Comcast is rejecting some requests for its new 2Gbps fiber to the home service, claiming construction costs to provide the service to some homes are too high, even for customers living 0.15 of a mile from Comcast’s nearest fiber optic connection point.

Stop the Cap! reader Thomas, who wishes to withhold his last name, was excited at the prospect of signing up for Comcast’s 2Gbps broadband service for his home-based Internet business, despite the steep $1,000 installation fee and $159/mo promotional price he saw in the media.

“For the average person just looking for a faster connection at home, 2Gbps is absolute overkill, but if you run a home-based business that depends on a fast Internet connection, Comcast’s prices are a lot more reasonable than a Metro Ethernet or fiber solution from AT&T,” Thomas said.

Thomas is a Comcast customer in the Chicago area and knew he’d qualify for the service because he watched Comcast crews install/upgrade fiber cables close to his home. Comcast requires customers to live within one-third of a mile of the nearest company-owned fiber connection point to get 2Gbps service. Thomas lives far closer than that and Comcast’s online qualification tool also seemed to show the service would be available to him.

“I assumed it would be easy to order service, but it has not turned out that way at all,” Thomas complained.

Comcast’s regular customer service agents were hit or miss for Thomas. Some are acquainted with Comcast’s Gigabit Pro offering, many others are not. It took three calls for him to find a representative aware of the product, but even then the representative informed him someone would have to call him back to take his order. Two days later, he did receive a call from a Comcast regional office that explained the lengthy ordering and installation procedure. If everything worked as it should, it would take up to three months for Comcast to complete the fiber installation. But Thomas warned there were potential deal-breakers along the way.

Equipment Costs

Comcast will supply some, but not all, of the necessary equipment. A router provided by Comcast adds $19.99/mo to the price, and could be worthwhile to customers wanting to limit their out-of-pocket up front costs. But there are other equipment requirements to consider as well:

• Desktop PC with available PCIe expansion slot
• 1 10G PCIe network interface controller with SFP+ cage ($200-400)
• 1 10G enhanced small form factor pluggable SFP+ transceiver (850nm MMF) ($200-350)
• 1 MMF LC patch cable ($25-30)

To connect multiple devices to the fiber handoff, a compatible and very expensive 10Gbps Layer 3 switch or router is also required, which can run well into the thousands of dollars.

Pricing Gotchas

Installation is $500 and activation costs another $500. There is an early termination fee of $1,100 if you disconnect service before the end of your term contract. On a three-year contract, the amount of the fee is reduced by $100 every three months you keep the service. That $159 promotional price quoted in the press turned out to be another issue. Comcast informed him that offer is only good in the cities of Nashville (a future Google Fiber city also designated for GigaPower U-verse from AT&T) and Chattanooga, Tenn. (which already has gigabit service from EPB). It would cost him $299.95 a month, not $159.

Service Qualification Procedure

Comcast implies any customer within 1/3rd of a mile of their nearest fiber cable is qualified to get Gigabit Pro service, but Thomas tells us that just isn’t true.

“Comcast treats these installations the same way they would running cable into virgin territories like an unserved neighborhood or office park,” Thomas said. “Once you commit to an order, I am convinced they do a Return On Investment (ROI) and cost analysis to decide if it makes financial sense to actually bring fiber to you.”

It begins with an in-office map survey that reviews Comcast’s existing network and verifies a path from Comcast’s existing fiber network to the customer’s home. This process takes up to 14 days, according to Thomas, and makes certain the customer is within the qualified distance for service.

“But I can say it goes beyond this, because Comcast was also looking at proposed routes to get fiber to me, and the representative was concerned about whether Comcast’s cables in my area were on telephone poles or underground in conduit,” reported Thomas. “There was also an issue with a pedestal and I was informed a site survey was required to check whether existing infrastructure in my neighborhood could support the service.”

Comcast said a visit from a technician would be required — another two-week process, and about then he was told “there was indeed a problem with their existing pedestal and they also ran into a conduit issue,” Thomas said. “At that point, I was informed my order could not go ahead because Comcast would have to spend about $17,000 to correct these issues and cover my installation and that evidently failed their ROI and cost analysis.”

Had Thomas passed all the qualification tests, he would have waited up to 13 weeks (more than three months) from the time he ordered service before he could actually use it. Now, he will wait at least a year for Comcast’s suggested alternative — the arrival of DOCSIS 3.1, which is expected to support gigabit speeds over Comcast’s existing coax cable network.

“I honestly felt mislead by Comcast’s press releases that suggested service was just a matter of where you lived without telling customers they will deny service if it costs Comcast over a certain dollar amount, no matter how close you live to their existing fiber,” Thomas added. “Promoting a service and actually providing it are two very different things and it seems Comcast just isn’t providing it, at least to me.”

Have you explored Comcast Gigabit Pro? If so, share your experiences in the comment section. We’d love to hear from you if you actually have the service installed.

After months of issuing nationwide press releases promoting Comcast’s new, blazing fast 2Gbps fiber to the home broadband, the cable company has finally announced it will be available (so far) … in one single 993-acre unfinished planned community in a northeastern suburb outside of Houston: Humble, Tex.

The Groves, designed to eventually contain 2,200 single-family homes on 993 acres west of West Lake Houston Parkway and south of Kingwood, currently resembles a crop circle because much of the community has yet to be built.

Crescent Communities, the North Carolina-based developer, calls The Groves a “refuge” from the rest of Houston, with amenities close at hand. Residents may not instinctively balk at Comcast’s expensive super-fast service requiring a $1,000 installation fee and a multi-year commitment to get the special promotional price of $159/mo. Housing at The Groves starts in the upper $200,000s and extends into the $500,000 range.

The Houston Business Journal reports Comcast will directly connect homes in the development to fiber optics, not the usual coaxial cable used elsewhere. Every home in the development will have access to the all-fiber network, which will offer 250Mbps and higher speeds, according to Comcast spokesman Michael Bybee.

Comcast will officially launch the 2Gbps service next week.

The Groves (center) is a master-planned upscale residential community that will eventually contain over 2,000 homes. But in this photograph, provided by the developer, it looks more like a crop circle.

Unfinished Business: Comcast will not face much of a challenge wiring an incomplete planned community for fiber optics. Much of The Groves has yet to be built. (Dark Green: Unfinished/Tan: Complete)

Residents of one of the world’s most isolated countries will soon have the option of getting fiber-to-the-home service that will offer faster Internet access than most Americans get with traditional DSL from their phone company.

Thailand’s Benchachinda Holding Company has partnered with four other technology companies to launch Myanmar Information Highway Limited (MIH), with the goal of wiring fiber-to-the-home service to every home and business that wants service in Yangon and other major economic cities. It’s a remarkable investment for a country that had until recently been run by a military dictatorship for more than 50 years and is still liberalizing its economy and implementing democratic reforms.

Benchachinda’s president, Vichai Bencharongkul, said the group’s investment in international businesses in Myanmar is the first of a few foreign investments in other nations. Bencharongkul told the Thai press fiber broadband sells itself and investment in Myanmar would make good business sense.

Bencharongkul

He can point to the fact MIH was able to quickly get permission to lay fiber-optic cable from Yangon Electricity Supply Corporation, the country’s dominant electric utility. Myanmar’s bureaucracy can prove daunting to doing business in the country, but the promise of faster broadband overcame those concerns.

Internet access in Myanmar, better known internationally as Burma, has traditionally been a frustrating experience. Despite some fiber Internet rollouts by state-owned Myanma Posts & Telecommunications (MPT), offering up to 100Mbps, the average upper income Myanmar household still relies on DSL service and gets only up to 6Mbps speed. The country is ranked 159 out of 198 by Net Index for consumer download speed, averaging just 5Mbps. Fiber optic broadband will change that.

In a cost-saving measure, MIH will launch service with speeds averaging 20Mbps — four times faster than the current average speed in the country — and raise speeds and capacity going forward. They intend to deliver stiff competition to both Yatanarpon Teleport (YTP) and the state telephone company, which charges almost $65 a month for a basic DSL line. MPT charges $1,200 a month for 20Mbps fiber broadband and focuses on business customers. MIH is expected to charge lower prices for service and will rely on its own network instead of the one owned and controlled by the state-owned telephone company.

Vice President Biden in Rochester, N.Y.

Vice President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo today announced Rochester, N.Y., a city notorious for its slow broadband, will be the home of the $600 million Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation, a hub supporting the development of photonics — technology that powers everything from fiber optic broadband to laser surgery.

Rochester, the home of dramatically downsized household names like Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch and Lomb, could see thousands of new high technology jobs created in the western New York city to develop new products and services that depend on light waves.

“The innovation and jobs this institute will create will be a game changer for Rochester and the entire state,” said U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter, (D-Rochester). “This is a huge win that will shape our region’s economy for decades to come.”

Slaughter reportedly spent three years working to bring the center to Rochester and helped secure $110 million from the Defense Department and another $500 million in state and private sector funding to finance its development. The project could prove transformational for a community ravaged by downsizing, most dramatically exemplified by Eastman Kodak, which had 62,000 workers in Rochester during the 1980s but employs fewer than 2,500 today.

Today, Rochester’s largest employers are no longer manufacturers. Health care service providers now lead the way, including the University of Rochester Medical Center/Strong Health (#1) and the Rochester General Health System (#3). Upscale grocery chain Wegmans calls Rochester home and is the community’s second largest employer. The bureaucracies that power the Rochester City School District and Monroe County Government are also among the area’s top-10 employers.

Despite the job shifts, the fact 24,000 workers in the region are already employed in photonics-related jobs may have been a deciding factor in selecting Rochester for the center.

“The photonics center we are now bringing to Rochester will harness the power of the Defense Department and the prowess of Rochester’s 24,000 employee-strong photonics industry and focus it like a laser beam to launch new industries, technologies and jobs,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

Employers, small business start-ups and workers moving into the region are likely to be considerably less impressed by Rochester’s incumbent telecommunications service providers. Although institutional and large commercial fiber networks are available to those with deep pockets, with the exception of Greenlight Networks, a local fiber to the home retail overbuilder providing fast gigabit fiber Internet to a tiny percentage of local residents, the area’s fiber future remains bleak.

Time Warner Cable, by far the largest Internet provider in the region, has left Rochester off its Maxx upgrade list, leaving the city with a maximum of 50/5Mbps Internet speed. Frontier Communications still relies on 1990s era DSL service and the anemic speeds it delivers, evident from the company’s poor average speed ranking — 11.47Mbps — less than half the minimum 25Mbps the FCC considers broadband.

Rochester is hardly a broadband speed leader in New York State, only managing to score in 332nd place. (Image: Ookla)

The performance of the two providers has dragged Rochester’s broadband speed ranking to an embarrassingly low #336 compared with other communities in New York. Suburban towns in downstate New York enjoy more than twice the speed upstate residents get, largely thanks to major upgrades from Verizon (FiOS) and Time Warner Cable (Maxx). But even compared with other upstate communities, Rochester still scores poorly, beaten by small communities like Watertown, Massena, and Waterloo. Suburban Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany also outperform Rochester.

In contrast, in Raleigh, N.C., home to the Power America Institute — another federal manufacturing center — broadband life is better:

• Raleigh is a Google Fiber city and will receive 1,000/1,000Mbps service for $70 a month, around $20 more than what Time Warner charges for 50/5Mbps with a promotion;
• Raleigh is a Time Warner Cable Maxx city with free broadband speed upgrades ranging from 15Mbps before/50Mbps after to 50Mbps before/300Mbps after;
• Raleigh is an AT&T U-verse with GigaPower city with 1,000/1,000Mbps service for $120 70 a month.

This article was updated to correct the pricing of AT&T U-verse with GigaPower in Raleigh, N.C., with thanks to reader Darrin Evans for the corrected information.

CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais

Independent Internet Service Providers are hailing a decision by telecommunications regulators that will force big phone and cable companies to open their fiber optic networks to competitors, suggesting Canadian consumers will benefit from lower prices, fewer usage caps, and higher-speed Internet.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Wednesday ordered companies like Bell/BCE, Telus, Rogers, Shaw, and others to sell wholesale access to their growing fiber optic networks, despite industry protests giving that access would harm future investment in fiber technology just as it is on the cusp of spreading across the country.

“We’re an evidence-based body, so we heard all of the positions of the various parties and we balanced those off through what we heard in our deliberations afterwards,” said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais. “In this particular case, we are concerned about the future of broadband in the country so we have to make sure we have a sustainable and competitive marketplace. It’s a wholesale decision that says Canadians can expect a better competitive marketplace because we are going to require incumbent cable and telephone companies to make their high-speed facilities available to competitors.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BNN Breaking News CRTC Decision Fiber 7-22-15.flv[/flv]

BNN broke into regular programming with this Special Report on the CRTC decision that will grant independent ISPs access to large telecom companies’ fiber optic networks. (3:13)

Large phone companies, including Bell, warned regulators in a hearing last fall that forcing them to open their networks to third parties would deter investment in fiber expansion. Canadian telecom companies now provide about three million homes with either fiber to the home or fiber to the neighborhood service. Blais, along with representatives of independent ISPs have rejected Bell’s arguments, arguing competition from cable operators was forcing telephone companies to upgrade their networks regardless of the wholesale access debate.

“Our view is the incumbent telcos have a market reason to invest in improving their plant through the investment in fiber,” Blais said. “That’s what Canadians expect and because of market conditions they have to do that investment. So we’re quite confident that’s going to happen.”

Canadian telecommunications companies have done well selling Internet and television services in a highly concentrated telecommunications and media marketplace. For example, BCE, the parent company of Bell Canada, Bell Media, and Bell TV owns a wireless carrier, a satellite TV provider, the CTV television network and many of its local affiliates, dozens of radio stations, more than two dozen cable networks, a landline telephone company, an Internet Service Provider, and ownership interests in sports teams like the Montreal Canadiens as well as a part interest in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s unofficial newspaper of record.

Companies like Rogers, Shaw, Vidéotron, Telus, and Bell have dominated the market for Internet access. But regulators began requiring these companies to sell access to their networks on a wholesale basis to smaller competitors to foster additional retail competition. Today, there are over 500 independent ISPs selling service in Canada, including well-known companies like TekSavvy, Primus, and Distributel. In the past few years, Internet enthusiasts have flocked to these alternative providers to escape a regime of usage caps and usage-based billing of Internet service common among most incumbent cable and phone companies. Competition from the independents, which offer more generous usage allowances or sell unlimited access, has forced some phone and cable companies to offer cap-free Internet service as well.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BNN CRTC Decision Interview with Jean Pierre Blais 7-22-15.flv[/flv]

BNN interviewed CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais about the commission’s decision to open up wholesale access to Canada’s fiber optic networks. (5:26)

Despite the competition, the majority of Canadians still do business with BCE, Rogers Communications, Quebecor (Vidéotron), Shaw Communications, or Telus, that collectively captured 75 percent of telecom revenue in 2013.

Although competitors have been able to purchase wholesale access to cable broadband and DSL service, nothing in the CRTC rules required big cable and phone companies to sell access to next generation fiber networks. That gap threatened the viability of independent ISPs, left with offering customers access to older cable/copper technology only. This week’s CRTC decision is the first step to grant access to fiber networks as well, although some ISPs are cautious about the impact of the decision until the CRTC provides pricing guidance.

“The commission took a great step today in favor of competition,” Matt Stein, CEO of Distributel Communications Ltd., told The Globe and Mail. “In giving us access to fiber to the premise, they have ensured that as speeds and demands increase, we’re going to continue to be able to provide service that customers want. It’s definitely going to be some time before these products make it to market. There’s going to be the costing and the implementation, and reasonably it could be a year or even longer before the products are actually out the door. But the heavy lifting? Today that was done.”

Bram Abramson, chief legal and regulatory officer for TekSavvy Solutions Inc., added some caution.

Distributel, an independent ISP, made a name for itself offering usage-cap free Internet access to Canadians.

“The devil really is in the details on this,” Abramson told the newspaper. “That’s why I say we like the direction, because there are a million ways in which this could become unworkable if implemented wrong. For example, what rates are we going to pay? We won’t know until those tariffs are done and settled.”

Other so-called “wireline incumbents” like Manitoba Telecom and SaskTel will also be required to make their fiber optic networks available to competitors.

Last fall, Bell warned the CRTC of the consequences of letting TekSavvy, Distributel, and others resell access to their fiber networks.

“We are not suggesting that mandated access will immediately grind investment to a halt in every location in Canada, but it is a question of balance and it will have an impact,” Mirko Bibic, chief legal and regulatory officer for BCE/Bell told CRTC commissioners at a hearing.

Bibic cautioned if the CRTC granted competitive access it could affect how the company allocated its capital investments and could lead it to shift spending to other areas instead.

“What we’re saying is a mandated access rule will affect the pace of deployment and the breadth of deployment,” Bibic said.

Bibic

Specifically, Bibic claimed Bell may call it quits on fiber expansion beyond the fiber-to-the-neighborhood service Bell sells under the Fibe brand in 80% of its service area in Ontario and Quebec. Bell had envisioned upgrading the network to straight fiber-to-the-home service, eliminating the rest of the legacy copper still in its network. But perhaps not anymore.

“If the commission forces the incumbent telephone operators to open access to fiber-to-the-home, BCE might not prioritize building that final leg in some communities,” Bibic warned. “The point is, with 80% of our territory covered […] we can hold and do really well with fiber-to-the-node for longer than we otherwise might.”

Nonsense, independent ISPs told the CRTC, pointing to the cable industry’s preparations to introduce DOCSIS 3.1 cable broadband and vastly increase broadband speeds well in excess of what a fiber-to-the-neighborhood network can offer.

“First of all, [telephone companies] have a natural incentive to build wherever there is a cable carrier, because otherwise the cable carrier will eat their lunch,” said Chris Tacit, counsel to the Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represents the interests of independent ISPs. “There’s a reason that they’re sinking all that money into [fiber-to-the-home], it’s because they have to keep up. Now, I don’t believe for a minute that they are going to stop investing if they have to grant access.”

Regulators in the United States have traditionally sided with large telecommunications companies and have largely allowed phone and cable companies to keep access to their advanced broadband networks to themselves. Republicans have largely defended the industry position that regulation and forced open access would deter private investment and competitors should construct networks of their own. In some cases, they have. Google Fiber is now the most prominent overbuilder, but several dozen independent providers are also slowly wiring fiber optics in communities already served by cable and telephone company-provided broadband. Whether it is better to inspire new entrants to build their own networks or grant them access to existing ones is an ongoing political debate.

But the CRTC has not given independent ISPs a free ride. The commission announced it will begin moving towards “disaggregated” network availability for smaller ISPs, which will require them to invest in network equipment to connect with incumbent networks on a more local level, starting in Ontario and Quebec.

The CRTC under Blais’ leadership is gaining a reputation of being pro-consumer, a departure from the CRTC’s often-industry-friendly past. Blais has presided over rulings to regulate wholesale wireless roaming fees to lower consumer costs and forced pay television providers to unbundle their huge TV channel packages so consumers can get rid of scores of channels they don’t watch.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/The Globe and Mail Internet competitors welcome CRTC decision on broadband access 7-23-15.flv[/flv]

Canadian Press spoke with independent ISPs about their reaction to the wholesale access decision. (1:18)