Verizon To Use New Tech With Old Cables 188
Ant wrote to mention a ZDNet article about a new initive to get modern high-speed net access into homes utilizing old coaxial cable lines. Right now Verizon digs up streets and lays out expensive fiber to get homes online, but new tech may let them accomplish that task for much less hassle and expense. From the article: "Later this year, it plans to use new technology from the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) , an industry group that promotes using coaxial cable installed for cable TV to transmit broadband around the home. The organization says that its technology supports speeds up to 270 megabits per second. Because most homes already have coaxial cable installed in several rooms, Verizon can significantly reduce its Fios installation costs by using existing cabling to connect home computers to its broadband service."
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:4, Interesting)
Only delaying the inevetible.... (Score:2, Interesting)
This may be new to verizon... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, you mean THAT Verizon? (Score:1, Interesting)
That phone company which is installing FiOS in my neighborhood, whose:
(a) prices are no cheaper than my current cable hookup;
(b) promised download and upload speeds are virtually no better;
(c) riddles their advertisements with information about MICROSOFT and WINDOWS, when I use only LINUX for all of my computer needs and my Internet access; and
(d) Tries to sell this FiOS on the basis of its accompaniment with some type of IPTV service associated with Microsoft which is riddled with Digital Restrictions Management crap?
That Verizon?
This PHONE COMPANY needs to get a clue about COMPUTER users before they will have any success in a computer user market.
Yawn! Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Interesting)
Stock Market laps it up like candy. Thinks Company X is going to become the new King of Content Delivery (because, you KNOW all the company's competitors and going to sit on their hands and have their kiesters handed to them by Company X).
Then there will be delays of getting the project actually going. Maybe even some slight downplaying of actual speeds of conetnt delivery.
At some point someone with a PhD in physics or a heavy EE background gets ahold of the actual method of content delivery and point out it simply isn't possible in the real world because of interfereance, older lines than they used in the lab, ect.
Marketting dept for technology company downplays statement made by PhD/EE. Slashdot crowd made up of people who know WAY too much about the national power grid and enough about radio spectrum to work at the FCC pop up to defend the scientist's statements.
More backpedaling of speeds for new service. Marketting direction of new tech starts to veer slightly into the "will allow service in areas not currently reachable by standard broadband providers" direction.
Companies who have not yet publically committed to using tech start to back out. In the others unfortunately, corporate inertia takes over. Whoever greenlighted the project doesn't want to try and back out and look stupid for having wasted plenty of company money at this point.
New tech has limited rollout, shows to be the flop we knew it was the whole time. You never hear about the new tech in the media again and it becomes one of those fringe technologes only seen in rural regions. Perhaps eventually phased out as traditional broadband service (Cable/DSL) are pushed into the region.
A few years pass and major Telcos/Cablecos grouse about the cost of last mile hookups and getting ot that last few % of homes in the middle of nowhere. Stock is tanking on high network infastructure costs gobbling revenue.
But then a company no one's ever heard of pops up with the idea of...
Good business sense (Score:2, Interesting)
Phone companies managed to get usable broadband over ancient phone lines, and all I have to do is plug in a little adapter to my telephone. This is a good re-use of existing infrastructure, and stock holders should look favorably on this. Of course, a smart company would take some of the resulting savings and keep a fund ready for eventual replacement of their lines.
Just when you thought Verizon was an innovator... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good thing it's not Rogers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:5, Interesting)
Better idea for Verizon - STOP SPAMMING! (Score:3, Interesting)
AOL and other ISPs have taken aggressive and extremely effective approaches by filtering port 25 traffic on their networks. As a result, the spam and zombie activity from their customers has dropped off dramatically. ISPs like Comcast and Verizon still have yet to do this and they're a major source of internet pollution.
Until Verizon controls the illegal activity of their users, I urge all system administrators to block all port 25 traffic from Verizon IP blocks such as:
68.160.* * - 68.170+
70.16.*.* - 70.23.*.*
70.104.*.* - 70.124.*.*
71.100.*.* - 71.251.*.*
141.150.*.* - 141.158.*.*
151.199.*.* - 151.200.*.*
etc.
Screw you Verizon. Control your idiot users!
Re:270 Mbps is hardly "competitive with fiber..." (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Better idea for Verizon - STOP SPAMMING! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been living in the US for 30 years, 5 different states, a dozen different addresses...and I have never been able to choose between two cable providers for a given location (actual coax-to-the-house cable). As far as I'm aware, consumers actually having a choice of cable providers is exceedingly rare in the US.
The only competitive pressure the providers face that I know of is having too many customers switch to DSL/satellite/what-not and being bought out by a more successful provider.
Not so bad, actually (Score:2, Interesting)
Verizon (and investors, including in a small part myself) doesn't know if FIOS will be profitable yet. There are a lot of competing techs that are a threat. They can't compete in speed, but they make up for it in their assumed lower cost. Verizon is spending a TON of money on FIOS in the Tampa area and from what I've seen is making very little real profit on it yet.
I'm a bit disappointed that Fibre is being put in by a private company. In my opinion, it should be installed just like streets are--public utilities funded by federal, state, and local governments. It would be a massive upfront cost but the economic gain would, in the long term, be massive. Lease the lines to private companies to provide the actual service. The only thing that would worry me is the government feeling it has the right to monitor all traffic, but I'm sure that isn't too far off from how it is now.
I'm excited for FIOS. My neighborhood is set to be wired in about 2 months.
Not a huge difference (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:1, Interesting)
Cedar Falls, IA (45 minutes north, College town 15,000 people) has two companies (Mediacom and Cedar Falls Utilities) and enjoys similar rates as we do. Cedar Falls is a suburb of Waterloo, IA; no competing carrier there and Mediacom charges roughly $20/mo more for Digital cable.
Multiple cable companies are the best for getting good service and cheap speeds. I have 7MB down and 384k up with McLeod for little over $35. Not to mention when I bundle cable tv and phone (not VoIP) I get 15% off my entire bill...
-Shawn
Re:Better idea for Verizon - STOP SPAMMING! (Score:1, Interesting)
Setting up a mail server, DNS server, HTTP server, or whatever isn't supposed to be hard, or blocked. Besides, spamming mostly comes from zombies - AKA infected machines - much less people knowingly set up a mail server (though that sometimes happens too...)
Re:In related news (Score:2, Interesting)