Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzman
Well, the theory is that "utilities" are allowed to be a monopoly and given access to public property (roads, spectrum bandwidth etc.), in exchange for serving the entire public. They're not supposed to be able to cherry pick the most profitable customers and dump the rest.
I'd guess that the islands don't fall into the profitable category.
It seems like the right long term solution is wireless, but at $10/gb it's off by at least a factor of 10 to be useful.
Comcast = ~.20/GB
ATT/Verizon = ~10.00/GB
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In the perfect Socialist world, if one person in Manchester got fiber,
then everyone in Coos county
deserves the same. Coming down
to how it relates to the Lakes Region, lets take a few examples.
Moultonboro first had Amrac cable. Owned by someone that owned a
cable company in another state and a house in a development in town.
They would only run cable to Rt 109, 25, Mboro neck and a few to select
developments. Even Time Warner, today, a sucessor after a few
buyouts has a number of areas they aren't willing to service, yet the town
has them as a monopoly.
Take Tamworth, another town in the lakes region family, Time Warner only
ran cable to the most populated areas, the others are left to their own
resources. Trying to abbreviate this as much as possible.
Lets take a contrast, Alexandria for example. They required that everyone
with a power drop also have a cable outlet at the closest pole to every
building. Hence, even the remotest shack anywhere in town has an
outlet a pole distance away. That is Metrocast territory. Then there is
Sandwich, they required the same, and Time Warner has declined to
service any area of town.
So, whats with Fairpoint servicing islands at an obvious loss.... Well, when
they agreed to buy out Verizon, they had to agree to connect 90% (this is
a close guess.... someone can Google this) of the state, regardless of
their location. Indeed it took them a few years, but they are almost at
that point. They are doing this at a loss to get the states copper landline
business.
One other point, which is current technology. Suissevale, in Moultonboro
(very, very dense funnel development) was afforded a early DSL. This
was back when cable wasn't TW, but Adelphia (if memory serves me right),
they had 4M speeds max and Verizon had a fiber linked terminal box in the
middle of the development, this was 15 years ago. Verizon topped out in
the old DSL at 3M and they sold it at quite a discount. Well, in the last 15
years, Time Warner will offer 50M (if you can afford it) and Verizon (now
Fairpoint) will not upgrade to their new new technology, which will support
15M. Can you blame them? Why pay to install their new gear at 15M
when people can get 50M ? Why should Fairpoint pay anything at all,
since the area qualifies in their 90% area?
So back to Islands, the original thread. Take Welch, Fairpoint is meeting
their commitment to the PUC, no reason to upgrade, when outer
mongolia, NH has nothing and that can increase their % yield for their
PUC commitment. Whatever anyone has with Fairpoint is where they will
stay, unless there is an external factor....
Sorry to bore
