The New York Times has a story on how incredibly cheap it is for cable companies to upgrade their Internet infrastructure. For $20/home, a Japanese cable company was able to upgrade its network to provide access that's 16 times faster than Time-Warner's. That service costs $60/month in Japan, and it isn't capped. In Rochester, Time-Warner wants to charge almost that much ($55/month) for usage-capped, slower service.
The Times also mentions a rival Verizon service, FiOS. This is a fiber-optic service that runs 5 times faster than Time-Warner's. Unfortunately, in Rochester and probably most of the 29th district, we won't see this service. That's because Frontier, not Verizon, is our Rochester's local phone company. Frontier's capital budget has been gutted by multiple acquisitions, and they have no plans to upgrade their copper infrastructure to fiber.
Time-Warner is only rolling out usage caps in markets where FiOS doesn't compete. Because the 29th is one of those markets, we're going to be at a distinct technological disadvantage compared to other areas that have real Internet competition. The economic development of Rochester and the entire region could be stunted by the Time-Warner/Frontier duopoly.
Comments
A large part of the 29th is served by Verizon for plain old-fashion telephone service.
However, I agree that we won't see FiOS anytime soon.
You're right - it's mainly Monroe Co that's Frontier.
But, you're also right that Verizon is rolling out FiOS in the urban areas and their suburbs, not rural areas like the towns it servers in the 29th.