4 ms·

But you'd be totally fine with not having a choice because a big telco has stamped out all the competition in a city?

• cordite 11y ago
  They are related evils. Saying no to one doesn't mean yes to the other.
  • busterarm 11y ago
    Actually it does. Exclusive contracts are how these companies stay in business. The larger providers hyper-aggressively price compete. I've seen 50/50 internet in a Triple Play for $30/mo - for 2 years. Nobody can compete with that pricing.
• alistairSH 11y ago
  In my experience, the little companies with the exclusive rights provide far worse service than the large telcos. At least with the large telcos, I generally have a choice between Verizon Fios and AT&T or Comcast cable. When I've lived in buildings/neighborhoods with exclusive contracts, I've been stuck with one tiny company and the service was universally terrible.
  • busterarm 11y ago
    It's an interesting problem. I used to work for a PCO. A lot of developers do a really shitty job on the wiring, which is often why in these exclusivity agreements the PCO also negotiates to do the in-home wiring themselves. But these properties were built 10, 20 and 30 years ago when utilization was a lot less and infrastructure simpler. Often these contracts are not renewed (aggressive price competition from the incumbent provider) so it's not cost effective to do any upgrades until contract renewal time. Then you have overutilized nodes and shitty service.