Broadband Bermuda Triangle

An anonymous coward sent in: "Mike from Techdirt has written an article in Salon.com about how he is the bermuda triangle of broadband, and how the government should kick him out of the country if they really want to save the broadband industry. Apparently, he's been kicked off 4 or 5 different broadband networks in the past year alone as each company went bankrupt or gave up the business."

Comments

Broadband not profitable

[Heem]

It's a shame broadband internet services cant seem to turn a profit. I'd like to see a cable provider provide me with an IP address, and thats it. I'll take care of my email and other services. Something like 'Broadband for Nerds. Simplicity Matters.' or.. something like that...

Re:Broadband not profitable

[The Paradox]

I'll take care of my email and other services.

Buddy, I feel your pain. I'm with Verizon and they give you *four* 10-meg mailboxes, special 'news services', a 'portal'... And yet, they're too cheap to give me one single static IP. I can't even get it by paying extra, regardless of the propagandic lies on their site.

But could they do that? Nah. I'm running my own mail server, but they're trying to become the AOHell of broadband. Get this - when you call to report a service outage, they ask if you put a *filter* on the *DSL MODEM*!

Face it... most people haven't the technical expertise to go out and hunt for their own email server, or run one of their own (and yes, with a few nasty tricks with some dyndns services, I am indeed running one despite their lack of an IP). More's the pity that they don't, I agree...

But as long as the geeks are outnumbered by the morons, that's the way it's gonna be, sad to say.

He must work for the phone company

[Erris]

PacBell and ATT, phone companies, are more likely coincidences in this man's trail of doom. You don't really think the phone companies want cheap unlimited digital comunications, do you? If that existed and could be used as people saw fit, the phone companies would lose their ability to extort connection fees by the second. Go figure!

Other powerful interests opposed to the future are large publishers, governments, advertisers and all others want to tell you what to think. Free speech is not what these folks want. They want broadcast and money. If you don't consider propaganda and money equivalents, consider what a green piece of paper is really worth.

my crazy idea:

[poemofatic]

Fuck local loops. The Bells will never open it up. IP laws will ease up around the same time this happens.

Let's treat internet infrastructure as infrastructure (aka roads) and have the govt lay the lines. We can fully fund this with the 70+ billion ca$h from the War on Terrorism. Remember, the Interstate highway system was built from Defense dollars during the Cold War, and that's why their symbol is a little shield. If bush can justify handing IBM a check for 1.3 billion in the name of homeland defense, then this should be a congressional walkover.

After that, let private ISP's bid to operate the lines (i.e. maintenance, routers, cacheing, etc.) and make money on service not bandwidth. Competing on the quality of service is more productive than getting into infrastructure wars -- suing who owes what to whom. You can then run your mail/web server and pay only the costs of administering your account, which should be billing you, electricity, and checking that no one cut the line to your house accidently. Shouldn't be too much. Those who want webmail and funky desktop icons which guide you through the internet search process can and should pay extra. Also, I think more people will sign up if there's a fiber optic line heading to just about every home in the major urban areas. As an extra plus, it'll give silicon valley a shot in the arm.

For those whom just can't stand the thought of govt. spending on public infrastructure, you can always just privatize the thing once the lines are laid and enough cutomers have signed up to make it profitable.

Re:There's a selection bias

[Fnkmaster]

This argument doesn't hold for almost ANY other business, so if you could be so kind, explain in detail what is special about the economics of this one? Businesses generally don't price themselves out of existence even in perfect competition, they all ought to be making a normal profit. I've never heard of a "natural" industry pricing itself out of competitiveness and into bankruptcy - the only industry that approaches being that fucked up is the airline industry.

The problem as I see it is the weird split between the monopolistic line owners and the purely competitive ISPs in the broadband arena. The traditional dial-up ISP business didn't have this problem since everyone had pretty much the same cost structure so profitability, even though relatively low, was pretty much the same across the board, and competetition could occur on features and the dreaded "ease of use" (AOL drool-proofing).

DSL has monopolistic ILECs and generally monopolistic CLECs (you can use Covad or Rhythms, but it's fixed based on your choice of ISP and location usually). Cable has monopolistic line owners. Because ILECs (I'm thinking Verizon here) can be ISPs too, they will naturally take a price gouging on their ISP service to get business and avoid having to share profits with a seperate company. This allows them to drive ISPs out of business and become the "last man standing". At that point they can price service however they damn well feel. See: Microsoft, monopoly. Cable modem service is different in that you have no choices as the consumer, but because the ISP business is basically a commodity, the separation is farcical: the Cable companies own the pipe, and will abuse the ISP until the ISP leaves the business, realizing they can't make a buck, or just goes out of business. Now again the Cable modem company is the last man standing - or they just find some other drooling ISP to give them el cheapo contract, who they will slowly abuse and tighten a noose on until the same happens again.

Re:I don't exist--but I have free Internet access.

[Masem]

This is a very good and overlooked point. Follow threads at DSLReports, and you'll find more than enough examples of residental users that can easily navigate through the maze of tech support, but when it comes to dealing with billing, unsubscribing, or other bookkeeping issues, pull out their hair due to the ineptitude of the ISP. People cannot be found in the database, billing cannot keep track of when people were billing, and subscribed (aside from technical issues) needs 3 copies of your birth certificant and your firstborn son to complete it.

I've seen more than enough people leave a otherwise technically competent ISP due to impossible service through their customer service department.

Surprising, this doesn't seem to be as big an issue with the dialup ISPs.

If you are *are* going to set up an ISP, get the bookkeeping down first before you buy any of the connectivity equipment. Getting technical help to your customers first is a priority, but knowning whom your customers are is more important than that!