Broadband price wars

[TheEnforcer]

Click link for full article....



http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10030642-93.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Verizon Communications and AT&T have thrown the first blows in an impending broadband pricing war.

Last week, Verizon Communications said it will offer six months of free DSL service to new customers who sign up for a one-year contract and also use the company's traditional landline voice service. The promotion is available until the end of October.

Verizon's DSL service typically costs between $19.99 per month for 768Kbps downloads and $42.99 a month for 7.1Mbps downloads. Add traditional telephone service, and subscribers can get high-speed DSL and phone service for as little as $45 a month versus $65 a month.

AT&T has also upped the ante with a new promotion that guarantees customers its current pricing, which ranges from $20 to $55, for two years, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

[RawAlex]

The DSL companies are realizing they can get in on the VoIP action / home phone business as well, which makes selling DSL at a lower price attractive. I also think they are trying to move people around and the new terms will include their unlimited usage with a hard cap.

[TheEnforcer]

I've never personally had DSL but my sister used to and man did it suck ass compared to cable. I love my VOIP phone though and would never go bacl to a traditional land line.

[Top_Of_Google_Man]

Unlimites isn`t always unlimited.

Surfing yes - downloading lots of movies etc no. Always read the fine print.

[RawAlex]

Comcast is going to a 250gig per month hard cap, and honestly, if you are using that much you really need to get a life.

[Toby]

This hard cap is really just a stop-gap until there's enough infrastructure in place to accomplish what is already beginning to happen, the total integration of Phone, Television, and Internet.

[RawAlex]

Toby, actually it's pretty funny. Bell Canada has been toying with IP-TV since abuot 2003, and so far it hasn't been a really great product.
http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Voice-Data-and-IP/59624c5e-a0f7-4b15-9507-90323846d640.html

The intention is there, but it is a fairly hard sale because they aren't able to offer enough bandwidth to most people at this point. You need somewhere between 10 to 20mbps consistent to make regular HD work properly (that would be say 2 channels worth, one you are watching, and the one you are PVRing or watching in the other room). Most people are still pretty lucky to get a 10 mbps connection, and then luckier to even get to use 10% of it most of the time.

You need a FIOS style solution for the user end, and you need massive, massive amounts of upstream bandwidth to get the content to the end users neighborhood to start with. With Bell being sold recently, there is some hope they will green light the project, but it will take years (many, many years) before they have a hope of competing properly.

[Hell Puppy]

They are struggling to keep DSL relevant.

It's slow and in most cases require you have a phone line. The latter is more and more of an issue. My DSL backup line is the ONLY reason I still have a landline. If anyone actually expects to talk to me, they best have my cellphone number. For anything else I might do, I'll do VoIP.