4 ms·

What's a good resource for understanding broadband markets as a whole? At least in SF in the past 5 years, Comcast seems to have upgraded 100Mbps connections t

What's a good resource for understanding broadband markets as a whole? At least in SF in the past 5 years, Comcast seems to have upgraded 100Mbps connections to 1Gbps connections. Not sure whether that translates to a bigger shared pipe for the city as a whole, but it certainly looks like a good amount of improvement in $:bits, at least in comparison with $:sqFt.

pfooti 9y ago
I'd bet that at least part of that is in response to competition on the ground. Monkeybrains and Sonic (disclosure: long time sonic customer) both are bringing high-speed broadband to SF. In particular, I have symmetric gigabit for like $50 a month.
- chrischen 9y ago
  I have 15 down 0.5 mbps up sonic for $70...
  - quadyeast 9y ago
    I have 3 mb/s down sonic for $68. It comes bundled with a phone line that I do not need. They charge me $10 extra because they are trying to improve the network elsewhere.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      I've used Sonic. They advertised $40/m (still do) but it turned out that plus additional $10 just because, plus hw rental fees, plus taxes on the phone service I don't need and can't get rid of. All summarily $65. Plus they use AT&T infrastructure, which also conveniently makes it impossible to switch from them to regular AT&T without cancelling the service completely (thus cutting off internet) and ordering a brand new install, since AT&T software can't handle it otherwise (they don't have option to move same service to different billing engine). Plus they told me I have to cancel a month in advance (and pay for the extra month even if I already have another service). So, I'm no longer using Sonic.
    - rosser 9y ago
      I'm paying Sonic ~$100 for 12 down/2 up bonded DSL, and two phone lines I think I've used one of, about twice. I'd still rather give them that money than Comcast any.
  - harikb 9y ago
    There are areas where Sonic is dependent on ATT for service. Sure, it is not a great solution, but they (sonic) at least answer calls, have a decent portal, and not trying to upsell you anything or steal your dns queries.
    - chrischen 9y ago
      I agree that their service is much more reliable and definitely much better than Comcast, but at some point the main offering differences are going to come into play. On a no-contract comcast plan I'm paying the same price for 250 MBPS down now. It's good they finally got fiber, because there is no way their DSL offering would be considered competitive, or a viable alternative to comcast (the only other provider I have). I'm not even in some random part of SF. I'm on Valencia, in the Mission, 3 blocks from BART, which is pretty central. The fact that I have only 2 internet service providers in such a dense part of town and one that doesn't really have a competitive offering is sad, and also why "net neutrality" is necessary until real competition exists.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    I've got 55/5 from Comcast for half the price. Promotional, of course, but once promotion ends I'll find some other promotion, likely. Not SF though, a bit south from it.
tfigment 9y ago
Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik). I would love to see the numbers as well. The X1 DVR as far as I am concerned was horrible compared to the ReplayTV or Tivo circa 2001 (except for obviously HD improvement). It only took 15 years and lots of legislation mandating cablecards and whatnot to get them to get there. I don't have hope that they will act in our best interests given past actions but I have to use them because there are no other real options. Honestly I would like to see the effective monopoly on physical layer internet broken up. Allow municipalities own the cables under the street and and not allow Comcast and others to block companies like Google from expanding by blocking access to the last mile. There is a lot of unused dark fiber in lots of places that could have supported 1Gbps a long time ago but doesn't
- smsm42 9y ago
  Comcast profit margin is 12%: https://ycharts.com/companies/CMCSA/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/CMCSA/profit_margin That's on the high side, usually it's around 10%. For comparison, profit margins for Internet/IT companies are around 25%, Google's 24%. Facebook's a whopping 45%. Microsoft's a remarkable 26%. Is 12% "insane"? Which one would be the "sane" one?
  - harikb 9y ago
    For a company not having any R&D cost, granted monopoly/duopoly via lobbying, yes 12% may be insane.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      Why do you think they don't have any R&D cost? They just launched a mobile network, you don't think that involved at least some R&D investment? How much would be sane in your opinion? 1%? No profit at all?
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik). Comcast has raised speeds from about 16 mbps to gigabit in the last ten years, through multiple rounds of DOCSIS upgrades. As to access to the last mile: that’s already the law. Pole and conduit owners are required to lease out access at non-discriminatory rates. Comcast owns few if any poles. They lease access from the power company or the phone company, just like Google would have to do.
arctia 9y ago
SF-specific. Comcast has to step up because competition is fierce. Even just 30 miles south from SF, Comcast is crap because there's less competition there.
- rconti 9y ago
  28.4 miles south from SF (according to Google Maps driving directions from "San Francisco"), I've got gig down/40 up from Comcast. And the only competition is ATT DSL (yes, I'm like 2000 feet from the CO and they'll only give me 40mbit). Comcast advertises on broadcast TV all over the bay area "gigabit now available in your area". So I'd think penetration is pretty high now. Now, I'd rather pay pretty much anyone other than Comcast, and in particular I'd rather not pay $170 for gigabit, and I'd rather have symmetric FTTH, but hey, someone finally brought the bandwidth and I put my money where my mouth is.
  - eropple 9y ago
    They're still pretty awful anywhere they can get away with it. In the Boston area, the best upstream I've ever been able to get from Comcast is 10Mbps (real-world 12Mbps) regardless of package. So I hope you don't like to use video chat, or Twitch streaming, or the like.
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    > only give me 40mbit In most of the US you'd be lucky to break 5Mbit with DSL even in close proximity to the CO.
  - cure 9y ago
    Comcast advertises on broadcast TV all over the bay area "gigabit now available in your area". So I'd think penetration is pretty high now. I wouldn't read too much into that. Here in Boston, the Verizon vans have sported "get FiOS now!" advertisements for more than a decade. But FiOS is simply not available in most of the area.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
rayiner 9y ago
There is no single resource. Fierce Telecom and (oddly enough) the forums on DSL Reports are good resources if you actually want to know what’s involved in getting from 100 Mbps to gigabit using DOCSIS. These sources definitely have an industry bent, but they also help you understand that “the Internet” is routers and switches and sense amps, not some platonic abstraction. As for the policy side, you need textbooks and primary sources. Telecom is a highly regulated market with almost a century of regulations, precedent, compromises, etc. Reading an Ars Technica or Tech Crunch article on it is not educational. I recommend Master Switch by Tim Wu, and Telecom Law and Policy by Benjamin and Speta (disclosure: I’m biased because Speta was my professor in law school).

pfooti 9y ago

I'd bet that at least part of that is in response to competition on the ground. Monkeybrains and Sonic (disclosure: long time sonic customer) both are bringing high-speed broadband to SF. In particular, I have symmetric gigabit for like $50 a month.

chrischen 9y ago
I have 15 down 0.5 mbps up sonic for $70...
- quadyeast 9y ago
  I have 3 mb/s down sonic for $68. It comes bundled with a phone line that I do not need. They charge me $10 extra because they are trying to improve the network elsewhere.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    I've used Sonic. They advertised $40/m (still do) but it turned out that plus additional $10 just because, plus hw rental fees, plus taxes on the phone service I don't need and can't get rid of. All summarily $65. Plus they use AT&T infrastructure, which also conveniently makes it impossible to switch from them to regular AT&T without cancelling the service completely (thus cutting off internet) and ordering a brand new install, since AT&T software can't handle it otherwise (they don't have option to move same service to different billing engine). Plus they told me I have to cancel a month in advance (and pay for the extra month even if I already have another service). So, I'm no longer using Sonic.
  - rosser 9y ago
    I'm paying Sonic ~$100 for 12 down/2 up bonded DSL, and two phone lines I think I've used one of, about twice. I'd still rather give them that money than Comcast any.
- harikb 9y ago
  There are areas where Sonic is dependent on ATT for service. Sure, it is not a great solution, but they (sonic) at least answer calls, have a decent portal, and not trying to upsell you anything or steal your dns queries.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    I agree that their service is much more reliable and definitely much better than Comcast, but at some point the main offering differences are going to come into play. On a no-contract comcast plan I'm paying the same price for 250 MBPS down now. It's good they finally got fiber, because there is no way their DSL offering would be considered competitive, or a viable alternative to comcast (the only other provider I have). I'm not even in some random part of SF. I'm on Valencia, in the Mission, 3 blocks from BART, which is pretty central. The fact that I have only 2 internet service providers in such a dense part of town and one that doesn't really have a competitive offering is sad, and also why "net neutrality" is necessary until real competition exists.
- smsm42 9y ago
  I've got 55/5 from Comcast for half the price. Promotional, of course, but once promotion ends I'll find some other promotion, likely. Not SF though, a bit south from it.

tfigment 9y ago

Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik). I would love to see the numbers as well. The X1 DVR as far as I am concerned was horrible compared to the ReplayTV or Tivo circa 2001 (except for obviously HD improvement). It only took 15 years and lots of legislation mandating cablecards and whatnot to get them to get there. I don't have hope that they will act in our best interests given past actions but I have to use them because there are no other real options. Honestly I would like to see the effective monopoly on physical layer internet broken up. Allow municipalities own the cables under the street and and not allow Comcast and others to block companies like Google from expanding by blocking access to the last mile. There is a lot of unused dark fiber in lots of places that could have supported 1Gbps a long time ago but doesn't

smsm42 9y ago
Comcast profit margin is 12%: https://ycharts.com/companies/CMCSA/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/CMCSA/profit_margin That's on the high side, usually it's around 10%. For comparison, profit margins for Internet/IT companies are around 25%, Google's 24%. Facebook's a whopping 45%. Microsoft's a remarkable 26%. Is 12% "insane"? Which one would be the "sane" one?
- harikb 9y ago
  For a company not having any R&D cost, granted monopoly/duopoly via lobbying, yes 12% may be insane.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    Why do you think they don't have any R&D cost? They just launched a mobile network, you don't think that involved at least some R&D investment? How much would be sane in your opinion? 1%? No profit at all?
rayiner 9y ago
> Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik). Comcast has raised speeds from about 16 mbps to gigabit in the last ten years, through multiple rounds of DOCSIS upgrades. As to access to the last mile: that’s already the law. Pole and conduit owners are required to lease out access at non-discriminatory rates. Comcast owns few if any poles. They lease access from the power company or the phone company, just like Google would have to do.

arctia 9y ago

SF-specific. Comcast has to step up because competition is fierce. Even just 30 miles south from SF, Comcast is crap because there's less competition there.

rconti 9y ago
28.4 miles south from SF (according to Google Maps driving directions from "San Francisco"), I've got gig down/40 up from Comcast. And the only competition is ATT DSL (yes, I'm like 2000 feet from the CO and they'll only give me 40mbit). Comcast advertises on broadcast TV all over the bay area "gigabit now available in your area". So I'd think penetration is pretty high now. Now, I'd rather pay pretty much anyone other than Comcast, and in particular I'd rather not pay $170 for gigabit, and I'd rather have symmetric FTTH, but hey, someone finally brought the bandwidth and I put my money where my mouth is.
- eropple 9y ago
  They're still pretty awful anywhere they can get away with it. In the Boston area, the best upstream I've ever been able to get from Comcast is 10Mbps (real-world 12Mbps) regardless of package. So I hope you don't like to use video chat, or Twitch streaming, or the like.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  > only give me 40mbit In most of the US you'd be lucky to break 5Mbit with DSL even in close proximity to the CO.
- cure 9y ago
  Comcast advertises on broadcast TV all over the bay area "gigabit now available in your area". So I'd think penetration is pretty high now. I wouldn't read too much into that. Here in Boston, the Verizon vans have sported "get FiOS now!" advertisements for more than a decade. But FiOS is simply not available in most of the area.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

rayiner 9y ago

There is no single resource. Fierce Telecom and (oddly enough) the forums on DSL Reports are good resources if you actually want to know what’s involved in getting from 100 Mbps to gigabit using DOCSIS. These sources definitely have an industry bent, but they also help you understand that “the Internet” is routers and switches and sense amps, not some platonic abstraction. As for the policy side, you need textbooks and primary sources. Telecom is a highly regulated market with almost a century of regulations, precedent, compromises, etc. Reading an Ars Technica or Tech Crunch article on it is not educational. I recommend Master Switch by Tim Wu, and Telecom Law and Policy by Benjamin and Speta (disclosure: I’m biased because Speta was my professor in law school).