FCC-19-80A1_Rcd.pdf
AT&T’s massive TV losses continue as another 900,000 customers flee.
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Congress gave the authority to the local jurisdictions to pick who they want to enter their town.
We have Verizon FiOS and Cox Cable. Both offer both Internet and video bundles.
Yes, you can call one a telco and one a cableco.
A distinction without a difference.
Yes, you can call one a telco and one a cableco.
A distinction without a difference.
This is making my head hurt. It’s not very complicated.
Generally speaking areas have exactly two land based service options, one from a telephone company (ie Verizon, AT&T, Century Link, Frontier), one from a cable company (ie Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice). The cable company generally offers TV, internet and voice services. The Phone company offers voice and usually data. In select areas, the phone company offer TV services usually where they have fiber deployed. This applies to 90%+ of the country. Can we all agree on that?
But as with everything in life, there are exceptions. In some areas select, there are cable operators (ie RCN, WOW, Grande) that have their own infrastructure that directly compete with the big providers. These are not border areas, these companies specifically overbuild to provide alternatives. And this Isn’t Comcast and AT&T Fiber at the same address, or Charter and Verizon Fios at the same address, this is two coax delivered services that offer TV, internet and phone at the same address.
I picked a random town in the Columbus, OH area. Grove City, a suburb located about 15 minutes south. Entered the zip code into Zillow, found a random house for sale and entered the address into both WOW’s and Charter’s service availability checker and guess what? Both companies service that address.
Yes that is rare, but is does happen where you can choose between a large cable company and a smaller one. What is even rarer is a reported situation in Florida. There are pockets of the Orlando area supposedly where Comcast overbuilt into Brighthouse (now Charter) areas
Generally speaking areas have exactly two land based service options, one from a telephone company (ie Verizon, AT&T, Century Link, Frontier), one from a cable company (ie Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice). The cable company generally offers TV, internet and voice services. The Phone company offers voice and usually data. In select areas, the phone company offer TV services usually where they have fiber deployed. This applies to 90%+ of the country. Can we all agree on that?
But as with everything in life, there are exceptions. In some areas select, there are cable operators (ie RCN, WOW, Grande) that have their own infrastructure that directly compete with the big providers. These are not border areas, these companies specifically overbuild to provide alternatives. And this Isn’t Comcast and AT&T Fiber at the same address, or Charter and Verizon Fios at the same address, this is two coax delivered services that offer TV, internet and phone at the same address.
I picked a random town in the Columbus, OH area. Grove City, a suburb located about 15 minutes south. Entered the zip code into Zillow, found a random house for sale and entered the address into both WOW’s and Charter’s service availability checker and guess what? Both companies service that address.
Yes that is rare, but is does happen where you can choose between a large cable company and a smaller one. What is even rarer is a reported situation in Florida. There are pockets of the Orlando area supposedly where Comcast overbuilt into Brighthouse (now Charter) areas
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Where I live in Michigan in my zip code it would show 3 options, but in reality I only have 1, Comcast, Charter and AT&T are also in my town, but the catch is Charter is only on one side of the town where it is separated by a lake, Comcast on the other.
AT&T only hooked up where there still still poles and overhead wires, where there is underground wiring AT&T did not want to pay for the dig in preexisting subdivisions , so across the street they can get both AT&T and Comcast, my side only Comcast.
That is all in one zip code.
The other thing I would point out, Comcast gets a lot of grief here, but since I have been in this house ( 20 years now), Comcast has upgraded the underground wires 3 times now while AT&T is too cheap to do it even once.
AT&T only hooked up where there still still poles and overhead wires, where there is underground wiring AT&T did not want to pay for the dig in preexisting subdivisions , so across the street they can get both AT&T and Comcast, my side only Comcast.
That is all in one zip code.
The other thing I would point out, Comcast gets a lot of grief here, but since I have been in this house ( 20 years now), Comcast has upgraded the underground wires 3 times now while AT&T is too cheap to do it even once.
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I know for a fact that in Charleston SC you can choose from Comcast and WOW at most addresses. In Georgetown, SC, you can choose from Charter and Southern Coastal Cable. Not sure if they share infrastructure or what, but you can select from more than 1 cable provider, delivered over coax, not twisted pair or fiber.
The same is true in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, and I know they have separate infrastructure there.
Not sure about cable, but phone companies did a bit of sharing after this passed:
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - Wikipedia
If cable companies offer phone service, does that mean this applies to them as well?
Yes I am aware of that. I'm guessing theBruce just used one of those notoriously inaccurate broadband finder websites where you enter in a zip code and it brings back results
It's been happening for 20 years. Earthlink, DSL Extreme, Toast.net, Windstream and others do this.
Not sure about cable, but phone companies did a bit of sharing after this passed:
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
If cable companies offer phone service, does that mean this applies to them as well?
No. It does not apply to them.
The most prevalent example of the reselling of cable internet was Earthlink, they used to resell Time Warner's service. That came to an end when Charter bought out TWC.
There were what the Big company calls Resellers, that use ATT's infrastructure, but those are not Major companies ...Not sure about cable, but phone companies did a bit of sharing after this passed:
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - Wikipedia
If cable companies offer phone service, does that mean this applies to them as well?
An ATT and a Verizon would never do that, but a reseller would ...
There was a time when the little guy jumped in and did that alot. Not so much any more.
Like I said, the Little guys ...
But, your right, there was a time when the little ones used the Big company stuff, there are some still around ...
There were rooms set aside in the CO's that they could get to, but not the rest of the building.
This was big in the early 2000's , I think thats about the right time frame, it is still done a little, but not nearly as much ... Toastlink is still around and a few others.
