Monday, July 27, 2015
Northern Virginia governments want to develop their own backbones, saying that telecomm companies are lagging on customer service
Both Arlington County and the City of Alexandria in northern
Virginia are working on plans to offer corporations or public organizations
ultra high-speed backbone Internet, believing that telecomm companies are
dragging their feet. Patricia Sullivan
has a Metro Section story here.
The article results that Verizon FIOS fiber optic is still
not available to all residents. It also claims that the best fiber-optic is 200
times faster than Comcast’s normal cable Internet.
But Google networks in a few cities (like around Kansas City
and in North Carolina) seem to be of that speed.
Monday, July 20, 2015
CU compares cable, fiber-optical, dish, Internet streaming services for most families
The Aug. 2015 issue of Consumer Reports has a valuable piece
on p. 56, “How to win at TV”, comparing cable companies, direct TV and bundled
Internet, link here.
Direct TV may work better in areas subject to frequent
storms, where maintaining a hard-wired connection is more labor intensive.
The report gives higher marks to some or regional local
cable companies, like WOW in the Great Lakes states. Verizon FIOS does well,
but Comcast XFinity got lower marks.
The report recognizes that many bundled services gives
consumers many specialized channels they never watch.
It discusses Amazon Prime and Netflix streaming (both of
which I have). They may not work as well if multiple streams run at the same
time within a family. It also notes that
some major movies are not available for streaming or DVD for months, and some
films disappear from streaming. A large
number of films can be rented legally on YouTube for $1.99 to $3.99.
Thursday, July 02, 2015
"Motley Fool" video predicts the demise of cable
I’ll pass along this video from “The Motley Fool”, “Dear
Comcast: It’s Over”, link here. The link appeared on AOL’s homepage today.
True, I see Facebook posts from friends who want to cut cable altogether and go to video on demand. But you usually need a "paywall" Cable subscription to see a lot of episodes from TV presented in VOD format.
It promises stock tips related to the idea that the
traditional cable TV business will vanish to video on demand.
I have to admit some annoyance to cheesy techniques. It doesn’t tell you how long the video is,
and it does that pop-up “leave this page?” when you cut it off. That’s rather tacky and rude.
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