[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Faster Broadband! Thrill! Thrill! here

[nmcallister]

Comcast is offering a new cable Internet service in the San Francisco Bay Area that is 12Mbit down/2Mbit up. Has anyone in the area tried it? Does it work as advertised, and if you were an existing Comcast customer did you need to do anything special to get the upgrade?

[GlennF]

FYI, BroadbandReports.com and DSLreports.com are fantastic places to find out what other people's experiences are with the precise service in the location you're at. See this link for their Comcast discussion board, for instance. You can see what people with 12/2 Mbps service report through the site's upload speed test, too.

[coastie65]

I have fiber to the home with 15 mbps down,2 mbps up, FiOS TV, and freedom phone package (no long distance charges within the Continental U.S.) for about $150 per mo. with Verizon. I have been happy with the package and I feel it is a good value for the most part. I feel that once the Fiber Optics service expands to a significant degree, then the competition will heat up and with it, an overall decrease in pricing. I also feel that Fiber will eventually cover a larger area than cable and be a little more inclusive as to who can get it, but for the moment the systems are primarily being built in the Urban/Metro areas, but will eventually expand out to cover a larger area than cable and thus available to more people. As for what is being offered by say, Comcast, now they are behind the curve and trying to play catch up to Fiber. In this area, some fiber was added to the cable system when Media One had the franchise and "rebuilt" the system. coastie65

[GlennF]

Fiber is inevitable, to be sure, but the cost grows enormously (not quite exponentially) when you reach outside of urban and surburban areas unless it's run at the same time as basic utilities. Outside of the "urbs," though, electricity is often on overhead wires and sewers aren't used; septic instead.
I expect fiber to the "whatever" is the strategy to expand fiber use, where final mile high-frequency point-to-point wireless or DSL over short distances wins out.
AT&T is doing fiber to the node, so they use essentially DSL from their interchanges. Verizon does fiber to the home, and it's vastly, vastly more expensive. Probably the right long-term strategy.

[coastie65]

Hi Glenn, Although I'm in a suburban area, our Electric , Phone, and cable utilities are overhead. In the newer areas they have , for the most part, been buried, paticularly in Apartment and Condo complexes as well as the new high end subdivisions.Ruaral areas become somewhat problematic as you have to string more cable to reach fewer potential customers. That is the main reason why the cable companies " Cherry Pick " their service areas. I have a friend who is a former shipmate. The Cable stopped 1/4 mile from his house and he was out of range for DSL. Verizon set his desktop up with wireless as he had a signal, although not the best, but better speed than his dial up. After having talked to the Verizon Tech, I found out that Fiber was cheaper to build than Copper. That is why I feel that fiber will eventually reach a larger area than cable. When you have regulations that require the burying of lines, then that adds to the cost of the build considerably, as well as the time it takes to bring it online, so that is another consideration. I don't think the price of my package is all that bad for what I get. Granted, I don't have any premium channels and to convert one TV to HD service will add $5 per month, all in all I think it is still a pretty good buy compared to Comcast's pricing for roughly the same package, with inferior Internet service. coastie65

[dadscross]

GREED AND PREDJUDICE, UNJUST AND UNFAIR. Higly populated areas recieve lower broadband and DSL prices compared to rural areas who have to pay very high prices for service or get no service at all unloess it is high speed satelite at a very high price. Why in the world should they charge such a high price to begin with? How much is enough when they have more than they will ever use in a few lifetimes? So while there are those who totally enjoy the mind easing high speed, there are those who have to face frustration waiting for that download which they started last month. The usual greed before true concern for ALL AMERICANS being treated fairly.

[coastie65]

I agree with your post. The worst part is, the folks in rural areas, for the most part, are those who can least afford the higher rates. So far the cable industry has largely been unregulated. maybe it is time to rethink that, and bring them under regulation as are the other utilities. In an aside, after it was decided to deregulate the Power Company here ( Virginia Dominion Power ), the power company went back to the SCC ( State Corporation Commission ) and asked to be regulated again. coastie

[Coletrain]

Att u-verse launches in Columbia Sc in December. Finally, I can dump Time Warner and their crappy service. They have had a strangle hold on the area. Att u-verse is going to be an attractive option for a lot of people.