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Comcast Launches Superfast Internet To Fight FiOS

Posted by timothy on from the market-laws-are-like-physical-laws dept.

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."

6 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you can hit your level cap even faster?

    1. Re:Yeah, right... by bigkahunah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. One step further by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. While giving other markets the shaft by sa666_666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Of course... by AngryDeuce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  5. Re:Fastest to the finish line by ewieling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.