Today’s topic should give you some food for thought – Can you trust the local phone company?  Are they still relevant as an internet provider?

This article signals to me that Connecticut’s local phone company is “on the ropes.” How long can they keep it up?

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20170918/PRINTEDITION/309149914/loss-of-landline-customers-gives-frontier-early-headaches-in-ct

I would like to share a couple of anecdotes.  I have one customer who was promised 6 mbps (megabits per second) by the phone company and is barely getting 1. At times their service is so bad, they have no connection at all.   Another client is being promised 12 mbps, but may only get 8 or 9 on a good day.  They also have no other hope of wired internet service internet service in their neighborhood.  Ma Bell customer #3 is stuck with with 7 mbps of internet speed and the cable company is nowhere to be found on their street.   As a point of comparison, you need to know that typical cable internet speeds are 50 mbps and higher.  The vast majority of my customers have cable internet.

The speeds of 6 or higher that I have mentioned, if consistent, are fine for basic Google searching, e-mailing, and a low res video here or there.   However, these slow speeds really hamper the playback of high quality video streams on services like You Tube, Hulu, and Netflix.  Furthermore, major software updates can be a real time warp. 

I worry about the local phone company’s neglect of copper phone lines.  It seems like they are committed to their fiber optic areas, but some neighborhoods will never be upgraded to these high speed lines.   Wireless may be the only option for old phone lines that are beyond repair.