That is how it should be with all internet service. The issue is that the lines run out to your house should be fiber because tax dollars have already paid the telcos to run those lines, you shouldn't have had to pay a cent individually. The telcos just take the money and keep it rather than upgrading infrastructure.
What has begun to happen is that they use their monopoly/duopoloy granted status to enjoy immunity on state and local levels, letting them run their cables over/under private property whether the owner likes it or not. And of course to get all those tax dollars for upgrading infrastructure (which don't come with strings requiring them to actually use said dollars to perform those upgrades or time table requirements). Once the infrastructure is in place, as a telco they'd be required to let other companies use that infrastructure and offer service at the same wholesale price they charge to their own provider arm. So they take off their telco hats, put on their ISP hats and ISPs are NOT required to let other companies utilize the infrastructure. A lot of the old DSL like yours comes from before they learned this trick so there are competing providers although the telcos come up with schemes providing volume discounts and the like to do their best to avoid those providers actually getting the service at the same cost their provider arm does.
It seems simple to me. Tax payers pay for the FIBER lines to the premise, the telcos are basically contractors hired to implement and maintain said lines. They should be selling that capacity at the same rate to their provider arm, me, you, or any other business who wants to compete in the ISP game. The performance should be a race to the top with the price being a race to the bottom. I somehow think you'd quickly find a reliable net neutral 1g up/down service for $20-50/mo fairly quickly in that world of how it is supposed to work.
Anyway, confirmed this feature in Audacity, good to know. Of course, it's been awhile since I've seen a landline to dial through but I suppose it likely works to dial #'s and join a meeting using a smartphone's speaker system.
Exactly, here we are, on this USian website, developed by USians, primarily populated by USians, run by a US company, paid for with US targeted advertising.
I for one am extremely glad this site has attracted attention and has regular followers and users from international communities and wouldn't have it any other way. But the fact remains this is a US site and therefore it is perfectly valid and correct to an unqualified generalization can and should be assumed to refer to the US.
Such as, "We have the right to free speech and bear arms, the Constitution protects it!" Because of the context, the comment being made on a US site, a poster making such a comment is perfectly correct in omitting that he is referring to the US and a reader would be incorrect in suggesting otherwise.
All stories, commentary, discussion of policy, legal matters, etc are by default referring to the same in the US unless someone indicates otherwise. It's really no different than reading an article in the Guardian. Unless they've specified otherwise, when they say something like "Obviously you aren't allowed to go walking about he streets with a firearm" we can safely assume they are referring to in the UK and have no need to clarify this sweeping statement does not necessarily apply elsewhere..
So in short, while it is interesting to know the state of things in France and the UK and an informative contract to point out, when someone says "pulse dialing is no longer supported" They are correctly referring to support in the US not making a generalization about the support elsewhere in the world.
My point is The Guardian is a UK site, Al Jazherra is an arab site, and Slashdot is a US site. All enjoy and benefit from an international audience and their viewpoints. But by default, unless otherwise qualified, all gerneral and unqualified states should be assumed to refer to the place where the site is hosted and the primary target audience. When not intended in this way the poster should actually then qualify Correcting the speaker puts you in the wrong, not them.
Sorry if any of that is incoherent babbling, I'm dozing at the keys.
That isn't really a common thing. It's as likely to happen out as at home and since everyone else also has a phone I can just use one of theirs during the 15min it takes to get mine back to operational.
But for the sake of argument lets say I live alone, there are no backup phones or batteries. I still don't see why I'd rely on an old school POTS line to my home rather than VOIP. Even if I want to use an old phone I can toss up a free PBX like Asterix which will create the illusion of using POTS but will just turn around and run my call out through a VOIP system. It's a fuzzy grey layer where POTS ends but I think it is fair to say you don't have POTs anymore when the POTS device converts to digital before leaving the premise.
"That is your only choice because fiber to the middle of nowhere is expensive and tends to require work in longstanding stable utility tunnels, which puts them at risk and cannot be done on a whim."
All true. Fortunately, billions of dollars have been provided to telcos making deploying that fiber free and local government grants them immunities and eminent domain protections allowing them to lay out those lines without property owners having a say in the matter. Telcos however are required to build that infrastructure and maintain it, and then have a separate provider arm that purchases capacity on those lines at a market wholesale rate from the infrastructure arm and allow third parties to purchase at those same rates and provide service as well.
Luckily, these telcos generally pocket these funds they are given to build the infrastructure since it usually doesn't carry strings actually forcing them to use it for it's purpose. And where they do build infrastructure, they leave the telco hat on long enough to get it built and enjoy all those monopoly protections and then switch to their broadband provider hat, broadband providers aren't required to let anyone purchase capacity and utilize their infrastructure to compete with them.
There actually are a small scattering of places where it has happened the way it is supposed to and the telco maintains lines and a number of providers actually offer service via those lines. But usually instead of a fixed and uniform equal price for all scheme the telco comes up with a number of criteria and pricing break conditions for things like volume, credit on account, and just barriers in the sign-up process to become a provider to make sure nobody can actually get the capacity at as low a rate as them or compete successfully.
True, which is why billions of tax dollars have been given to the major telcos to effectively make digging all those holes and running those lines free. Additionally, they are granted special exemptions from local government, allowing them to tear up property or run along poles over property without paying the individual owners of the property. When taking this money and special exemptions they function as telecommunication providers, the justification for the benefits being that once the lines and infrastructure are in place anyone is allowed to start a competiting service and utilize that common infrastructure, paying only the wholesale cost of the telco itself to provide service on it. Once infrastructure is built, the telcos switch hats and now say that are not acting as telecommunications companies but internet providers and internet providers do not have to allow competitors to use their infrastructure.
But what happens in most cases is that because they are given the money without strings being attached, requiring them to use it for it's intended purpose, telcos instead continue using existing lines and pocketing those tax dollars. The result is of course inferior service like you describe instead of a fast, cheap, and reliable service with 5 or 6 competitors bidding against each other and you picking the one with terms that best suit you. All of which would be providing service over that fast and reliable fiber run directly to your premise on the taxpayer dime.
"I used to have dsl until the cable outside got damaged and frontier refused to fix it."
But I'm sure frontier lists you on a coverage map when they talk to the FCC. The whole thing is really supposed to work more like electricity does here in Texas. In my area there is a company call encore to that provides and maintains the actual physical power lines. They are granted a monopoly and given tax dollars to pay all the expenses of doing so, in exchange for that they get to bypass private property rights to run those lines and are allowed to charge a mark up on the usage that goes through the lines although how much of a markup is regulated (which seems fair enough since taxes pay all the expenses, it's all guaranteed free gravy).
Power producers are then located all over the place wherever it makes sense and sell wholesale energy onto the grid, again in many cases tax dollars are paying to build these facilities and if they are green federal credits are provided on top of that. Finally, brokers who bill themselves as "electric providers" actually sell their service to end users such as me and everyone on the block. Encore, in addition to being the ones who happen to manage the lines on my block are one of these. Similarly, some of these providers do indeed run power plants feeding into the grid, although it might be nowhere near me. I then can shop among maybe 20 different "providers" choosing the ones with terms I approve of. The state requires them to list on a central site where you can compare terms (although you do have to be careful to read the fine print) and provide a disclosure similar to the one you get with CC offers as well as make a number of points about the service indexed and searchable.
This provides actual choice and competition. I can choose 100% or partially % green energy providers or plans from those providers if I want. The actual bit of juice that runs through my meter may have come from a coal plant, but that provider will purchase enough wholesale from wind and solar plants feeding into the grid to cover my usage which funds solar and wind energy or they may even run their own plant at some point feeding into the grid. Either way, I maybe pay a small premium but it helps fund building more solar and wind plants to support my usage. Or I can go for the lowest rate, some plans have a fixed charge and then low rates, which might be a very low price if you consistently have enough usage that you always work out at the low rate.
Replying to your other points as a separate post here because while disputing the overall theme of the thread and the meaning of "the last mile" your comments are targeted at what I'm referring to, specifically the termination to premise (with the implication of the infrastructure to back it) in less densely populated areas.
"Until you have actually worked in this industry, you should probably keep your opinions to yourself, as they are showing your ignorance."
Currently, I work at the major enterprise level in datacenters. I don't actually run cable anymore although I do oversee such projects. Earlier in my career I worked in the trenches trucking around a tiny town of 12,000 pop in rural Illinois and the 150 mile radius around it of towns and "cities" with populations of 50 and up.
"Do you have any fucking idea how expensive it is to start putting infrastructure into the ground? Any idea AT ALL?"
Really expensive. Which is why telcos have been given tens of billions of dollars in tax funds to enable them to do it for free. Money they pocketed rather than invested in infrastructure.
"Here's a valid excuse: the copper in these areas is still in good shape and is providing a service that is obviously popular enough to continue as is. There isn't a mass exodus and loss of customers forcing the company in question to replace what is working with something better."
Exactly, just as I said, they are milking everything they can out of existing infrastructure. The service is popular because they are the only game in town. Either they claim to be an internet provider (cable company) and aren't required to allow competitors to provide service on their infrastructure or they are a telco and are required to do exactly that. Some companies like Verizon switch hats at will, using the advantages of being a telco to run lines without having to negotiate with property owners and/or cut the red tape in cities while putting on the ISP hat to prevent others from using the infrastructure they installed while wearing the telco hat.
Even for a company that is not doing what Verizon is, there is active collusion among the major telcos and providers to divide up the map to minimize actual competition. Basically the target is to have most of the map covered by two providers so they can't be called a monopoly, although especially in rural areas you can in many cases get away with only one offering service or the other to a specific address/zipcode/etc while claiming there are two providers in the larger general area and therefore competition. Other than this, no active collusion is needed, it is not in the interest of any of the major providers to actively race to the bottom providing minimum oversubscription, net neutrality, and the maximum possible bandwidth at the lowest profitable price point. It is in their interest to adopt an "if it aint broke don't fix it" model and discounts on modem rentals, contract discounts, etc.
Of course the service is popular, internet is an essential commodity to be competitive in the modern world and when your choice is between nothing and inferior out of date model, people choose the inferior out of date model. Hell, in a very rural area where you don't know that money to update everything has been provided time and time again to these services and enjoyed a service which is dramatically better many people might even believe what they have is good.
"It's not like AT&T and Verizon execs have lunch and divide up the suburbs of Atlanta. That's quite the conspiracy theory you're living under."
Actually that is exactly what happens. They divide up and trade around territory with the deliberate end of "avoiding anti-competition" laws and the FCC helps them do so. They are given tax money to build and maintain the most modern delivery infrastructure possible and competitors are supposed to be able to purchase transport at the telcos own wholesale cost to provide competing service over that same tax payer purchased infrastructure.
"HUH? In context, here, in this thread, on this discussion, it's OBVIOUSLY being used in the "from the provider's building to my house" way! Why are you trying to muddle the conversation? And, I haven't even HEARD of your other "way" of use."
Ummm... the great grand father post this entire conversation thread is under...
"Not everyone lives in a city. Even places that have "broadband" have pockets where DSL is the only option.
Just because you live in Seattle and have gigabit fiber doesn't mean the rest of the world does."
I'm sorry, believe me I realize how easy it is in Slashdot land to lose track, but I do believe in this case you are the one who has lost track.
The phrase is sort of used in two ways. As I used above, to refer to connectivity to less populated areas and to refer to the final leg to the premise... Obviously there is nothing prohibiting running fiber directly to the premise, there is fiber terminating on premise at my home right now.
Generally speaking, when people are talking about limits on broadband in the US we are talking about later as applied to the former. There isn't even a beginning to a valid excuse for a Telco not having fiber on "the last mile" in every residence in a densely populated area.
Verizon firmly established that it was easily accomplished with FIOS the map splitting I mentioned above is why everyone else hasn't needed to do the same to be competitive. While FIOS provides a low latency and stable connection up to 500mbps. In the same token, the reason 500mbps is so expensive from Verizon is also that same map splitting (combined with Verizon polymorphing between being a phone company and ISP depending on what regulations suit them). Instead of multiple providers competing on that fiber infrastructure driving the prices down and the speeds up (500 is an arbitrary cap) Verizon simply has to beat one competitor at most in any given area.
One HD netflix stream would use most of that pipe and the telcos artificially throttle it causing all your "this can't be played at this time" and stuttering. Sounds like you are watching low quality streams.
How is paying to the evil telco better than paying to the evil cable company?
The issue is not so much what you need as being entitled to the best access that can reasonably be provided. If you currently have 12mbps dsl (which should be delivering 12mbps) then there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't have a 1gbps link available other than telcos refusing to upgrade infrastructure. Fiber runs can go for thousands of miles, I'm pretty sure they can reach you.
Now, if you simply choose a slower speed on purpose, paying that $6/mo that link should reasonably cost for dedicated bandwidth that is another story. 640gps chips run about $600/ea last time I looked and provide that bandwidth bi-directionally two ways.. They'll last about 10-15 years on average. So lets call it 10. It takes maybe $5k to build a box around those chips around it but then the box will cost maybe $800 if deployed everywhere on scale (this is what any telco can and should do not off the shelf from cisco and the like). So that is $12.5 cents per full duplex gbps so 1gbps AND 1gbps down maxed at the same time... once every ten years and that is only going down over time. Of course that is at the DC not to the premise. Just one of those chips will provide 10 64gbps links or 64 10gbps links over fiber or copper. With those distribution links there is absolutely no reason that nearly everywhere in the lower 48 that is called the last mile (think rural density, rough terrain can still be an issue) could have 1gbps service. Allowing for normal service tiers 100mb up/down connections for $12.50/mo are very reasonable. Maybe double that for the most rural areas. In the cities it should be more like 1gbps for $50/mo.
Yes but lets be clear, there is no technical or practical barrier to keeping you that fiber. Fiber links span the globe are work over ridiculously long range. There isn't even a practical or technical barrier keeping it from most places called the last mile. The true last mile is nowhere in the continental US it's the arctic and at sea even there nothing is actually blocking long flying fleets of blimps delivering wireless that can provide much lower latency links than Sat connections.
The problems aren't technical, they aren't even financial, the problems are major providers splitting the nation in such a way that there are only two at most in any particular place competing as minimally as possible and with as little overlap as possible because there is a higher profit in splitting the map than a race to max service for bottom pricing. Why upgrade infrastructure when people have no choice but to buy what you are selling for what has become an essential commodity?
Then you neighbor wasn't aware of VOIP or the evils of net neutrality have kicked and the telco is making voip services suck. If you have functional internet you should have voice communication, including the option of termination to phone #. If that fails in a truly epic disaster, that's why we all have radios.
And there is also still no excuse for the infrastructure not to have been upgraded to fiber by now. The telcos are just doing the absolute minimum they can, squeezing every obsolete drop of connectivity out of outdated infrastructure possible. For reference, in a real city you can have ridiculously overpriced 500mbps now in most places in the US and that really should be 1gbps minimum but even in large cities if you are serviced by only one major telco you are likely still limited to only one double digit speed option.
If it's 20mbps and you actually get that speed all the time then that at least is viable even if it's artificially slow.
You certainly could get something much better than DSL if your carrier could be bothered. That is your only choice because they have a monopoly or duopoly (which isn't really any better than a monopoly).
I say this assuming you are in what is typically called the last mile rather than the actual last mile so far from civilization where there are no phone lines and sat communications are your only option. If you are in the arctic or at sea DSL capabilities may indeed be reasonable. To a point anyway, there is no particular reason high flying blimps couldn't be providing reasonable wireless by now.
"Viable still applies if it's being sold, and lot of people are on it.
According to this [digitaltrends.com] (which is from 2013), 18% of American internet usage was on DSL."
That's only true if those people have a legitimate choice and weren't duped into picking an obsolete slow connection by a monopoly refusing to modernize.
The article mentions 6mbps, that isn't fast enough to support many modern and common household internet usages which means customers are being sold a system which is not viable. You might be able to sell wooden slugs to people from the country as subway tokens, that doesn't make them viable.
Slashdot Mirror
That is how it should be with all internet service. The issue is that the lines run out to your house should be fiber because tax dollars have already paid the telcos to run those lines, you shouldn't have had to pay a cent individually. The telcos just take the money and keep it rather than upgrading infrastructure.
What has begun to happen is that they use their monopoly/duopoloy granted status to enjoy immunity on state and local levels, letting them run their cables over/under private property whether the owner likes it or not. And of course to get all those tax dollars for upgrading infrastructure (which don't come with strings requiring them to actually use said dollars to perform those upgrades or time table requirements). Once the infrastructure is in place, as a telco they'd be required to let other companies use that infrastructure and offer service at the same wholesale price they charge to their own provider arm. So they take off their telco hats, put on their ISP hats and ISPs are NOT required to let other companies utilize the infrastructure. A lot of the old DSL like yours comes from before they learned this trick so there are competing providers although the telcos come up with schemes providing volume discounts and the like to do their best to avoid those providers actually getting the service at the same cost their provider arm does.
It seems simple to me. Tax payers pay for the FIBER lines to the premise, the telcos are basically contractors hired to implement and maintain said lines. They should be selling that capacity at the same rate to their provider arm, me, you, or any other business who wants to compete in the ISP game. The performance should be a race to the top with the price being a race to the bottom. I somehow think you'd quickly find a reliable net neutral 1g up/down service for $20-50/mo fairly quickly in that world of how it is supposed to work.
Nice, you have your own personal trolls.
Anyway, confirmed this feature in Audacity, good to know. Of course, it's been awhile since I've seen a landline to dial through but I suppose it likely works to dial #'s and join a meeting using a smartphone's speaker system.
Cool. Most phone networks in the US have dropped support for pulse dialing so you are the exception.
That's cool though. I miss impressing girls by dialing to order a pizza using the hang-up button on the phone.
Traditionally network bandwidth is always rated in bits per secnd.
Exactly, here we are, on this USian website, developed by USians, primarily populated by USians, run by a US company, paid for with US targeted advertising.
I for one am extremely glad this site has attracted attention and has regular followers and users from international communities and wouldn't have it any other way. But the fact remains this is a US site and therefore it is perfectly valid and correct to an unqualified generalization can and should be assumed to refer to the US.
Such as, "We have the right to free speech and bear arms, the Constitution protects it!" Because of the context, the comment being made on a US site, a poster making such a comment is perfectly correct in omitting that he is referring to the US and a reader would be incorrect in suggesting otherwise.
All stories, commentary, discussion of policy, legal matters, etc are by default referring to the same in the US unless someone indicates otherwise. It's really no different than reading an article in the Guardian. Unless they've specified otherwise, when they say something like "Obviously you aren't allowed to go walking about he streets with a firearm" we can safely assume they are referring to in the UK and have no need to clarify this sweeping statement does not necessarily apply elsewhere..
So in short, while it is interesting to know the state of things in France and the UK and an informative contract to point out, when someone says "pulse dialing is no longer supported" They are correctly referring to support in the US not making a generalization about the support elsewhere in the world.
My point is The Guardian is a UK site, Al Jazherra is an arab site, and Slashdot is a US site. All enjoy and benefit from an international audience and their viewpoints. But by default, unless otherwise qualified, all gerneral and unqualified states should be assumed to refer to the place where the site is hosted and the primary target audience. When not intended in this way the poster should actually then qualify Correcting the speaker puts you in the wrong, not them.
Sorry if any of that is incoherent babbling, I'm dozing at the keys.
That isn't really a common thing. It's as likely to happen out as at home and since everyone else also has a phone I can just use one of theirs during the 15min it takes to get mine back to operational.
But for the sake of argument lets say I live alone, there are no backup phones or batteries. I still don't see why I'd rely on an old school POTS line to my home rather than VOIP. Even if I want to use an old phone I can toss up a free PBX like Asterix which will create the illusion of using POTS but will just turn around and run my call out through a VOIP system. It's a fuzzy grey layer where POTS ends but I think it is fair to say you don't have POTs anymore when the POTS device converts to digital before leaving the premise.
"That is your only choice because fiber to the middle of nowhere is expensive and tends to require work in longstanding stable utility tunnels, which puts them at risk and cannot be done on a whim."
All true. Fortunately, billions of dollars have been provided to telcos making deploying that fiber free and local government grants them immunities and eminent domain protections allowing them to lay out those lines without property owners having a say in the matter. Telcos however are required to build that infrastructure and maintain it, and then have a separate provider arm that purchases capacity on those lines at a market wholesale rate from the infrastructure arm and allow third parties to purchase at those same rates and provide service as well.
Luckily, these telcos generally pocket these funds they are given to build the infrastructure since it usually doesn't carry strings actually forcing them to use it for it's purpose. And where they do build infrastructure, they leave the telco hat on long enough to get it built and enjoy all those monopoly protections and then switch to their broadband provider hat, broadband providers aren't required to let anyone purchase capacity and utilize their infrastructure to compete with them.
There actually are a small scattering of places where it has happened the way it is supposed to and the telco maintains lines and a number of providers actually offer service via those lines. But usually instead of a fixed and uniform equal price for all scheme the telco comes up with a number of criteria and pricing break conditions for things like volume, credit on account, and just barriers in the sign-up process to become a provider to make sure nobody can actually get the capacity at as low a rate as them or compete successfully.
"The cost of doing fiber builds is huge."
True, which is why billions of tax dollars have been given to the major telcos to effectively make digging all those holes and running those lines free. Additionally, they are granted special exemptions from local government, allowing them to tear up property or run along poles over property without paying the individual owners of the property. When taking this money and special exemptions they function as telecommunication providers, the justification for the benefits being that once the lines and infrastructure are in place anyone is allowed to start a competiting service and utilize that common infrastructure, paying only the wholesale cost of the telco itself to provide service on it. Once infrastructure is built, the telcos switch hats and now say that are not acting as telecommunications companies but internet providers and internet providers do not have to allow competitors to use their infrastructure.
But what happens in most cases is that because they are given the money without strings being attached, requiring them to use it for it's intended purpose, telcos instead continue using existing lines and pocketing those tax dollars. The result is of course inferior service like you describe instead of a fast, cheap, and reliable service with 5 or 6 competitors bidding against each other and you picking the one with terms that best suit you. All of which would be providing service over that fast and reliable fiber run directly to your premise on the taxpayer dime.
"I used to have dsl until the cable outside got damaged and frontier refused to fix it."
But I'm sure frontier lists you on a coverage map when they talk to the FCC. The whole thing is really supposed to work more like electricity does here in Texas. In my area there is a company call encore to that provides and maintains the actual physical power lines. They are granted a monopoly and given tax dollars to pay all the expenses of doing so, in exchange for that they get to bypass private property rights to run those lines and are allowed to charge a mark up on the usage that goes through the lines although how much of a markup is regulated (which seems fair enough since taxes pay all the expenses, it's all guaranteed free gravy).
Power producers are then located all over the place wherever it makes sense and sell wholesale energy onto the grid, again in many cases tax dollars are paying to build these facilities and if they are green federal credits are provided on top of that. Finally, brokers who bill themselves as "electric providers" actually sell their service to end users such as me and everyone on the block. Encore, in addition to being the ones who happen to manage the lines on my block are one of these. Similarly, some of these providers do indeed run power plants feeding into the grid, although it might be nowhere near me. I then can shop among maybe 20 different "providers" choosing the ones with terms I approve of. The state requires them to list on a central site where you can compare terms (although you do have to be careful to read the fine print) and provide a disclosure similar to the one you get with CC offers as well as make a number of points about the service indexed and searchable.
This provides actual choice and competition. I can choose 100% or partially % green energy providers or plans from those providers if I want. The actual bit of juice that runs through my meter may have come from a coal plant, but that provider will purchase enough wholesale from wind and solar plants feeding into the grid to cover my usage which funds solar and wind energy or they may even run their own plant at some point feeding into the grid. Either way, I maybe pay a small premium but it helps fund building more solar and wind plants to support my usage. Or I can go for the lowest rate, some plans have a fixed charge and then low rates, which might be a very low price if you consistently have enough usage that you always work out at the low rate.
Most have anywher
Replying to your other points as a separate post here because while disputing the overall theme of the thread and the meaning of "the last mile" your comments are targeted at what I'm referring to, specifically the termination to premise (with the implication of the infrastructure to back it) in less densely populated areas.
"Until you have actually worked in this industry, you should probably keep your opinions to yourself, as they are showing your ignorance."
Currently, I work at the major enterprise level in datacenters. I don't actually run cable anymore although I do oversee such projects. Earlier in my career I worked in the trenches trucking around a tiny town of 12,000 pop in rural Illinois and the 150 mile radius around it of towns and "cities" with populations of 50 and up.
"Do you have any fucking idea how expensive it is to start putting infrastructure into the ground? Any idea AT ALL?"
Really expensive. Which is why telcos have been given tens of billions of dollars in tax funds to enable them to do it for free. Money they pocketed rather than invested in infrastructure.
"Here's a valid excuse: the copper in these areas is still in good shape and is providing a service that is obviously popular enough to continue as is. There isn't a mass exodus and loss of customers forcing the company in question to replace what is working with something better."
Exactly, just as I said, they are milking everything they can out of existing infrastructure. The service is popular because they are the only game in town. Either they claim to be an internet provider (cable company) and aren't required to allow competitors to provide service on their infrastructure or they are a telco and are required to do exactly that. Some companies like Verizon switch hats at will, using the advantages of being a telco to run lines without having to negotiate with property owners and/or cut the red tape in cities while putting on the ISP hat to prevent others from using the infrastructure they installed while wearing the telco hat.
Even for a company that is not doing what Verizon is, there is active collusion among the major telcos and providers to divide up the map to minimize actual competition. Basically the target is to have most of the map covered by two providers so they can't be called a monopoly, although especially in rural areas you can in many cases get away with only one offering service or the other to a specific address/zipcode/etc while claiming there are two providers in the larger general area and therefore competition. Other than this, no active collusion is needed, it is not in the interest of any of the major providers to actively race to the bottom providing minimum oversubscription, net neutrality, and the maximum possible bandwidth at the lowest profitable price point. It is in their interest to adopt an "if it aint broke don't fix it" model and discounts on modem rentals, contract discounts, etc.
Of course the service is popular, internet is an essential commodity to be competitive in the modern world and when your choice is between nothing and inferior out of date model, people choose the inferior out of date model. Hell, in a very rural area where you don't know that money to update everything has been provided time and time again to these services and enjoyed a service which is dramatically better many people might even believe what they have is good.
"It's not like AT&T and Verizon execs have lunch and divide up the suburbs of Atlanta. That's quite the conspiracy theory you're living under."
Actually that is exactly what happens. They divide up and trade around territory with the deliberate end of "avoiding anti-competition" laws and the FCC helps them do so. They are given tax money to build and maintain the most modern delivery infrastructure possible and competitors are supposed to be able to purchase transport at the telcos own wholesale cost to provide competing service over that same tax payer purchased infrastructure.
I really
"HUH? In context, here, in this thread, on this discussion, it's OBVIOUSLY being used in the "from the provider's building to my house" way! Why are you trying to muddle the conversation? And, I haven't even HEARD of your other "way" of use."
Ummm... the great grand father post this entire conversation thread is under...
"Not everyone lives in a city. Even places that have "broadband" have pockets where DSL is the only option.
Just because you live in Seattle and have gigabit fiber doesn't mean the rest of the world does."
I'm sorry, believe me I realize how easy it is in Slashdot land to lose track, but I do believe in this case you are the one who has lost track.
The phrase is sort of used in two ways. As I used above, to refer to connectivity to less populated areas and to refer to the final leg to the premise... Obviously there is nothing prohibiting running fiber directly to the premise, there is fiber terminating on premise at my home right now.
Generally speaking, when people are talking about limits on broadband in the US we are talking about later as applied to the former. There isn't even a beginning to a valid excuse for a Telco not having fiber on "the last mile" in every residence in a densely populated area.
Verizon firmly established that it was easily accomplished with FIOS the map splitting I mentioned above is why everyone else hasn't needed to do the same to be competitive. While FIOS provides a low latency and stable connection up to 500mbps. In the same token, the reason 500mbps is so expensive from Verizon is also that same map splitting (combined with Verizon polymorphing between being a phone company and ISP depending on what regulations suit them). Instead of multiple providers competing on that fiber infrastructure driving the prices down and the speeds up (500 is an arbitrary cap) Verizon simply has to beat one competitor at most in any given area.
I've yet to see lead phone cables but anything is possible I suppose.
Why? It's obsolete tech.
The thought of a world of dial-up is terrifying but I share your pain regarding bloated sites.
Going sat wouldn't really be a good thing. Yeah it's high bandwidth but the latency is ridiculous.
One HD netflix stream would use most of that pipe and the telcos artificially throttle it causing all your "this can't be played at this time" and stuttering. Sounds like you are watching low quality streams.
How is paying to the evil telco better than paying to the evil cable company?
The issue is not so much what you need as being entitled to the best access that can reasonably be provided. If you currently have 12mbps dsl (which should be delivering 12mbps) then there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't have a 1gbps link available other than telcos refusing to upgrade infrastructure. Fiber runs can go for thousands of miles, I'm pretty sure they can reach you.
Now, if you simply choose a slower speed on purpose, paying that $6/mo that link should reasonably cost for dedicated bandwidth that is another story. 640gps chips run about $600/ea last time I looked and provide that bandwidth bi-directionally two ways.. They'll last about 10-15 years on average. So lets call it 10. It takes maybe $5k to build a box around those chips around it but then the box will cost maybe $800 if deployed everywhere on scale (this is what any telco can and should do not off the shelf from cisco and the like). So that is $12.5 cents per full duplex gbps so 1gbps AND 1gbps down maxed at the same time... once every ten years and that is only going down over time. Of course that is at the DC not to the premise. Just one of those chips will provide 10 64gbps links or 64 10gbps links over fiber or copper. With those distribution links there is absolutely no reason that nearly everywhere in the lower 48 that is called the last mile (think rural density, rough terrain can still be an issue) could have 1gbps service. Allowing for normal service tiers 100mb up/down connections for $12.50/mo are very reasonable. Maybe double that for the most rural areas. In the cities it should be more like 1gbps for $50/mo.
Yes but lets be clear, there is no technical or practical barrier to keeping you that fiber. Fiber links span the globe are work over ridiculously long range. There isn't even a practical or technical barrier keeping it from most places called the last mile. The true last mile is nowhere in the continental US it's the arctic and at sea even there nothing is actually blocking long flying fleets of blimps delivering wireless that can provide much lower latency links than Sat connections.
The problems aren't technical, they aren't even financial, the problems are major providers splitting the nation in such a way that there are only two at most in any particular place competing as minimally as possible and with as little overlap as possible because there is a higher profit in splitting the map than a race to max service for bottom pricing. Why upgrade infrastructure when people have no choice but to buy what you are selling for what has become an essential commodity?
Then you neighbor wasn't aware of VOIP or the evils of net neutrality have kicked and the telco is making voip services suck. If you have functional internet you should have voice communication, including the option of termination to phone #. If that fails in a truly epic disaster, that's why we all have radios.
And there is also still no excuse for the infrastructure not to have been upgraded to fiber by now. The telcos are just doing the absolute minimum they can, squeezing every obsolete drop of connectivity out of outdated infrastructure possible. For reference, in a real city you can have ridiculously overpriced 500mbps now in most places in the US and that really should be 1gbps minimum but even in large cities if you are serviced by only one major telco you are likely still limited to only one double digit speed option.
If it's 20mbps and you actually get that speed all the time then that at least is viable even if it's artificially slow.
You certainly could get something much better than DSL if your carrier could be bothered. That is your only choice because they have a monopoly or duopoly (which isn't really any better than a monopoly).
I say this assuming you are in what is typically called the last mile rather than the actual last mile so far from civilization where there are no phone lines and sat communications are your only option. If you are in the arctic or at sea DSL capabilities may indeed be reasonable. To a point anyway, there is no particular reason high flying blimps couldn't be providing reasonable wireless by now.
"Viable still applies if it's being sold, and lot of people are on it.
According to this [digitaltrends.com] (which is from 2013), 18% of American internet usage was on DSL."
That's only true if those people have a legitimate choice and weren't duped into picking an obsolete slow connection by a monopoly refusing to modernize.
The article mentions 6mbps, that isn't fast enough to support many modern and common household internet usages which means customers are being sold a system which is not viable. You might be able to sell wooden slugs to people from the country as subway tokens, that doesn't make them viable.
Interesting, not sure where the UK or France come into it but still interesting trivia.
For an 80 year old phone it half works, for a 20 year old phone it completely works, but there isn't any particular reason we'd want it to still work.
I think the 1999 thing was more to having a discussion about DSL as if that is still a viable thing.
Actually it won't. Not unless your grandmas phone was touch tone and 80 years ago it certainly wasn't.