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Comcast Training Materials Leaked
WheezyJoe writes: The Verge reports on leaked training manuals from Comcast, which show how selling services is a required part of the job, even for employees doing tech support. The so-called "4S training material" explicitly states that 20 percent of a call center employee's rating for a given call is dependent on effectively selling the customer new Comcast services. "There are pages of materials on 'probing' customers to ferret out upsell opportunities, as well as on batting aside customer objections to being told they need to buy something. 'We can certainly look at other options, but you would lose which you mentioned was important to you,' the guide suggests clumsily saying to an angry customer who doesn't want to buy any more Comcast services." Images of the leaked documents are available on the Verge, making for fun reading.
... for pirating their upsell "do you want fries with that."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The grabbing hands, grab all they can...
Why is this a surprise? Or even 'newsworthy' on slashdot? This is just good business. When I go to a store, any store, they try and sell me more stuff. Ask me if I found everything I need. Have I tried this new brand of drink? When I have a meal in a restaurant they ask me if I want coffee or dessert. If you don't want it, just say no.
This is totally normal for ISPs. up-selling, attempts to retain customers at any cost. At comcast it was pressed on our call center tech support guys fairly hard but moreso on customer service reps in the billing/accounts department. at AT&T there was literally a whole department called "the save team" who got financial incentives to retain customers. if you called to cancel, you would be put on the line with the save team. they could get credit for a save if they could transfer a customer back to technical support "oh, our tech guys can fix that problem for you and your service will be fine, plus i gave you a month credit" (or something to that affect). and then the tech staff would get this transferred call about how their printer didnt work. completely unrelated, and after being bounced around and on hold, then being told "uhhh. we cant help you with that", they got right pissed and demanded to cancel again. the save team rep, already got a notch on their saved belt but the customer still quit. it was a corrupt system right to the core :)
That's just the thing, the customers have no choice. As they maneuver to buyout Time Warner, Comcast themselves state plainly, "Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area"
I recently had to get my cable TV fixed, as the cable box wasn't syncing for more than a minute after being plugged in. After about six calls the "customer account executive" finally determined that I should bring the box in and swap it. During the last of these six calls, the rep asked me if I wanted to upgrade to 105 Mbps Internet. I told him my computers are too low-end to make good use of that, and when I see speed problems, it's usually on the other side. I forget what else I had to embellish my "no thanks" with to get him to back off.
T1 call center is a dead-end job that nobody does by choice. Who cares what the performance goals are, do they fire for not up selling? yes/no
I worked tech support for Time Warner about 5 years ago. We were not 'required' to sell, but we were most certainly pushed to. We were reminded constantly, and people who did sell a lot were praised while the rest of us got the 'why aren't you more like this guy?' treatment. Our calls were randomly selected for review, and if there wasn't 'sufficient' effort put into selling, we were criticized heavily. In these reviews, it seems selling was weighted more heavily than whether we actually solved the issue properly or according to procedure, since nobody really gave you guff for failing to satisfy a customer's tech needs as long as you didn't piss them off. You would think that sending onsite techs out to jobs that could have been solved over the phone would get you in trouble. But as long as you sell, sell, sell, you got a gold freakin star. You ever wonder why you are on hold for so long? Because techs are trying to sell shit after they fix the customer's problem instead of hanging up the damn phone and taking the next call. Multiply that by 30+ calls per tech, 3 or so minutes per call, and you see what a giant waste of time that is. I left that horrible job after six months. I spoke with one of my old coworkers who lasted a little longer than I did, and he said nearly half of the 'veteran' techs left shortly after I had, some of them quite spectacularly. ID badges were thrown, "fuck this sales bullshit" was heard often. These bloody companies have dedicated sales staff, why load down techs with this shit?
And to make it worse, outside companies that enter the US market are corrupted by it.
Only so many areas that are covered by fios, and only so many houses in those areas, or good jobs in those areas.. Even then we would be dealing with Verizon which is just as bad.... I mean when you have 2 of the lowest rated it is not hard to beat them...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
What type is the blood, and how do they get the organ and speakers compact enough to install in a call center?
Does anyone have a script a customer can stick to when dealing with Comcast?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Why does capitalism reward leaches so lucratively?
I'm assuming this is a joke, because a lot of people cannot afford to just up and move because they don't like what a utility company is doing.
Hang on a minute - where does Comcast recruit from?
I used to work for Fedex tech support - we were supposed to: - Have the call answered by the second ring - Not up sell anything - Be polite and courteous at all times - Troubleshoot anything that is wrong with the computer - the job started back in the day before all software had TCP/IP, and we had to dial in, Oh and Win95 was supported. - All our calls were to be logged and notes made for helping the next guy if they ever called in again. In the same building we had AT&T WorldNet, they had to: - Not answer unless the customer was on hold for at least 1/2 and hour - Priority was given to new customers setting up - When they closed for the night - all calls were left in Que and answered in the morning, if still there. For some reason AT&T always had openings?!?
"My fellow Earthicans, we enjoy so much freedom it's almost sickening. We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we don't want to pay our taxes, why, we're free to spend a weekend with the Pain Monster." ~Richard Nixon
Thirty four characters live here.
Of course it's a joke. Because it's nowhere close to a free market - all utilities use public "rights"-of-way to make a profit. That legitimately exposes them to regulation. If a real free market is desired, then they would all have to negotiate rights-of-way with every property owner along their routes. And that includes the public (government), from which the price is regulation.
Even under a system similar to that in place (access in exchange for regulation), unless those rights-of-way are made available to all providers, there is no free market competition. There is no "free market" unless all competitors can compete in every market (location).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"It's too bad no one has launched anything into space that could beam a signal using the magic of the ether."
You're right - if gas, electric, and water could be delivered that way it would really open up competition for utilities. If you're referring to satcom, you seem to be confused, because it's even more regulated than wireline due to it being a naturally constrained, shared medium.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Someone moves to an area where Comcast is basically the only game in town for broadband, and at every step of their signing up for residential service, they have their lawyer in tow, reading and challenging everything. "Equipment rental, no, early termination fee, that's not going to work for us..."
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
It would be news for nerds if someone would be kind enough to summarize what to say to get special discounts for internet service.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Verizon stopped offering dry-line DSL about 2 years ago and forces all their customers to also pay for phone service - not because of technical implications, mind you, solely because they want it to look like people are using it, and they can do whatever the hell they want because no one is competing with them.
I'm not surprised at this, it is par for the course for many telephone support agents. I used to do telephone support for Hewlett Packard, until they let me go because I couldn't meet the sales quotas. Not because customers disliked me, not because I couldn't fix customers pc's, but because I couldn't meet a goal of $80.00-$100.00 average revenue per call. Most companies treat their support departments as a revenue drain, since the price of support is no longer built into the purchase price of the item sold in the race to reach the cheapest prices to gain market share. In the case of Comcast, it's pure profit since they overcharge on the services anyway.
you big fault was holding on to a cable box for 1+ year unused that may of dropped off of the system or that you where in area of Chicago land that still had a big analog lineup. I also think that in the past parts of the city of Chicago systems had most of the analog lineup scrambled. But the city of systems where on of the first Comcast systems to go all digital.
Comcast found a way to really rip off most of Chicago land and did some odd stuff. In some areas in the past
TCM is limited basic in some areas and in preferred in others. (not any more)
AS some systems (but not all) in the area have speed in the sports pack. out side of chiagoland land on comcast it is in Analog / digital expanded basic?
some systems had
also is sci-fi in comcast digital preferred / classic. (costs about the same as Direct tv HD DVR) to get hd dvr on comcast add $15-$20/m per box.
out side of chiagoland land on comcast it is in Analog / digital expanded basic. (back in 2007-2009)
the real killer was where they where doing the big analog to digital about half way though it they changed it so you did not get CLTV on the DTA's. But that also meant that you lost most CSN + games unless you got a full SD or better cable box at $6-$8 a TV.
At the same time WOW cable had CSN and CSN + on analog. The DTA where billed as get the same as your old analog lineup. As for why they did not give CSN + SD it's own channle was very odd as the HD one (took over the old MOJO HD for part time needs) that just shows looping help videos. useing cltv for over flow dates back to the old sports channel days.
It get odder later on as when CLTV added an HD feed RCN seemed to put in there CSN + HD slot (they also have both an CLTV SD and an CSN + SD slot).
Comcast did not add the HD feed of CLTV or spilt off CSN + to it's own channel. (other then a few events / games that have been on CN101)
also other systems that did not have CLTV even doing the time CLTV was Comcast only still had ALL CSN feeds. There was even an time where both att-uverse and directv had 3 live HD feeds of CSN CHI (there where 3 live games on at the same time) but Comcast only had 2 in HD.
more about Comcast
http://www.dslreports.com/foru...
the Chicago area was even more a odd ball as in the past the old digital pack (that had some of the old analog channels moved to digital along time ago) became preferred or classic. That was before DTA and analog and digital channels having the same number Then (in the city of systems) killed alot of the analog but did not move the channel numbers but the rest of Chicago land lost some analogs to digital where you had to pay more + about $5 per tv for the box.
And has been for decades. Every customer contact is a sales opportunity. EVERY contact.
After the dot com bust (the first one), I had bills to pay, so I ended up in a call center for the local cable company. It wasn't quite the low point of my life, but it was in the running.
The call center was brand new, and the high speed data side was briefly allowed to operate normally, but soon company politics pushed out the (technical) director, and replaced him with a MBA (and EEOC-bingo winner).
We were all trained to sell, instructed to sell on every call, and evaluated on selling. This was policy from day one, but widely ignored in my department until the MBA took over.
I earned a reputation for solving problems. Incompetent or uncaring employees would fail to fix things over and over again, pissing off customers. After months of continuing problems, they would call to yell. Usually, they'd end up getting more excuses and empty promises. Sometimes they'd get me (or one of a handful of other fixers).
I'd mute my microphone until they were done venting, then I'd figure out what the hell was wrong, and get it fixed, often with a generous service credit to appease them for the months that we'd dicked them around.
Over a few months, I solved hundreds of problems (some going back for many months or years), probably prevented at least a couple of suicides (monopoly, it was us or nothing) and maybe a mass shooting or two (yes, some of them really were that angry).
One thing I know for sure is that none of those problem calls wanted a fucking sales pitch. "Mr. Smith, now that I've fixed the problem that has prevented you from using the service that you've been paying for these last six months, and you've put your guns away, can I upsell you into a premium package?" Yeah, right. Maybe they'd be interested in an upgrade in a few months, after we'd re-established a bit of trust, but not right away.
One of my randomly selected evaluation calls happened to be one of my problem calls. The recording followed the call through our system, so it started with 20 minutes of him yelling at one of the sales girls, then her calling me in tears asking to transfer the call, then him yelling at me, then me figuring out the problem and fixing it, then him thanking me, almost in tears himself.
I had an awesome score on that call, but still failed the review because selling was mandatory. I told my supervisor that he'd better screen my review calls from then on because I had no intention of following the policy. He could either run interference for me and keep me around until one of my interviews panned out, or he could write me up for my second and third strikes as they came up.
I was gone before my next review came up, so I have no idea what he decided.
I kept in touch with some friends, and still lived in their service area. The call center went downhill from there. They switched to a voice attendant, so even the people that were happy when they dialed their phones were pissed off by the time they managed to talk to a human. I know I always was. (At first they had a backdoor, swearing three times would get you to a human quickly, but word got out and they disabled that feature.)
Moving to a non-monopoly town (three[!] fiber lines in my yard! 75 meg up/down for cheap!) was the wisest move of my internet life.
See that "Preview" button?
I've worked in the telephone tech support business for 10 years. I have performed tech support for fortune 500 companies you would instantly recognize.
towards the half-way point of my stint, upselling became a *required* part of the job, a metric on which your performance was measured.
First incentives were put in place to weed out those who didn't upsell: shift bids started being held every 90 days instead of "as the business needs dictated" with top sellers given first picks. This caused those who didn't sell to get terrible shifts, requiring many to quit due to life obligations.
Then those who failed to sell were given bad reviews, causing them to lose out on annual salary increases.
When I left poor sellers were being written up, put on notice, and eventually terminated.
Note, that positions these people were initially hired for were inbound technical support jobs with no mention of selling anything. These people would be manning the technical support lines for major corporations that you have heard of, and no one calling any of them would expect to be given any kind of sales pitch.
I used to do tech support for Cox (by way of a outsourcer) and they started doing the same thing (this was about three years ago). The reason, straight from (Cox's) own mouths, was that customers were more trusting of the tech support agents than they were the sales department.
We (on the team) were quick to point out that we would be flushing that very credibility away if we started trying to sell people stuff, and it would make it more difficult to deal with the customers in our actual jobs as tech support then (folks would be less likely to follow directions, accept explanations for issues, etc).
I would prefer the latency any day than dealing with pricks like comcast. And I think I am paying too much to cable here.
And I had a seller in FNAC telling me "you have gotta to change to the new card, you just need to bring the old card, your ID, and your bank account number..." (the current one is not linked to the account number). When I asked, what do I gain with the change? "Well, you will have a new card..." Right, dream on...
If so, please include 20% upsell in your comments in this thread.
That's true, they have little reason to care about serving the customer. All that does is help them upsell to a more expensive package, voip, etc. There's no competition , due to legally enforced franchise monopolies.
Some people correctly point out that in a perfect world, with perfectly unselfish people, and people who all have identical preferences, it would be most efficient to have only one company providing lines to each home.
That's true of course. In a perfect world, it wouldn't make sense to have two cell towers covering the same area. It would be more efficient more Verizon to build towers in one state, Cricket to build towers in another state, and Cricket to cover a third state. Of course, people are not perfectly unselfish, and people do have preferences. Because Boost Mobile doesn't have a monopoly, because other companies have towers covering the same homes, Boost has to compete on price and service. It's not perfectly efficient, but it works much better than an "efficient" monopoly like cable.
Come to think of it, it's pretty inefficient to have two grocery stores right next to each other, Whole Foods and Walmart. It would be more efficient for one store to serve the neighborhood, getting rid of the duplication. Rather than arbitrarily allow one company to run the store, we could have the government run the store in each neighborhood. Like the USSR. It sounds stupid when you replace "cable service" with "cell phone service" or "grocery service", but the facts are the same- avoiding duplication would be more efficient. It only works well if people are perfect, though; perfectly competent, perfectly unselfish, and if people don't have different preferences.
I want a strong signal on my cable modem, so it is very reliable, and fast response to problems because I rely on my cable internet. For my phone, price is more important. Your preferences may be the opposite. That's fine, I can use Boost Mobile because they're cheap and in the same place you can whichever company gives you what you want.
I can't wait until Google fiber comes to town and the cable company has to start competing on speed, price, and service.
Um, I've heard MANY complaints about FIOS in my area so YMMV!
Satellite's 10 GB/mo cap is even worse than Comcast's 300 GB/mo cap.
It seems to me that customer service should try to fix things that are broken rather than sell additional services delivered to a customer with a broken set up. Why would I want something new that requires a working system when I can't get what I'm paying for now with a broken system?
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Those rights of way ARE available to other providers, and to new providers. You want to build network and launch your own ISP? Go right ahead. You'll have to show the municipality that you have the financial resources to be viable, of course, and, if you want to offer TV service, you'll need to reach a franchise agreement (including a revenue share with the city, typically free services to schools, city hall, etc. etc., and public access channels), but you can do it. You may also need to agree to wire up the entire city, rather than just certain sections of it, but that's negotiable.
It's a terrible business model, and you're almost guaranteed to lose money, but you can do it.
Used to work for a large cable company as a repair technician. My job was threatened because my sale rate wasn't over 9%.
Lot of shady stuff happened because of this policy.
Very difficult to sell something to someone who is paying for a service that already isn't working.
No, those rights are not available to other providers, that is part of the problem. Typically the local governments grant a monopoly to one provider and keeps out all others, in exchange for some consideration from the cable operators. This is one reason why Comcast and Time Warner don't directly compete in any areas.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
"I donâ(TM)t want any of our employees to feel that pressure to go through and sellâ¦or [strong]feel[/strong] like theyâ(TM)re going to get fired," Tom Karinshak, Comcastâ(TM)s senior vice president of customer experience, tells The Verge. "Thatâ(TM)s not good for us."
We don't want our employees to "feel" like they'll be fired if they don't upsell aggressively. We want them to know it, be sure of it, fear it to the core of their beings. "Feeling" isn't sure enough. We want bone-deep certainty and visceral dread. We want our employees to completely understand that not selling in every breath and every moment of interaction with a customer is high treason, malfeasance, and heresy, and such dereliction of sacred duty will be treated with appropriate harshness.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Interesting bit of the training material I found:
"Fuck you,"-- that's my name. You know why, mister? You drove a Hyundai to get here. I drove an eighty-thousand dollar BMW. THAT'S my name. And your name is "you're wanting." You can't play in the man's game, you can't close them - go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. You hear me, assholes? ABC. A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always Be Closing. Always Be Closing!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Except in a VERY few instances (essentially, housing developments), there are no exclusive franchises or right of way agreements in the US. They're (again, with a very small number of exceptions) prohibited by law (see 47 U.S.C. 253(a)). Comcast and Time Warner cable don't compete with each other because, again, it's a terrible business model. The standalone operators (RCN being the best example) who have tried it have almost universally gone bankrupt in the process. The only ones who have done it/are doing it (i.e. Verizon with FiOS, Google with Google Fiber) are either (a) not making a return on their investment (i.e. if they were a standalone business, they'd have gone bankrupt), or (b) have been able to negotiate very attractive terms without things like citywide buildout requirements, allowing them to cherry-pick areas where the service can be profitable.
No. I have FIOS for cable and internet service with NO phone service. I have a cell phone and don't need landline. I simply called them and said that I want this and this. They asked if I wanted their triple play thingie. They had a special limited time price which would have made it cheaper. I declined. No mess, no fuss.
That is really interesting, thanks for this correction! I am inconvenienced by having to reassess my opinions, but I do not blame you for this. ;-)
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
You're very welcome! Doesn't really make things any better for the consumer (still stuck with just one cable company), but at least you know why. :)
Oh wow, it's the frothingly-insane hosts file obsessed guy! You're still around! I haven't been by /. much the last few years, but this is like seeing an old, rambling, combative, monomaniacal friend, of sorts.
What also changed with the analog switchover was that QAM signals suddenly became encrypted service wide, not just premium tiers, so they monetized all those secondary sets which would get connected over time. There was a year of "free box" but then you were paying for equipment needed to decrypt a signal YOU are already paying for.
Was talking about the DSL lines. But it's good to hear that some customers are not having issues.
It's a common mistake, made more common by the fact that at one time it was more-or-less true. Many municipalities did grant exclusive franchises (generally for 20 years) during the initial cable build-out in the 1950s and '60s, but those agreements have long ago expired. The nominal justification was that it would take companies that long to recoup their investment (the actual time to break-even was closer to 10 years, but cable companies were already earning their well-deserved reputation as liars.) It's become a major plank of the Libertaridan platform now so it gets repeated a lot, never mind that it's every bit as inaccurate as most of the rest of their talking points.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yes THEY are all retards, aren't they? Or at least, that is a major plank of the youtard platform.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Thanks for the info. So, it isn't a regulatory problem, but a matter of natural monopolies that aren't regulated?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Netflix, Hulu, and the like do not offer arrangements to take advantage of this "five hour early morning window of unmetered downloads". I can explain how they could technically do so and still appease the movie studios, but they happen not to do it.
Basically, yes. There's also the problem that the interests of the consumer and the entity which writes the franchise agreements (the city) aren't always aligned. For example, if city X said "when the franchise comes up for renewal, we'll waive the franchise fee (or eliminate the requirement that you show city council meetings, etc. etc.) if you cut prices by the same amount," most cable companies would go for it (would effectively lower their price, helping volume, without taking any net cash out of the cable company's pocket). Oddly enough, cities aren't inclined to do that.
There are also equality issues involved. Take Baltimore, for example. Verizon wanted to only build FiOS in certain areas (wealthier areas, where they can expect higher take rates, and better returns) - Baltimore said "no, you have to cover the whole city," Verizon said "well, then, we're not going to do it at all, never mind."
Seems to me the most straightforward solution to the natural monopoly problem is municipal fiber builds, but they're expensive, and there's a legitimate debate about whether they're a good use of tax money. Certainly, though, the FCC's move to override state laws that try to prohibit them is the right move: if the citizens of city X decide they want to build a municipal fiber network, I'd be pissed off if I were the cable company or telco in town, but, fundamentally, I've got no real grounds to complain, any more than a cab company would have a right to complain if a city launched new public bus service. It might not be a _good_ expenditure of tax dollars, but it's certainly something that a city _can_ decide to spend its dollars on.
Hey, it's an APK sockpuppet, which doesn't really count as a sockpuppet, because everything APK posts is AC. Stop trying to pretend you have supporters here, by posting without your APK sig.
Maybe if you weren't such an abusive asshole, you wouldn't get karmaslammed into oblivion, and you'd actually be able to use a real account, instead of your AC crap.
It doesn't matter if what you say is true or not (and I'm not saying it is completely, even though you do have some legit points at times), but when you present your points like a maniacal raving psychotic, it doesn't matter. You're branded an asshole from the beginning, and rightly so.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I worked for 11 years as a line technician for a mid size cable company, during that time the field teams were trained in sales but never mentioned after training. I left that company and after a couple of years decided to go into customer service for Charter. their metrics are the same 20% of your call is attempting to upsell. Nowhere in the manual does it explain how to upsell to a user is screaming "You cut off my f*ck!ng Monday Night Football" or "I want my f*ck!ng porn g0dd@mn!t" After a few weeks and carrying a bottle of antacid tablets in my bag and several 80% scores on my metrics (conveniently the minimum passing is 85%) I decided to leave and go back into the IT field. Oh another jewel that most customers don't know....every call is recorded and probably half are reviewed every day, but you will never get your hands on that recording, intellectual property of Charter.
"If stupid things work...then they are not stupid."
Loved your post, esp the reality that Version which is just as bad... as the Cable providers....so true. While FIOS is better than Cable, usually, its not Symmetrical and they still throttle / limit bandwidth.
There are less than 41 communtiies with Symmetrical / Synchronous Fiber To The Home (FTTH).
DSL is usually better than throttled Cable internet. (You don't want DSL from AT&T, or affiliates of Cable providers, do your homework to avoid problems) And the price of DSL, $30 or less...often $15 or less, is way better than FIOS. Just move to a true FTTH community. Do not waste your time with Verizon FIOS or anythingG (ie. 3G, 4G, 5G, etc...).
Warning: if you do get service from FIOS...get in writing that FIOS will NOT cut your premise wiring while installing theirs, (if they cut it, they should replace it or do not accept their service). Too many have complained that Verizon does this to cost you $200+ (to run new uncut premise wiring) if you try to switch away from them. There is no other reason for their techs to cut your premise wiring when installing FIOS.
Just say no to 20Mb/4Mb, 100Mb/10Mb, 100Mb/5Mb, etc... if the upstream (second value) is not the same as the downstream value, that provider will throttle your service.
Is the upstream bandwidth the same as the downstream bandwidth ie. 10Mb/10Mb, 50Mb/50Mb, 100Mb/100Mb, 1Gb/1Gb, etc... than that fiber might be Symmetrical and Synchronous, meaning the provider will not throttle your bandwidth.
FIOS is not Fiber To The Home (FTTH). FIOS is not Symmetrical. With true FTTH, there is absolutely no business incentive to throttle bandwidth as that one fiber link goes from the switching station (best if owned by the community) to your home. Its not shared, thus no reason to limit it. Remember that FTTN, FTTP share parts, which ultimately end up allowing/causing the provider to limit your bandwidth un-necessarily.
Best of all, it costs a $1,500 - $3,000 to run that one link of fiber to your home and increases the re-sale value of your home by $5,000. In communities where this is successful, that link is owned by the homeowner and sold with the home. The providers compete for your service at the community owned switching station, meaning there is plenty of competition and you fire the bad players when they mess up. Added plus: FTTH communties have cheaper Cable internet rates...no surprise there.