Thought Your Internet was High Speed?

Cablevision to Offer 101Mbps for $99 in Long Island

• Written by soulxtc

Expected to roll out Ultra fast Optimum Online Ultra service with NO DATA CAPS this May in an attempt to counter Verizon’s FiOS service, proving the benefits of ISP competition.

Finally we see an ISP in this country perform as one would expect in a truly competitive marketplace. Most regions, like San Diego for example, with Time Warner and Cox, have cable cartels the carve up cities into turf and then extort their customers each month free of competition.

Enter refreshing news from the East Coast, where honest competition prevents ISPs from gouging customers, with a report that Cablevision, trying to to counter the competitive threat of Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-Verse, has decided to roll out a 101Mbps broadband service this May with prices starting at $99p/mo.

Customer also apparently get region wide free Wi-Fi, which they’re DOUBLING download speeds to 3Mbps from the current 1.5Mbps.

And if all this wasn’t perfect enough, the service will also have absolutely NO DATA CAPS!.

Competition has forced the ISP to constantly upgrade its network and connections, and belies arguments, the most recently by Time Warner, that it infrastructure is expensive and somehow finite, ignoring the fact that equipment is getting cheaper all the time as it always does.

Cablevision coverage area...

Comcast also tried to make the same argument with data caps, but simultaneously told investors that it only costs an average $6.85 per home to DOUBLE the bandwidth capacity of an entire neighborhood, and that the equipment necessary to provide 50Mbps costs less than it had paid for the 6Mbps equipment.

S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media, praises Cablevision’s announcement, but also asks why other ISPs are not only not doing the same, but in many cases looking to actually minimize network bandwidth usage.

“It does, however, beg the question why Cablevision can offer fast access with reportedly no caps or overage fees, when others claim such a plan would cause the sky to fall and an exaflood to break the Internet,” says Turner. “We hope this new announcement will put an end to the bandwidth bogeyman.

In short, a lack of competition has allowed ISPs to deliver minimal service for maximum price. It’s not their fault per se, their only acting as any business would with a captive audience in which to dictate prices. The real blame lies with us, the American taxpayer, who has allowed these monopolistic practices to continue for far too long.

Just look at how ISPs reacted to a small North Carolina town that offers cheap 100Mbps connections to its citizens much like water or power. ISPs don’t want to compete if they don’t have to.

The real threat here is that the Internet is far more that an entertainment portal, it’s a means for communication and education. If we allow ISPs to cap how much date we can transfer each month were also allowing them to cap each of these endeavors and the progress of society as a result.

101Mbps for $99 bucks a month.

Dare to dream.

jared@zeropaid.com