers -- um, customers -- signed up as quickly as possible to gain market share. Maybe later they will start worrying about quality when suckers -- um, customers -- quit the service and their market share goes down. Being first is sometime more important than being better.

Dude because it is Utah.

[LWATCDR]

Utah is one really strange place.
Like half the people there speak a second language. And I don't just mean Spanish. You have farm boys that speak fluent Korean or Japanese!
Kids everywhere, no good bars, what maybe two strip clubs in the state, people mountain biking and snow boarding.
It is just freaky.

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[b0s0z0ku]

no good bars

Don't they still have "private clubs" which can serve pretty much anything they want to (as opposed to weak piss-beer in normal bars)? You just need to pay a $5 or $10 "membership" fee at the door to "join". Not really worse than a cover charge in a bar elsewhere.

-b.

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[jandrese]

There are bars, but you have to get in the right underground circle to find them. Turns out the bar scene is surprisingly healthy, but only if you know who to talk to. Of course this is third hand knowledge from someone who grew up in Utah, but was a bit of an oddball with his friends because he wasn't a Mormon.

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[Impotent_Emperor]

The reason for no good bars, I believe, is because Utah has some rather strict alcohol laws. Restaurants/bars are heavily restricted in how much alcohol they can give a customer and thus it is difficult to get drunk. I believe the religious rules of the Mormons had something to do with it.

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[bogjobber]

No, that isn't true. Utah has bars just like anywhere else, just with much crazier laws. Technically, only private clubs can serve alcohol in the same way as bars in other states, so bars just call themselves "private clubs for members". You pay for a "temporary membership" which is just another name for a cover charge. This isn't a secret or anything, bars and clubs are in the open and advertise the same way as in other places, just with the stupid "private club for members" bit. Stores can only sell 3.2 beer and wine, anything with more alcohol content is sold from state liquor stores. You won't find as many liquor stores or bars as in other places, mostly because people here don't drink very much as in other places (even the non-Mormons).

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever been to Salt Lake City? If I can get some decent food and beer I like and if they have live music I consider a bar pretty good. Salt Lake City has that. At least when I visited a year ago.

Re:Dude because it is Utah.

[LWATCDR]

Actually I was mostly joking.
I am a Mormon and my wife went to BYU. I am not from Utah myself so as a small joke I mixed a bunch of stereotypes with a little bit of the truth.
In my small ward we have people that speak French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Korean, and Swedish.
Yea Mormons are supposed to not drink alcohol, use tobacco, coffee, and tea. Along with a lot of other things. Also there is a lot of great mountain biking in Utah.

Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast is notoriously bad for bad wiring and lack of physical security on their lines.

This story is about Comcast and Verizon, not cable and phone companies.

Eastlink and Aliant get along just fine and have excellent line quality. (aside from the fact that DSL sucks and coax is far superior for network data)

Comcast sucks, always has and always will.

Cable Wars

[dapsychous]

Kind of reminds me of when I was a cable guy for Comcast. We would constantly be replacing lines and equipment that Knology (the other cable company in this area) would rip out when they ran their stuff. It just kinda went back and forth like the for a few years. Last I heard, they were still doing it.

Re:Cable Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a cable technician for Comcast, in Maryland.

For over a year now Verizon has been wiring the entire county I work in with their new fiber. Their digging crews have done enormous amounts of damage to our underground lines and continue to do more every day. We have employees who work full time doing nothing but repairing damage from Verizon. Ironically our customers who are upset from the outages caused by Verizon often end up subscribing to their new fiber services as a result of it.

We also have another cable company in our area with lines that run parallel to ours. We rarely ever have problems with that competitor and in some areas we share cable lines to homes or apartments for customers switching between companies.

Re:Cable Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the original cable franchise in Montgomery County, MD didn't follow the legal requirements at the time for the proper depth and location of placing their cable lines.

If you go the library, you can read up on the regulations for cable franchise installations. Interesting, it specifically bars the cable operator from placing a microphone in the cable boxes! It also requires a number of channels to be transmitted as analog, something I expect to cause problems in the near future.

The FCC did issue a ruling back w/ the 1996 Telecom Act that essentially seized all conduit/wiring on private property from the phone company. Even wiring from a common utility room to individual units or to outside links.

At my condo development, we have a big problem with shoddy wiring installed by both Comcast and Dish/DirecTv contractors. Even though each unit comes with RG6 pulled to the family room and each bedroom from a common utility room per building, Comcast just tacks wiring all along the buildings, puts splitters on top of splitters, and only grounds where the thick cable comes up from the ground to the 'doghouse'. We are getting Verizon FIOS installed within the year, and I expect that Comcast will be spending a lot of time here piecing their shoddy installation back together.

I wish they valued a proper, nice and clean installation. I miss BELLCORE standards.

d

Nothing Funny About Losing $103,200

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing funny about losing $103,200 even though the lead article from the "New York Times" hints at humor in the "war" between cable companies and phone companies.

Allow me to explain. A little-known company called "Copper Mountain" (CM) made DSL switch boxes for the phone companies. I invested about $103,200 in 2000.

Then, in 2003, I lost almost everything when the customers for CM disappeared. I have about $2000 left from that disaster. At the point of bankruptcy, CM merged with another company in a completely unrelated technology.

I find no humor in this "war".

Re:Nothing Funny About Losing $103,200

[b0s0z0ku]

Then, in 2003, I lost almost everything when the customers for CM disappeared. I have about $2000 left from that disaster. At the point of bankruptcy, CM merged with another company in a completely unrelated technology.

Shit happens, even to good companies. That's why you diversify your investments! Had you invested $33k in CM, $33k in Company B, and $33k in Company C, you probably wouldn't be in the same situation as you are today. Blame no one but yourself for your investment practices.

-b.

Re:Nothing Funny About Losing $103,200

[junk_ball]

He may have invested 100K in CM, 100K in Company B, and 100K in Company C

This sounds like the early 1900s ...

[b0s0z0ku]

when rival phone and electric companies would try to rip out each others' lines and sabotage their networks. Also, there were sometimes 10 different sets of wires with different owners on each electric pole! Those kinds of practices were why many cities went to public utilities in the first place.

-b.

Re:This sounds like the early 1900s ...

[TFer_Atvar]

And with the advent of broadband wireless, I wouldn't be surprised to see that particular service become a public utility. Sure, you're not going to be setting any speed records, but the most intensive thing most folks do is download music and stream movies. The vast majority of people don't have full-on downloads running 24/7. It could work, and I think we'll see it more often.

support wimax

[zogger]

Support wimax as much as possible-it works, and it is cheap enough to let the mom and pops ISPs in and hits that last mile for you folks rural and in the burbs. Sign up, show enthusiasm, get the costs down more. I couldn't get broadband from either the local telco nor cable, nor were they planning on it anytime this century near as I could see-they didn't care about my cash they could have, all I heard from them is a hearty FU. I got direct from the landline guy from hellsouth-they will NEVER run good enough copper out to folks unless they are ORDERED to by the government. And the cable doofuses-same deal, unless you get stuck in some new expensive gated community or something, they don't give a crap either. Then wimax hit this area, WHAM, I was on that baby (and the tower is around 10 miles or so away!) and I am now quite the loyal customer. Couldn't sign up fast enough.

Re: support wimax

[transporter_ii]

Ummm, what makes you think WiMax is cheap enough for the mom and pop ISPs? I work at a company trying to be a WISP, and all the WiMax equipment I have looked at costs a fortune, and is obviously aiming at being marketed to phone and cell phone companies, who are about the only people that can afford it at those prices. Am I missing something???

Transporter_ii

Re: support wimax

[arivanov]

Yes you are.

Besides everything you mention WiMax also has a very unpleasant saturation curve. It deteriorates in a non-linear manner as the number of subscribers increase. Something like exponential. So it is good for early adopters. As a mass technology it will suck eggz unless loads of hardware (base stations) are thrown at it to keep the number of subscribers served by a single basestation as low as possible. As a result as the number of your subscribers grow you end up having to buy exponentially more equipment from the supplier and your return on investment per customer will exponentially decrease. I have seen a professionally done model and it looks as a "losing game" for the "sole WiMax" provider.

It is a technology which was designed by equipment suppliers, not providers. And they designed it so it is good for them.

Turf wars?

[ndogg]

Are cable and phone companies forming gangs or something?

East Coast Cable don't take no shit from West Coast Bell! Word up!

[News later that day...]

"Notorious B.E.L.L. was found with all their wires cut this morning as phone and cable gang wars heat up."

But they're all on I-15

[Animats]

Look at the coverage map. They've just wired a few small cities alongside I-15. They don't even have service in Salt Lake City.

Re:But they're all on I-15

[MysticOne]

It looks like more than a few to me. Anyway, small or not, they have to start somewhere. I think it's a great idea and it makes a lot of sense. I have no problem with something like this as long as they continue to allow private telcos the ability to build their own networks if they desire.

Re:But they're all on I-15

[bogjobber]

West Valley, Murray, and Midvale all border Salt Lake City proper and are in the Salt Lake City metro area. Riverton is a little further away but is still considered part of SLC. Orem is hardly a large city, but it is in a metro area of about 400,000 people. It is right next to Provo, which is home to BYU and Novell. As for them all being on I-15, over 80% of the people in Utah live on the Wasatch Front, which happens to be where I-15 runs.

Re:But they're all on I-15

[Karrots]

Salt Lake City opted not to be in the project when Qwest promised 90% build out of DSL. The cities that are on the map are those that pledged money to the project and stayed in. Qwest and Comcast lobbied the state legislature and got a bill passed limiting how new cities could join. Basically now for a city to join they have to take it to the people to make sure its ok to put the money up. The cities get the money back from subscription costs.

Also some one mentioned Provo City they have their own initiative called iProvo I believe their project started before Utopia.

Is there any reason I should trust either of these

[Progman3K]

weasels?

Time for WiFi to enter the fray, so we can have yet ANOTHER alternative!

A weird thing happened at my house the other day..

[Assmasher]

...where an engineering contrator of some sort was walking around my property looking for something and my wife asked him what he was doing. He claimed that we had placed a work order with the cable company to do some digging in our yard and he was marking out the cables by spray painting on the grass. My wife informed him that this was not correct and we had done no such thing and asked him to leave. He walked back to his truck and my wife thought the incident was over. A minute or so later he was walking around our backyard again and my wife informed me of what had transpired and I walked out to talk to the guy. He told me basically the same thing and I again, in no uncertain terms, explained to him that we had done no such thing and that I wanted to see a copy of his work order. Suddenly he became terse and slightly agitated and started complaining that he was just marking the ground where the cables lay. I explained to him that if I wanted my grass painted day-glo orange, I would do it myself and re-iterated that I wanted him to leave and that I expected him to respect my request. He said he would do so and sort of apologized for the 'confusion' and started to leave. I walked back into my house and was going into the kitchen and along the way checking that he was leaving. I didn't see him at his truck so I (starting to get a little pissed off now) quickly exited the house by the back door to see what he was doing and found him standing next to my DSL line (BellSouth has it going up the side of the house to a hole in the roof where the DSL line enters and is terminated with an RJ-45.) I asked him what the hell he was doing but he was walking quickly back to his truck. I didn't see any obvious signs of him doing anything; however, when I went back in the house my wife reported that the phones no longer worked. I went back out and found that this guy had pulled the base phone line connection down enough from the small housing next to my other meters to interrupt the phone connections.

I didn't know if he was just screwing with me for telling him to beat it or not, so I called the cable company and asked them about this and they professed total ignorance. I had the company info off the side of the guys truck and called another day (in order to speak to someone else because I actually have the local cable office number [a nightmare to obtain in and of itself]) to see if they used this company and it turns out they do.

The guy had confirmed the address and name on the address so he didn't have a typo on his work order (which I never got to see), but it was a weird experience...

And that is the weird thing about all of this

[ebers]

I think the most interesting thing about this conflict between two competitor's infrastructures is that it isn't happening out in some field somewhere. It's happening on the side of your house!

Re:And that is the weird thing about all of this

[b0s0z0ku]

I think the most interesting thing about this conflict between two competitor's infrastructures is that it isn't happening out in some field somewhere. It's happening on the side of your house!

What if it wasn't a cable contractor employee working in his official capacity, but someone "casing" the neighborhood for a later burglary? He was asked to leave twice and didn't. I'd have at the very least called the cops on him. I hope that someone mistakes the fucker for a burglar one day even if he isn't and he gets his skull smashed with a lead pipe. That would be justice.

-b.

Re:And that is the weird thing about all of this

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they find out where he lives and that they kill his entire family in front of him before smashing his head in with a lead pipe. As a matter of fact, they should round up his extended family too, hell anyone who shares his last name -- just in case.

Note: sarcasm.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[b0s0z0ku]

I went back out and found that this guy had pulled the base phone line connection down enough from the small housing next to my other meters to interrupt the phone connections.

The guy was obviously trespassing. Why didn't you take pictures of him, his truck's license plate, and what he was doing and call the cops? Better yet, depending on the state, you could have conceivably done a citizen's arrest since he was asked to leave twice and didn't. "Officer, I just caught a man attempting to burglarize my home."

I would have also suggested siccing an angry dog on the guy, but he might sue.

-b.

Went into a "Phone Room"

[JohnnyGTO]

with a QWest installer a few months ago at a location that used to be serviced solely be Cox Cable. MAN you should see th shit written on the wall about each others mothers, race and personal hygiene! I've seen nicer biker bar bathrooms!

How about when two cable companies competing

[Xipher]

I live in Cedar Falls Iowa, where we have two cable TV/Internet providers. One is the local utilities company CFU http://www.cfu.net/, and Mediacom http://www.mediacomcc.com/. CFU is municipally owned. Now here is the problem, and from what I have heard it's not an uncommon one, Mediacom can't seem to get it's records straight on who provides cable to any certain household, and on a number of occasions has CUT (physically) cable that CFU is providing to customers due to non-payment status in their systems. Now can it get much worse then that?

Re:How about when two cable companies competing

[phillymjs]

Now can it get much worse then that?

Well, the best stupid/evil cable company story I've ever heard involves getting wrongly prosecuted for cable theft. About 8 years back, Comcast's cable TV and cable internet entities each didn't know what the other was doing. A woman got Comcast internet service but chose to not get cable TV. Comcast's TV techs kept disconnecting her because their records didn't show her as a TV customer, their internet service techs kept reconnecting her. Eventually they attempted to prosecute her for theft of cable TV service.

~Philly

Verizon lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently my cablemodem is incapable of 10/1mbps, despite seeing it working at that with torrents and newsservers for over a year now. Their installer basically called me a liar stating "it's a fact cable cannot go over 3mbps". Hmm, ok. I was about to try FiOS, but with twats like that, I don't think I'll bother until I see what my neighbors go through.

Is it the phone company's conduit?

[Spazmania]

Fact: Once the phone company has installed conduit on someone's property that conduit becomes a "fixture of the property." Like a shed or a building, it belongs to the owner of the property. The only exception is if the phone company requests and receives a right-of-way from the property owner, something which they almost never do when the conduit terminates on the property instead of passing through it.

I carefully researched this a couple years ago when I worked for an ISP and wanted Cox to install fiber for us. Doing it cheaply required using conduit that Bell Atlantic (Verizon) had installed eight years earlier. Cos installed brought the fiber off the poles they both rented from Dominion Power and straight into the conduit system Bell had installed.

The Baby Bells' can complain all they want but its their own shoddy business practices which have left them open to this. Besides, in our case (as in most cases) the Bells' installation cost had long since been paid off by our purchase of Bell services. The conduit was ours. Fair is fair.

A couple of things

[kilodelta]

VoIP providers like Vonage advise you to cut the wire at the demarc that leads to your residence. People unfamiliar with the NID might be cutting the wrong side, not techs from Cox, etc.

I am happy to see an incumbent Bell losing business though. But one other thing astounds me. Right now for digital cable and HSI with Cox I pay $114 a month. Phoenix gets phone thrown in for $99 a month? WTF!

But knowing Cox like I know Cox that's a six month deal and after that it'll jump to $150 or $160 a month.

One thing I will attest to is the general incompetence of both Verizon and Cox. On Verizons part I've found they've disconnected one of my pairs in the MDF to use while forgetting to re-connect when they're done. Oh and lets not forget the incompetence of their switching crew, who can't tell you what features are on a specific Centrex line until you ask for something completely different at which point they tell you what the feature set was on the other lines in the hunt group.

Cox isn't innocent either. We have two VAN connections to satellite offices in the same state. One of them is rock solid, the other one flakey as all hell. Cox always sends techs to the main location and I tell them that both VANs share the same coaxial cable, that the problem is at the specific remote end and that they need to go there and fix it.

Need I mention Cox's quite little replacement of Motorola 5120 cable modems? Yes, my net speed at home dropped to
The field techs for both Cox and Verizon are pretty good guys. But install techs are mostly contractor and they suck the big one. We share the MDF with other entities in the complex and one telecom vendor threaded his fifty pair cables on top of my cross connects. Needless to say they'll be fixing that next week.

Re:A couple of things

[SeaFox]

I am happy to see an incumbent Bell losing business though. But one other thing astounds me. Right now for digital cable and HSI with Cox I pay $114 a month. Phoenix gets phone thrown in for $99 a month? WTF!

That would just be regional pricing differences. I know people like to think of the economy as a single, national element, but it's more local than that. People in more affluent areas of the country will pay more for the same services as people in less affluent areas. The company I work for charges $45 to install a new cable outlet in Arcadia, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles) but only $19.95 in Denver, CO.

Interesting twist on this, you'll see higher penetration of premium video services in less affluent - we'll just call them what they from now on - poor areas than in the higher income regions. For example, I know of a small, rural region of Indiana were lots of people subscribe to HDTV. Logic would tell you that the numbers should be lower, fewer people can afford to spend the high cost of an HD set, but in this case the passive form of entertainment is very popular in "the sticks" so the populace, despite their lower wages, pays the cost. Due to regional market pricing, these same people pay less per month for HD than people in lower NY-state regions that are home to many more wealthy individuals, not enough to make the HD as cheap as basic, of course, but still: lower.

I could quit my job here, start commuting to Kansas City (about 40 miles away), and do the same job with a different company and make $3 more an hour. It's not because the companies over there are super generous, it's economic differences between us and them. The result is, as you've guessed, "bedroom communities"; small cities and suburbs that become home to people who commute to work in other cities nearby. I don't because I don't want to spend all that time driving (plus, if your car ever breaks down, you'll have a hard time keeping your job).

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[solitas]

D'j'ever hear of "911"? If somebody's on MY property and doesn't leave the-first-time-asked then _I_ want a cop there to at least have an incident report filed on it.

It's all about corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

The laws are written to help campaign contributers. Let's face it openly, the pipes are going to clog, what was once, kind of free and open, will close. The scatology heads will continue to rule all that is good. Pissing contests will run your life, corruption is the order of the day. This is our form of government. Market forces drive all of this. If you think that freedom is free think again. If you're not willing to bleed for it, in this climate, you 'aint gonna get it. REJOICE LOOSERS!!!!

LOL

[teflaime]

Verizon complaining about Comcast...In my experience, Verizon has the worst customer service record of any of them. At least, in Illnois. Now in Calfornia, SBC and Comcast are about equally bad.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

from the article:

>> Cox also argues that some of the damage Qwest says is caused by its workers is often indistinguishable from the harm caused to equipment by vandals, bad weather and regular wear and tear.

"Just remember guys - be extra careful to make any damage look deliberately-caused so that Quest will know it's us and not vandals..."
(/sarc)

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Assmasher]

Mostly because I tend not to over react so I, potentially, under react and because I've never had something like this happen before. I wrote down his license plate, and the information on the magnetic advertisement on the side of his truck, and a description of him; however, I only did this in case he was just 'casing' houses in the area.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Assmasher]

Sometimes people really are just trying to do their jobs. If I knew he was going to mess with my phone line I would have escorted him to his truck (I'm blessed/cursed with being a fairly large man) and explained how it was in his best physical interests to leave; however, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sort of a three strikes thing. I don't care if you mess up once, I'll explain happily to you how to do better, twice and I presume that I did not explain properly the first time, third time I get upset.

We don't even get good broadband

[Infonaut]

And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.

Let's face it. The FCC has made it easy for incumbents to keep new competitors out. So now we have incumbents fighting each other with dirty tricks, because they know consumers have no choices but the incumbents. Talk about a recipie for failure. Our broadband choices suck ass, and the providers take turns screwing customers.

Belief that an unregulated market will cure all evils is a belief that long-coddled Baby Bells and cable companies will suddenly embrace open, honest competition. They're like rich kids, born with silver spoons in their mouths, crying about equal opportunity. It's disgusting.

Re:We don't even get good broadband

[zoftie]

Well there are actually regulations forbidding competition in many areas, like priority given to companies to lay cable. So say you got 100mil in your pocket and you want to wire up a city. You would have to check with the regulations in that city and most likely they will forbid you to lay your communications, because there is already "a telecommunications company".

Re:We don't even get good broadband

[Infonaut]

Well there are actually regulations forbidding competition in many areas, like priority given to companies to lay cable.

Absolutely. That's what makes these claims about "unnecessary regulation" so pathetic. The cable and telecom companies want regulation when it suits their needs. For example, they've been fighting tooth and nail in courts against community broadband, arguing that municipalities shouldn't be allowed to compete against private enterprise. Also, cable operators have a built-in advantage in that they enter into municiple contracts. Individual subscribers usually have limited choices, because most cable operators will not try to get into a market that a competitor already effectively owns. The whole thing has gone drastically wrong. The 1995 Telecommunications Act was supposed to spur competition, but the FCC has made a series of decisions that give power to incumbents in the name of keeping the market "competitive."

Re:We don't even get good broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Don't blame the companies alone. Much of the garbage is caused by different government regulators. There's the
FCC, DOJ, and the worst is the State Utility Commissions. I've seen lata maps like this http://www.puc.state.oh.us/pucogis/statemap/lata_e .pdf for years. I've been told that public utility commissions have drawn the lines (occasionally) to have family members not be a long distance call.

Recently PUCs have been afraid they were losing their power with more and more IP services being offered. Cost effective equipment exists that provides both IP and voice abilities. PUCs have tried to rule that if the equipment is combined, then they regulate both types of services.

The big companies are partially to blame - no big company deals with change very well - but the government isn't your friend either. A suspicious eye is a good idea.

From: The Cable-Guy, Tele-dude, and Congress

[OldHawk777]

Dear Customers,

FUCK YOU,FUCK OFF, PAY-ME-NOW FOR WHATEVER YOU FUCKING GET!

You damn stupid dick-wad customers this is the USA where Big-Bussiness is KING!

RESPECTFULLY Signed By:
The Cable-Guy, Tele-dude, and Congress

How much time have you got?

[LibertineR]

"Whats wrong with being a socalist? We have great healthcare, educaton and transportation system here and even gret unemployment benifits!"

Oh brother, are you serious?

What is wrong with socialism, is that it allows no respect for the individual. It assumes that we are all the same, that we can all function and achieve at the same rate, and in an effort to equalize the playing field, it is the achievers who suffer in favour of the under-achievers.

You think you have great healthcare? You must be daft. What you have is common availability of AVERAGE healthcare. The best healthcare in the world, like just about any other endeavour is right here in the United States of America. Why? Because self-interest is attached to our achievement. We don't work to glorify the state, we work to sustain and better ourselves. We have a stake in how good or bad our lives can be, so we take risks that socialist countries never imagine.

You think your education is great? I couldn't tell that from your spelling, but whatever. Most nations strive to send their best and brightest to America for a college-level education. Where we DO have socialism (public schools, welfare) you also find our least productive people. The average American puts in more work hours per week than the workers of any other nation, and our poor people live better than 90% of people in other nations.

In Socialist nations, they tax success and achievement until many pick up and head for the closest tax shelter. (Ask Bono)

What is wrong with Socialism, is that it negates human individuality and talent, punishes achievement, subsidizes failure, accepts the average as "good enough" because it is available to all, crushes initiative and creativity, and prevents people from reaching beyond their imagination.

Transportation? Lets take Airbus vs. Boeing for example? Without Government subsidies (confiscated income from citizens)Airbus wouldn't even exist. Even now, as the overweight A380 risks cancellation due to its design being based more on French ego, than sound business logic, Europe is forced to pump additional billions into an aircraft without a market just to save face. Boeing, with the understanding that they are in business to make a PROFIT for their shareholders, is currently beating Airbus like a drum with the 777ER, and the coming 787 Dreamliner. Airbus had to scrap their A350 design, and lacks the technical ability of Boeing in the usage of composite materials.

A single American company is kicking the crap out of a subsidized European consortium, due to decisions made on capitalist principles rather than state pride.

I could go on, but I think you get my point.

Flame away, Socialist bitches, I got Karma to burn!

Re:How much time have you got?

[grumling]

Transportation? Lets take Airbus vs. Boeing for example? Without Government subsidies (confiscated income from citizens)Airbus wouldn't even exist.

Perhaps you've heard of this little place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon.

http://www.boeing.com/ids/a_to_z.html looks like a lot of pork (IE government subsidies) to me.

I get your point, but don't think for a second that the US is not funding R&D for Boeing. And they are using money confiscated from me to remain the "world's policemen," even though most of the world didn't ask us in the first place.

Re:How much time have you got?

[Anonymous Coward]

our poor people live better than 90% of people in other nations.

Well, surely not in comparison to other people in the so called first world.

Transportation? Lets take Airbus vs. Boeing for example? Without Government subsidies (confiscated income from citizens)Airbus wouldn't even exist. Even now, as the overweight A380 risks cancellation due to its design being based more on French ego, than sound business logic, Europe is forced to pump additional billions into an aircraft without a market just to save face. Boeing, with the understanding that they are in business to make a PROFIT for their shareholders, is currently beating Airbus like a drum with the 777ER, and the coming 787 Dreamliner. Airbus had to scrap their A350 design, and lacks the technical ability of Boeing in the usage of composite materials.

1) Boeing get's it's fair share of subsidies from DOD

2) The current problems of the A380 are not its weight, but the cabling. And Europe does not have to pump additional Billions into the project because of that. Airbus just makes less money.

3) Yes, Boeing this year will probably get more orders than Airbus. For the first time in several years. If the European system is so bad, how come Airbus beat Boeing for a couple of years in the first place?

Re:How much time have you got?

[LibertineR]

The current problems of the A380 are not its weight, but the cabling.

Bullshit. The cabling problem is NOTHING compared to the weight issues. Airbus caused potential customers to have to completely remodel their profit models for fuel consumption and passenger numbers due to weight issues. On top of that, since the A380 wing failed during initial stress tests, they had to beef up the structure adding even more weight. Ask someone as Airbus if they are really concerned about cabling, when that fat bird of theirs is causing airlines to second-guess their purchase decisions.

I answered your second question in the original post. Airbus wouldn't be here if not for Government subsidies, something NOBODY can say about Boeing.

Re:How much time have you got?

[RespekMyAthorati]

When I worked in the US, I had excellent health insurance provided by the university where I worked, yet in the end, the medical care stank compared to what I was used to in Europe.
There is a big difference between "has the best" and "is the best". True, the US has the best hospitals, surgeons etc. But only the wealthiest 10% of the population has access to them. For everyone else, all you get is care that would horrify the typical Swiss or German.

Re:How much time have you got?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask someone as Airbus if they are really concerned about cabling, when that fat bird of theirs is causing airlines to second-guess their purchase decisions.

Airlines are second-guessing their purchase decision because of the delays in the ramp up of manufacturing (if you ordered some A380 for 2008, and you need them to meet expected demand, and now Airbus tells you you won't get it before 2009 or 2010, that IS a problem), and this is due to the screw up in the planning of the cabling (it's highly non-trivial to put 500 km of cabel in an airplane, in such a way that the different systems don't affect each other). There were other problems including the break of the wing in the stress test (just before the limit, far outside the stress range a plane will ever see in operation). Problems during the test of such a huge project are normal, also that maybe not all original design specs are exactly met. But the main problem now is ramping of production, not the wings, or the weight.

Re:How much time have you got?

[bogado]

"Whats wrong with being a socalist? We have great healthcare, educaton and transportation system here and even gret unemployment benifits!"

Oh brother, are you serious?

What is wrong with socialism, is that it allows no respect for the individual. It assumes that we are all the same, that we can all function and achieve at the same rate, and in an effort to equalize the playing field, it is the achievers who suffer in favour of the under-achievers.

You think you have great healthcare? You must be daft. What you have is common availability of AVERAGE healthcare. The best healthcare in the world, like just about any other endeavour is right here in the United States of America. Why? Because self-interest is attached to our achievement. We don't work to glorify the state, we work to sustain and better ourselves. We have a stake in how good or bad our lives can be, so we take risks that socialist countries never imagine.

"What good is a phone call when you cannot call"(*)

Sure you have all the tech but most people is not able to access all of this health care. In fact if the for profit research teams were left alone we would have millions of dollars in research of cosmetic and the solution to erection problems while real diseases that kill lots and lots of people would have much less money invested. Oh wait...

You think your education is great? I couldn't tell that from your spelling, but whatever. Most nations strive to send their best and brightest to America for a college-level education. Where we DO have socialism (public schools, welfare) you also find our least productive people. The average American puts in more work hours per week than the workers of any other nation, and our poor people live better than 90% of people in other nations.

Strange, in Brazil we have the exact opposite happening. We have a lot of payed universities popping up that are in fact factories of diplomas, people come in and teachers are discouraged to give bat rates so people don't leave. The worst part is that the student feels like that the institution has an obligation to give him good grades, he's paying them for that after all.

The real good universities are the free, that are supported by tax money. The only problem is that short sight from the society in general is allowing that corrupt politicians trash those universities by drying up their funds. One of the best universities in Rio de Janeiro, UERJ the state (in opposition to federal) funded university, has the best design course in Rio and probably one of the best from the country. This university barely survived a dry out from a really bad governess that is allied with evangelical churches.

In Socialist nations, they tax success and achievement until many pick up and head for the closest tax shelter. (Ask Bono)

What is wrong with Socialism, is that it negates human individuality and talent, punishes achievement, subsidizes failure, accepts the average as "good enough" because it is available to all, crushes initiative and creativity, and prevents people from reaching beyond their imagination.

And what exactly makes the market ruled capitalist better in those aspects, sure you can believe that you can create and become rich. But the truth is that in a market and profit economy it takes money, and usually a lot of money, to be successful in almost everything. The problem is that, in every government and economy form there is always some distribution of power, in our west civilization money represents power. The more unequal this distribution, the worst people are.

I have a suggestion for you, go see a documentary about soviet animators called "magia russika". In this documentary we see one of the animators speaking about how much more freedom of creating he had during the communist regime that he has now. The problem is basic, he then could create almost everything he wanted as long as

Re:How much time have you got?

[Shakrai]

There is a big difference between "has the best" and "is the best". True, the US has the best hospitals, surgeons etc. But only the wealthiest 10% of the population has access to them. For everyone else, all you get is care that would horrify the typical Swiss or German.

Bullshit! I won't argue the merits of who has the better Healthcare system for "John Q. Public" but American car would "horrify" the typical Swiss or German? That's flamebaiting at best or trolling at worst. My old boss was a first generation German immigrant and she wasn't "horrified" by American healthcare.

And only the wealthiest has access to the best? Perhaps it would interest you know that my Grandmother had one of the first artificial heart valves ever made back in the 70s. Her surgery was performed by Denton Cooley one of the foremost Heart surgeons ever and the guy that helped pioneer heart transplants and artificial valves. My Grandmother was as lower middle class as anybody and she had access to him.

We have a lot of problems with our medical system (the cost of insurance comes to mind) but quality isn't one of them. I'm sorry if it "horrifies" you.

Re:How much time have you got?

[Scudsucker]

Uh huh. Methinks there are some details your haven't mentioned. Just how did your grandmother pay for this fantastically expensive operation? How likely is Cheapass HMO, Inc to send patients to a top surgeon? How about one of the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance?

Re:How much time have you got?

[Shakrai]

Uh huh. Methinks there are some details your haven't mentioned. Just how did your grandmother pay for this fantastically expensive operation? How likely is Cheapass HMO, Inc to send patients to a top surgeon? How about one of the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance?

Seeing as how it was in the 70s and before I was even born I would not care to venture a guess as to how it was handled money wise. I was responding to the GPs comment of you have to be in the top 10% to have access to the best medical care in the United States. Clearly that isn't the case.

And cheapass HMOs only hold people down because they allow themselves to be brow-beaten. I know what my rights are and I won't be intimidated by an insurance company. Furthermore, in the absolute worst case scenario, you still get access to the best health care that money can buy and it drives you into bankruptcy. A friend of mine was driven into Chapter 7 by an emergency Appendectomy. She was unemployed and had no insurance. She still received the best medical care that anybody could ask for.

I'm not advocating Chapter 7 as a solution to the costs of medical care but the image of large numbers of people being turned away for treatment is a myth. And the GPs comment about "a Swiss or German would be horrified" was just plain insulting.

Re:How much time have you got?

[Anonymous Coward]

My old boss was a first generation German immigrant

Let's see... "old". That's one.
"Immigrant". That's two. She's not a poor huddled mass. Those don't get in anymore.
"Boss". That's three.

This is what you were pitched:

only the wealthiest 10% of the population has access

You hit back with information from another party that is obsolete, second-hand, or both, and put the source of the information in the top tiers of wealth by virtue of being both management and (depending on how "old" (age-wise) your old (former) boss also is) having had some time not being burdened with obligations to a young family and student debt.

You're out.

Oh:

quality isn't one of them

So malpractice lawsuits don't correlate with actual quality? Is that what you're saying?

Here's a legal perspective in an article from the Cornell Law Review (pdf) THE POOR STATE OF HEALTH CARE QUALITY IN THE U.S.: IS MALPRACTICE LIABILITY PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION? and here is a strong correlation between attended medical school (as a proxy for quality of education) and experience of malpractice suits (as a proxy for quality of care) Medical school attended as a predictor of medical malpractice claims in the British Medical Journal. You will note that the second article was written by Americans about health care in the USA.

I'm sorry that you are facing disillusionment with the great healthcare that you believe you have access to, and that people in the profession likely would not agree with you. However, "La la la I can't hear you! I hear anecdotes and believe in capitalism!" is not a reasoned response.

Re:How much time have you got?

[Shakrai]

Let's see... "old". That's one.

My old boss as in my old boss whom I no longer work for, not my old as in half-blind slow driving old. She was in her 40s and immigrated here in the early 90s so I think her experience is still somewhat relevant.

"Immigrant". That's two. She's not a poor huddled mass. Those don't get in anymore.

Sure they do. How many Mexicans (legal and not) are living in the US right now? The ones that break the law even get amnesty every two decades or so. Do you know anything about the US?

"Boss". That's three.

Yeah because the "boss" of a seven employee small business is really in the top 10% with access to the "good" health care according to the GP. Give it up, I think she probably made less money then I did. Small business owners pay themselves last after the employees, the overhead, the contractors, blah, blah, blah.

I'm sorry that you are facing disillusionment with the great health care that you believe you have access to, and that people in the profession likely would not agree with you. However, "La la la I can't hear you! I hear anecdotes and believe in capitalism!" is not a reasoned response.

Neither is an attack on my post that ignores all of my main posts by an AC. I didn't set out to defend the entire American health care system. I set out to refute the point by the GP that only the richest 10% of Americans have access to the best Doctors. As an added bonus I also refuted his point that Germans would be "horrified" by our medical system. I think I was successful at both.

Slightly OT...

[evilviper]

I've seen the ads for cable telephone, and telephone TV, gotten the calls from aggressive telemarketers, etc. I've just got one question...

Why do they think people are going to switch from their existing service, to an equal-priced, equal featured service, provided by a different company?

If either wants customers, they're going to have to start competing on features (not the trivial crap they're touting now) or price. They seem to want to do neither, and hope they can just magically turn a profit.

My desire to put an AP on the top of a nearby mountain, and charge $20/mo for IPTV, VoIP, and high-speed internet access is overwhelming...

And lower reliability.

[dpbsmith]

We had a power outage at work a couple of months ago. It lasted about four hours, and affected a radius of several miles.

Our spiffy new VOIP telephones went dead about three minutes into the outage.

The fifteen-year-old whaddayacallems (once one would have said PBX), which they haven't gotten around to removing yet, lasted about an hour.

My cell phone had dial tone for about two hours. (I expected better than that, actually. I was quite disappointed. My phone showed four bars of battery life, but no signal at all. Nobody else's cell phone worked, either).

A couple of plain old direct lines, used with fax machines, lasted all the way through the outage.

I have to wonder what's going on. There can't be any rocket science about backup batteries, and when I was a kid I remember that the phones kept working all the way through a two day power outage. It must be that the vibrant, dynamic, competitive power of the free market unleased from the shackles of government results in organizations that are too cheap and cheesy to install backup power for their gear.

Re:And lower reliability.

[The Cisco Kid]

The reason 'old' phone lines can stay up is they have *huge* banks of batteries at the central offices, *and* diesel generators, and they only need power in one place.

Cable, cell, digital phone, all the 'new' stuff, needs power at all sorts of remote nodes/huts. They simply cant put sufficient batteries or generators in place to keep them all up.

As far as the main story, the telco and the cableco are both used to being monopolies in their areas. If they were to compete fairly, that might be good. But monopolies arent used to competing fairly. Unfortunately, since between them they hold a stranglehold on the rights-of-way and existing wired infrastructure (BOTH heavily subsidized by government-granted exclusive franchises over dozens and dozens of years), unless some *major* breakthru in range, bandwidth, and reliability of wireless tech happens, there isnt much hope on the horizon.

Re:And lower reliability.

[petermgreen]

right because standard analog lines only need power at the exchange end which is well backed up (i suspect the reason its well backed up is that phones are the primary means of getting emergency assistance but i dunno for sure)

your company could if they wanted buy similar backups for thier internal systems, obviously they decided that it wasn't worth the price (i'm not sure how keeping the phones up is that usefull in a modern office if you don't keep the computers up as well and keeping computers up during a power cut requires quite a bit of capacity)

there isn't any rocket science to battery backup, its just a matter of cost/benifit.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[sessamoid]

In Texas, if he repeatedly trespasses when asked to leave with no proof that he had any right to be there, we'd just shoot him. And we'd be within our rights, too. The guy was a burglar until proven otherwise.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Assmasher]

That's a bit drastic don't you think? In California if my car is in front of yours and a car stops in front of both of us and you can't see it, but I swerve aside at the last minute and you crash and die, I haven't done anything illegal either. But it's still morally reprehensible. Just like shooting somebody without a reasonable cause even when it is legal.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[sessamoid]

Well, IANAL, but here's how Texans would look at it. Keep in mind I live in California now, but I grew up in Texas. There's definitely a difference in culture. A stranger who refused to identify himself or present any sort of documentation that he any right on my property is found loitering outside my house examining various parts of the house. When asked to leave, he pretends to leave, then comes back and starts "casing" my house again. When asked to identify himself, he refuses to do so, then pretends to leave again. A short while later he is found outside my house AGAIN, looking at accesses, windows, lines of sight.

A more cautious approach would be to call the police, but this man could probably be viewed as a burglar at the least and potential violent criminal. Would you feel comfortable in the safety of your family and children after incidents like these? I doubt there are many juries in Texas that would prosecute you for at least firing a warning shot, and you'd probably get away with shooting the SOB after repeated warnings to leave the property.

What does your weird example have to do with this case?

Why do the mod point gods punish me so?

[Majik Sheff]

Parent is +10 Insightful

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Assmasher]

The 'weird example' is to point out to you that just because you can be legally justified in doing something doesn't make it 'right.'

Potentially taking someone's life is a very serious act. Say he was casing my house. If I suspected that, I'd be all for beating his a**, but shooting him? Why? That's cowardly.

Similar but different....

[THESuperShawn]

I had whole-house audio and video running through my house partially using the pre-existing cable wires and my own satellite system. While they came in through the cable companies box (the customer access side), they were MY wires and cabling. I should also note that I was still using the cable company for internet.

Well, this was dot-com and a telco put a pop basically in my front yard. I was able to get a full T1 for an extremely low price. Once it was installed, I had the cable modem turned off. However, the cable company did not simply "shut-off" my cable modem. They came to my house, opened the CUSTOMER ACCESS side of my box, and clipped all the wires. NOT just the cable wire coming in from the street box, EVERY wire (including non-coax wires)in the customer access portion of the box. I had to re-punch and cap every wire to get my system up and running.

The cable company could care less when I told them. They said all field work was done by contractors and they were not responsible- nor would they give me the name of the contractor or contracting company.

It was more of an inconvenience than anything else, but I was pretty mad about it. The contractor either had no idea what he/she was doing or knew exactly what he was doing and thought it would be funny.

Re:Similar but different....

[unitron]

Don't you have a state utilities commission where you live? That's who you need to complain to 'cause they've got the clout to deal with it.

Carrier Sabotage

[Jinjuku]

Heck, that was happenning in 97' when I worked in the Columbus, Ohio TWC/AT&T market. Ooops, the newly laid fiber just got bored through as we were pulling cable. TWC Columbus had a Cisco guy on staff for ~2 years that did nothing phone switch wise becuase AT&T constantly had TWC tied up in court. This while there were busy rolling out tv services in parallel build out.

In fact I've heard this just recently

[Tokerat]

I know a person who used to work in a ComCast call center, and Verizon used to routinely cause outages while installing their new fiber-to-the-home systems. If it was on purpose or not, the world may never know, but they're certainly butting heads. I just can't wait for 50Mb/sec downstream for $40 a month. Goodbye cable!

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[solitas]

Yeah well, granted, 'three-strikes'_is_appropriate for a great deal of situations; but, no matter what size you may be, "leave" means "leave", period. If it's on my property it most certainly does not mean "leave after I've caught you three times".

A suspicious eye *is* a good idea

[Infonaut]

The big companies are partially to blame - no big company deals with change very well - but the government isn't your friend either.

That's a clever bit of obfuscation. Baby Bells have been fighting PUCs for a long time because they want national regulation of telecom. They've been very effective in telling the FCC what to do. State and local regulators are less willing to let the ILECs do whatever they want because they are often stuck with crappy service and few options.

As for PUCs trying to regulate IP/voice, the PUCs are only trying to undo what the FCC has done. By ruling that broadband is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service" they have stripped away Baby Bell and cable company Title II requirements that used to force them to open their excess capacity for leasing by new entrants. As a result, the incumbents have been able to very effectively shut out competition.

Starting with Kennard, the FCC bought the Big Lie hook, line and sinker. Blaming the puny little PUCs for this is a clever way of making it look like those damned regulators have made a mess of an otherwise wonderfully competitive environment, but that's flat out wrong. Most Americans have one or two broadband providers to choose from - that's it. If you're in a rural area, you're even more screwed. If we had true competition, the incumbents would not have been given such tremendous power to keep out new entrants.

Broadband Reality Check II

Unfortunately...

[Majik Sheff]

In America if you beat his ass he'd sue yours and likely win. Because of the particular nastiness of litigation lawyers and the idiocy of judges it is in your best interest to shoot to kill. I don't mean just shoot him until he stops moving, I mean in the head, one shot.

If you wound him and then finish him off the lawyers get ugly again.

answer

[zogger]

I guess because I am on a small mom and pop ISP that uses wimax??? If it helps they use canopy gear. All I know is bell south-broadband=unobtanium where I live, 3+ miles from nearest switchbox, too far for xDSL, comcast (local cable ) HAHAHAHAHA!That falls into the "in your dreams" state. These guys? Saw it was available, little flyer at local whitebox shop, called them up, they come over in a coupla days, set it up, works fine. Got to dump the landline and the dialup account, now have better service for less money. Now whether or not it is sustainable biz-wise for a long time for them, I don't know, but they have been in both the local dialup and and then wifi biz for awhile now, then on to wimax, and they like this the best (what they told me anyway). I'm several hills from theirt tower, plus down ina little dip of a valley, but I still get-according to them-a 90% signal. It's certainly good enough now that I can download and tryout linux distros, and I have gotten a few free to copy and view videos so far as well ( I don't pirate anything). I called the satellite guys, they wanted a LOT more downpayment, and they only offered windows service, no linux connections at all, wouldn't even consider it, and their monthly fee was 30 bucks a month higher to boot. So I went with these guys. I have been on the web since 95 and this is my first broadband, so of course I am medium thrilled with it.

All I can offer is keep plugging away at it and keep checking around and see how maybe you can pull it off for your potential customers, it is the shitznitz.

Re:answer

[The Cisco Kid]

1. Canopy isnt WiMax.

1b. Consider that your ISP may have a 'mom and pop' look and feel, but may really be financed or operated by a larger company.

2. You dont ask for a 'linux' connection. You ask for a broadband connection, delivered via ethernet/DHCP. What OS you might use is irellevant.

Re:answer

[squiggleslash]

Have you posted anywhere about your experiences with WiMax? It's an interesting technology, it's only just being rolled out, and it'd be interesting to see a full review from an actual, live, WiMax user rather than the "Theoretically it's great!" stuff that gets posted all the time.

Re:answer

[zogger]

Not really, and I don't know all that much about it. According to one trollish response I got, it isn't even wimax, it's something else, but I went and looked and it is "near wimax" or something. wimax itself is still undergoing standards agreements and whatnot, although pre wimax stuff is out there now, like what I have. Not much to it, you have a small yagi antenna that has to be aimed well (at least in my case being near the edge of the range), and a dongle, then a normal ethernet plug. that's it. Automagical after that point. I kept my landline and dialup connection for a couple months just to see if it worked out OK, it did, so I was able to drop that expense then.

Re:answer

[squiggleslash]

Yeah, I just took a look at the Wikipedia page, and it looks like Canopy is an overlapping, proprietary, technology, exclusively fixed wireless, rather than WiMAX based. Which is fine, as long as it does the job I don't think many people are going to care much about the differences. If it was mobile wireless (in competition with 802.11e) then I think it'd matter a little more that it's proprietary.

It doesn't look that expensive either, although Motorola's site, while big on details about consumer equipment (it's $200 per consumer for that side, at least for the low-end version), doesn't go into details about the ISP's share of the costs.

A few months ago, I was bothered that it looked like broadband was going to be controlled by a duopoly of the cable and phone companies. With AT&T taking over BellSouth (the latter of whom are ok, but they have their stupid "No servers" rules and threw me out of their website once when I was trying to order DSL because I picked "Linux" (no really, I was redirected to a dead-end page saying it wasn't a supported system, and there was no way to go back and chose a different one; but AT&T really do seem like power-crazed nutcases from everything I've read. They and Verizon were what started this whole network neutrality scare), and the cable companies being both incompetent and powercrazed, this didn't seem a good thing.

But I've noticed things are changing majorly on the wireless front. UMTS and EVDO may not be much right now, but UMTS is going over to a WiMAX-like air interface in the next three or four years (HSOPA, that is, OFDM, possibly with MIMO), and I suspect most CDMA2000 networks will be complemented with WiMAX or UMTS in the same period of time. While things have dragged in the US, this switch of technologies should be much faster because this iteration of UMTS doesn't need huge amounts of additional spectrum to work. (Which has been the problem with W-CDMA based UMTS.)

The upshot is that mobile Internet speeds will start to approach 100Mbps by 2010, with latencies in the 5-20ms range. At which point, even shared access is going to be a decent alternative to DSL or Cable, and we might start seeing something resembling good competition. Prices for UMTS and WiMAX equipment should also drop like stones as everyone and their brother can make use of the coming spectrum glut to implement these things.

Meanwhile, you have your Canopy-based (and fixed-wireless WiMAX) WISPs that are making serious headway.

This might even work...

Re:answer

[zogger]

They told me at the store where I ordered it that their biggest problem and expense and headache was renting space on the towers. They sad the cell phone guys who own the towers hated to give up the space and just stalled/delayed/obstructed for a long time, as can be expected as it is a threat totheir business in general terms. As to their inhouse equipment expense, I don't know, never tried to find out. I pay 5 bucks a month for the stuff at my house though.

I looked into getting either a verizon cellphone based data account or t-mobile, both were unacceptzble due to cost and availability. The verizon guys were the worst, they didn't even know verizon had such a thing! I kid thee not, I had to tell them that their company could do internet connections/data. T-mobile just doesn't offer their data plan around here.

Re:answer

[squiggleslash]

They told me at the store where I ordered it that their biggest problem and expense and headache was renting space on the towers. They sad the cell phone guys who own the towers hated to give up the space and just stalled/delayed/obstructed for a long time, as can be expected as it is a threat totheir business in general terms.

I can believe that. It takes quite a bit of time and money to actually get a tower erected in the first place which means once such a thing is approved, very few operators are going to be happy about providing them to "competitors" and a mom-and-pop operation is going to have great difficulty erecting their own.

Personally, I think this is where the FCC needs to step in in the same way as it has over Wifi and satellite antennas. Every tower that goes up gets opposed by a bunch of residents groups. There should be some way to bypass that as long as the towers furfill some basic criteria. And, obviously, the people who own them should be required to, within reason, make them open and available to all-comers.

I looked into getting either a verizon cellphone based data account or t-mobile, both were unacceptzble due to cost and availability. The verizon guys were the worst, they didn't even know verizon had such a thing! I kid thee not, I had to tell them that their company could do internet connections/data. T-mobile just doesn't offer their data plan around here.

And then you get the latency with either... Don't get me wrong, I don't think now's the time to go with mobile data. I just think that in a few years, the problems will be sorted out, and high speed, low latency, data will be widely available wirelessly.

scale and practicality

[zogger]

For what it is good for inside the US it seems to be fine. We have huge geographical areas outside the the top 200 urbanareas with zero broadband besides this sort of tech, or much more expensive satellite. The cable Tv guys ignored these areas for years, now satellite dishes are very common. If the potential subscriber base was high enough, you could most likely get some sort of broadband wired connection. if it isn't, and isn't likely to be, then I don't see this saturation problem happening, because if it did, there would then exist the incentive to *go* to the wired solution.

Either way, I am enjoying it, same as I enjoy having some solar PV bought and paid off, despite any number of people over the years telling me it doesn't work or it's too expensive or something. Works fine for me and I own it outright (ya, I skipped the bigscreen TV and some doo dads with zero ROI and never any "energy payback" in order to get it) and always have some power immediately available even when the grid supplied fails. I don't care if it doesn't scale for 50 bucks for someones backyard aluminum smelter, for my purposes it got affordable enough years ago. Same with this wimax stuff. Same with buying just *computers* years ago, sheesh, they were expensive..;but worth it. They didn't scale like they do now..but it sure helped having a lot of earlier adopters, for the industry in general, didn't it? I bet you are like me and dropped some serious coin on what we think of as quaint junk now, right? Same deal. Why did we do that? Because we knew computers were cool, we wanted it, and we knew it would just get better the more people bought into the whole personal computer thing? Am I right?

  I have a very simple philosophy with economics - support what you want to see better/cheaper/faster in the future by buying in today.

I like doing and taking advantage of the tech I need, as soon as I can and it's there in some form, when I saw this wimax offered I took it, it isn't theoretical for me and if none of the other sort of net providers want to even try-well, to hell with them!

Heh, if it was only just the two in the crossfire.

[mrcpu]

9 or so years ago I got a call early on a Saturday morning from tech support saying that all of our modem lines had stopped picking up, and were just ringing through with no answer.

CHecked modem banks, everything seemed ok. Called the phone company (of course, trying to get through to a tech on a Saturday was entertaining, but with a few hundred modems down, we eventually got through.

Turned out somebody ripped and cut out 900 pair of cable going to our location *In the Central office*. Not outside in a duct, or in the street, but actually in the CO. Took 'em all day to fix it, then a whole lot of lip-diddling w/o any real results as to who the guilty party was.

They're all weasels.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[The Cisco Kid]

Idiot. You ever hear of 'Miss Dig'. Someone wants to dig, they call, and every company that has buried cables/pipes whatever within a certain radius has to come out and mark them, so they dont get cut. All this poor guy knew is that he was supposed to mark some cables, and you were giving him a hard time. He probably was from the telephone co, and the cable co probably *did* have a call in to Miss Dig. He probably figured since you were being such a jackass that you didnt want service from them (the telco) anymore and just didnt want to admit it that you had ordered something from cable (wether that was true or not).

Just think, when your Internet or whatever is out and you hear it is a 'fiber cut' just figure some asshole didnt let the guy come mark the fiber.

How about forcing companies to do it right??

[Anonymous Coward]

How about going back to the original point of the libertarian sub-thread. Assuming "the market will create instant, permanent goodness" is as nice a fiction as "the state will wither away ..." (yes, a deliberate troll).

If you want a good example of what excess competition brings, go back and look at those old pictures of the phone situation in NYC circa 1888, the same year as the famous blizzard. Wall Street types had multiple phones on their desk and every telephone pole had what looks like at least a dozen lines, BECAUSE in order to call certain people, they had to have phones from that company (no interconnects). This didn't make any long-term sense, so regulated telecos were the result.

At the same time, having a single local or national teleco or cableco monopoly is not necessarily a very good practice either (watch the old movie "The President's Analyst" if you want a clue as to just how much Ma Bell was disliked, at least by some).

Both situations cause issues; too aggressive competition leads to lots of problems like having too many phone networks, or having multiple wires into the house doing virtually the same thing (e.g., providing voice, data, and media connectivity) - and then having contractors trying to gain points for their particular teleco or cableco sponsor, resulting in aggrevation to you the consumer as the original article discusses. OTOH too much monopoly (or even a duopoly between the telecos and cable) will lead to higher prices and too little competitive pressure (I don't know about you, but BOTH my phone and cable bills are higher than they used to be - so much for "choice").

Of even more importance to me is the problem caused by integrated control, especially when in an evolving situation. Why the **hell** should I have to have either the cable or the phone company fight over putting in multiple lines? Why can't I have one fiber feed to a box in the area, and either of them can be hooked up logically as a content/service provider; why do I frackin' have to put up with paying TWO DIFFERENT companies for what will eventually be the same thing? (think I am wrong? what happens long-term when we all want 100GB ethernet to the home? two fiber runs?? one for the telcos, one for the cablecos?? Three? More??? Go ahead - bet me this won't happen.)

So to me there is no issue with competition moderated by the state. Some appear to think this is market interferrence, but I think markets are inherently imperfect - and thus need some guidance. Doesn't mean I want to eliminate them - just that there are times when they need to be managed by a third party / a "referree" of sorts (some markets more than others). I don't see anyone arguing with this for the NFL, so why can't I have someone referee my communications competitors? (Does it have to be the government? That's a different discussion than the "no regulation at all" discussion.)

Go ahead / flame me if you want. But ask yourself why you are still paying for "touch tone" phone service as a "feature" every month if you have a hard line phone? (Me, I've been paying the "touch tone tax" since 1972; just hate it, but do I have a choice?). This is not problem of regulation, but a failure of the regulators to prevent phone companies from charging me for something that is now "free" to them. I expect the orignal justification for putting this into the rate base was to help offset the extra cost of adding computerized service - but that was soooo long ago now that there is no justification for it any longer, at least to me / and what is the "marginal cost" to the phone comany for providing touch-tone versus pulse-dialing capability?

When I look at cable and phone service today, I see cable companies charging me extra for "digital service" - which they need to enable "pay-for-view" (e.g., benefits to them, not me); I see a high charge on my phone bill for "visual call waiting" - not because it is expensive to deliver, but because it is a non-regulated charge that the phone company

what a jerk

[zogger]

802.16 whatever, licensed freq-close enough for discussion purposes as far as I care-watch, I'll do it again "wimax"

      yes they are, talked to them

satellite- too late now and still way more expensive. Sat guys wanted beaucoup hundreds of dollars downpayment for install than like 80 bucks a month-no thanks. If I lived out in east moose droppings alaska and that's all I could get, sure, I would muddle through a sat connection. As it i8s, this is what I got. They insist on a windows connection, the tech install guy does it inside your house-I called them up and asked them, they won't even come out without it and I don't run windows. Go argue with them, that's what they told me after several emails back and forth plus talking to their local installer.

If that ain't good enough for ya'all, well...tough fuckin' shit. Damn if I am arguing about it. You want to sell me a wired broadband connection, is that the business you are in or something?-what are your terms and offerings? Oh, you don't have any? Somehow it's wrong that I finally can get broadband or something? What the hell is you guys big problem anyway? Don't answer, I honestly don't give a fuck with you trolls now, I was talking up what I saw as neat tech that worked, ya'all ranking me for it-go to hell man, you and the other trolls, go to *fucken hell*

Re:what a jerk

[The Cisco Kid]

"Canopy" is NOT WiMax, or Wifi, or anything remotely similar. It is an entirely different technology. And neither Canopy, nor WiMax, are cheap. Both require extensive 'head end' hardware investments to even *begin* to offer service in just a small limited area, and the CPE isnt cheap either.

If you want to remain ignorant, feel free to do so. Just recognize that your arguments will be false, and therefore ignored, by anyone that chooses not to.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Spazmania]

Unless you have a right-of-way on your property, he doesn't have a legal right to be there unless you invite him, miss-utility or not. Any right-of-way on your property will show up in the survey that was done when you bought the house.

Had to laugh

[cascadingstylesheet]

>Comcast's TV techs kept disconnecting her because their records
>didn't show her as a TV customer, their internet service techs
>kept reconnecting her. Eventually they attempted to prosecute her
>for theft of cable TV service.

Had to laugh ... we got this to a lesser degree when we had just Comcast internet but not TV.

A tech knocked on the door, "want to subscribe to TV"? My wife says no thanks. Little while later, he comes back, knocks on the door, "want to subscribe to TV"? Um, still no, WTH? He admitted he threw some kind of TV filter on the line; they were sure that we were stealing TV, and so would be all ready to sign up on the spot if they cut us off.

Not long after they just jacked up the Internet price to just $10 less than internet+TV - now surely we would want TV for $10, right? So we dropped them altogether and got DSL ...

I've seen such sabotage personally

[elrous0]

I have Bellsouth DSL and phone at home. A few months back, I got rid of their unlimited long-distance calling plan, since I wasn't using it enough to justify the expense. No doubt they thought I had switched to Skype or some other online phone provider (since I was keeping my 3mbps DSL). That very same day, my internet speeds dropped suddenly from 3mbps to 1.5mbps. They were probably thinking I wouldn't notice, and would blame Skype for the low sound quality.

I called them complaining, and about 30 minutes later I had a Bellsouth technician explain they had just made a "mistake" as he restored me to 3mbps.

The only "mistake" they made was thinking I wouldn't notice.

-Eric

Re:I've seen such sabotage personally

[Shakrai]

It's pretty cynical to assume that they did that because they thought you switched to VoIP.

I'm not defending them by any means but in my experience most issues like yours are caused by lazy people in the business office or just plain bureaucracy. The biggest issue when dealing with a Baby Bell is dealing with the bureaucracy. Find the right person to talk to and you'll be fine. Find the person that's been there for 35 years, is two months away from retirement and hates her job and your screwed.

Incidentally if they wanted to screw with your VoIP service I don't think dropping it to 1.5mbits would do it. How much bandwidth do you think VoIP needs? If I wanted to screw with VoIP I'd start randomly dropping packets.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[ivan256]

If there are utility cables running across your yard, they almost certainly have a right-of-way. If there were cables there for him to mark, well...

Most people don't have a survey done before they buy a house.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Spazmania]

Most people don't have a survey done before they buy a house.

You're on crack! Its very hard to get a mortgage or title insurance without having a survey done. The lender wants to know exactly what he's buying. That survey includes a visit to the courthouse so that they can locate any properly filed right-of-ways that the structures on the property might encroach.

If there are utility cables running across your yard, they almost certainly have a right-of-way.

Not necessarily. Phone and cable companies are notoriously sloppy about acquiring the proper rights-of-way and its exceedingly rare to find an underground cabling right-of-way in someone's back yard -- they're usually beside or under the street: in the front yard.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[ivan256]

You're on crack! Its very hard to get a mortgage or title insurance without having a survey done.

You're just plain wrong. You don't need to have a survey done to do a title search. The results of a title search aren't necessarily available to the buyer if the search is done by the financial institution or the title insurance company. This is generally because, in order to save money, the company doing the search doesn't actually produce a comprehensive report like you would get from a survey. The only thing they would report is a list of things that would make the property unattractive to the lender. Rights of way would not qualify in most circumstances. Rights of way granted above the municipal level might not be listed on the deed anyway, and thus wouldn't turn up in a survey.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Spazmania]

Perhaps you could offer an example of an underground cabling right-of-way granted above the municipal level? Something that, how do I put this, actually exists?

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[ivan256]

Rights of way can be granted through both state and federal eminent domain law. They can also occur when a right of way is granted legislatively for public lands that are then sold for private use, or when state or federal highway rights-of-way are used for buried cable.

Search google for "telephone right-of-way condemnation". Add 'state' or 'federal' on the end.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Spazmania]

Spiffy, but I believe the challenge was: offer one example of a governmental entitity above the municipal level granting a right-of-way for undergroud cabling through private property, especially one which would not result in a record of the right-of-way at the municipal level.

At any rate, condemnation for the purpose of creating a right of way involves a process which includes compensating the property owner and (surprise!) filing the change to the property where the property records are kept. In other words, it shows up in the survey in the form of an easement (which is the word I should have been using instead of right-of-way.)

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[Assmasher]

You obviously have a difficult time reading. This 'poor guy' claim to have a work order, requested by me, from my cable company, because *we* reported to the cable company that *we* were planning on doing some digging. As stated above, he confirmed the name and address on the request for work and the 'requestor.' Now I didn't get to see it, but that's what the 'poor guy' stated. You really seem to come off as the idiot here... LOL.

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[The Cisco Kid]

Its pretty much a given that public utilities have a 'right of way' or 'easement' through either the front, back, or both, of a certain portion of your private property. Usually the front 10' from the street.

This is even if you *dont* desire service from them.

Not the free market!

[SonicSpike]

Suprise suprise - cable and telcos do NOT operate in the free market! They are almost always local government granted monopolies. In fact the free market does a very good job of regulating itself and most monopolies that exist in the free market are short lived. This sort of nonsense is a result of the free market, it's the result of an UNFREE market!

Re:A weird thing happened at my house the other da

[ivan256]

Spiffy, but I believe the challenge was: offer one example of a governmental entitity above the municipal level granting a right-of-way for undergroud cabling through private property, especially one which would not result in a record of the right-of-way at the municipal level.

I gave you three example of ways it could happen. The assertion is that if laws exist to allow such a case, they have most likely been used in the past. We wouldn't have telephone infrastructure in this country if they hadn't. If you want a specific example, hire a paralegal. I don't have time for that.

At any rate, condemnation for the purpose of creating a right of way involves a process which includes compensating the property owner

Not necessarily. Though unlikely, fair compensation could be found to be $0 if there was no provable net loss of property value. Also, if compensation was paid to a prior owner the current owner would have no recollection of the event.

filing the change to the property where the property records are kept

Now it's clear you have very little experience with this stuff. Let me put it to you this way. The word 'kept' has a very different meaning when it comes to local government kept property records than it does in the real world. If it didn't, you wouldn't have to have a title search done. You could just go get a copy of all the records. What do you think they research when you pay for a title search? And you're still insisting that there was a survey done. There almost never is...

Keep being condescending though. It'll make you more right.

100G/month is shit!

[ClioCJS]

I wouldn't pay $10/month for something that limited! Fuck that!

you didn't take him to small claims court

[ClioCJS]

The fact that you didn't take him to small claims court for doing so (or at least file a complaint with the state contractor board) makes you complicit in his crime, and actually encourages him to continue to do so. Thanks for looking out for the rest of us. Laziness = complicity.

Re:you didn't take him to small claims court

[THESuperShawn]

Um, you need proof. And I didn't have my black helicopters over my cable box that day.

laziness == wasting everyones time and tax dollars suing everyone who gives you bad service.

huh?

[ClioCJS]

No, actually, suing someone who deliberately cuts wires to your utilities is a GOOD thing becuase it makes it so that this person has financial incentive to not do that to future customers. This is not "bad sevice", it is negligence. Bad service is not having extra napkins with my meal. Negligence is throwing my meal in my lap and damaging my pants. If the contractor messed up a box, and ANOTHER one had to come to fix it, it could cost several hundred dollars. It is certainly worth the $55 or so it takes to file a Warrant In Debt against the contractor to pay for fixing his mess. Make no mistake that were the situation in reverse, you would be sued. You're doing nobody a service here. Courts get paid for their time, as do lawyers. Suing someone does not take away from someone else (except who you're suing :)). Small claims court cases do not take away from criminal prosecutions. They are separate courts. In short, your whole post stinks.