3 ms·

With Starlink I think the competition will get more real for them. In the rare markets with actual competition the shitty cable companies provide at least okay

With Starlink I think the competition will get more real for them. In the rare markets with actual competition the shitty cable companies provide at least okay service. In Palo Alto I can get 1gbps down/35mbps up on Comcast for $89 (with 1TB data cap I have to pay $50 extra to remove). That's not too bad. They also offer a 2gbps down and up service called gigabit pro, but it requires installation and it's pretty expensive: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comcast_gigabit_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comc.... It's also hard to get because the reps on the phone are not well trained and don't know about it. This is only because there are a few internet options here. Where I grew up there is one provider (Spectrum, was Time Warner, and Adelphia before that), the service is bad and the price is at least double. I recently moved to SF and I'm in a newer building with Google Fiber Webpass, it's 1gbps down and up with no cap for $57/month - it's awesome. The worst part about Comcast (ignoring the 35mbps up which is pretty bad) is everything around the service. Their website is extremely hostile. It's impossible to do anything online. Their pricing is heavily obscured. They push shitty TV packages I don't want or care about. It's hard to cancel without going through retention. Google Webpass? I signed up online in 5min, connected my own equipment and was good to go. Hopefully with real competition the old services will either get competitive or die. I don't really care which.

martinald 6y ago
This. I think the really confusing thing is why so few new entrants have joined the US telecom market. There is masses of cheap capital to build these networks out. Most of Europe seems to be moving to this kind of model: A cable TV provider using DOCSIS or FTTH (and expanding their footprint) Existing incumbent telco providing service via VDSL/FTTH (rapidly rolling out FTTH) New "altnets" (as they are called here) doing new build FTTH (like webpass in the US, but they are not just aimed at apartment buildings). This has led to really significant competition. In portugal I have access to at least 1 FTTH and DOCSIS3.1. In London the same, my last flat actually had the option of 2 seperate FTTH providers (not sharing infrastructure) plus DOCSIS based cable. I think the altnets are the key to forcing investment by the otherwise duopolistic incumbent telcos and cable companies. I think what the FCC should be looking at is how to allow altnets to roll out service quicker. There is so much state/municipal legislation that I imagine that is the main blocker of doing this at scale.
rcxdude 6y ago
> With Starlink I think the competition will get more real for them. It's entirely possible for them to just ignore starlink. Due to the nature of satellite internet there's only so high a density of customers that they can have. At maximum theoretical efficiency and distribution this is maybe 1% of US households. In cities it will be irrelevant (starlink will either raise prices or turn away customers), in rural areas it may serve as some competition, but infrastruture investment in those areas is naturally lower return than in cities, so they're not likely to have a strong incentive to improve their service there. Elon Musk has specifically said Starlink is not competition for the big telcos.
coldcode 6y ago
The only option I have is Spectrum with an absolutely crappy upload speed (currently 6MB). Sadly this neighborhood never got any other option. Starlink might finally provide some competition.
- headShrinker 6y ago
  I’m in the same boat with spectrum, 9Mbps up, which works out to 1.44MB up in real world example. It takes me upwards of a full day to upload a 30 minute 4K YouTube video! It’s shockingly bad. I called to upgrade and the only option is business class for $200 per month offering 35Mbps up. StarLink beta welcome email just arrived and I’m counting the days till I cancel Spectrum completely
croutonwagon 6y ago
>They also offer a 2gbps down and up service called gigabit pro, but it requires installation and it's pretty expensive: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comc https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comc.... It's also hard to get because the reps on the phone are not well trained and don't know about it. This is how you know they arent really concerned about competition. This level of service is probably not quite a profitable because they likely cant oversubscribe their GPON nodes as aggressively with customers on that tier. The only other explanation is they dont care they are leaving money on the table. In my area comcast is $89 for 200/10. And I live in an area with a significantly lower COL than Palo Alto. I have to monitor my network for bandwidth usage and recently had to revert back to sneakernet for offsite backups because i was routinely approaching the data cap. The only other option is CenturyLink DSL at like 5Mbps/768Kbps... Starlink is available and frankly im considering it out of spite. I canceled cable and have the rare unbundled comcast plan. I could easily run dual ISP's for a while and be around what I was paying for cable TV and if starlink pan's out....i can just axe comcast. But a 40ms first hop may not be tenable. Not sure. I definitely dont live in a large city. But its not really the boonies either.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah - even regular 1gbps down/35mbps up gigabit was hard to get when I first signed up. I called and asked the guy if it was available, he said not in my area and they'd contact me when it was. This seemed wrong since I'd read it was available (and I guess he was just lying about contacting me?). I called back and got a new guy, he said it was available but 'installation' was $300. This seemed wrong. I tried a third time, this guy said I was confused and the word 'gigabit' didn't exist - I must be talking about the 'gigabyte data cap'. I begged him to click around his screen and look for gigabit service. He did and finally found it, "first I've seen this". I asked this guy about gigabit pro and he said it didn't exist. I'd since switched to using comcast twitter to get someone at least moderately competent when I want something (they know about gigabit pro). Thankfully now I don't have to use them at all. They are insanely difficult to buy stuff from. During all those calls they keep pushing TV packages and get upset when I say no thank you. When I called to cancel they kept pushing promotional rates and asking me not to cancel. Even though my new service is less than half price, uncapped and has 30x more upload. All that said, when the service itself is running it at least works pretty much all the time without issue.

martinald 6y ago

This. I think the really confusing thing is why so few new entrants have joined the US telecom market. There is masses of cheap capital to build these networks out. Most of Europe seems to be moving to this kind of model: A cable TV provider using DOCSIS or FTTH (and expanding their footprint) Existing incumbent telco providing service via VDSL/FTTH (rapidly rolling out FTTH) New "altnets" (as they are called here) doing new build FTTH (like webpass in the US, but they are not just aimed at apartment buildings). This has led to really significant competition. In portugal I have access to at least 1 FTTH and DOCSIS3.1. In London the same, my last flat actually had the option of 2 seperate FTTH providers (not sharing infrastructure) plus DOCSIS based cable. I think the altnets are the key to forcing investment by the otherwise duopolistic incumbent telcos and cable companies. I think what the FCC should be looking at is how to allow altnets to roll out service quicker. There is so much state/municipal legislation that I imagine that is the main blocker of doing this at scale.

rcxdude 6y ago

> With Starlink I think the competition will get more real for them. It's entirely possible for them to just ignore starlink. Due to the nature of satellite internet there's only so high a density of customers that they can have. At maximum theoretical efficiency and distribution this is maybe 1% of US households. In cities it will be irrelevant (starlink will either raise prices or turn away customers), in rural areas it may serve as some competition, but infrastruture investment in those areas is naturally lower return than in cities, so they're not likely to have a strong incentive to improve their service there. Elon Musk has specifically said Starlink is not competition for the big telcos.

coldcode 6y ago

The only option I have is Spectrum with an absolutely crappy upload speed (currently 6MB). Sadly this neighborhood never got any other option. Starlink might finally provide some competition.

headShrinker 6y ago
I’m in the same boat with spectrum, 9Mbps up, which works out to 1.44MB up in real world example. It takes me upwards of a full day to upload a 30 minute 4K YouTube video! It’s shockingly bad. I called to upgrade and the only option is business class for $200 per month offering 35Mbps up. StarLink beta welcome email just arrived and I’m counting the days till I cancel Spectrum completely

croutonwagon 6y ago

>They also offer a 2gbps down and up service called gigabit pro, but it requires installation and it's pretty expensive: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comc https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/fs6un2/comc.... It's also hard to get because the reps on the phone are not well trained and don't know about it. This is how you know they arent really concerned about competition. This level of service is probably not quite a profitable because they likely cant oversubscribe their GPON nodes as aggressively with customers on that tier. The only other explanation is they dont care they are leaving money on the table. In my area comcast is $89 for 200/10. And I live in an area with a significantly lower COL than Palo Alto. I have to monitor my network for bandwidth usage and recently had to revert back to sneakernet for offsite backups because i was routinely approaching the data cap. The only other option is CenturyLink DSL at like 5Mbps/768Kbps... Starlink is available and frankly im considering it out of spite. I canceled cable and have the rare unbundled comcast plan. I could easily run dual ISP's for a while and be around what I was paying for cable TV and if starlink pan's out....i can just axe comcast. But a 40ms first hop may not be tenable. Not sure. I definitely dont live in a large city. But its not really the boonies either.

fossuser 6y ago
Yeah - even regular 1gbps down/35mbps up gigabit was hard to get when I first signed up. I called and asked the guy if it was available, he said not in my area and they'd contact me when it was. This seemed wrong since I'd read it was available (and I guess he was just lying about contacting me?). I called back and got a new guy, he said it was available but 'installation' was $300. This seemed wrong. I tried a third time, this guy said I was confused and the word 'gigabit' didn't exist - I must be talking about the 'gigabyte data cap'. I begged him to click around his screen and look for gigabit service. He did and finally found it, "first I've seen this". I asked this guy about gigabit pro and he said it didn't exist. I'd since switched to using comcast twitter to get someone at least moderately competent when I want something (they know about gigabit pro). Thankfully now I don't have to use them at all. They are insanely difficult to buy stuff from. During all those calls they keep pushing TV packages and get upset when I say no thank you. When I called to cancel they kept pushing promotional rates and asking me not to cancel. Even though my new service is less than half price, uncapped and has 30x more upload. All that said, when the service itself is running it at least works pretty much all the time without issue.