cheap broadband?

[jt]

What are the prospects of cheap broadband now or in the near future?

Is verizon the only cheap game in town - and yet it is for sale? I
hear the buyers propose a freeze on rate rises for phones - dsl too?
But that isn't such a great rate anyway, with a mainland version by
sbc/verizon being one third cheaper (and falling?).

Also heard of possible rulings that would force verizon or others to
resell broadband capacity cheap to smaller local providers...

[[e-mail]]

Post by jt
What are the prospects of cheap broadband now or in the near future?
Is verizon the only cheap game in town - and yet it is for sale? I
hear the buyers propose a freeze on rate rises for phones - dsl too?
But that isn't such a great rate anyway, with a mainland version by
sbc/verizon being one third cheaper (and falling?).
Also heard of possible rulings that would force verizon or others to
resell broadband capacity cheap to smaller local providers...

Probably nil. I think the fact that webhost places are selling
accounts now for next to nothing with ever bigger traffic limits and
RR and others are upping the max to 5 megs on the mainland shows
costs are falling like crazy and yet theres no general break for cable
modem users except for the fact they offer more for the same price and
thats only when theres competition. Ive read they offered the 5 meg
rates in the race with DSL etc to retain subscribers but in Hawaii I
dont think DSL has ever been that competitive so they arent offering
the 5 meg upgrade Ive heard though other regions are getting it.

Maybe we can wait for that much hyped development in the 90s -
broadband over the powerlines. They hyped it again recently as a
possible real alternative in the US.

[jt]

Post by ***@Smith.com
Maybe we can wait for that much hyped development in the 90s -
broadband over the powerlines. They hyped it again recently as a
possible real alternative in the US.

HECO is actually experimenting with it now, and there is a free brown
bag seminar on that and other power broadband prospects at the makai
end of fort street mall 12-1 thursday Jan 27 at the University of
Phoenix, 828 Fort Street, Room 620. Steven Schoen has more info

[jt]

Here are details on jan 27 and feb 16 free broadband seminars:

http://www.hitechhawaii.com/webeventsview.asp?ID=1088
http://www.hitechhawaii.com/webeventsview.asp?ID=1117

[Dan Birchall]

Post by jt
What are the prospects of cheap broadband now or in the near future?

There _should_ be (in a world where ISPs don't oversubscribe their
bandwidth into oblivion) a mathematical correlation between the speed
and number of connections and ISP services and said ISP's back-end
bandwidth out to backbones and the rest of the world. (I do not
expect Verizon or Oceanic, now or at any point in the future, to
heed this.)

Most places on the mainland, there are backbones galore going every
which way. Here in Hawaii, there are a finite number of undersea
cables and fibers going to the mainland and other places. The folks
who own those connections can pretty much charge what they want to
backbones who want presences in Hawaii, and if those costs are higher
than they are on the mainland, I'd expect them to trickle down.

[Del Wong]

Here in Hawaii, you can get a Tier 1 45Mbps feed for under $6K monthly
local loop included (well, sort of.)

This is the same rate as what this Tier 1 provider charges on
the mainland to mainland customers. My rate sheet is almost
a year old, so who knows what the current pricing is.

Hawaii does indeed have bandwidth available. Lots of it.

I remember paying $12k a month for a T-1 pipe to the mainland...

Been there, done that. Oh yeah.


//del//

Post by Dan Birchall

Post by jt
What are the prospects of cheap broadband now or in the near future?

There _should_ be (in a world where ISPs don't oversubscribe their
bandwidth into oblivion) a mathematical correlation between the speed
and number of connections and ISP services and said ISP's back-end
bandwidth out to backbones and the rest of the world. (I do not
expect Verizon or Oceanic, now or at any point in the future, to
heed this.)
Most places on the mainland, there are backbones galore going every
which way. Here in Hawaii, there are a finite number of undersea
cables and fibers going to the mainland and other places. The folks
who own those connections can pretty much charge what they want to
backbones who want presences in Hawaii, and if those costs are higher
than they are on the mainland, I'd expect them to trickle down.

[Dan Birchall]

Post by Del Wong
Here in Hawaii, you can get a Tier 1 45Mbps feed for under $6K monthly
local loop included (well, sort of.)
This is the same rate as what this Tier 1 provider charges on
the mainland to mainland customers. My rate sheet is almost
a year old, so who knows what the current pricing is.
Hawaii does indeed have bandwidth available. Lots of it.

Huh. That's definitely good to hear. Did Southern Cross bring
this about? I got the impression that pre-Southern Cross, we were...
"constrained."

[Michael J Wise]

Did Southern Cross bring this about?

I gather so, yes.

Aloha mai Nai`a.

[jt]

Post by jt
Is verizon the only cheap game in town - and yet it is for sale? I

I found you can order verizon dsl thru a dell web page at a much bigger
discount than they are advertising in local mailings - 3 free months
with possible $50 rebate. Free self-installation with a wire/wireless
combo modem. Not sure if you get any free dialup hrs for when out of
range (like with RR?), and I don't dare ask them since the freebie
promotion is only valid for the no human contact mode.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/internet?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs