76 Mbps? How did they come up with that speed tier? Also, is broadband in the UK just generally slow? I live in the state that ranks 49th out of 50 for internet connectivity and the cheapest speed tier I can buy is 100 down and 10 up (but they over provision it so I actually get more like 117/17).

That's the fastest currently available on our street and is delivered over copper, to the house, under a scheme known as FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet). Virgin never installed cable TV/Fibre and BT is still some months away bringing fibre directly into people's homes here (FTTP - Fibre To The Premises - minimum speed for that offering is 150 down/50 up).

I'm not sure I'd describe fast enough stream 4k as slow though. That said, my 4g mobile sometimes exceeds 200mbps in a speed test.

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Originally Posted by HDQDD (Post 32387405)

Commercial real estate has completely crashed. But I'm not sure we've seen the bottom. Lots of companies are learning that they simply don't need the office space, and I think that hit to CRE will come later (i.e. when leases aren't renewed). It's one thing when tech companies start working from home, but now you have financial institutions publicly saying they'll be allowing that as well. Call centers are another thing I expect to see moved into people's houses. The tech exists to do that anywhere nowadays (ala B6)

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Agree with you... I oversee about 15 commercial leases for my company (arguably can be considered a financial institution), and we are nowhere near the bottom of the pricing cycle IMO. The two landlords I am working with right now on soon expiring leases have been excessively overconfident in negotiations up until the last 3 weeks, assuming that asking rates from the beginning of the year are still achievable. I have intentionally slowed played the two in progress deals, to allow the landlords to start losing confidence in their position. On the smaller space near PHL this foot dragging has proved effective, and on the other (which is 4,000 square feet in a the MIA adjacent Class "A" building) there has been no rent price movement but I did obtain a 40% jump in tenant improvement dollars versus what they offered 45 days ago. This Miami landlord though is one of the twenty largest insurance companies in the country and have a very healthy balance sheet.

The largest space my company occupies (NW Atlanta area), comes up early next summer and is 30,000 square feet in a Class "A" building. A year ago the 170,000 square foot building was 85% occupied, but my guess is now down to 50%. Working with our CEO and CFO, we are comfortable leasing no more than 15,000 square feet in the future. We previously used about 11,000 of the 30,000 square feet for a something similar to a BPO call center, but we’ve found that our current technology allows the call center space number to probably go down to 4,000 square feet. The work from home environment we mandated back on March 3 has had subjective benefits, staff morale being one. On a more objective basis customer service and client audits have reflected errors and caller complaints have not increased, plus nobody calls in sick. We expect to see further improvements in efficiency from our clerical work from home staff, once children go back to school.

Desktop hardware technology improvements, robust collaboration software, better staff training, high unemployment rates, and bandwidth improvements, make commercial office space a tenuous bet over the next few years. I feel for friends in the office space industry, but I am being paid to keeps costs down for my employer. If beating up landlords helps my (division of a Fortune 500) company meet financial goals, I’m all in.

I totally agree with you. I am fairly certain a post-COVID19 world will be very different even with an effective vaccine and anti-viral treatments. The last few months have shown that working from home is possible and in some ways even desirable. In densely packed cities, taking public transit or being crammed into offices can get people sick. I think people are going to be more of a germophobe going forward. We'll continue to innovate and come up with new ways to be productive while not get sick. My understanding is that the the reality for rural or secondary cities in the US may be different as their internet infrastructure traditionally lag behind the "first tier" cities.

I'm not certain that the internet connection quality in lower-level cities will matter but so much. Yes, better quality is better, but for many purposes, including mine, lower-quality connections will still allow me to get my work done over the course of a work day, albeit, at times, with frustratingly slow speeds, but adequate speeds the rest of the day. As long as workers are happy working at home despite the occasional hiccups in internet connections and employers are happy with the work produced, it almost doesn't matter where you are anymore. Our landlord put my employer on a five-year lease three years ago after moving us to another floor in our building and doing a major renovation, apparently out of the belief (valid at that time) that the local real estate market was on the upswing. I suspect that we will get a very favorable lease offer to maintain our current footprint when renewal rolls around although we may very well want to reduce the space we lease.

Fair enough, but people will still demand more consistency with speed. Who knows what other innovation will come if the internet infrastructure can support it? Let's aspire for the better rather than put up with something that's just adequate.

I'm on Virgin Media, and I'm on 350 down, 35 up. VM have 1G available in my area for an extra £10 a month, but I don't need it as yet.

Just curious if you know the BT pricing structure for the copper vs fiber since the copper internet is much more expensive in my neighborhood and is not offered to new customers. In the US AT&T charges more for their copper service than their fiber service. With our current promotion for AT&T fiber 1GB with no data cap, the price is $39.99 + tax ($1.32) + equipment (waived fro 12 months). When we switched to fiber almost 4 years ago, our internet cost dropped. One cable competitor is in the market that offers 200mbps down and 20mpbs up.

This is what I've heard from others. I really don't think CRE has any idea how bad their negotiating position is right now. ...And it's still deteriorating.



Well played. I have a friend who owns a bar and he's been having the same discussions. I told him hold out, because when customers start pulling the plug in masse, prices will plummet. Problem for him is that he's running out of money. So he may not be able to renew the lease anyway and that's another major problem looming for CRE.

Oh certainly, but even if those improvements don't occur, I think both employers and employees are seeing the benefits of remote working--benefits discussed for years but now more evident because of the experience under the current circumstances.

For the lowest speed pure fibre product, BT told me it will be installation cost only, so the ongoing monthly bill will remain the same. I expect gigabit level connections will cost quite a bit more. My current cost is a little opaque - certainly more than $39 for just the Internet and landline, but I also have a package of BT sports access and 4G mobile (i.e. the full so called quad pay). Could I get my internet cheaper? Absolutely! BT have form for taking their long term customers for a ride. I negotiated my overall bill down to less than £80 per month last year (and got them to double both the speed and limit on my 4G).

For comparison, we pay $69 for 100/10 from Spectrum (though $46 for the first 12 months). We could pay around $150 for 940/20 I think.

Spectrum's Gig service has 40mbps uploads, BTW, not 20. But yeah, US internet prices are more expensive than a lot of other places (though this is definitely region dependent).

Thanks. I was just curios. Our plan does not have a home phone line since our old number was moved to Google Voice. We have couple of cell phones using Hangouts over Wifi to receive the "home" number. Our internet is bundled with TV and cell service for an additional discounts and includes HBO.

It's obvious the private sector cannot address the internet divide in the US. It's falling behind compare to other developed economies. People in Singapore and Hong Kong would laugh at the speeds that the average US household gets from their ISP.