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Just ask any NYC folks. How many of us are still waiting for that FIOS? I am waiting and waiting. And they promised to complete by 2014. We are almost three mon

by yeukhon 13y ago

Just ask any NYC folks. How many of us are still waiting for that FIOS? I am waiting and waiting. And they promised to complete by 2014. We are almost three months into 2014 and I still have no FiOS access here. A bit above my area has already gotten FiOS two-three years ago and my area still hasn't gotten any! I am angry. We need to break this franchises. > The company also appears to be blaming landlords for any hold ups in deployments Yeah. Excuse. I haven't heard any landlord in my neighborhood ever complain about this. A lot of my neighbor landlords (they don't actually live there, just for rent), when they come by we would have conversation about these things (because they know I do some computer stuff and they would come and ask for advice when TW goes down), they say they'd make more rent if FiOS was here. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Accused-of-Lagging-on-NYC-FiOS-Promises-124089 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Accused-of-Laggin...

res0nat0r 13y ago
VZW stopped rolling out FIOS across the board I believe.
- skyebook 13y ago
  Yeah I've heard/seen this as well, they've done it in favor of expanding LTE coverage [0] I'm astounded at how anyone at VZ thinks this could be a good idea. [0] http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-FiOS-Expansion-is-Over-118949 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-Fi...
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    I believe the FIOS demand wasn't high enough to justify the costs of expanding it any further.
    - pwarner 13y ago
      fios penetration rate is 35% which is not bad. http://www.lightreading.com/fios-slows-but-still-grows/d/d-id/707379 http://www.lightreading.com/fios-slows-but-still-grows/d/d-i...
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    There are a lot of folks on forums like this who think networks like FiOS should be regulated into being essentially dumb pipes. Verizon and their investors see some chance of this happening, and even if it didn't, it turns out there aren't a lot of "value added" services you can sell to consumers over a proprietary network; they just want the internet. You can't make the margins as a "dumb pipe" that Verizon needs to justify the capital investment in FiOS. That's the long and the short of it. They had dreams of selling pay-per-view movies, video chat, and a dozen other applications over their network for big $$$. Instead they're fighting with Comcast over the same $120 in cable and internet bills, while Netflix, Google, and Apple build their high-margin businesses on VZ's fiber.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      It's amazing to me how many people here on HN complain on one hand about companies not wanting to make massive capital investments to build out faster internet service while simultaneously espousing regulating such services into low-margin dumb pipes.
      - ericd 13y ago
        I think there's a simple solution - municipal fiber everywhere with companies allowed to lease access. Internet access looks like a utility and quacks like a utility, so it should be treated like one. The timeline for breaking even on the investment has been pretty reasonably short in the examples I've seen.
        rayiner 13y ago
        The municipalities have no money to build, and more importantly, to maintain and continually upgrade, such networks. Heck, they can barely maintain utility systems that evolve far slower than internet connectivity: power and water. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/18water.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/18water.html?_r=0. People outside of HN won't be anywhere near sufficiently eager to earmark sufficient public dollars to properly maintain such networks, not when pensions systems are underfunded and schools are putting teachers on furlough.
  - JonFish85 13y ago
    I wonder how many people honestly care about what internet provider they have? Do most people want FIOS? Or would more people prefer to have a much better connection on the phone/iPad? On top of that, as was mentioned above, it's probably cheaper to update to LTE than it is to run fiber everywhere, and on top of that, it's probably worth more money to them on the $x/mo for LTE service since to add another customer in the area is trivial compared to FIOS.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      It isn't about the provider, it's the speed we care. Are they going to let my router able to get stable internet from LTE technology? I have desktop and laptops and I don't want to add wireless card to my desktop in particular. I rather serve things over my own router. How are they going to market to home users? FIOS has been said to be high speed, reliable, fiber-optic. Great. I am willing to add $20 to my monthly bill to get one. And how can they drop the agreement like this?
skyebook 13y ago
Yes. This. Having had FiOS before is the worst part, knowing first-hand just how subpar my TWC service is (there's no going back after getting 35mbps upload speeds). It seems completely ridiculous to me that in 2014 Brooklyn we're still choosing block-by-block where to live based on the internet service.
judk 13y ago
What's funny is that the rent premium for fiber is higher than the prices people complain about for Cable.

by yeukhon 13y ago

res0nat0r 13y ago

VZW stopped rolling out FIOS across the board I believe.

skyebook 13y ago
Yeah I've heard/seen this as well, they've done it in favor of expanding LTE coverage [0] I'm astounded at how anyone at VZ thinks this could be a good idea. [0] http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-FiOS-Expansion-is-Over-118949 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-Fi...
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  I believe the FIOS demand wasn't high enough to justify the costs of expanding it any further.
  - pwarner 13y ago
    fios penetration rate is 35% which is not bad. http://www.lightreading.com/fios-slows-but-still-grows/d/d-id/707379 http://www.lightreading.com/fios-slows-but-still-grows/d/d-i...
- twoodfin 13y ago
  There are a lot of folks on forums like this who think networks like FiOS should be regulated into being essentially dumb pipes. Verizon and their investors see some chance of this happening, and even if it didn't, it turns out there aren't a lot of "value added" services you can sell to consumers over a proprietary network; they just want the internet. You can't make the margins as a "dumb pipe" that Verizon needs to justify the capital investment in FiOS. That's the long and the short of it. They had dreams of selling pay-per-view movies, video chat, and a dozen other applications over their network for big $$$. Instead they're fighting with Comcast over the same $120 in cable and internet bills, while Netflix, Google, and Apple build their high-margin businesses on VZ's fiber.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    It's amazing to me how many people here on HN complain on one hand about companies not wanting to make massive capital investments to build out faster internet service while simultaneously espousing regulating such services into low-margin dumb pipes.
    - ericd 13y ago
      I think there's a simple solution - municipal fiber everywhere with companies allowed to lease access. Internet access looks like a utility and quacks like a utility, so it should be treated like one. The timeline for breaking even on the investment has been pretty reasonably short in the examples I've seen.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        The municipalities have no money to build, and more importantly, to maintain and continually upgrade, such networks. Heck, they can barely maintain utility systems that evolve far slower than internet connectivity: power and water. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/18water.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/18water.html?_r=0. People outside of HN won't be anywhere near sufficiently eager to earmark sufficient public dollars to properly maintain such networks, not when pensions systems are underfunded and schools are putting teachers on furlough.
- JonFish85 13y ago
  I wonder how many people honestly care about what internet provider they have? Do most people want FIOS? Or would more people prefer to have a much better connection on the phone/iPad? On top of that, as was mentioned above, it's probably cheaper to update to LTE than it is to run fiber everywhere, and on top of that, it's probably worth more money to them on the $x/mo for LTE service since to add another customer in the area is trivial compared to FIOS.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    It isn't about the provider, it's the speed we care. Are they going to let my router able to get stable internet from LTE technology? I have desktop and laptops and I don't want to add wireless card to my desktop in particular. I rather serve things over my own router. How are they going to market to home users? FIOS has been said to be high speed, reliable, fiber-optic. Great. I am willing to add $20 to my monthly bill to get one. And how can they drop the agreement like this?

skyebook 13y ago

Yes. This. Having had FiOS before is the worst part, knowing first-hand just how subpar my TWC service is (there's no going back after getting 35mbps upload speeds). It seems completely ridiculous to me that in 2014 Brooklyn we're still choosing block-by-block where to live based on the internet service.

judk 13y ago

What's funny is that the rent premium for fiber is higher than the prices people complain about for Cable.