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AOL Picks Cable ISP Partners
You may recall that when AOL and Time-Warner were permitted to merge, a few conditions were placed by the FTC. One of them is that AOL must permit a few other ISPs to offer service over all of the cable modems owned by Time-Warner. AOL lied to the regulators and said that "technical difficulties" prevented them from permitting open competition among any ISP that wanted to offer service; instead AOL will carefully choose a grand total of three other ISPs to offer service. Well, they've put in the paperwork - Earthlink, Juno, and High Speed Access Corporation. AOL is of course the nation's largest ISP; Earthlink is second; Juno is third; HSA is another huge cable modem company. AOL has financial dealings with all three - that is, they're already in bed together, partners, not competitors. You can guess that they're going to be competing *wink*wink* fiercely *wink*wink* to offer you the best price {snicker}.
I think the barrier here is the astronomical start-up cost of laying new cable. That's one of the reasons why DSL companies have to rent space from Verizon et al instead of running their own loops.
Cheers,
Perrin.
-Perrin.
Now I want you to go in that bag and find my lightsaber. It's the one that says bad mother-fscker on it.
If you look at the cost breakdown of a multi-company service, you'll find that the carrier makes the bulk of the money. I have DSL at home, and I found that of the $50 per month that I pay, the carrier (Verizon) gets $35 of it, and my ISP (Acecape, who I highly recommend) gets the other $15.
AOLTW really has nothing to worry about here -- if anything, it means they get a good sized chunk of lucrative wholesale business. And they picked a good bunch of partners -- companies like Earthlink pride themselves on providing little more than raw connectivity: a market segment which has very little intersection with AOL's customer base. The typical AOL customer is unsophisticated and wants to have his/her hand held through the entire online experience.
Possibly most important of all is that this arrangement conveniently excludes Microsoft from the picture. MSN is the biggest threat to AOL right now, and since AOL is one of the few companies left that can hold its own against Microsoft, seeing them remain strong is vital to the industry, whether you use/like their services or not.
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...They are certainly correct in that opening their network is not anywhere as simple as the Telcos and DSL people. For telcos and the DSL providers, they have a very distinct Layer 2 vs Layer 3 division here. The link from the End-User to the local CO is a point-to-point link; that is, unshared. The ISP can then tap into the data stream at one of several points (the closest being the local CO, the farthest being a long-distance backhaul). The bottom line here is that DSL/T1/T3 connections can all be made at the Layer 2 level, with no consideration for IP numbering. That makes it easy for ISPs to compete, since they bear the cost for all layer 3 equipment, and can differentiate their products that way.
With cable modems, however, the medium is shared. The best (albeit a inadequate one) analogy is that every cable modem is a workstation on a old thinnet (10Base5) ethernet network, with IP information assigned via bootp. While it is possible to have multiple IP ranges assigned on a local neighborhood loop, it can get real messy real fast. Also, a large amount of the Layer 3 hardware will be (and realistically, should be) provided by AOL, so they bear a large amount of costs that would otherwise be done by the ISPs. Thus, it's far harder to differentiate one ISP from another.
It's possible, and I definitely think we really need to make sure that cable providers compensate the public for their locally-granted monopolies, but it's not anywhere as simple as with the telcos.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
the petition.
The annoying part is that the petition is redacted. When did this stuff become state secrets? Telling us when AOL will roll out Earthlink will blow the whole multibillion dollar empire? Ughh.
Never meant half of the things I said to you. So you know, there's a half that might be true - G. Phillips
Hmm... my cable modem is capped at 2.0MB/s download. DSL is available at 1.5MB/s download. I would agree with you, if the difference were what it used to be (prior to the cap). It used to be closer to 6-7MB/s download. Since the cap, though, the difference seems pretty small to me.
With that small difference in speed, and due to restrictive appropriate use policies on the cable modem (i.e. no web/email servers allowed), I've been considering switching to DSL. I realize that it'll be slower, but not that much slower, and for the ability to legally run servers, it's something that makes me pause and consider.
The fact that I can make this switch, relatively easily, and say to the cable company that I don't appreciate their appropriate use policy, suggests to me at least that the TW doesn't have a monopoly in broadband services in my area. Am I wrong? Should I be concerned?
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Now wait a minute here, you're slinging some FUD, too.
Yes cable is shared bandwidth between the end user and the cable company's equipment. And yes DSL is dedicated between the end user and the CO. But, all internet services make use of shared bandwidth . So if your DSL provider does not have enough bandwidth from it's provider, it will have exactly the same problems that you proclaim that only cable modem is susceptible to.
Now, I can't speak for every cable modem implementation. But I can speak about the implementation that I use. They have a total of 30Mb/s bandwidth dedicated to each hub, and a maximum of 500 houses per hub. If they achieve 25% sales of internet access, that's 125 houses sharing 30Mb/s of bandwidth. This is beyond the dreams of the cable company.
I have been monitoring my cable company's connection for over 3 years now by doing a download provided by the cable company every 30 minutes. Between me and the cable company I have never seen any slowdown of bandwidth at any time of the day at all. Now, I have seen slowdowns when connecting to the Internet, but never over the cable infrastructure.
This is just plain false. EVERYONE on the internet shares bandwidth. That's how it's built. You may not share the bandwidth with that person between you and the CO, but beyond the CO it's shared bandwidth. The only interesting question is whether or not there's enough bandwidth available for those who are sharing it.
I can prove, with data, that between my cable company and me, there's plenty of bandwidth. I can't prove, but it seems pretty obvious that the bandwidth that my cable company has purchased to get to the Internet is not enough. But switching to DSL does not necessarily fix that problem. In fact, it could make it worse.
My point: don't buy the hype that the telco's are putting out about cable infrastructure. If you want a great review of the basic differences check out this salon review. It's very good. And it supports the conclusion that the cable infrastructure is, generally speaking, better and faster than the DSL infrastructure.
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I read a lot about the M$ trial. I read the findings of fact, the conclusions of law, and the decision on the appeal. Every page. One of the things that I learned is that in order for it to be a monopoly, a relevant market has to be defined. Also, in order to have a monopoly, there must be no easy way for a customer to switch from the monopolist's products or service.
Isn't it reasonable to define the relavant market for AOL Time Warner's cable stuff, as the broadband market? If true, then why aren't all the DSL providers already competitors? I currently have a Time Warner cable modem in my house, but I qualify for and can easily switch to DSL.
If this is true, is it really fair to say that AOLTW has a monopoly in broadband services?
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
10Mbps UP WITH @HOME?!
;p
Put down the crackpipe buddy and take a long step back. All @home providers cap uploads at 128Kbps, including comcast.. who, by the way, has one of the worst customer satisfaction ratings as far as broadband goes. But I digress. Roadrunner is also capped, I believe, but the majority of Time Warner cable modems cap at 384Kbps. I know, I have one. That 10Mbps number is just funny, no cable modem in existence even downloads at 10Mbps and the majority only reach 1.5Mbps download speed.
so there.
Actually, with BT being so very very poor, we're in the faintly ridiculous position of AOL actually being on our side here in the UK (on this issue at least), seeing as they're the ones making the most noise about BT's low quality service and the alleged preference they've been showing to their minority ISP when it comes to DSL lines. I suggest any folk from elsewhere in the world go check out The Register and do a search for BT to see just what a hinderance they are to wide-scale broadband.
Anyway, the rest of us can currently only hope to trail in the wake of AOL's attempts to get a better service to exploit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H deliver to it's users. But since BT is rapidly going down the pan, I guess it's going to be a tough fight.
No matter what three they pick, they're going to get slammed here on slashdot. It's a no-win situation (for a postive or even neutral editorial on slashdot). The only way they could make a slashdot editor happy would be to decide, purely out of good-will to allow more than the required three competitors... and since they're a publically held company, they'd have one hell of a time explaining that to their shareholders (who would rightly sue if AOL doesn't do what's in the shareholder's best interests profit-wise, that is).
Frankly, the fact that two of the largest ISPs are on the list is relatively good news. Had it been three tiny players without much presence, think of what this slashdot editorial would have said.... AOL picks non-starter competitors that they're just going to buy up as soon as the FTC isn't looking!
Sure, the FTC could have required more than three, but they didn't and that fact is old news. If you don't like these three, then I ask, what three could have made you happier?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Get a fractional T1 since you ARE willing to pay more for your Hight speed bandwidth.
T1s are _supposed_ to be more reliable and you are garuanteed your bandwidth.
Problem solved.
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This
It sounds like you want corporations to police themselves... This is not how our system is designed, and I'm glad. Why? Because it could never work, as this case illustrates.
The government has the power to police these companies, and if it creates loopholes for them to exploit, we should expect the companies to take full advantage of those loopholes.
Maybe AOL can learn something?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
That may sound a bit silly, but there is some truth to it. In over 95% of the places where cable is available, the local goverment has created, by law, a local monopoly through the franchise system. Basically, they authorize one and only one provider of cable service in a particular area. Im my case, its Time-Warner. Now why would a local government not allow others to come in and compete to offer service? Because they get a cut of the GROSS the cable company makes. Thats right, not the profit, but the gross. Again, in my case, its 5% right off the top. Its something like a mofia protection racket. The company pays 5% to the government, and the government insures that there won't be any pesky competition.
A lot of people have been raising the fact that it looks like we're heading for an 'ISP' Monopoly. We're at the point now with broadband service that we were with operating systems/platforms back in the early 80's. At the time, there were a few competitors such as DR. Dos, OS/2 (which many still cling to), Amiga, etc... for multimedia.
Windows and MacOS came out on top, and the Apple software largely because MS has been trying to avoide *looking* like they're abusing their monopoly powers all along.
The answer to this, of course, was open-source Linux. Now who is MS's biggest competitor? If you read *any* tech news, you know that it sure as hell isn't Apple or IBM.
Here in not too long we're going to be in the same boat with broadband ISP's. We've got 2 or 3 nationwide carriers and a doublehandful os smaller competitors that don't really stand a chance if the big guys decide to play rough. In ten years, I have no doubt we will be facing life with Cable and DSL monopolies. How do we combat this?
Can you say 'Wireless'?
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As if anyone would be surprised by this. Aol and Microsoft (choose your evil) have been doing this since day 1, using a basic formula: Through cut throat tactics gain a rather good size market share, cut prices or hell give it away free raising market share again. Now merge with, finance, buyout or just plain destroy (Microsoft and Apple anyone???) your competitors and make a lot of money for along time. Money doesn't come from being the good guy folks, it comes from exploiting every possible expense or obstacle you have until it doesn't matter anymore. That is why companies like Microsoft and AOl have gotten so big... not because they're good software but because they've stood on the shoulders of others (IBM, Xerox, AT&T, etc) picking up scraps until all of a sudden they were the giants. Hate them as much as you want, but they do do one thing right: business. ps- i'm not saying they're right in what they do... however they really haven't screwed over the consumers... just other companies (which yes is very very bad, and I apologize to any programmer who had the bad luck of getting in the way of AOL or Microsoft and their goals).
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
It wasn't that long ago that AT&T, who had near total control of the phone lines, was forced to allow access to competitors. Methinks that if AOL/Time Warner doesn't watch their step, they might be in a similar situation a few years down the road.
Not while Dubya's in the White House, but, still...
One day we'll see a ToS that says something like, "Port 80 IS the Internet; you get 10mbps down, 28.8kbps up; If we catch you tunneling your file-sharing app we reserve the right to rape you for the lost potential profits of our partners in crime."
Power to the Peaceful