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Cable Operators Will Sell Slow Broadband, Just Not Openly
from the slow-and-cheap-works-for-me dept
DSL has been able to win lots of subscribers over cable modem service by focusing on price, while cable providers have long claimed that people look at speed first and price second. There are plenty of people who are interested in having fast connections, but there are plenty more for whom low-speed broadband at a low price is good enough. Some have speculated that cable companies have resisted offering these "lite" plans because too many users would shift from the more expensive plans to them, but Karl Bode at Broadband Reports says they're being offered now, just only to users that call in to complain or threaten to cancel. Bode asks the relevant question -- while yes, some users might downgrade, wouldn't that be offset by the number of users upgrading from dial-up? DSL providers certainly think so -- perhaps that's why they're grabbing all those users.
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Canadian ISPs
Most if not all Canadian cable providers have lite internet plans that are openly advertised.
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Wouldn't volume make up for losses?
Having more people using the cheap version vs. fewer people using the more expensive version should even out, if not make more money.
That's the thing I've never figured out about companies. They seem to think lowering prices will reduce profits. It will; however, if more people are able to afford the lower price then you've just opened up the market to more customers.
It's the same thing with CDs and DVDs; lower the price and "they will come". Just look at how well iTunes is doing w/ 99 cent songs.
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Re: Wouldn't volume make up for losses?
Um, hate to break it to you, but companies do realize lower prices will give more profit. If they didn't, they'd all be selling everything for a million bucks each. Why do you think stores have sales??? They realize they'll get more money.
Heck, there's a local gas station chain here that actually sets prices so low when they open the store (at least they used to) that they LOSE money...just so it drives off competition and they'll make more later.
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Re: Wouldn't volume make up for losses?
Competition, dumbass. You even said it in your last sentence. No competition+no laws=$1,000,000 for one gallon of gas.
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No Subject Given
I switched from 6 mbps cable to 3mbps DSL.... because it's almost half the price and WAY more reliable. I haven't had a known outage yet in 10 months with the DSL.
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Re: No Subject Given
That's another thing to consider is reliablity of the service wheather it be cable or DSL. I personally have had 1Mbps DSL and have always had a solid 1Mbps Connections on occasion higher but never lower. I have had local friends with cable connections and they have told me during peak hours it is almost not worth getting online due to nodes all be used at the same time. I see this also as a big factor. If a customer want's broadband internet they doesn't want to have to schedule thier use of it around everyone else sucking off the same node and killing bandwidth. This is just my take on it feel free to comment as I know you will.
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Reliability Issues
That's another thing to consider is reliablity of the service wheather it be cable or DSL. I personally have had 1Mbps DSL and have always had a solid 1Mbps Connections on occasion higher but never lower. I have had local friends with cable connections and they have told me during peak hours it is almost not worth getting online due to nodes all be used at the same time. I see this also as a big factor. If a customer want's broadband internet they doesn't want to have to schedule thier use of it around everyone else sucking off the same node and killing bandwidth.
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Re: Reliability Issues
I've heard the stories about peak time slowdowns, and too many nodes on a POP causing problems, but I've never experienced it firsthand. I've had Time/Warner cable for years and haven't seen any of these problems--ever. Maybe they got it right in the Memphis metro area.
And while DSL is cheaper in this market (about $18/month less), it should be since it has a maximum of 1.5Mbps download for their top level service, where cable is now at 5Mbps for all customers.
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My DSL connection sucked
mainly because I'm to far away from a CO and in a "poor" neighborhood. There isn't even a major supermarket here and has only been a bank here in the last 5 years.
The fastest DSL download speed I ever got during the two weeks I had it was 100Kbps. There were 4 service outages during that two weeks. Then I called the cable company and had cable modem installed. Connection was much more stable and didn't require PPPoe with download speeds averaging 250K-510Kbps.
I called to cancel SBC's DSL service and when they wanted to know why, I gave them all that data. At the time, DSL and cable cost about the same for the first year. Now cable is $45/month and DSL is around $20/month. But if it's slow and has network outages, what good is it?
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Re: Canadian ISPs
I live in Australia and i pay $50(au) which is about 30 or so USD i think, and i get 12mbit downstream and 1mbit upstream with 20 gigs of download quota before i get shaped.
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