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Verizon: Still giving Boston the FiOS finger
By Brett on Wed, 11/12/2008 - 3:28pm
Eight months ago, I wrote about how Verizon was purposefully avoiding Boston. Nothing has changed since, except a growing list of backwater mid-state towns getting FiOS ahead of Boston, at the rate of several per month. Interestingly enough, the page which I linked to with the Mayoral Mumblings has been replaced; I guess Verizon didn't like all the bad PR when major internet blogs picked up on the Metro's story.
Attention Verizon, Deval, and Menino: can you boys get together and figure out what it's going to take for Boston to get FiOS, aka, more than once choice in internet provider?(I don't count Verizon's 1.5Mbit/128kbit joke of a DSL offering.) If Millbury, pop 12,800 gets FiOS, why can't Boston?
Come on. You've had three years to deploy services in Boston, and clearly "urban areas" aren't a problem, given that you wired up Brooklyn a year and a half ago. Clearly franchises aren't a problem, given that you secured the regulatory approvals to wire ALL of New York City back in July.
What's it going to take, Verizon? Why do you hate Boston, the technology hub of the east coast? You're not supposed to cherry-pick, being a common carrier and all.
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Comments
Boston has had historically slow roll-out...
Some years ago I had an ISDN line. I had that for a few years as the Boston Metro area lagged and lagged in getting high speed internet rolled out. Surrounding towns had Cable based 'net service - and the Boston Metro area was still in the grip of CableVision - which had no plans _at all_ to roll out any 'net service at all. Verizon was dragging it's feet on any DSL rollout too.
A call to a DSL service provider in California managed to get our house hooked up. Yes - California. And we had DSL about a year and a half before Verizon would even think about returning any calls for DSL service hookups.
Now we can choose from Comcast or RCN. And a couple of DSL choices.
You're absolutely right tho - it has been three years. And it's BS.
It's definitely not
It's definitely not city-wide, but I went with RCN when I lived in the city (near symphony), it was much better that Comcast.
Now I'm back out in the burbs... with only Comcast as an "option". Head->Wall
RCN is not better than
RCN is not better than Comcast, quality-wise its worse. I still choose to use them over Comcast because they have a more competitive price.
The reason FIOS isn't in the city is that it is MUCH more expensive to roll out in cities than towns.
Blame the utility poles? Or not.
I was talking to a Verizon technician the other day, and asked when we can expect to get FIOS in Somerville. His answere surprised me, but maybe shouldn't have:
"We can't get permission to hang wires from the utility poles, because there's already too much hanging on them."
Not sure if that's BS, or if it applies in Boston also, but it was at least plausible.
Gawd, I want something besides Comcast!
In JP, I believe the only option is Comcast. Boo.
State law requires Verizon
State law requires Verizon to provide the service throughout the entire town and not just in parts of the town. They want to cherry pick profitable neighborhoods.
Menino is keeing them to the requirement to wire the whole city and so won't let them into Boston until they agree to comply. He sees no other way to solve the problem.
I wrote hom a letter about 6 months ago when the last round of coverage hit the Globe. It was a waste of time. Menino doesn't want to solve the problem, he wants to force Verizon to do it his way or the highway.
It seem to me, that if he could get them to wire 80% in the short term and 20% in the next 10 years everyone would be sastisfied.
http://tinyurl.com/SayNotoJoe
No, everyone would /not/ be
No, everyone would /not/ be satisfied, which is the entire reason it's not being allowed. No one can honestly expect them to do it all at once, but Boston - though it is a major city - isn't really that big. Compared to some of the areas FiOS is already available in, Boston is a hick town.
The fact remains that areas like Beacon Hill and Cambridge would be the first to receive it, while areas like Dorchester and Mattapan (don't even suggest Roxbury) would be left behind. It's always that way. It was that way with DSL, and there's no reason for Verizon to change it now, because they keep getting away with it.
As much as I'd like FiOS to be available to everyone in Boston, I'd prefer it were available to /everyone/ in Boston.
FiOS In Boston
Parts of Dorchester are actually wired for FiOS already and can get Internet and Phone. There is no TV since the TV license is the most difficult part of the deal to acquire. I believe Verizon wants to go into Boston and anyone that thinks otherwise must be partially ignorant as to how a business works. considering the massive amount of money Menino wants for VZ to go in, VZ has to weigh the cost/profit ratio to figure out where they need to draw the line as to how much they can afford to lose. With any given area there are going to be people that can not pay their bills, whatever the reason. I believe that there is a fair amount of market research done as to how many existing delinquint accounts there are in the area and part of the delay is VZ asking how many of those potential delinquints do they want to take on. But then again I don't know the details of the behind the scenes dealings so I may just be blowing smoke.
Cambridge?
Any idea how Cambridge rates for desirability of running FiOS?
Cambridge economics are pretty diverse: transient students, well-to-do, poor and lower-middle, young professionals with roommates, professionals with overpriced condos.
Most parts of Cambridge are also pretty dense.
Boston is competitive
In many parts of Boston residents have the option to choose Comcast, RCN, or satellite. People who live out in "backwater" areas as you described (though I live in Canton which I would hardly categorize as "backwater") have been stuck with three options as well - Comcast, satellite or nothing. My town recently got wired for FiOS but from what I could gather the packages and pricing offered are pretty identical to what I already receive from Comcast. Since I'm not running a server out of my house, the increased speed of FiOS is probably not something that I would notice either.
People who have vendettas against Comcast are probably only too happy to switch to Verizon, RCN, or satellite TV. Perhaps Verizon doesn't want to invest in an area that is already saturated with two major cable TV providers? Or perhaps Verizon would prefer to "cherry pick" areas of town that they think they could turn a profit in? Either way, DSL as an alternative to Comcast is still not a terrible option compared to the primitive days of dial-up.
Fourth option
Speakeasy. More expensive than DSL from Verizon, but also very reliable.
how well does satellite work for Internet service?
I would think that the signal travel to and from a satellite would cause noticeable delays for any interactive service.
Satellite services don't do much advertising that I ever see. I get constant junk mail from RCN, Comcast, and Verizon DSL, but never from any satellite service. (Verizon FiOS isn't available in Somerville, either.)
It sucks, and no, we can't get RCN
I would think that the signal travel to and from a satellite would cause noticeable delays for any interactive service.
Yup- especially since the upload side is done via modem line.
There's no RCN service where I live, and despite what Adam says- speakeasy can only offer what Verizon decides to let them. In short, if they've decided your area is 1.5/128, then Speakeasy can't do squat about it.
Also, speakeasy was bought up by Best Buy and has since completely changed from the techie-friendly service to a service being milked for every dollar and run by idiots.
Oh yeah, and Speakeasy's 3.0/768 service costs $90/month, more than twice Comcast's 6.0/quasi-kinda-768*
*You get 768kbit for a couple of minutes, and then it drops back to 384 pretty hard.
Speakeasy and me
Sorry, I never said Speakeasy was faster than Verizon, just better.
I realize I pay more for Speakeasy than for "equivalent" service from Verizon or Comcast. But it's worth it to me, because Speakeasy is, still, reliable. My day job involves helping to run a Web site. I work at home a lot, so I need reliable service; if I can't get on the Internet, I can't do my job at all. I don't have that comfort level yet with Verizon or Comcast (and I definitely don't like the idea of having to worry about some double-secret probation bandwidth limitation).
Have you actually had dealings with Speakeasy since the Best Buy takeover? I have, once, a few months ago when the service was flaking out. They were as competent then as they were before they became part of Best Buy (my only complaint has been about a change in their privacy policy).
Comcast's generally very good
My folks have been "comcast" customers since the pre-MediaOne days (anyone else remember those giant finned "LanCity" modems?) I've lost track of how many name changes they went through. Service has improved over the years; around the MediaOne years, it wasn't very good. The last few, from what I've heard, it's more reliable than the power.
Of the problems that they've had over the last 14 years as customers, most were due to modems that died or were slightly incompatible with new cable signaling that was deployed.
good service, but bad attitude
The service is good when it works, but run into a problem and Comcast is incapable of dealing with their own equipment. I have phone and data service from Comcast. When my service went out, they kept telling me to unplug the modem to reset it. This never worked because, the modem has battery backup for the phone service.
I looked at the manufacturer label on the modem, went online, and found a reset button. This still didn't do the job. Finally, I removed the batteries, and recycled the power, and the modem came back up.
If I didn't know what I was doing, I would still be without Internet.
Note that when I called Comcast and filed the trouble ticket and then requested a refund for the outages, the representative started yelling at me and then hung up.
I also got a letter stating that if I use more than 250 GB per month they will cut off my service. I doubt my wife's online shoe shopping is going to hit this limit, but who knows what my Tivo is doing when it's downloading all those advertisements.
cherry picking
It's unfortunate that you are correct in Cherry Picking in towns they can turn the most profit in. Unfortunately, as I previously suggested, if everyone paid their bills on time every month, there would be no need to strategically figure out what towns to go into at any one time. Would you go into the streets of Dorchester and start handing out cash to random people and tell them as long as they pay you back? Not as likely as you would in Canton anyways. BTW, Norwood has at least 4 choices for TV provider. Also, VZ is attempting to get Governor Patrick to allow them to acquire the TV license for the entire state to open up the competition scene statewide. We'll see how that plays out.
Not quite
It's not about delinquent accounts. It's about hardware. Laying the fiber optic cable costs a lot for materials and labor (even more so in places where you have to bury the lines like in the city). If they lay out hardware to towns where high percentages of households are going to sign up, then it makes up for the initial cost and turns into profit for them. If they run it into neighborhoods where nobody signs up because the cost is out of reach, then they lose money on that region. Delinquent accounts don't cost them anything of real value because once the hardware is in place, it's essentially free for them to turn on and off access to the system. They make no more or less if they turn on your house or not...other than they charge you for however long you agree to have it on. If you don't pay it, they didn't lose any overhead for having had it on for that month before they turned it back off again...they just don't recover the cost of having installed the network in your entire neighborhood as fast. So it's not delinquency that they worry about, it's the number of likely sign-ups that they'll get from the neighborhood.
The problem is that Menino refuses to let them into the city unless they wire up every neighborhood, even those that aren't likely to produce customers as fast. He wants those neighborhoods to have equal services so that people who can afford the service would be willing to move there and help gentrify those neighborhoods. On the other end, Verizon wants to be competitive with Comcast. They want Menino (and all of the unserved, upset citizens) to help them get a statewide franchise license process to compete in other regions where Comcast has all but a monopoly and Verizon hasn't entered the local application processes yet because it would cost more effort and cost overhead (after Comcast went through the same town-by-town process that Verizon is hoping to bypass via this new legislation).
You would think that it's nearly a completed quid pro quo but the two sides just don't seem able to come to an agreement.
I also spoke with a Verizon FIOS guy...
and he told me that basically towns make Verizon pay them high amounts in permits/fees to install the new fios. I think he told me that Newton wanted a few hundred thousand (and got it) and Boston wants a few million before they start putting the stuff in. I think its at the point where Verizon isn't going to be making their money back to make it worth the millions in payments to the city.
And he also told me that although it is expensive to lay out, there is basically no matienience. He told me that the regular copper/phone stuff need fixing every 10 years or so underground while fios can last forever basically. Many Verizon guys don't like it because of that very reason....less work/overtime in the future for them.
I spoke with a Verizon tech
I spoke with a Verizon tech one day who came to fix a business DSL line, and his exact words to me were:
"You won't see Fios in Boston for at least another 4 years. Menino is a Comcast guy, and since we have to run all new wire for Fios all over the city, we haven't been able to get the permits yet. It's going to require a lot of work to install."
Now, I don't know if this was fact or opinion, but that's what he told me. This was back in April or May.
I personally have RCN and besides their foul up the other day, they've been very good. You get much more for far less each month than you would with Comcast.
fios vs mumbles/comcast
Verizon started to install fios in Dorchester, but 2 things stop them---Mumbles and his relationship with comcast. Mumbles wants megabucks from verizon for a cable license, but verizon was pursuing a statewide license, so they told mumbles to beat it. Verizon has slowed down the pursuit of a statewide license because they are getting into so many towns without being shook down. I have FIOS and live in Norwood---Norwood provides their own phone /internet/video thru the light dept, but even they granted verizon a cable license. If you live in boston and want fios, all the answers are at the dope you have elected mayor--the great MUMBLES MENINO!
Dingdingding! We have a winner.
Any time licenses are involved, follow the money. If one business isn't getting in to a community, it's probably because another business is paying to keep them out. A drug store couldn't get into Roslindale square because a buddy of Mumbles owns a store there.
It's a union thing. Follow
It's a union thing. Follow the money and the politics.
Amen!
Honestly, what is taking FIOS so long to get into Boston/Cambridge/Brookline!? We've been waiting patiently for years. I would really like to know the truth of why it isn't yet available in Boston. I've heard all kinds of stories, from it costs too much to install (yet Manhattan has FIOS) to Menino sleeps with Comcast and is not allowing Verizon in. I wish some place had the answer!
A verizon guy told me that
some towns and cities want Verizon to pay a "fee" in order to install that service in the city. I was told Newton paid Verizon close to a million, and I was told the fee Boston wanted Verizon to pay was not worth the possible hassle of installing it in the city.
This was from the gut that installed Verizon Fios in my house.
FIOS exists in the city!
Update: So I was shocked to find out that there are several apartment buildings in Boston where FIOS Internet, not TV, is in fact available. They're not in any one particular place, but they do exist. Here's a list of the buildings I've found so far:
101 Canal Street - Archstone Avenir
45 Province
401 Mount Vernon Street - Peninsula Apts
Harbor View Apartments
My question is, how do these places have FIOS Internet? I thought the hold up in Boston was that the city hadn't allowed them to come in and sell service. That is clearly not the case because these buildings definitely have service.
It's very strange that you can't call Verizon's FIOS office and ask them where in the city you can actually get service. They claim to have no idea and can only search via some online database.
if it's not TV, it may not be regulated
Are these all pretty new buildings? I don't think Verizon needs any city or state permits to sell Internet-only FiOS that doesn't include TV service.