From: Thomas Leavitt <thomas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 16, 2005 5:30:37 AM PST
To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] Wireless Regulation Matters Even More, Now
Dewayne,
After reading this article, I was inspired to repeat the research
I'd
done on alternatives to DSL and Cable earlier this year, when I
moved my
company into new offices, and no longer had "Ethernet to the
Internet"
via an in-building connection to my ISP (and thence directly to the
Internet backbone). The results were just as disappointing today, as
they were then.
I live in Santa Cruz, CA, less than an hour's drive from the
heart of
Silicon Valley. The "one path for packets that hasn't been
monopolized"
offers me an unappetizing menu of choices, starting at a minimum of
$99/mo. for a fraction of the capacity offered by my local ISP's
rebranding of SBC's DSL network. This is hardly an "alternative". I'd
abandon my DSL and wireline phone for a wireless broadband network
connection and VOIP in a heartbeat... but not for more than twice
what
I'm paying now (roughly $65-70/mo. between the DSL and the wireline
metered rate phone I use only for incoming phone calls and outgoing
faxes) and a fraction of the bandwidth.
Extensive Googling yielded perhaps a half-dozen alternatives that at
least theoretically offered service in my area... of the three (maybe
four) I was able to actually find pricing for (among quite a
number who
have simply disappeared and had their web site URL's snatched up by
traffic mongers), the best deal available was from Etheric
Networks, at
$99/mo. for a "small office/home office" connection... and, in my
area,
actually, their rates are $129 or $149 for their lowest tier of
service
(750 kbps guaranteed, bursting to 1 mbps, with a quota of 55.1
GB). See:
http://www.etheric.net/soho.html
Compare that to the $29.99/mo. (plus another $3-4 in fees) I pay
for my
Cruzio.com 3.0 DSL connection (rebranded SBC Internet, which I
believe
sells for $5/mo. less direct). "Download speeds of 1.5mbps to
3.0mbps;
upload speeds of 384kbps to 512kbps."
http://www.cruzio.com/services/highspeed_access/higher_speeds.html
I just ran their speed tester, and it says I'm getting 2.54 mbps
downloads, and 458 mbps uploads. Cruzio doesn't give me a quota,
doesn't
prevent me from reselling my bandwidth or running a server, etc.
You can argue that SBC isn't selling this service at their true
cost,
but the gap between the two is more like a chasm. This hardly
constitutes a serious alternative.
I'd pay a reasonable premium (either in reduced capacity, or
increased
monthly rates) to be able to cut the wires completely, but the market
isn't delivering such an option yet, as far as I can tell. Anyone
know
why? What are the economics, such that it isn't feasible to offer me,
say, 1.5 mbps downloads, and 256k uploads, with a reasonable level of
reliability, for, say, $50/mo.? ...at which point, the economics
of it
become pretty compelling, as the cash price, when combined with
commercial VOIP service, is in the ballpark relative what I'm
paying now
(with the premium being an expected lower QOS and lower overall
bandwidth).
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt