[funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)

Tue Mar 13 18:40:19 UTC 2007

On 3/13/07, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
> If many of US consumers were already buying the biggest pipe and were
> willing to pay even more for even higher speeds; would we be having
> this discussion?  Or is the reality that US consumers are buying lower
> priced services even when bigger services are available.

The reality is probably more that

> Several US Providers are very happy to sell 1Gbps and even 10Gbps to
> anyone in major (i.e. NFL/top 30) cities, but not at $14.95/month.

Of course not; I wouldn't expect that.  However, there are many
markets where even "small business broadband" -- rate-limited at
*exactly* the same numbers as consumer services -- are twice the price
as consumer services.  I happen to live in one, and it's true of both
the major ADSL and cable carriers there.

A typical "small business" usage profile even puts that price past a
typical (bidirectional 95p, not rate-capped) Mbit/s cost of a real
fiber connection to a Tier-[123] type carrier.  The only remaining
difference skewing away from direct connection is the cost of the
loop.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv at duh.org> <tv at pobox.com> <todd at vierling.name>