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Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com)
The cable industry's grip on the U.S. broadband space increased last quarter, with Comcast and Charter gaining nearly 500,000 subscribers, combined. Phone companies AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier, however, all lost Internet customers. ArsTechnica reports:The 14 largest ISPs, accounting for 95 percent of the US market, gained 192,510 Internet customers in Q2 2016, bringing the total to 91.9 million, Leichtman Research Group reported today. Cable companies accounted for all of the gains, adding 553,293 subscribers for a new total of 57 million. The phone companies lost 360,783 subscribers, bringing them down to 34.9 million. Phone companies' losses more than doubled since Q2 2015, when they lost about 150,000 subscribers. [...] Comcast and Charter, the two biggest ISPs, led the way in subscriber gains. Comcast added 220,000 broadband subscribers to boost its total to 24 million, while Charter (the new owner of Time Warner Cable) added 277,000 subscribers for a new total of 21.8 million. AT&T lost 123,000 subscribers, lowering its total to 15.6 million. Verizon lost 83,000, leaving it with 7 million Internet customers. CenturyLink and Frontier lost 66,000 and 77,000, respectively.
Of course the companies that rely heavily on DSL lost customers to faster connections. DSL is today's dial up.
Who the fuck is going to build another line to your house and only have a 50% chance you'll sign up with their service? The economics do not work because the infrastructure construction is so expensive. Both companies would have to double their current price to deal with the loss of half of their customers. Providing broadband service isn't like selling widgets. We need the government to build the infrastructure once, and then lease capacity to any ISP.
call it what you will, i'd rather have slower if it was actually cheaper.... and in relation to speed, NOT just 5 bucks cheaper for 5mbit vs 30... which is a fucking sham.
when we signed up years ago, we signed up for 3mbit speed. that's all we needed then, it's still all we need today. yet we went from $29 for 3mbit to somehow paying $69 for 30 (but only getting 15) without ever changing or upgrading anything. and that's the cheapest thing they have. WE WANT OUR SLOWER, CHEAPER SPEED BACK, CHARTER. FUCK YOU. one size does NOT fit all, it only fits your bottom line.
We need the government to build the infrastructure once, and then lease capacity to any ISP.
The government, or a commercial "last mile" provider, wires the area, then leases it out.
Last mile is the problem. Last mile brought back to an aggregation point (COLO Facility), where MANY vendors vie for customers would SOLVE just about every problem we have with regulation and franchise agreements (government granted monopolies).
Imagine for a second, that the municipality owned that last mile, and leased it based on the customer/subscriber and the Vendor having a contract for service. Customer could order Comcast, Verizon, Charter, Netflix/Hulu, HBOnly or whatever . It might bring in the a la carte CATV we've all been wanting. I ONLY want ESPN and News, I don't want the 85 Shopping channels that you currently offer, unless you PAY me to take them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.