I don't always speak Steve, but I knew what he meant. When I made a pole attachment agreement with Frontier in NY State I had to list all of their acquired companies as additional insured. The list was so long that our insurance company had to print a special attachment to the form. It seems like Frontier ate every rural ILEC who wanted to sell and Verizon ate all the Baby Bells. We had semi-imaginary telco competition with CLECs, but most of those are Lumen now.
The big guys came along like Pac Man. Waka-waka-waka. Are there ghosts in this analogy? Maybe the state and federal regulators? Big Telco avoids them until they're in a position to eat them and send them running temporarily back to their base. It's an imperfect analogy, but maybe there's some truth in it. -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Steve Jones <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2025 11:51 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] price war 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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2025 7:00 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Steve Jones Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2025 12:21 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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. -- AF mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
