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Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS....
Your editing of that sentence was a little too tight. Verizon's not admitting anything of the sort.
"Consumer groups who opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable."
Well, we have had fiber access for over a decade now in central Washington. Including 1 Gbps service. The fiber service comes through the local public utility districts.
It cost 100 million to provide fiber access to 70% of the county residents. The local public utility district turned down a federal grant to provide fiber to the remaining 30% or residents currently not served.
They have also raised the rates so fiber is self-supporting rather than being subsidized by electricity sales to western Washington and Oregon. So the the 100 up and down service went from $30 month to $60 month.
There is a lot of support for fiber in the community, but if it means that electricity rates go up from 2 cents a kilo-watt hour the local commissioners felt that most folks would rather have cheap electricity than cheap fiber.
I love having high speed fiber for cable TV, phone and internet. I love having a choice of many companies for those services. There is lots of support for fiber in the community, but it seems that not among the elected officials.
I suspect the US is rapidly sliding into 3rd world status. We no longer have a manned space program. People seem unwilling to pay for the future and its benefits.
So it is really no surprise that Verizon would abandon their FIOS program. I am no fan of Verizon, it was their opposition to public fiber that set back the public fiber program in central Washington a decade ago. A decade ago, they tried using their influence with then Governor Locke to stop the fiber build-out in central Washington. Obama appointed Locke as Commerce Secretary to provide high speed internet service to the country. No wonder that the national program failed...the fox in the hen house!!
Fiber has many economic benefits, but we as a country are no longer exceptional.
I'm not convinced that fiber to residences is as critical to the future of our infrastructure. We've had FIOS as an option here for 7+ years and it's been great to have a choice and competition for improvement. However, when we're approaching wireless speeds that match fiber optic speeds, does it make sense to invest in laying down the fiber?
I'm not convinced that fiber to residences is as critical to the future of our infrastructure. We've had FIOS as an option here for 7+ years and it's been great to have a choice and competition for improvement. However, when we're approaching wireless speeds that match fiber optic speeds, does it make sense to invest in laying down the fiber?
While wireless has gotten faster, fiber is growing too. When we had FiOS we had a 25/15 plan, there was only one plan faster than that at the time (at over $100 a month). My parents now have a 75/25 plan, and I'm pretty sure there are a couple of faster ones available.
My LTE is fast but I don't get 25/15 out of it, it's only available in limited areas, it's far more expensive, and has data limits.
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