The ISP list is still growing now though. The town next to where I live
is served by 2 Coax providers, Xfinity and Astound. AT&T with U-Verse
over copper, Verizon built 80% of the town with UWB on every 3rd street
pole. T-Mobile is prevalent, AT&T Wireless has neighborhood repeaters,
LUMEN is currently building FTTH, and EZFiber just started FTTH
construction this week. And there are still houses with Starlink.
Those are all big companies, LUMEN is a brand of T-Mobile Fiber.
EZFiber I guess is the smallest of the lot. Maybe Xfinity would buy
Astound. But doesn't seem like much merging with those companies,
unless it's something really big.
So they're all big companies going after the same customers.
On 12/10/2025 10:51 AM, Steve Jones wrote:
smalls got gobbled up by the bigs. same with cable companies. there
are like 25 small ILECs in il vs like 355 ISPs. in 10 years id be
surprised if the ISP count is still 3 digits
On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 10:53 PM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote:
Maybe he’s referring to all the acquisitions and mergers. Contel
acquired hundreds of small telcos and was itself acquired by GTE.
My first apartment was in DesPlaines, IL and the phone company was
Centel. They were maybe acquired by Sprint?
*From:*AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *[email protected]
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2025 7:00 PM
*To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] price war
All of the small ILECs made it. They are still there and they are
all still doing great. Rate of return regulation is alive and
well and makes it impossible to go out of business. (Unless your
mom too too much Tylenol).
*From:*AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2025 12:21 PM
*To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] price war
Look at telephone
Internet is the new telephone
How many small telephone operators made it
That is the exact future of Internet
The exact same thing, only faster.
Age related retirements excluded, the majority of operators on
this list and the other ISP communities will not exist in 10
years. Consumer prices all went through the roof. Anybody who
thinks its going to go any other way, I truly wish it wasnt meth
youre smoking, you should switch to cocaine while youre still
profitable so you can share with me. I dont get to do cocaine
since I became a growed up, but I will put the offer on the table
to do as much cocaine as it requires with you to get you to
recognize the future.
Many of those who took the free money on the builds wont be able
to maintain, particularly those who built tarana with it. The
small regions where two or three overbuilds exist will eventually
consolidate, competition requires customers. Regional monopolies
are still monopolies. Monopolies always have the same outcomes.
Eventually the governments going to step in to help the way they
saved the consumer by breaking up Ma Bell.
I dont know how big a cocoa plant is, but if somebody could dwarf
them, maybe small scale cocaine production in the fiber huts would
be an option to subsidize the burdens, But then your techs would
be at risk of kinetic strikes. but pretty much without cocaine
adjuncts, small operators are going to get edged out of the game
across the board.
On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 10:07 PM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote:
I lost a customer today to $30 AT&T 5G Home Internet. Starlink
has 100 Mbps at $40 with $0 equipment, and that is without
competition yet from Amazon Leo.
All the companies looking to deploy BEAD fiber, I’m guessing
they are counting on around $55 for their base tier, and
something like 80% take rate. But it looks like we are
already into a price war. Are they going to be disappointed
at the revenue?
We could say the price war will end and prices will rise, but
how will that happen unless some of the competitors drop out
or consolidate? In the case of the big 3 mobile carriers,
that’s not going to happen (although DISH is probably a
goner). They could become less aggressive about FWA pricing
though if they use up all their excess 5G capacity and don’t
get more spectrum. Yeah, right.
Convince me I’m wrong.
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