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Rochester, NY - New York's second largest economy on the shores of a broadband backwater
Broadband Reports this morning received word from an “insider” that Time Warner Cable is laying the groundwork to introduce “wideband” broadband service up to 50Mbps throughout New York State’s Verizon FiOS-wired communities. According to the report, Time Warner Cable plans to launch faster DOCSIS 3.0 service in Buffalo in mid-November, Syracuse in December, and Albany in January. The company introduced “wideband” service in metropolitan New York City a few weeks ago.
Omitted from the upgrade list is New York’s second largest economy and high tech capital of upstate New York — Rochester. The city was in the news in April when Time Warner designated Rochester as one of the “test cities” for an Internet Overcharging experiment. The plan was shelved when customers organized a mass revolt against the plan and two federal legislators intervened.
From a logical standpoint, it wouldn’t seem to make sense for a broadband provider to omit a region with more than one million residents, many who have been highly educated and work for the community’s largest employers – the University of Rochester/Strong Health, Eastman Kodak, Xerox, ViaHealth/Rochester General Hospital, Rochester Institute of Technology, Paychex, and ITT.
But from the all-important business standpoint, Time Warner Cable enjoys extraordinarily limited competition in the area, and the gap only widens in the coming future. The area’s telephone provider, Frontier Communications, is known mostly for providing service in rural communities, and has so far offered lackluster plans for a 21st century broadband platform, preferring to rely on now-aging DSL technology while Verizon wires most comparably-sized cities in the rest of the state for advanced fiber-to-the-home FiOS service.
While Frontier can live comfortably in rural communities where cable television is not an option, customers who live and work in their largest service area continue to find disadvantages from a company business plan that these days seems more focused on mergers and acquisitions, and is content with language that defines an appropriate amount of monthly broadband usage at a ridiculously small 5 gigabytes per month.
Against a competitor like that, why would Time Warner Cable bother?
Okay, so it seems pretty well established that TWC won’t bring DIOSIS 3 to Rochester any time soon on their own, and there is definitely no competition to help influence them. Is there any way the local government can put a carrot in front of TWC? I also have concerns that part of TCW’s re-education program might consist of: “We upgraded our infrastructure in your division and now we need to pay for it so we are going to utilize a consumption based billing system that will split the cost equally and fairly amongst subscribers. Oh, yeah, if you leave us for the next best provider, remember, they are 10 times slower than we are (5Mbps vs 50Mbps). Oh yeah, we cannot tell you that the upgrades cost in the neighborhood of only $10 (total, not per month) per subscriber for a new modem. Have a nice day!”
I hear you, but their excuse will ring hollow when they bypass doing that in the more competitive cities to our east and west.
Local government really has little influence over TWC. I think calling them out helps us build a case politically that out on the blatantly obvious fact this is more evidence that:
a) their consumption billing experiment chose Rochester because of the inherently uncompetitive marketplace here, giving them little risk and exposure from the consequences of customers leaving for the competition;
b) the competitive environment, not individual subscriber needs, dictates service improvements. Rochester is decidedly more high tech than Buffalo and slightly better than Syracuse as well. Albany isn’t even in the running. But we’re bypassed, because FiOS is not breathing down their necks here. What subscribers want is really not given much consideration. But we knew that when they tried their experiment back in April.
Our real problem here is going to increasingly be with Frontier Communications, which I increasingly fear will be preoccupied with an enormous debt load from mergers and acquisitions, and be far more focused on their core business model of serving rural America, and treating local residents like they live there as well.
It truly is a disservice to the area that Verizon continues to ignore the region. I don’t care about any gentlemen’s agreement or whatever agreement they had 10+ years ago. There is absolutely no reason in my mind that Verizon avoids our area, and places like Batavia have access to FIOS. They would get their startup costs back faster in Rochester, then Batavia.
Verizon simply doesn’t overbuild other telco territories. That’s really the issue for them. Rochester, in their big picture, is probably too small to consider a buyout offer as well. If Frontier were to ever put the local operation up for sale, I am not even confident Verizon would be interested at that point, either.
My personal guess is that we’re going to continue to see mergers between the remaining independent telcos until there are one or two left. The largest non-Baby Bell players: Windstream, Frontier, TDS, and CenturyTel will probably end up being just two when it’s all over.
I suspect CenturyTel and Frontier will most likely be the two remaining players, with Frontier eating up Windstream and CenturyTel absorbing TDS. FairPoint is a dead company walking.
You used an image of mine for this article and need to attribute it appropriately.
David, the image in question is already attributed to its source. Just hover your mouse over the image and wait a second or two. Most browsers will show the corresponding text.
TWC has money to advertise but not to upgrade
I hate getting fliers weekly from them for their services. If all that money could be redirected towards bettering the service… I think they would get much better bang for
theirour buck that way.It’s the competition, stupid.
Could anyone list the speeds and prices for TWC in the Rochester area? Might be attractive for a new provider to come in and build if they can be the fastest in town with 12/2 service.
I just tried the business side and service appears to max out at 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up. So even a wireless provider could beat that. Not sure on the residential tiers though. I hear they’re 10/??? and 15/1, which isn’t horrible (though not great either).
Business tiers are as follows (Mbps down, Kbps up):
4/384 – $80
4/512 – $150 (!?!)
6/768 – $220
6/1500 – $350
If any competitor came into this market with a faster service, TWC would see an epic exodus of customers. I’d be amongst the first to leave them.
What speeds can Rochester customers get now through TWC?
Standard: 10Mbps down, 384Kbps up
Turbo: 15Mbps down, 1 Mbps up
What’s the pricing? $50 for standard + $10 for Turbo or something else?
Download speeds actually look decent on both tiers, all things considered. Uploads suck though.
I think the normal (non-promotional) prices are $45 and $10 or thereabouts. However, the upload speeds have never been upgraded since original service and vary be division. Some divisions have 1Mbps upload standard.
Hmk. In my area upload for standard and Turbo are 512 and 2M, respectively.
Seems like a fiber provider could come in with relatively low speeds and blow the market wide open.
Example:
6/1 – $40 residential, $80 business
12/2 – $50 residential, $150 business
20/3 – $60 residential, $220 business
30/5 – $80 residential, $350 business
Of course I’m looking at this from a business perspective. As a customer of course I’d love faster speeds (especially on uploads) and lower prices, but the above speeds would be plenty profitable if a fiber provider went in and had them.
They bundle everything these days. Last time I checked, with a cable subscription, it’s around $39.95 for standard service, $9.95 a month for Turbo, plus add $5/10 (I forget) if you do not want cable service with it.
Promotional pricing is $29.95 for a year of standard, $4.95 for a year of Turbo, assuming you are a new customer or on some sort of retention deal.
Playing Devil’s Advocate here, $45 unbundled for 10 Mbps down isn’t bad, and neither is $55 for 15 Mbps, though in central Texas 7/512 is $40 and 15/2 is $50. In comparison, Comcast is 12/2 for $55 and 16/2 for $65 per month in DOCSIS 3 areas, plus $3 + tax for modem rental. In non-D3 areas you’re looking at 6/1 for $55 and 8/2 for $65. So the Rochester TWC prices are quite palatable IMO, on the residential side anyway.
So pricing on internet in your area seems to be perfectly fine, and speeds are okay on the download, though I agree that higher upload speeds and a higher-end top tier are needed in this day and age.
The only arguement I think you get from anyone here on price is that of the overcharging scheme. The prices have pretty much stayed the same. What was raised was the need for GB limites per month, when the pricing they are charging now makes them alot of money. It was their words that they needed the new structure to be able to maintain their networks and then suggested that is how Rochester would get DOCSIS 3. It looks like that becuase consumers fought back on the limits, we will be punished by remaining stagnant while others, smaller communities get higher speeds.
I like to compare nearby markets when looking at speed and pricing fairness, because Rochester is decidedly more embracing of high tech than most places in Texas, excepting Austin. That’s why lots of divisions in Texas and into the midwest and midsouth don’t have the speeds we do.
Rochester’s pricing also accounts for local market conditions. This is a city that is used to paying lower prices for telecommunications services (in part because the enormous taxes that always seem to accompany them boost the out the door price anyway).
I don’t see too many people ever complain about Road Runner’s pricing, which has remained stable and has a strong subscriber base here with loyal customers who have never switched.
The upload speed on standard service is way too slow, and is comparable for a more rural market. Part of the reason may be to prevent upload congestion from slowing down the rest of the network. Turbo alleviated the upload issue somewhat, and is frankly a useful addition only for the upload speed increase (going from 10Mbps to 15Mbps is not that big of a difference for most people, but 384kbps to 1Mbps is).
Rochester should be providing 10/1 for standard service and 15/2 for Turbo. The DOCSIS 3 upgrade would provide room for a 25/3 and 50/5-type tier. At this point, all I am interested in personally is better upload speed, because uploading content for this site and the other stuff I do is painfully slow even at 1Mbps.
That’s a rather prejudiced thing to say.
Just because Texas tends to be rather rural doesn’t mean that folks are Luddites. Again, I’m pretty sure that central Texas (San Antonio and Austin) have the most competitive non-D3 packages out there price-wise for TWC, outside of maybe NYC. Verizon wouldn’t have deployed FiOS in Dallas if they ddn’t have a market for it
Again, services offered in a given area tend to be based first on the company in question and second on the competition that company is facing. Here in the Denver metro you’ve got Comcast and Qwest. Qwest tends to pick up the low end of the market because they still don’t have ADSL2+ or VDSL2 deployed over much of their footprint. As such, you may well end up with a maximum of 3-7 Mbps service for $47 per month if you choose them, though they have promotional offers that will net you dry-line 1.5 Mbps DSL for $30.
Comcast doesn’t seem to aim at the low-end internet-only market in any of its footprint; 1 Mbps down, 384 kbps up is $35. The next tier up is $55, and things go up from there. 16/2 service here (DOCSIS 3 area) is $65 per month, versus $50 in TWC territory back in Texas (San Antonio and the hill country, not just Austin). Plus Comcast makes you pay for modem rental, something TWC doesn’t do. On the other hand, I can get DCSIS 3 service with 5 or 10 Mbps up with Comcast, something you can’t do with TWC.
So, comparing the two largest cable companies in the US, it seems like TWC prices themselves lower and Comcast prices themselves higher, though (depending on the market) TWC’s services fall short of what Comcast offers, particularly on the upload speed side. On the other hand, Time Warner Cable’s $35 tier in central Texas is 3 Mbps down, 384 kbps up, triple the download speed of Comcast’s equivalently-priced tier, so I guess TWC (with its maximum Turbo price…anywhere…set at around $60) is aiming lower market-wise than Comcast is.
I still believe a community’s willingness to embrace high tech products and services, as well as careers, does have an influence on these things. Austin is a national leader for high tech. Dallas is as well. Looking at some other (closer sized to Rochester) cities like El Paso, Laredo, or even San Antonio, where 7Mbps is the advertised standard speed for Road Runner (and that is also true in a lot of the midwestern/midsouthern regions), and you see they don’t give these communities the same speed they do in the largest cities or the most high-tech embracing. That’s not a slam against the people who live there — it’s a slam against the perception that people don’t want the same fast service wherever they happen to live. You are right that competition is the biggest factor of all, which was partly the point of my contention Rochester isn’t getting the upgrade that FiOS cities are.
We’re being punished. Call it like it is.
Yes… how dare we refuse to be used as a test market for caps.
By the way, went down to the Henrietta office recently to help a roommate of mine. He wanted his own box, bringing the total number of boxes up to 2 for the house. The blonde woman behind the counter was the nastiest piece of work, in terms of attitude. I think I’ll stick to service over the phone if that’s how they treat people down there.
Everything with her was an issue. If I wanted treatment of that sort, I’d just as soon go to the DMV. She wasn’t wearing a nametag, or I’d've noted her name and reported her to her boss. Unfortunately, our polite request for a manager was met with an eyeroll and a, “HE’S NOT HERE RIGHT NOW.” No name given. I hope she’s reading this.
But back to the point, yes, we’re being punished for refusing the caps. I’ve been getting intermittent network blackouts for no reason. One day was particularly bad, and they blamed it on my router (which I purchased elsewhere *GASP*). Funnily enough, the issue was on the modem when I plugged my PC in directly to the modem. Yet…the issue was still blamed on the router by the rep on the phone. /facepalm.
Seriously. If we ever get a serious competitor, I’m out of Time Warner faster than you can say “BEEP!”
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Well, I’m sorry to hear that Rochester isn’t getting upgraded regardless of what Frontier or whoever else is/will be providing. In Buffalo, it’s mostly Verizon and some pockets where there is Frontier servicing the area (I can name a few. Sanborn, East Amherst, Pembroke) but Time Warner already has 10Mbps/1Mbps service and 15Mbps/2Mbps. I wonder if out where I am if I’m going to be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0, as even though I do use DSL here, I’m hoping that what Time Warner does will push FiOS to me faster or even convince Verizon to give me more speed for free, or for Frontier to get into shape and boost uploads, or for that matter downloads in my area as well for Residents (highest Frontier will let me go is 3Mbps/384kbps even though I can take more speed easilly. No problem for Time Warner). I just found out recently they pushed my neighborhood back another two years, even though FiOS is 5 miles from me as the crow flies. I’m pretty sure though that I will get DOCSIS 3.0 available to me as I’m in the Buffalo Division none the less.
Just thinking about it, I know that Verizon is wiring up Amherst and East Amherst, as well as finishing up areas like Tonawanda so they’re pretty much building out right around Buffalo. They started from Orchard Park. That’s probably the main reason why Time Warner also choose Buffalo to get DOCSIS 3.0, as Buffalo has FiOS all over the place and they’ve lost many people within the last year, and if not that, at least 3Mbps/768kbps DSL to deal with (mainly on the upload side which I’m sure is why Time Warner offers higher upload in the area).
The good thing about TWC’s network is that upgrading their network is a lot easier than stringing fiber all over the place. It’s a certainty you’d have DOCSIS 3 well before Verizon strings fiber in your area.
Frontier will increasingly become a complete non-player in upgraded TWC markets, although there are people out there who honestly have no idea there is a major difference between 3Mbps service and 15Mbps service. They see the Internet as just something to connect to, and do not understand the implications of different broadband speeds. When their service is slow, they will equate that with the “Internet being slow,” not their respective provider.
I always have to remember that among the masses, there are significant pockets of people who really do not even understand broadband speeds, much less what a gigabyte is.
Usually a more knowledgeable relative will give guidance and advice, and will provoke a switch if they visit and discover lousy service when they try and use the Internet.
All true. I see that happen all the time where people don’t know what a gigabyte is, and those tend to be the same people wondering why the videos I send them are taking nearly two hours to download. For Time Warner, they did perform a node split a little while back which took them a month to complete if I’m not mistaken, so I’m sure they can bump the place up to DOCSIS 3.0 in no time as well as swap out the modem. I’m sure my neighbors would appreciate the upgrades as my neighborhood is a Time Warner neighborhood hence the node split that it needed.
Oh goody, those other cities of the experimental overcharging will probably NEVER see any better speeds then if Rochester won’t get them. Greensboro, has no competition at all, so NC will remain a technological backwater until after WWIII.
It’s amazing how much North Carolina resembles upstate New York economically and culturally. Large parts of upstate are quite conservative and have almost nothing in common with NYC.
That may explain why the mass exodus from our area’s high taxes takes a large percentage of our residents straight to NC. The taxes are much lower there than here. One thing residents don’t get to escape is… Time Warner Cable.
I believe you guys have Embarq (soon to be CenturyTel) scattered around down there. If so, you’re stuck with your own version of Frontier. If you have AT&T, they are going to work their way towards U-verse, and that should stimulate speed progress there.
Actually, Embarq is decent. They overprovision download and upload speeds so you get the speed advertised, and their upload speeds are relatively decent across the board. Even 768 kbps service has 384 kbps uploads, 3M gets 640K and 10M ADSL2+ is 896K. It’s not quite 1 Mbps, but still decent considering we’re talking about DSL.
Embarq is also experimenting with line bonding, which should net customers 1.5 Mbps uploads and 20 Mbps downloads eventually. They also have fiber in new developments, though the don’t offer tiers above 10 Mbps.
[...] and suburban communities across their service areas with fiber optic cable FiOS), Time Warner Cable sees little incentive to raise speeds or upgrade to DOCSIS 3 with a phone company competitor that has no apparent plans to move beyond [...]
[...] Would Comcast seek to eventually lower today’s 250GB limit? Perhaps, but there is no evidence of anything imminent. It has been done before in Canada and sold as a “money-saver,” offered with an “insurance policy” Bell had the chutzpah to suggest “protected” customers from overlimit fees. Monetizing broadband use is a hot topic for providers seeking enhanced revenue from their broadband divisions. Time Warner Cable tried to convince customers it would tie revenue earned from its own Internet Overcharging experiment into expansion of their local broadband networks. That was proven blatantly false when upgrades commenced in areas never part of “the experiment,” while those that were have been bypassed for DOCSIS 3 upgrades. [...]