Comcast Launches Superfast Internet To Fight FiOS

jfruh writes "Comcast customers who dream of superfast download speeds drooled when they heard the company would be offering 305 Mbps service. There's only one catch: the high speeds are only available in markets where the cable giant is going head-to-head with Verizon's FiOS service. It seems that competition really does improve service quality when it comes to ISPs."

Comments

Yeah, right...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can hit your level cap even faster?

Re:Yeah, right...

[Catbeller]

Subject to their terms of service - and whims. And they will reinstate the caps after the suckers sign on for a few years. Come on, we've seen this so many times now, we know how the heroin trade works. First shot is free, then the price goes up forever after they are the only game(s) in town.

Re:Yeah, right...

[bigkahunah]

Write off's only save you whatever you would have paid in taxes on that money. You've still spent the money. It's not like write off's magically pay for themselves. Given the fact that business lines are significantly more expensive and the fact that you can write off a consumer line there's not really a point.

And my car gets 60 MPG going downhill

[sacdelta]

So you get 305 Mbps during the 15 minutes out of the day when they aren't throttling. What is it the rest of the time? Speeds should have to be reported as average access speed not peak potential.

Re:And my car gets 60 MPG going downhill

[Desler]

Not that I like Comcast but how exactly do you expect Comcast to do that when the average speed is highly dependent on the ever changing network utilization? The only thing they can really guarantee is peak rate and the bare minimum.

Re:And my car gets 60 MPG going downhill

[Catbeller]

Or you can spend money on water pipes instead of football stadiums or CEO stock options and pay. There is no "shortage" of power, water, or internet capacity. There is simply an incentive not to build or maintain infrastructure, because when scarcity occurs, you can raise prices. Scare = expensive. Come on Enron was ten years ago, you all still remember. They throttled power and raised prices to make lots and lots and LOTS of money. It was a scam. There was enough power.

And in rare cases, such as a small town in the middle of nowhere, or an area in a drought, there really isn't enough water. Too many people, unsustainable landscape. Those people should move. Canada is full of water. The world's population lives next to free water. Go where the water is. Droughts will increase in severity, and we aren't going to see the end of those.

But internet? The cost of the "pipes" and "water" is tiny, and shrinking constantly. There is no incentive to build past an optimum scarcity/profit intersection. They want to raise prices. And we, being free market fundamentalists, believe their lies. Hell, THEY believe their own lies.

Re:And my car gets 60 MPG going downhill

[brainzach]

Comcast average connection speeds are faster than their advertised rates.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/get-this-some-isps-provide-faster-download-speeds-than-they-promise/

One step further

[Sarten-X]

Competition not only improves quality, but it's the only reason this is being deployed at all. Providers' repeated claims that they should be allowed to merge because they'd innovate anyway is now demonstrated yet again to be utter bullshit.

Re:One step further

[Kjella]

As long as they actually compete in the same space, delivering to the same customers. If you just slice up a big monopoly you only get a bunch of mini-monopolies, it really doesn't make much of a difference. My impression is that with exclusivity agreements most people in the US live in some form of mini-monopoly or mini-duopoly even if they're with a small ISP..

While giving other markets the shaft

[sa666_666]

Of course this is only available where it absolutely needs to be; where they're being hammered from competition. Meanwhile, other markets are left to be price-gouged as long as possible. This only proves that they have the ability to upgrade the network, they just won't until they're dragged kicking and screaming. Of course many businesses have that attitude, but it isn't often so obviously apparent as in this case.

Of course...

[AngryDeuce]

Amazing what a little competition can do. It was never about them being unable to bring people these speeds, or it being cost prohibitive...they just don't want to spend the fucking money until they're losing more customers than they're signing up in a given quarter. I've had techs from my ISP, Charter Communications, basically tell me that my local node is way oversaturated due to this being a very densely populated area, and that the main hardware is complete crap, but that corporate isn't going to upgrade until the amount they're spending on service calls exceeds the cost of upgrading the node. You know it's fucked up when the company's own fucking techs are exasperated enough to start telling customers shit like that...

Re:Fastest to the finish line

[Anubis IV]

Viola competition.

If there's one thing this country needs to put ISPs in check, it's more viola competitions. You could probably clog the tubes with all of that music. That'll show 'em.

Re:Fastest to the finish line

[ewieling]

Because people don't want 5 different ISPs with 5 different lines going down their street. Local infrastructure for telecom, cable, water, electricity, gas, etc is a "natural monopoly". I don't care if the government or a private company owns/manages the wires in the ground, but the one company I do NOT want managing the wires in the ground is my ISP. I want a company with no incentive whatsoever to give preferential treatment to one ISP over another.