Speakeasy alternatives

[Mark Richards]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> 
> BTW: Comcasts bandwidth is [slightly] faster than FIOS ("up to
> 5Mbps"). 
I have FIOS.  They offer 15 and 30 down.  It's asymmetrical.  Right now 
we have 12,673bbps down and 1180kbps with the circuit in use.  AFAIK 
they don't block, rate limit, or pull the plug when you reach an 
unspecified level of use.

> BTW: FIOS is available in the City of Boston. It is probably not
> available in a number of apartment and condominium buildings because it
> would require a significant rewiring of the building. (I actually
> entered a phone number of someone who lives in Boston, and FIOS is
> available. it certainly would be nice to have fibre coming right into
> the house. 
There's no rewiring of the building required.  FIOS terminates in 
standard POTS and ethernet drops.

A FIOS installation is all fibre to the home/building.  Below ground is 
of course possibly more difficult, but if you're pole-bound usually 
what's involved is replacing the wire cable with a single fibre line, 
attaching this to an outdoor interface, and bringing through the wall a 
connection to an inside power supply and demarcation block.

It took about 2 hours for our install.

I think the largest problem for Verizon is the deployment cost (hardware 
is fixed, but employee time is probably the largest expense) and return 
on investment which will not come for a while or until they start 
offering video and other services to jack up the overall costs to the 
consumer.

After a few years I would expect this to be yet another cash cow - 
probably even sweeter than the POTS system it's replacing.

/m

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