Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Mon Dec 20 20:44:33 UTC 2010

On Dec 20, 2010, at 11:37 AM, George Bonser wrote:

> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jeff Wheeler [mailto:jsw at inconcepts.biz]
>> Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 3:55 AM
>> To: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
>> 
>> On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-
>> gerbil.net> wrote:
>>> Running a wire to everyone's house is a natural monopoly. It just
>>> doesn't make sense, financially or technically, to try and manage 50
>>> different companies all trying to install 50 different wires into
>> every
>>> house just to have competition at the IP layer. It also wouldn't
> make
>> 
>> What no one has mentioned thus far is that CLECs really are able to
>> install their own facilities to homes and businesses if they decide
>> that is a good way to invest their finite resources.  This is why we
>> see several options for local loops in the "business district" of
>> every sizable city, as well as in many newly-developed areas such as
>> industrial parks.  These infrastructure builds are expensive, the
>> CLECs had limited logistical capabilities and could only manage so
>> many projects at once, and obviously, they focused their efforts on
>> the parts of town where return-on-investment was likely to be highest.
>> Businesses often do have several good choices for voice, data,
>> Internet, and so on.  Cogent is an example of an essentially
>> Internet-only service having some degree of success at this without
>> even offering voice, or initially even transport, products.
> 
> Also, there are two ways in to most urban and suburban home.  There is
> the telco and there is the "cable" company.  There is no reason those
> two paths should not compete for the same services, and they do across
> an increasing area of the US.  The rural areas, though, are a completely
> different story.
> 
> 
In the vast majority of cases, these are not equal competitors.

The vast majority of residences are more than 5,000 and a good majority
are more than 10,000 cable feet from the CO.

This means that average DSL speeds are sub-T1.

Most cable systems can deliver at least 10mbps/3mbps.

That's not competition unless your internet needs are extremely
modest and you are willing to accept some rather severe limitations.

I remember when I was on top of the world because I had T1 service
to my home and I used an average of 200kbps. Those days are long
gone. Today I get more than 200kbps in SPAM traffic.

Owen