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topics flat nest valgaav

join:2011-06-07 valgaav Member Holy c.......... And here I am still paying $35 for 2mb/512kbps..........

Eddy120876

join:2009-02-16

Bronx, NY Eddy120876 Member Are you in DR? I know how you feel.

DarkenMoon

Premium Member

join:2013-11-14

Lebanon, IL DarkenMoon Premium Member Man It's amazing what competition can do. TBBroadband

join:2012-10-26

Fremont, OH TBBroadband Member Re: Man It's not really competition until its actually out and offered. But people will still go with the lower price because why, its CHEAPER. 99% of all customers don't shop on speed they shop on price.

battleop

join:2005-09-28

00000 battleop Member If you are competing on price alone... You had better make sure you have some very deep pockets. Competing on price alone without the ability to sustain losses for long periods of time will end in disaster. I doubt they have pockets as deep as at&t and Google. silbaco

Premium Member

join:2009-08-03

USA silbaco Premium Member Re: If you are competing on price alone... Do they have a choice? If they don't offer a similar competing product Google could crush them. Google doesn't care about the little guys who get run out of business in their attempt to publicly shame incumbents. iansltx

join:2007-02-19

Austin, TX ·Time Warner Cable

iansltx to battleop

Member to battleop

They're a private company, backed by ABRY and a few other holding companies. If anything, they'll end up selling out rather than failing outright.



$65/mo for gigabit may sound like loss-making, but Grande has a relatively inexpensive bandwidth mix, dark fiber to where they buy that bandwidth, and they're not covering the entire town with fiber from the get-go.



Also, Google isn't likely to compete on price with Grande or AT&T. Google's goal is to get their competitors to go gigabit, so that the mother ship has a superhighway to deliver content. So I don't expect any anti-Grande promotions to come out. silbaco

Premium Member

join:2009-08-03

USA 1 edit silbaco Premium Member Fiber It's been close to a year since Google announced they were bringing Google Fiber to Austin, yet it is At&t and Grande that are going to be offering 1Gbps service before Google even offers service to their first house.



No doubt they are only doing it because of Google so for that Google deserves credit. But it just goes to show how Google is choosing to use press releases to shake up the competition instead of actual infrastructure. They clearly have no intention of ever becoming a national provider at the rate they are building.

firephoto

We the people

Premium Member

join:2003-03-18

Brewster, WA firephoto Premium Member Re: Fiber said by silbaco: They clearly have no intention of ever becoming a national provider.



Are there actually any national providers, my casual research says no.



And to clarify, provider of the internet, not walled internet likeness. Would that be the AT&T that is not a provider here (i am in the nation btw)? Maybe Verizon that isn't here? Comcast, nope. Charter, nope. Time Warner, nope.Are there actually any national providers, my casual research says no.And to clarify, provider of the internet, not walled internet likeness. silbaco

Premium Member

join:2009-08-03

USA silbaco Premium Member Re: Fiber Are you seriously arguing about the definition of national? National, super-regional, whatever. It doesn't matter. xenophon

join:2007-09-17 xenophon to silbaco

Member to silbaco

And Google wins either way as there would probably not be a major push for Gbit (under $100/month) if they didn't become a player. silbaco

Premium Member

join:2009-08-03

USA silbaco Premium Member Re: Fiber Oh Google wins no matter what happens. Any time infrastructure improves Google benefits and they know it. TBBroadband

join:2012-10-26

Fremont, OH TBBroadband to xenophon

Member to xenophon

What major push? A handful of cities do NOT count and national fiber networks were and are being built regardless of Google. Just because they put out a few PRs and buy a city's network leaving them with the debt and built a few neighbors in a select few other cities don't mean that Google is the God-send that caused others to deploy. And if Google really though they had a product on price- tell them to go and compete with VZ and see how well they last. TBBroadband TBBroadband to silbaco

Member to silbaco

That's been said from the get-go.

alchav

join:2002-05-17

Saint George, UT alchav to silbaco

Member to silbaco

said by silbaco: It's been close to a year since Google announced they were bringing Google Fiber to Austin, yet it is At&t and Grande that are going to be offering 1Gbps service before Google even offers service to their first house. You guys are clueless, to offer 1Gbps Fiber to any City at a certain price there has to be a commitment. Companies come up with a price, and they have a Break Even Point. They are not going to come out and spend money laying Fiber on just hopes and prayers. Plans have to be made and laid out, along with commitments and monies. That Break Even Point has to be there, and that is why it takes so long everyone drags their feet when the rubber hits the road. silbaco

Premium Member

join:2009-08-03

USA silbaco Premium Member Re: Fiber Really? If they are looking for commitments then perhaps they should actually start trying to get them. They have made no moves to take preorders or even tell the general public what they have planned. They have barely even started hiring. At&t announced plans to launch fiber in Austin the same day and have already rolled out ftth in some areas. Skippy25

join:2000-09-13

Hazelwood, MO Skippy25 Member Can't Be! How can they all of a sudden offer such speeds?!?!?!? They clearly are going bankrupt and are trying to offload all their packets now for as cheap as they can for tax reasons.



Oh that's right, just the threat of competition brings good things to those that get to be in a (threatened) competitive market. Google in all of their evilness surely is not responsible for such good things in Austin. That thought is preposterous I tell you! elray

join:2000-12-16

Santa Monica, CA elray Member Re: Can't Be! Grande is privately held, so they're free from the much-maligned pressure to make the quarterly report, but it also means we have even less insight into their financial health.



They could very well be in trouble.

Moody's isn't very keen on their debt.



Not that it bothers me one bit - so long as they're using their own (investor) money, they're welcome to take their chances and roll out fiber at $65/month. Skippy25

join:2000-09-13

Hazelwood, MO Skippy25 Member Re: Can't Be! So what you are saying is that it is the stock holders of our major ISP's that are holding up investment into the future of their companies......



Who would of thunk it? elray

join:2000-12-16

Santa Monica, CA 1 edit elray Member Re: Can't Be! Nope. Shareholders are the greatest source of that investment capital. They don't hold it up, they enable it. The quarterly filing simply means that the company is more closely scrutinized.



Privately held firms are simply able to take greater risks, including those which imperil the future, the very existence of the company. I don't know, in the case of Grande - this appears to be a small cherry-picked market segment, so they might be able to absorb a loss, but again, Moody's doesn't seem to approve.



Again, it doesn't bother me either way. If they go belly-up, the fire-sale will generally result in cheap assets for whoever takes over, which artificially lowers the cost to the consumer, at nominal cost to the treasury and the bondholders who believed in them.



If they profit, selling $65 FTTH against Google and AT&T, that's fantastic, more power to them. Skippy25

join:2000-09-13

Hazelwood, MO Skippy25 Member Re: Can't Be! You are delusional. Shareholders, the very first people to buy a companies offering, "may" contribute to capital investment. Beyond that, the money goes between one investor to another and the company sees none of it. The only ones that see money are the investment firms and the seller. If a company offers 1 billion stocks for $1, they will get $1Billion dollars from the buyers. That stock can then go up to $1000 a piece in 6 months and that company will see $0.

SRFireside

join:2001-01-19

Houston, TX SRFireside to Skippy25

Member to Skippy25

Grande has always been a very good competitor in Austin. Their price point and bandwidth options were pretty impressive. I just now checked out their website and they lowest tier is 15Mb speeds for $35. 50Mbps, 75Mbps and 110Mbps (at $65) pretty much puts any competition to shame.



All they are doing is upping the ante to reflect the local competition. They are nowhere near as stingy as AT&T, TimeWarner and the rest when it comes to their broadband offerings.



I remember using them when I was in Austin back in 2001. I was living cheap back then, but was still able to get 384k service and a full cable TV channel lineup for about $35 if I recall. This was back when 56k dialup was still being offered at $20. betam4x

join:2002-10-12

Nashville, TN betam4x Member Marketing ploy More speed does not necessarily cost more dollars. It depends on what providers they are using and who they are peering with (for all we know there could be some type of partnership with Google). Offering 1 gigabit in the last mile is trivial as long as the underlying infrastructure supports it.



It's more of a marketing ploy/upsell to increase RPU. tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 Member Why Austin? with 2 companies already committed to plunking down millions of dollars on a network build.. why not pick another geography that has a willing municipal government?!?



millions of people in the NORTHEAST getting abused by the likes of Comcast, Cablevision and Verizon would trade certain vital organs to get gigabit speeds dirt cheap. I'll just pay the $65 a month, thanks. if they could make it happen before the middle of 2015, I'd even pay the Verizon ETF for the contract. iansltx

join:2007-02-19

Austin, TX iansltx Member Re: Why Austin? Because Grande already has infrastructure in Texas, and that's all they serve, and as an overbuilder they're basically fighting for their lives here.



Also, "willing municipal government"? I don't think NYC qualifies.

why60loss

Premium Member

join:2012-09-20 why60loss Premium Member If only NC didn't the anti boradband bill we could get speeds like this. If only we got a gig bit in the RDU or heck even more than 5mbs upload would be good. your comment..

