Gary would know how well our local, regional, and national infrastructure is meeting the ever increasing needs for bandwidth. AFAIK, not so well. Comcast in DAC or at least in LC, at one point a few years ago now, was talking about upgrading to a new tier of speeds, a new protocol or advanced protocol, and that might furnish 100 MB/s to homes, or is it 100mb/s…. anyway, I don’t recall actually getting that at my house, as yet.
Broadband bottlenecks and Alcatel/Lucent upgrade infrastructure
by andflywrite | Feb 16, 2013 | BEST LINKS EVER | 2 comments
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There are, of course, two different issues: availability and affordability. If you live in Comcast territory, availability is actually pretty good (see below) and if you live near a CenturyLink CO it is not terrible (VDSL gives 7 Mbps / 768 Kbps in Talavera). Elsewhere in NM you are out of luck unless you are in a fiber pocket like the Tularosa Basin Tel.
Comcast offers a range of internet services that vary by location. Even products that have the same name have different performance “guarantees” in different locations.
Except for the subsidized low-income :Internet Essentials rates (that the FCC forced as part of the NBC acquisition) and the “teaser” rates for the first 6 months of new customer service, the rates are NOT cheap.
Here is what they advertise nationally (i.e. subject to availability):
Economy 3 Mbps / 768 kbps $40/mo
Economy+ 6 Mbps / 1 Mbps $50/mo
Performance 20 Mbps / 2 Mbps $65/mo
Blast 30 Mbps / 2 Mbps $75/mo
Extreme50 5o Mbps / 15 Mbps $115/mo
Extreme105 105 Mbps / 15 Mbps $200/mo
In my immediate area, the Extreme105 service is NOT available and the Performance and Blast download committed rates are lower than the nationally published rates – i.e. 12 and 18 Mbps respectively. On the other hand, I currently subscribe to “Performance” and have measured (on SpeedTest) 20 Mbps / 3.5 Mbps on my last several tests.
Like most folks, I get my Internet as part of a package and, therefore, the rate I pay is not rally clear. I would be seriously tempted to “cord cut” for TV and Voice, but the cellular service where I live sucks and over-the-air requires antennas that are prohibited in my development.
Thx Gary. Cutting the cord, the unreachable dream? I too regularly “chafe” at Comcast costs…and would like to go Satellite and super low cost internet voice. But the package, which somehow seems like it should be restraint of trade, makes that “hard to do”…because Comcast internet is much better than my alternatives.