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Verizon, one of the largest of the baby Bells, is now installing fiber based services in NY on Long Island. Phone and broadband to start with media to follow. There are always resellers that buy service in bulk and become middlemen. This is not a new thing, it started in the 80's with long distance resellers like Sprint and MCI.

We have this is one of our areas, There are only 2 things that change as far as our installations go. 1. the D mark is inside with no change to wiring. 2. there is not a modem to be installed for high speed internet. I dont know about your provider but our cable connects to their conversion box not through cat5.

ANd who pays when the customer wants to use another service?

I see a major class action suit arising from this.... Monopolies are bad for consumers.

There's a local telco co-op doing this in my area but the cable and telephone companies are also coming up to the houses. It's interesting to say the least but the STBs scare me as they are probably impossible to control (I hope not though).

They are having the electricians put an outlet inside at the demarc and providing every house with a UPS so that if the power goes out the VoIP will still work.

I agree with Impaqt, with no one else coming up to the house I think that someone is asking for trouble.

If the power goes out at the house, 9 times out of 10, the power will go out for the subdivision. Thus, the local USIMs (fiber to copper or fiber to fiber) used to distribute the service, next to the pedestal, will also go out. Only if they are putting redundant power supplies on them will they stay on. Here in AZ, they do not so we lose all services during power outages.

Sounds like the old "Buyer Beware". It took me 3 years to get my mom n' pop cable company to run 300' of coax to my pole so I could get broadband. The phone company says they will never get DSL here. So I am happy with any service at any price. I pay $52.95 a month for cable internet. DSL if it were here would be $24.95. The bitch is there is a 12" main bundle of fiber run down the back of my land that feeds most of the state. Obviously it does me no good. So close yet so far away. At least I finally have cable. No more overnight downloads of remote editing software.

Guys, this is a Fiber-To-The-Home effort (FTTH). You will still be able to send and recieve signal the same as you always were. The only difference is in the actual boxes used to distribute and receive the signals. Cable boxes, if you hadn't noticed, are now sporting ethernet inputs. This is in preparation for this initiative. Be careful, however, because builders will get training that will box you into an installation that will REQUIRE the STB to be located in every room!

As for monopolies, there is no worry about that because the network that these providers build and service is regulated by the FCC. The FCC requires that the local service provider must not lock out other service providers from access to their connected systems. Leasing these used lines is then instilled for liability and serviceability purposes. Everyone contributes. This is the only way that providers such as AOL and EarthLink can offer broadband service. Being that the connected system in question is the internet, it connects EVERYONE! This is the same technical model that was used for dial-up service, with newer technology.

Wesley, the Supreme Court recently struck down Brand X. The FCC has classified Internet service as being informational in nature, and de-regulated both cable and DSL. The only reason AOL Broadband and Earthlink are available is due to them negotiating a contract for reselling their services thru the local companies.

To add to Greg C's post..
The price for resale is unregulated. Thus, if the margin is crappy, you will have no resellers. Very similar to the situation where Bush squashed the UNE-P market by letting the 1996 Telecom Act go by the way side. This required the regional Bell companies to lease their lines at a regulated price to resellers.. No more, gone!

The FTTH initiative is founded by the tcomm industry, not cable. It is an effort for tcomm to offer cable services at a better rate and with comparable quality as the cable industry.

Cable is regulated from price gouging only. It is voted in by the local municipality for service, and therefore, territorially protected (or monopolized). Tcomm is unregulated for pricing. That way, they can play with pricing.

So Greg, you have said the same thing I have.

And Nardo, being protected from price gouging also includes reselling the same services. A company that wants to show that it is price-competitive cannot sell below a certain point (its costs, to include its leases). If the target market will not bite after a predicted amount of time, they will go under.

Wesley,
I’d swear that you are talking in circles…. Aren’t we talking about Telco deployed fiber?

Wesley, we are not saying the same thing. You say that it is regulated by the FCC. The FCC says that there is no regulation of the telecos and cable co. as far as internet service goes.

Greg:
What I said was 'cable is regulated from price gouging only'. That says nothing for the territory (protected monopoly) which gets voted in per municipality. This price gouging also applies to internet service. This means that, on the cable side, internet service is PARTIALLY regulated (or just has some guidelines).

The regulation that you speak of is for other things that pertain to internet service, like quality of service, guarantees on bandwidth, access to information, etc.

The reason I know this is because my wife of ten years has worked for Comcast as a National Call Center Supervisor for Comcast Online in NJ for the past five years. So, if her information is screwed up, somebody's got some explaining to do.