Our government claims their actions are intended to encourage
competition, expand deployment and lower cost of broadband Internet
access. It must be working ...
Verizon is aggressively deploying fiber-to-the-premises here. Because
I use a local independent ISP there has been a lot of concern about
the consequences of this action.
What has now been confirmed by calls to Verizon is that
- Once the fiber connection is established all services, including
voice, are moved to the fiber and the copper wires are pulled,
making it impossible to return to standard DSL in spite of the
supposed 30-day trial period.
- The lowest cost package for the fiber connection is 30% more
expensive than their standard DSL offering
- They will absolutely NOT allow connections to other ISP's over
the fiber connection, essentially limiting ISP's other than
MSN to dialup customers.
- The lowest-cost package from Verizon that will allow me to
continue to run my own servers and host my own domain (something
my local independent ISP actively supports) will cost $99/mo.
So, while the landscape today includes a diverse collection of local
and national ISP's with a range of services and cost options, the
future will be dialup at $10-15/month or Comcast or Verizon/MSN at
~$50/mo. No more local businesses, no more local customer service, no
choice of services.
Yes indeed, seems like a major improvement to me.
John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com
