Despite Claims Title II Will Kill Investment, Comcast Launches Major New 2 Gigabit Deployment

from the watch-what-we-do,-not-what-we-say dept

While broadband ISPs have repeatedly claimed that being reclassified as common carriers under Title II will crush sector innovation, investment, and destroy the Internet as we know it -- they simultaneously continue to do a bang up job highlighting how these claims are complete and utter nonsense. For example, while Verizon was busy proclaiming that Title II would ruin, well, everything, it's been using Title II to reap massive tax benefits. Similarly, despite the fact wireless voice has been classified under Title II for years, that didn't stop the industry from investing massive amounts during that period or spending record amounts at the FCC's latest spectrum auction.

Comcast has similarly proclaimed that if the FCC moved toward Title II it would have a devastating impact on network investment. In fact Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen had this to say the day the FCC voted to approve Title II rules:

"To attempt to impose a full-blown Title II regime now, when the classification of cable broadband has always been as an information service, would reverse nearly a decade of precedent, including findings by the Supreme Court that this classification was proper. This would be a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation, as today's immediate stock market reaction demonstrates."

Of course on the day in question telecom stocks actually rallied, suggesting Wall Street wasn't all that worried about the FCC's new rules. Meanwhile, this sudden freeze in investment is nowhere to be found on the news this week that Comcast is going to deploy symmetrical 2 gigabit per second service to an estimated 18 million homes. From the Comcast blog post:

"We’ll first offer this service in Atlanta and roll it out in additional cities soon with the goal to have it available across the country and available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year. Gigabit Pro is a professional-grade residential fiber-to-the-home solution that leverages our fiber network to deliver 2 Gbps upload and download speeds...

Gigabit Pro isn’t the only way we plan to bring gigabit speeds to customers’ homes. We are currently testing DOCSIS 3.1, a scalable, national, next generation 1 Gbps technology solution. We hope to begin rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 in early 2016, and when fully deployed, it will mean almost every customer in our footprint will be able to receive gigabit speeds over our existing network (a combination of both fiber and coax)."

Before people get too excited, remember that Comcast is trying to get its acquisition of Time Warner Cable approved, and as such is probably willing to make any number of promises it may or may not keep. ISPs also often like to conflate homes "passed" with fiber with homes served, so we'll have to see if Comcast actually gets anywhere near that 18 million mark. It's also worth noting that the company's current top-shelf tier of 505 Mbps runs users $400 a month, has a $1000 early termination fee, a $250 installation fee, and a $250 administrative fee. As such, if pricing for the new tier is similar Comcast knows most users won't take the option, with the possible exception of markets where Google Fiber creates downward pricing pressure.

Still, which is it? Does classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II create telecommunications Armageddon, or do things generally just proceed as normal, the only exception being an FCC equipped to police the most egregious examples anti-competitive behavior? Because increasingly, all signs are pointing to the latter.

Filed Under: 2 gigabit, competition, docsis 3.1, fcc, fiber, gigabit, net neutrality, title ii
Companies: comcast

AT&T Shows Cupertino Precisely What Broadband Competition (Or The Lack Thereof) Looks Like

from the fiber-to-the-press-release dept

As many of you may know, AT&T has been responding to Google Fiber with a gigabit broadband deployment of its own, primarily aimed at high-end housing developments where fiber is already in the ground. Dubbed AT&T U-Verse with "Gigapower," the service first appeared in Google Fiber markets like Austin, though AT&T tried to claim this timing was entirely coincidental. As with similar offerings from companies like CenturyLink, it's part of an industry push to at least give the impression that they're keeping pace with Google Fiber and gigabit municipal broadband deployments, even if the announcements often tend to be more impressive than the actual deployments (something I affectionately call "fiber to the press release").

Given this is AT&T, there are of course several caveats. One being that the company's promise to deploy the service to "up to 100 cities" is a bit of a bluff aimed at making the telco appear cutting edge, since it's actually consistently slashing its fixed-line investment budget. The actual deployment is much, much smaller (as in a few housing developments in a dozen markets or so), and AT&T's ambiguous projection numbers tend to ebb and flow depending on what AT&T's trying to get from the government. The other is that users need to pay $40 to $60 more if they want to opt out of AT&T's "Internet Preferences" snoopvertising, which uses deep packet inspection to track online behavior down to the second.

In short, yes it's competition -- but it's AT&T's special brand of competition. Still, it highlights the fact that Google Fiber markets very quickly see a much-needed industry response on both speed and price. Case in point: in the markets where Google Fiber is present, AT&T's gigabit offering costs significantly less, whether it's a standalone gigabit line, or a bundle. For example, this is the pricing seen by an AT&T customer in Austin, where Google Fiber is present:
Last week, AT&T launched the service in select parts of Cupertino, California where there's no Google Fiber pricing pressure. This is what local Cupertino users see when they try to sign up for service:
So yes, it's pretty clear it doesn't take much for pampered duopolists to respond to real price competition. The problem is despite the fact that Google Fiber is nearly five years old, its actual footprint remains fairly small, with only portions of Austin, Provo and Kansas City online so far. And that's a company with billions to spend and a massive lobbying apparatus that can take aim at the sector's regulatory capture. That's why community broadband and public/private partnerships become such an integral part of trying to light a fire under the U.S. broadband industry, as are the attempts to dismantle ISP protectionist state laws aimed at keeping these speeds and real price competition far, far away from most U.S. broadband markets.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, cupertino, fiber, google fiber, pricing, speeds
Companies: at&t, google