April 30th, 2009
Verizon dismisses Cablevision 101 Mbps claims; Price war looming?
Cablevision appears to have struck a nerve at Verizon with its launch of a 101 megabits-per-second broadband service.
On Tuesday, Cablevision detailed the launch of Optimum Online Ultra, a 101 Mbps service, available in the New York area. The service, which will be offered in Cablevision’s region, beginning May 11.
Cablevision boasted:
Optimum Online Ultra, which leverages the potential of DOCSIS 3.0 and far exceeds the speeds available from any other cable or telco provider - at a significantly lower cost - builds upon the enormous success and market credibility established by Optimum Online over more than a decade.
The real kicker: Cablevision’s new service starts at $99.95 a month. That’s a bit worrisome to Verizon, which could offer 100 Mbps as an option, but hasn’t priced a plan yet. In fact, Verizon’s 50 Mbps plan will run you $140 a month. Holy price pressure Batman!
Also see: 
Photos: Verizon FiOS installation step by step
Verizon’s policy blog takes aim:
With today’s technology, you don’t have to break much of a sweat to deliver 100 Mbps to a few customers. But given the inherent limits of the cable platform, a cluster of bandwidth junkies living near each other could be a real problem. One estimate is that a single 101 Mbps customer would use some 60% of the capacity in a neighborhood. Other users? Outta luck.
Verizon then adds:
Cablevision is offering very high speed service to a very limited number of customers when there is little evidence of market demand for the speed. It is a parlor trick.
DSL Reports Karl Bode dismisses Verizon’s talk, which is a bit comical.
As for the rest of us I encourage these broadband wars and invite Cablevision to my neighborhood (we have Comcast) just to push Verizon FiOS prices down.
Also see: The Verizon FiOS installation: The key points
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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