CenturyLink Ambiguously Hints At More Ambiguous 1 Gbps Launches Last year CenturyLink started offering 1 Gbps to a smattering of high-end development communities in places like Omaha and Las Vegas, but has been pretty ambiguous about just how many users can get the service. Last August they stated they'd be offering 1 Gbps speeds in parts of sixteen cities (including Seattle, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City), but again, specific build locations and total potential subscriber numbers have been nowhere to be seen. It's what I affectionately call "fiber to the press release." Vastly cheaper than a major deployment yet still technically not nothing, it allows companies to insist they're on the cutting edge of broadband deployment despite the fact the vast majority of their customers are puttering along on circa-2003 DSL lines quote: "We're going to continue on with our GPON deployments" for both consumer and business broadband services, said CenturyLink COO Karen Puckett. "We like the halo effect" from the gigabit launches in the early markets. By "halo effect," Puckett means they like the fact that the 1 Gbps announcements help give the PR impression that CenturyLink is spending aggressively on infrastructure upgrades, despite the fact the lion's share of their product lineup is notably far from cutting edge. Meanwhile, despite the fact most of majority of the company's customers are lucky to get even 6 Mbps, CenturyLink says the FCC's new 25 Mbps broadband definition shouldn't really impact them: quote: "The new definition doesn't really impact us in a significant way," said CenturyLink CEO Glen Post. "We're selling solutions, not just speeds. It won't impact our investment." That's in part because while the FCC's 25 Mbps mark is useful, there's really not going to be a lot of teeth in supporting in (ie: ISPs don't get fined or something if they offer slow service). The metric's primarily going to be used as a high-water mark in policy discussions. It's also worth noting that companies can still get government subsidies for rural broadband deployments if they offer speeds of at least 10 Mbps. It's what I affectionately call "fiber to the press release." Vastly cheaper than a major deployment yet still technically not, it allows companies to insist they're on the cutting edge of broadband deployment despite the fact the vast majority of their customers are puttering along on circa-2003 DSL lines with low usage caps (see our user reviews ). Still, the company this week hinted they may extend 1 Gbps outside of these initial launch markets, someday:By "halo effect," Puckett means they like the fact that the 1 Gbps announcements help give the PR impression that CenturyLink is spending aggressively on infrastructure upgrades, despite the fact the lion's share of their product lineup is notably far from cutting edge. Meanwhile, despite the fact most of majority of the company's customers are lucky to get even 6 Mbps, CenturyLink says the FCC's new 25 Mbps broadband definition shouldn't really impact them:That's in part because while the FCC's 25 Mbps mark is useful, there's really not going to be a lot of teeth in supporting in (ie: ISPs don't get fined or something if they offer slow service). The metric's primarily going to be used as a high-water mark in policy discussions. It's also worth noting that companies can still get government subsidies for rural broadband deployments if they offer speeds of at least 10 Mbps.







News Jump California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more Cogeco Rejects Altice USA's Atlantic Broadband Bid; AT&T Is Astroturfing The FCC In Support Of Trump Attack; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed view:

topics flat nest mikemacman

join:2004-05-29

Saint Paul, MN mikemacman Member Taking matters into our own hands



»Updated Minneapolis speed test map Details about CenturyLink's fiber deployment are very hard to come by. They won't say where it's available in the Twin Cites, MN or when it will be available to a specific address. Some users in the forums have taken matters into their own hands and started mapping out available speeds across the metro. They've found a few areas that offer 1Gbit but so far the deployment is very small. tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 Member FTTDB Century Link's brand of fiber might as well be known as Fiber to the Drop in the Bucket (FTTDB) or aka imaginary

jgkolt

Premium Member

join:2004-02-21

Avon, OH 1 edit jgkolt Premium Member fiber hoods Are the first steps for the customer to get the fiber with speeds up to 100/50? Then when do they upgrade them to gigabit? xthepeoplesx

join:2013-10-21 1 recommendation xthepeoplesx Member Re: fiber hoods Here is how CenturyLink handles it:



Step 1: Announce Gigabit to everyone.

Step 2: Sell customer UP TO Gigabit speeds.

Step 3: Ignore supporting customer when they call why they are getting 3mbps.

jgkolt

Premium Member

join:2004-02-21

Avon, OH jgkolt Premium Member Re: fiber hoods I just signed up for their 100/50 service and was hoping that was the path to gigabit. mikemacman

join:2004-05-29

Saint Paul, MN mikemacman Member Re: fiber hoods I don't really understand the 100mbit tier for fiber. Like, how does CenturyLink decide where they offer 100mbit vs 1Gbit? I'm assuming that it's either for marketing or technical reasons. If they decide to upgrade your area to 1Gbit then you can get it. But I don't think signing up for 100mbit will make that happen any sooner. coryw

join:2013-12-22

Flagstaff, AZ 1 recommendation coryw Member Re: fiber hoods It's probably related to 1) backhaul 2) how many OLTs/neighborhoods they're going to deploy.



In my town, they have one single remote OLT box in one single neighborhood, so even though Google or AT&T would do it, I don't think CenturyLink is ready to turn up the gig and go "look at our gigabit deployment in Flagstaff!" Even though realistically it's in a single neighborhood still under construction filled with only about fifty to sixty homes.



But, there's literally no reason for them not to drop in fiber, and so they have, and they're selling 100 megs on it today, which is all the better for anybody living there.



When they beef up the backhaul and get fiber to the home available in more/most of the town is when I suspect we'll start seeing more marketing about any given town. coryw 1 recommendation coryw to jgkolt

Member to jgkolt

Physically, it is -- the Calix ONT they used and whatever OLT they have in place will happily deliver a gigabit, it's probably just the backhaul and a matter of not being ready for any gig in an area yet. Fortunately, actually laying the fiber from the CO to the OLT to the house is the most expensive part, so once the backhaul is finished, they can basically just change the configuration files and gigabit will be available. Jethro

join:2014-12-11

Gulf Shores, AL Jethro to xthepeoplesx

Member to xthepeoplesx

They haven't been able to get me a full mb out of 7mbs in 5 months. Took 3 service calls over 7 days just to get me an ip from the server despite a solid dsl link. Happens every week. They will still be dreaming of deploying GB long after its a standard, because all their current customers being ignored while flipping the bill for these tiny upgrades will have been upgraded by a company that cares. They will have $100 less to spend next month. I will stand by that guarantee. xthepeoplesx

join:2013-10-21 xthepeoplesx Member Re: fiber hoods Well CL will soon have a 100% drop rate in my area. Competition is coming in. At some point in time competition will come in to more and more areas of CL's and they will ride themselves right out of business. Itll take time, but it will happen. I never thought we would be getting competition here, but hey it happened!

jgkolt

Premium Member

join:2004-02-21

Avon, OH jgkolt Premium Member Re: fiber hoods the ironic part in my neighborhood most people have centurylink and when i had time warner i was always the first to report a problem in the neighborhood. coryw

join:2013-12-22

Flagstaff, AZ coryw Member Not just for Gigabit There's a new neighborhood in town where CenturyLink has deployed GPON, and is selling (as with a lot of neighborhoods in a lot of CL service areas) 12, 20, 40, an 100 (by 50) megabit service on it for consumers, and as far as I can tell, 40/5, 60/60 an 100/100 service plans on the business side of things.



Physically, these neighborhoods are on the path to gigabit, but my guess is that 1) most of the areas where they're deployed are really areas (whole states) where DSL is king, such as here in Arizona. Part of the problem is that, say, here in my town, they're going to need to increase the overall backhaul that the CO can provide by a whole heck of a lot before they can really support any large number of gigabit customers, which is why those systems are mostly at DSL tiers, an the best deals (i.e. $30/mo bundles with phone, that kin of thing) are all on the 40 meg tiers an below.



I actually think that CenturyLink needs to get more of these GPON deployments going. If it were me in the drivers' seat, I'd probably try to figure out how to get fewer really big OLTs or cabinets (such as stacks upon stacks of Calix E7s, or some Calix C7s, or some Adtran TA 5000 shelves) serving more customers, just to take advantage of the fact that GPON can go a lot further while maintaining the same speed. (And, Calix is talking about reach-extended GPON to go form 20 or so kilometers to 30.) The areas I' likely target first are of course new deployments that still somehow don't have HSI service at all, as well as areas served only by very slow service, anything below about ten megs.



After that, I'd probably target Embarq's ADSL2+ customers, after which I would think that Qwest's VDSL2 customers will start clamoring for a speed upgrade, as 12-40 megabits won't really last forever, but most of those customers are fairly happy right now, even the ones at the far reach of those systems getting 12 meg service.



The other option, I suppose, is to go town by town an do the whole thing at once, probably starting with the CO, getting lines as far as you can directly out of the CO, and then installing remote OLTs as neccessary to cover anything else.



Of course, the biggest problem CenturyLink will have with that kind of operation is that it's really hard to get a town to give you permission to trench out literally everything in order to provide better everything. Then you have the users who will stop at nothing to prevent the telco (whatever one, it doesn't matter) from pulling out their copper line, for various reasons, which is another huge disincentive for CenturyLink to install fiber anywhere that's not brand new. political_i

join:2013-11-12 political_i Member Re: Not just for Gigabit As grand as that sounds, there is just one problem.



This costs a boatload of dough.



Unless you can prove to shareholders that FTTH is going to make a quick ROI, they aren't going to go for it. It makes plenty of sense in new subdivisions or if you are going to change equipment anyways it might make sense to convert but digging is expensive so when new divisions go in, dig once. coryw

join:2013-12-22

Flagstaff, AZ coryw Member Re: Not just for Gigabit It does, and that's why what existing neighborhoods CL is fibering up, they're doing slowly and carefully.



I think CenturyLink itself understands the importance of moving to a fiber-based network, because they're moving in that direction of their own volition, and sometimes they don't even make a huge nation-wide deal out of it, they just put in the fiber and sell services on it.



They also have the advantage of not requiring a video franchise to install VDSL2 or fiber, which is nice.

bockbock

@hcs.net bockbock to coryw

Anon to coryw

said by coryw: After that, I'd probably target Embarq's ADSL2+ customers, after which I would think that Qwest's VDSL2 customers will start clamoring for a speed upgrade, as 12-40 megabits won't really last forever, but most of those customers are fairly happy right now, even the ones at the far reach of those systems getting 12 meg service. Hah! There are customers in what used to be Embarq-land that are lucky to even get 10/896 ADSL2 service. We'll see. Here in Tallahassee, FL, the fastest speed you can get with CL is 10/896. CenturyLink's excuse is that the copper is "too old" here to support faster speeds. Huh? Whatever. It's either CenturyLink or Comcast for ISPs. xthepeoplesx

join:2013-10-21 xthepeoplesx Member Re: Not just for Gigabit Same here 8mbps is the highest and many of my neighbors cant get that because CenturyLink wont fix their lines so instead they just downgraded them to 3mbps. Its a shame. We are lucky though as we will have a WISP come in next month that we were working on and also have a local cable co upgrading us by the end of the year (hopefully). So we will see competition. It just takes alot of people to make changes and prove that its viable for other companies to come in. I feel sorry for the people who havent started this process yet and are stuck with CenturyLink like we were/are. I will tell you after speaking with everyone in the area, it will be close to a 100% loss for CenturyLink for not upgrading us. That alone shows how unhappy people are with this company.

why60loss

Premium Member

join:2012-09-20 why60loss Premium Member Well now that can't get tax breaks on broadband for copper DSL so........ Now they will attack fiber more quickly to regain government tax breaks for providing "broadband" class service.



I could be mistaken about that, but that looks to be the only thing that would make them care.

v6movement

@pppoe.ca v6movement Anon Re: Well now that can't get tax breaks on broadband for copper DSL so........ said by why60loss: Well now that can't get tax breaks on broadband for copper DSL so........ Don't know where you got that from but it is not true. Antipex

join:2007-02-01

Portland, OR 1 recommendation Antipex Member Pick-and-choose CenturyLink advertised "up to gigabit" speeds in my neighbourhood... an apartment building two blocks down the street has gigabit service available, but my new-ish condo building only has 100Mb available. And it's nearly double the monthly cost (plus $200+ in installation fees) of Comcast's 105Mb Blast tier, which has been super reliable where I live.



I wish I knew a way to get in touch with CenturyLink to find out why they don't offer gigabit to my building, and how we can persuade them to do so since the infrastructure apparently exists in the neighbourhood. your comment..

