Tag Archives: Verizon FiOS

Make it Faster

Cable modem Motorola SurfBoard for broadband i...

Cable modem Motorola SurfBoard for broadband internet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whenever I look at my client’s data products I almost have the same advice – make it faster. I am constantly surprised to find companies who deliver small bandwidth data products when their networks are capable of going much faster. I have come to the conclusion that you should give customers as much bandwidth as you technically can deliver, within any technical restraints.

I know that networks are operated largely by engineers and technicians and very often I hear the engineers warn management against increasing speeds. They typically are worried that faster speeds mean that customers will use more bandwidth. They worry that will mean more costs with no additional revenue to pay for the extra bandwidth.

But the experience in the industry is that customers don’t use more data when they get more speeds, at least not right away. Customers do not change their behavior after they get faster data – they just keep doing the same things they were doing before, only faster.

Of course, over time, internet data usage is steadily increasing on every network as customers watch more and more programming on the web. But they are going to increase usage regardless of the speed you deliver to them as long as that speed is fast enough to stream video. Going faster just means they can start watching content sooner without having to worry about streaming glitches.

The engineers do have one valid point that must be taken into consideration, in that many networks have chokepoints. A chokepoint is any place in a network that can restrict the flow of data to customers. Chokepoints can be at neighborhood nodes, within your network backbone, at devices like routers, or on the Internet backbone leaving your company. If your network is getting close to hitting a chokepoint you need to fix the issue because the data usage is going to grow independently of the speeds you give your customers. When I hear worry about chokepoints it tells me that the network needs upgrades, probably sooner rather than later.

Historically telecom companies were very stingy with data speeds. The first generations of DSL didn’t deliver speeds that were much faster than dial-up and even today there are many markets that still offer DSL with downloads speeds of 1 Mbps. Then cable modems came along and they upped speeds a little, with the first generation of cable modems offering speeds up to 3 Mbps. And over time the telcos and the cable companies increased data speeds a little, but not a lot. They engaged in oligopoly competition rather than in product competition. There are many notorious quotes by the presidents of large cable companies saying that their customers don’t need more speed.

But then Verizon built FiOS and changed the equation. Verizon’s lowest speed product when they launched service was 20 Mbps, and it was an honest speed, meaning that it delivered as advertised. Many of the DSL and cable modem speeds at that time were hyped at speeds faster than could be delivered in the network. Cable modems were particular susceptible to slowing down to a crawl at the busiest times of the evening.

Over time Verizon kept increasing their speeds and on the east coast they pushed the cable companies to do the same. Mediacom in New York City was the first cable company to announce a 50 Mbps data product, and today most urban cable companies offer a 100 Mbps product. However, the dirty secret cable companies don’t want to tell you is that they can offer that product by giving prioritization to those customers, which means that everybody else gets degraded a little bit.

And then came Google in Kansas City who set the new bar to 1 Gbps. Service providers all over the country are now finding ways to 1 Gbps service, even if it’s just to a few customers.

I am always surprised when I find a company who operates a fiber network which does not offer fast speeds. I still find fiber networks all the time that have products at 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps. In all of the fiber-to-the-premise technologies, the network is set up to deliver at least 100 Mbps to every customer and the network provider chokes the speeds down to what is sold to customers. It literally takes a flick of a switch for a fiber provider to change the speed to a home or business from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps.

And so I tell these operators to make it faster. If you own a fiber network you have one major technological advantage over any competition, which is speed. I just can’t understand why a fiber network owner would offer speeds that are in direct competition with the DSL and cable modems in their market when they are capable of leaping far above them.

But even if you are using copper or coax you need to increase speeds to customers whenever you can. Customers want more speed and you will always be keeping the pressure on your competition.

What’s Up With Verizon?

1980s Dodge Ram Van Verizon

1980s Dodge Ram Van Verizon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have another story to tell about my friend Danny. He runs an accounting firm in northern Virginia and he looks a lot like a ton of other small businesses. He has half a dozen phone lines and he wants a fast Internet connection. He called me the other day and told me that he had been approached in just the course of one week by three different salespeople who represented Verizon.

His first contact still has me shaking my head. A salesman stopped by and offered to sell him an all-in-one T1. Danny already has FiOS and a symmetrical 35 Mbps Internet connection. This salesperson wanted to sell Danny a T1 from Verizon or from half a dozen other CLECs and resellers. And he could do this for only $1,400 per month, which is 3.5 times what Danny is paying for vastly better service.

I was really surprised by this sales call. This is a flashback to the late 90’s when there were salespeople everywhere selling the all-inclusive T1 that had some channels for voice and the rest of the T1 for data. And in those days since we had all just migrated from the dial-up world, this seemed like fast Internet access. But then DSL and cable modems, and now fiber and 4G have all left T1s far behind and I was surprised that there was a company who would spend the money on a salesperson to go door-to-door with last century’s product. That seems like the telecom’s version of a buggy-whip salesman.

But Danny says that in his CPA practice that he has at least 50 clients who still use T1s. He advises them every year to move to something better, but I guess there are a lot of people in the world who stick with what is comfortable and working. Such customers could save a lot of money moving to something else and would get far faster Internet access to boot. But I guess the fact that these kinds of customers are still out in the market explains the T1 salesman. There is so much profit in a T1 at his prices that one sale per month probably keeps him happy and very profitable.

Next Danny got a visit from Verizon Wireless. They wanted him to ditch his FiOS and go completely wireless with 4G. Danny has had his FiOS for four years and has never had a single problem. During that time Verizon has increased his bandwidth without changing the price. He is completely happy with fiber and he knows that fiber is the ultimate pipe if he wants bigger bandwidth in the future.

4G is an interesting product, but nobody thinks that a wireless network is as reliable as the FiOS fiber. Cell towers sometimes go down or get overwhelmed with service requests. And the 4G speeds vary by how many customers are using it at any given time. 4G is nice, but it is not fiber.

Danny says that the 4G salesperson could not answer some basic questions. For instance, they could not tell him the speeds he could expect at his location but only could talk about a possible range of speeds. And they never asked him any questions about his business. There certainly are going to be businesses where 4G might be the right solution, but Danny is not one of them. His accountants work in the office and clients come to see him. His major concern is reliability and he loves that FiOS stays up and running. Before FiOS he had a Comcast cable modem and had to send employees home several days when the Internet was not working. Danny is a happy Verizon customer and is sold on their fiber. Danny was somewhat amazed that the 4G salesperson did not know that he already had FiOS and it seems like the different parts of Verizon don’t talk to each other.

Finally last week Danny got a call from a FiOS rep. He had not gotten a call about his FiOS since he first bought it, but I guess that the Verizon FiOS group knew that Verizon Wireless was out trying to poach their customers and they called to check on him. So within the span of one week Danny was contacted by three different salespeople, two from Verizon and one who was a Verizon reseller.

This surprised me for a number of reasons. First, I honestly would have thought the day of selling T1s was dead and that visit just has me shaking my head. But the idea that two different parts of Verizon would spend for sales resources to compete for the same customer has me flummoxed. I understand that the Verizon fiber and wireless businesses are separate business units. But at the end of the day their profits all roll up to the same bottom line.

It appears to me that Verizon has missed one of the basic principles of selling – putting the customer first. A lot of my clients are CLECs and they learned a long time ago that the way to get loyal customers is to get to know them and find them a solution that fits what they need. This approach is called consultative sales and involves taking the time to get to know the customers’ needs. In the early days of CLECs they all sold on price and they quickly learned that a customer who changed to them for a lower price would also drop them for the next lowest offer. The CLECs who are still around today are for the most part doing it right and selling in a way to earn trust and loyalty from customers.

It honestly surprises me that Verizon has not learned this simple lesson. Danny says that the wireless salesperson never asked him about his business and only spouted that 4G was the latest and greatest product. It further surprises me that Verizon would put a live sales staff on the street to compete against themselves. Sales teams are expensive and it’s hard to fathom why Verizon would send a wireless salesperson to a place that already has Verizon FiOS. You would think at a minimum they would send salespeople only to those places that don’t already use Verizon. But once they heard he had FiOS they still tried to convert him to wireless.

Why would Verizon compete against itself like this? I know that there are different business units at Verizon and that each group will earn bonuses based upon their own performance, but at the end of the day it is more profitable as a corporation to do this the right way. Verizon ought to be sending out one sales team that can sell their whole product line and who will help the customer find the best solution for their business. In the long run it can’t do Verizon any good having salespeople bashing their own product lines. As a corporation do they really want wireless salespeople telling the public not to use their fiber? That is going to lead customers to pick somebody other than Verizon.

I think Danny has it right. When his receptionist hears the word Verizon now she just tells them, “He doesn’t want to talk to you.” And she is right.

Will Poor People Get Google Fiber?

FiOS installed in Montclair, New Jersey

FiOS installed in Montclair, New Jersey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This was a great question that was posed by a recent article in Forbes Magazine. In this country we have a long history of having telecom provided by monopoly telephone companies and more recently by cable companies. Both incumbent providers have been mandated to serve almost everybody in their footprint. In the case of telephone companies this has been done by regulatory fiat by the various state Commissions that regulate telephone service in each state. Every state has rules for incumbent telephone companies that include a requirement for universal service using a concept known as carrier-of-last-resort. When a telephone company got the right to serve an area they were expected to provide service to everybody in that area, within reason, and then the costs of the more expensive-to-reach customers was averaged with everybody else. I say within reason, because even the telephone companies were allowed an out for really expensive-to-reach customers. For instance, if a farmer lived back a seven-mile long lane, the phone company might only provide a mile or two of the service line and expect the customer to pay for the rest.

And cable companies had similar requirement that came through the franchise agreements that they signed with local governments. If a cable company wanted to serve a town, then they were required to serve everybody in town in order to get the franchise.

Today fiber is being built by both regulated monopoly carriers like Verizon, but also by competitive providers like Google. But none of the fiber builders has the same carrier-of-last-resort or cable-like franchises requirements that the incumbents faced when they built their copper networks.

So to answer the opening question, will everybody get Google fiber?  The answer is no, for the following reasons:

  • Copper is still in place.  As long as the copper is still in place for the telephone and cable company, they can satisfy their service obligations by connecting customers on copper. They are thus relieved of building fiber everywhere as long as copper still exists.
  • Exclusive contracts with MDUs.  Anybody that builds with fiber needs to get the approval of the owner of multi-tenant buildings, be that apartments or multi-tenant business buildings. And some of those building owners are not going to give permission. Some building owners will have signed exclusive access contracts with the incumbent cable company. The FCC invalidated some types of exclusivity a few years ago, but there are still contractual ways for the cable company to keep out competition. Further, some building owners just don’t want to let a provider into their complex.
  • Places too expensive to serve.  Fiber overbuilders can pick and choose where to serve. It is often very expensive to bring fiber into apartment buildings, particularly older apartments, and many fiber builders choose to not build or selectively build to apartments. Verizon is famous for avoiding high-cost places. If you look at a suburban map of Verizon FiOS you would find a real patchwork of served areas. They will build to one pocket of houses but then skip over ones right next door, certainly due to cost. For the most part Verizon has elected to not dig up streets to build fiber, and so FiOS is more commonly placed in neighborhoods with existing Verizon aerial wires, or in neighborhoods where there is existing conduit in the ground. Verizon also often skips past apartment complexes. But I don’t want to single out Verizon since this is true of just about every fiber overbuilder.
  • Redlining, or the nearest thing to it.  As the article suggests, the build-out patterns of Verizon, Google and just about any other fiber overbuilder have a significant taste of redlining about them. It is easy for the fiber builders to say they are building where the cost is the lowest and the returns are expected to be the highest, but this means that they generally end up avoiding large apartment complexes and poorer neighborhoods. If they had set out to deliberately redline they would end up with basically the same networks that actually get built.

And so we are entering a future where there will be definite fiber haves and have-nots. There has been a lot of this for the last few decades since the introduction of DSL and cable modems. Rural areas for the large part have received very little broadband compared to urban and suburban areas. But the future digital divide is going to be starker, with the divide being everywhere, including the cities and suburbs, with some homes having fiber and others not.

For the last decade there has been conventional wisdom that having fiber connected to your home will add to the value of your house. I guess we are going to get to see this tested on a very large-scale.