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Its intentional, 85% of the fiber in the ground in most areas is not lit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Overcapacity [wikipedia.org]

They took $200 billion taxpayer money and ran off with it,
they are just more of the pirates running the country into the ground.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14 [tispa.org]

We paid for the upgrade already, we got the shaft as usual.

Pirates of the Potomac taking bribes to hand off our money to corporate pirates.

Its intentional, 85% of the fiber in the ground in most areas is not lit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Overcapacity

They took $200 billion taxpayer money and ran off with it,
they are just more of the pirates running the country into the ground.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

We paid for the upgrade already, we got the shaft as usual.

Pirates of the Potomac taking bribes to hand off our money to corporate pirates.

Let's talk about you actually getting the trillion dollars you need to compete with those businesses, and the actual, real-world issues you'd have laying that much fiber. Infrastructure is usually not something the private sector does well, as far as we've seen they just like taking your money instead. Barriers to entry are inherently anticompetitive (by definition), and expecially when combined with high exit barriers, leads almost inexorably to monopoly control. The telecommunications industry is a textbook example---you may remember Ma Bell.

The FCC doesn't have a huge amount of power here, and it's not necessary that they do. We simply say that it's illegal to discriminate against network traffic based on end-point, and open up Comcast to class action lawsuits if it's determined that they violate the law. Why does this need to be more complicated?

If you think this economy is heavily regulated, read the NYT article 'The Reckoning' concerning the 2008 banking scandal, and then read TARP and the Dodd Act. Yes, it's a lot of reading, and if you start from the position that regulation is the root of all evil you're probably going to read many things that you won't believe. Try instead to read with an open mind. Once you're done with all that, tell me if there's enough market regulation. I would be most gratified to hear from an informed and presumably opposite viewpoint.

We knew this was coming. We paid---twice, and handsomely---for improvements to our national infrastructure. Gave hundreds of billions to the telecoms. They pocketed the bonus and thumbed their noses all the way to the bank. Citation.

Great, we need bigger not smaller government. NOT!!!

The federal government already gave cable and phone companies $200 Billion to upgrade their infrastructure. What did these businesses do? They padded their pockets.

Falcon

Pardon my naivety, but I would like to better understand how exactly the US has fallen behind.

Well, because of this: http://www.tispa.org/node/14 - the money you've been paying them has not gone into improving the network. You've got ISPs fighting any municipal initiatives with tooth and nail. You have a lack of choice between ISPs; it's either DSL or cable from 2 brands. You've fallen behind with healthy competition and innovation.

There are cities in the US and elsewhere that are sick of the Telcos
Charging huge rates so they can make mega bucks for their mega mansions
and stock options.

Do a Co-op ISP and buy up dark fiber as a not for profit between cities.

Then treat it like a Co-op or even city owned util and move on.

The Telcos have shown they are ALMOST as corrupt as the Federal Government.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

They had to work hard to be that corrupt, LOL !

Odds are this is just another giant telco scam to steal more money from
the American ppl like they did in the $200 Billion Broadband scandal.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

The telco's took the money and screwed it off and used it to pay
stock dividends.

When you count the hideous rural connect speeds that have to go
thru analog loops giving them a max connection speed of 26.4 kbps
then we rank as 16th in the world.

It is pathetic, and if they had spent HALF of the $200 billion on upgrading
the network it would be fine.

When you look at present dark fiber in the ground it is over 90% dark in some areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Dark_fibre_overcapacity

As I have said on other forums, we have an idiocy problem, not a money problem.

The pirates are looking to plunder our wallets again in their real life game of monopoly.

but the market hasn't really been free. people here don't forget how these internet providers wasted 200 billion that was supposed to be used to build up the internet infrastructure here. 200 billion just completely wasted... http://www.tispa.org/node/14 the point is, the reason why we have limited competition might be because that 200 billion was just pocketed by those big companies, strengthening their ability to compete with anyone else not getting that loan. why did that loan go to businesses that were already big?

Gov't run options usually start out better, but as funds get syphoned off and miscellaneous 'provisions' attached, after 20 or so years you are stuck with a massive problem.

How about that $200 Billion Broadband Scandal? Private businesses took taxpayer money then pocketed it.

Falcon

I hear you and understand your point, but I offer this bit of history to remind
you how corrupt, evil, and fraudulent the Telcos can be.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

$200 Billion USD of tax payer money went poof.

We were promised 25 Mbps to all homes in major metros.

What we got was high latency DSL that was slower than a cable modem.

Over a dozen nations with a LOT less money have better broadband than the US.

It is not a issue of money, their hands are DEEP in the public coffers after
their lobbyists greased the right palms.

We have a Kleptocracy, not a Democratic Republic.

It is friggin pathetic !

The great thing about the Internet is that if someone becomes disruptive, they will just be routed around.

This only works if there is no monopoly. How many choices do you have for cable? DSL? Any other broadband access? Most people don't have a choice, many can't even get broadband. At the sane tyme big businesses took hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to build out broadband but all they did with it was pad their pockets. Besides the $200 Billion the feds gave them state and local governments gave them more. As long as they took taxpayer money and have monopolies they should meet certain minimum requirements such as open access.

Falcon

Looms = non cloud computing.

That is a bit of a stretch.

I think ppl can use OSS & Linux and use VPN's like Open VPN and
say that whatever crap comes out of M$ is not worth using.

There are already DNS issues, and other Internet Infrastructure issues
and relying on a system that is burdened with massive spam, torrent,
and email data is a recipe for disaster.

Do not talk to me about Telcos taking care of that.

Their track records are WELL known.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

$200 billion in tax payer money pissed away on TOTAL lies.

The cloud is a spider web built on greed and broken
promises and lies just like our banking and a good
portion of our government.

Well how about my own personal experience? My cableco/teleco duopoly hasn't moved a damned foot in ANY direction in a good 20 years. My mom had her house built 29 YEARS ago and was exactly two blocks from where the cable ended. Want to guess how far she is from the cable now? Can you say two blocks boys and girls? i think you can.

And that "free market" bullshit doesn't work when it comes to the cableco/teleco duopoly. case in point the above area where my mom lives. No less than 3 times have little independents tried to set up to service the area, and every. single. time. they were crushed by the duopoly. One of which was done by a good friend and former classmate who paid for a T1 to be run out there and was selling access. Basically what happens is this- someone provides access, local teleco starts to lose their $60 a month 33k dialup customers ( you read that right, $60 for 33k dialup) and then simply raise the rates on backbone access so damned high there is no way the customer can afford it and the independent goes under. My buddy talked to a lawyer and was told anywhere from 2-10 million would be required to sue, along with a decade or so to deal with all the bullshit tactics the teleco lawyers would pull. So naturally he just walked away.

As for more citations how many do you want? Because this isn't exactly some big secret here, we gave them 200 billion+ in tax breaks and other "bonuses" in return for nationwide broadband and all we got was the finger. So if you are a capitalist you should be ALL FOR seizing the last mile, after all we paid a huge amount for a service that we didn't get. We should give the teleco/cableco duopoly 90 days to pay back the money with interest, or we seize the whole damned thing. After all if a company rips off its customers you sue and seize the assets to pay the debt, yes? And I'd say robbing the public to the tune of 200 billion plus interest is more than enough to warrant seizing of their assets.

Because customers expect broadband internet at dial-up price, and the pipes simply cost more than the average end user realizes.

BS! When I upgraded from dial-up to cable my normal costs went up 2.5X, ie from $20 to $50 a month . Of course the ISP had a special, $30 a month for 6 months, still that was a 50% increase in price.

Flat rate pricing is broken,

Agreed. But when you sell unlimited service, which is what I was sold, don't complain when people take you up on it.

"enforcing net neutrality" is not going to do anything to fix it. Bandwidth is like any other finite resource - it needs to be charged by consumption

There is a big difference between that, charging more for more bandwidth used, and slowing down a service a competitor provides when your own service is not slowed down. It is wrong when ComCast throttles VoIP services that compeats with it's own VoIP service but does not throttle it's service.

There's also a big difference between spending your own money to build-out infrastructure and being given $200 billion of taxpayer money to build out but not doing it. Either build-out broadband or get out of the way of those who would.

Falcon

I think that we're agreed that arbitrarily throttling downloads to x Kb/s is wrong.

I don't have much of a problem with throttling upload and download speeds if it is protocol agnostic and there is not enough bandwidth available. What I do mind, hate actually, is when capacity is oversold. I also hate when cable companies and telecoms take $200 Billion of taxpayer subsidies but they do not do what they were given the money for. That was to build out broadband. If they don't want to build out then they can return the money and get out of the way of those who would build a broadband infrastructure.

Falcon

We're talking about billions of dollars here...surely the government could toss in a couple hundred thousand to pay people to do the job.

It's not like as if they haven't done this before :-/ The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal

Capacity is only unlimited if income is unlimited. Even in a monopoly people will only pay so much, so there's a limited income to expand the network - which puts hard physical limits on capacity, and to make any money at all the network has to be contended.

Thing is is here in the USA cablecos and telcos received almost $200 billion to buildout broadband but they did not. All they did was use the money to pad their bottom lines. They also battle attempts by others build out broadband. Some articles and posts on /. have been about this, whither it's telecos trying to block muni wifi or cablecos trying to block cities from installing cable. One example is A Broadband Utopia. Commercial broadband businesses tried to stop it but were unsuccessful. They were successful though having the Utah state government enact a law that requires it to be open, which was planned from the beginning. Because of the network Comcast was forced to offer a $90 bundle.

Falcon

Whew !

I thought they were gonna ask for another 200 billion !

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

This is a deal !

They do not have this problem in the top tier countries for
internet access, we have fallen almost out of the top 20
here in the USA.

To me it is pathetic, but the reason is greed.

We can run DWDM lines between all the major cities,
and have more bandwith that we can possibly use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWDM#WDM_systems

1.6 Tera bit over a single fiber pair and it has been
kicking around for several years, with proof of concept
in the 1970's.

Most of the fiber in the ground is Dark Fiber:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber#Dark_fiber_overcapacity

We don't have a resource problem, just like the corrupt and
crooked high bonus financial thieves, we have a greed problem.

The bent over shaved sheeple also were sold a load of manure
being told we would give 200 Billion in Tax dollars for
an upgrade to the system and we got the shaft.

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

That is right, we paid the evil slimy bells 200 Billion in
US tax payer money and they ran off laughing and gave us nothing.

They decided to cheap it and run DSL over existing lines
and give us a sub par product that did not even meet half
of what was spec'd and they slow rolled it out to us.

They also committed sabotage against other companies trying to
use their lines to get DSL in faster than they wanted it put in.

Greed is job #1 in the USA.

And that is why we are about to fall out of the top 20 on
net access world wide when we should EASILY be #1.

I am apparently missing your meaning on some points ...

were screwed as soon as they handed their money over to another government

HUH? The government saw that it was not economically justifiable to roll out services to all rural areas and felt the areas should be covered by existing providers. The gov't acted on the part of the people living in rural areas WHILE ALSO ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE TELECOS by providing large cash incentives to providers to make servicing rural areas more financially beneficial. In this part, the gov't acted as it should, on behalf of everyone involved.

Your gov't wants to buy mortgages from idiots that are now amazed that blue collar workers cannot afford $500,000 homes, devalue the homes and re-negotiate mortgages to significantly lower principal costs and interest rates ... passing the benefit only to the idiot who bought more than they could afford while passing the expense on to those who realize that $150,000 is all they can afford.

removing all meaning from the word "justify", and in the process you've ditched individual rights

Are you friggin serious? At this point in history, decent internet service is becoming more of a right, for one. Regardless, there are no individuals involved here ... these companies and corporations will stop at nothing to ensure they have no competition (See the original article regarding a company suing the gov't to prevent the gov't from providing another, possibly better, option) which you seem to think is the cornerstone to better services. You speak out both sides of your mouth. Let me paraphrase you ... "Competition is good ... unless it's from the government ... If there is no private competition apparently there's no demand and you, therefore do not deserve the services I have because I live in a city" Have you looked at a map of the US lately to see how many areas are NOT city? True about 80% of the population lives in urban areas with more than 2500 people but the other 20% still pay the same taxes the city folks do. By "Justified" I mean that the government tried to do things to the benefit of the telecos and the telecos screwed the people and the gov't. As a result, the gov't is justified in forcing competition upon the telecos in rural areas where non exists. The telecos lost this case when they took $200 million and didn't even try to follow through with their promise. I'm curious ... where exactly did I

ditched individual rights in favor of what's convenient to yourself

? Your McSame is showing ... let's deregulate everything, it worked so well in banking. The US should be embarrassed that we are 17th in world at broadband penetration. I'll guarantee that Iraq will be ahead of us once we're done moving the sand around and foot the bill to rebuild their country with new infrastructure. Oh, and in the Sept. 2008 study we're actually 19th ... Move to where you can see a real forest and tell me the gov't shouldn't provide broadband.

Well in the US "deregulation" is typically a term that refers to corporate socialism. ref : http://www.tispa.org/node/14

The fiber optic infrastructure you paid for was never delivered.

Starting in the early 1990's, with a push from the Clinton-Gore Administration's "Information Superhighway", every Bell company - SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest - made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions, (to and from the customer) could handle over 500 channels of high quality video and be deployed in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. And these networks were open to ALL competition.

In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells' promises by removing the constraints on the Bells' profits as well as gave other financial perks. They were able to print money - billions of dollars per state - all collected in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks. (Note: each state is different.)

* ADSL is not what was promised and paid for. It goes over the old copper wiring, can't achieve the speed, has problems in rural areas and is mostly one-way.

* 0% of the Bell companies' customers have 45 Mbps residential services.

I think people forget that in the 90s, the Telcoms were pretty heavily subsidized so that they could, in fact, replace the fiber infrastructure. This is just a the first, probably biased, link I could find on the topic:

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

When are governments going to learn?

Let me explain this to you...the poor don't bankroll politicians campaigns, the rich do.

Golden Rule ... The ppl with all the money make the rules, or in this case break them.

Most politicians in most countries are quite corrupt.

I am sure south africa is no exception to this.

The world needs a way to monitor the affairs of their politicians,
because for example here in the states, they often spend more to
get into office than they will receive as a paycheck the entire
time they are in office.

The math doesn't add up.....until....you account for under the table
gifts to them, their children, thei offshore accounts, numbered accounts
in switzerland, etc etc.

As Open Source is good for code, the world needs Open Government,
where those who serve are well paid and jack assery like this
I am about to mention is considered a crime, and sent to court accordingly:

http://www.tispa.org/node/14

$200 billion rip off right here in the USA.

The telecoms have a history of total theft, and nothing short
of destroying them totally and putting Co-ops in their place
has any chance of succeeding against this carpet baggers
of the new generation.

The WorldCom's , the global crossings, the Bells, Adelphia,
it just goes on and on.

It needs to be a regulated utility, and when it is foudn they
ripped us off "intentionally" they need their asses fined into oblivion.

They already have the money

But I guess the slashdot editors would rather bitch about it in retrospect than do something about it beforehand.

While I'm sure this bill will get a lot of press, the simple fact is, it has very little chance of passing, much less getting out of committee and to the House floor. Why? Well, there's a lot of problems.

First, the Texas Legislature only meets every 2 years (and only meets for about the first 5 months of the year, at that). And while a lot of people want to change this, dumb bills like this are the perfect reason[1]. This is clearly a reaction to an annoyance. Once the author goes home, the bill dies and he'll never re-file it. Meanwhile, the important bills get through because there's political pressure to move them.

Second, this would, of course, drive 2 of the state's largest employers nuts, as well as annoy the oddly powerful ISP lobby (ISPs hate nothing more than to have to support Censorware. It seems to cause nothing but complaints.)

Third, and most important, the bill (as written) is simply NOT enforceable. Under certain readings of the bill, I could say that EVERY operating system has Cencorware built in. All you have to do is remove the default gateway, and there you go no more access to porn sites. Further, what about machines bought out of state and shipped in? What about machines built in state and shipped out of state? Do these have to have the Censorware included?


[1] How many times and your state assembly done something dumb? It happens less often here.

It looks to me that the ISP's should form a Union and fight back.

Form a union? Like, perhaps, the Texas ISP Association? The same TISPA that David Robertson, the source quoted in the story, is president of?

Nah, that'd never work.