[Discuss] Howdy

[matt at mattshields.org (Matt Shields)]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:14 PM, John Abreau <abreauj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
>
> > I live in Newton where we have Vz (FIOS), Comcast, and RCN. In general my
> > Comcast service has been excellent with any outage not their fault.
>
>
> The difference is that you live in a town where there is actually some
> competition in the broadband market, so the companies *have* to provide
> good service in order to retain customers.
>
> Most towns give a monopoly to one broadband provider, who then has
> no incentive to give adequate service.
>
>
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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I was talking with a friend who is the LAN/WAN manager for a town here in
MA and he was involved in the negotiations with Comcast and Verizon for
that town.  Previously Comcast had an exclusive multi-year(think it was 10
or 20 years) agreement and the town received a payment for each resident
that had Comcast service.  When FIOS came out, the town went back to
Comcast and told them if they didn't want to allow Verizon in then they
would pull their rights and only allow Verizon.  I guess Comcast agreed so
they now have both.

Unfortunately, not all the towns are doing this.  In Quincy where I live,
I've heard two different stories.  I've heard that they don't have the
balls to try a renegotiation, and I've heard that the payment they get from
Comcast is quite substantial and they're happy getting the money from
Comcast and if they renegotiated the amount per subscriber could be
significantly less.

But as one person had mentioned, where there are no other alternatives you
can always sign up for Clear.com.  Since I need to be on 24x7 and can't
have Comcast being down when I need to be online, I've got a Clear.com
wireless account for backup.  $55/month for unlimited wireless service.
 Not the fastest service (although Netflix and Hulu do work fine), but it's
great for when Comcast is down or when I'm on the go and need WIFI service.

Matthew Shields
Owner
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