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The Coming Internet Monopolies
scrm writes "'The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations according to this Salon article." Very important stuff; Slashdot has covered this before, but this is a great article which sums up everything that has gone on over the past few years.
I prefer the Internet be controlled by a couple greedy corporations that by a single greedy government with armed forces to back it up.
Call me paranoid, but I'm sticking with Linux, where I know I'm secure.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Isn't long distance telephony infrastructure also controlled by a few massive corporations? Equal access carrier laws and preventing a single company from owning the whole thing has fostered enough competition to really hammer AT&T, for instance.
" They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks."
The quote in the article states that this could give the Cable companies a monopoly on broadband.. This I see as bad because there is no compeition (locally) for cable companies. you get what is there, I see it bad for pricing/monitoring
you get 1 choice of cablemodem (cable company) or 1 choice of DSL (local phone company) or satelite (not great for gaming) and no real competition. Who wants to bet that Innovation in this field is the next to die?
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
Despite those dire warnings, the FCC's policy on broadband enjoys strong support. Companies with a stake in the matter are gung-ho for it, at least for their own networks
In other news, several CEOs were recently admitted to the Mayo clinic with an unusual condition that caused their eyeballs to actually turn into small dollar signs. When asked about his condition, once CEO could not stop laughing manically long enough to answer.
A spokesman for AOL/Time Warner said he was quite willing to accept customers from price gouging DSL monopolies into his price gouging Cable networks. Comcast could not be reached as their network was apparently down yet again.
I read the internet for the articles.
When TimeWarnerAOL (or Disney or whoever else ends up as the big players) decides you shouldn't be seeing this or that website, or sending this or that data down the wire, you'll care.
Remember, these are the same companies who bought the DMCA - they do not have your interests in mind.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Yes, but read the article.
In order to be a more interesting read , Salon takes a "sky is falling" approach to points 2 and 3.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"'The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations "
SHHHH!!! They are doing it quietly dammit! Pass it only in notes with codes or you'll blow the whole thing!
I know in my area (that being Atlanta), one cannot get DSL without having a landline or a Cable Modem without getting cable
I was wondering if anybody sees this as the same type of monopolistic behavior MS was convicted of when they bundled IE with the OS?
For example: I have no need for a landline as I have a cell phone plan that gives me more than enough minutes, yet I have to shell out an extra 45 (lets face it, one can barely get a bare bones phone line for less than 45 bucks when all the extra taxes, fees, etc are tacked on) for a phone line so I can have a DSL line. A phone I really never use. Thus my DSL cost is really 85 bucks instead of just 40
isn't this the one of the issues this article might allude too? shouldn't the government bring a lawsuit against the cable/telcos accusing them of bundling? or forcing their un-related product on us just as MS was accused of?
Just wondering.....
Okay, first stop misusing the word "momopoly", it is defined as ONE entity controlling a market.
Second, figure out what market you are talking about. If it is high-speed data access then one company owning the local/regional/national cable infrastructure is not a monopoly IF (as is the case) there are DLS and other providers within that territory. Lookup the famous monopoly case against Celophane, the Celophane manufacturer won because the market was wrapping material, not the fact that one manufacturer makes one wildly popular product.
Look folks, the more we keep bastardizing the language the more confusing it will be to communicate.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
This is why it is imperative that with like 802.11[a|b] start becoming more prevalent.
And other wireless point-to-point and point-multipoint technologies. When I see articles like this one in Salon, it actually encourages me more about competitive service. Being responsible for a broadband network covering half of a state now, here's why the ploys by Congressfolks on incumbent telco payroll doesn't work:
- it encourages greater ILEC (incumbent local exchance carrier; e.g. your Bell or other quasi-monopoly entity) laziness. Competition is the only thing that gets these inefficient sloths to move, and these recent regs make them feel even safer and lazier. Let their managers spend their days at the golf course, not worrying about CLECs or such sneaking up on them. I can't tell you how many towns I've dealt with which have been told for years by their local carrier or cable TV provider that "broaband is just too expensive for your little town," only to scramble and race to provide broadband service when we activate our service.
- it forces the competitors to develop a competitive alternate local/regional backbone and last mile: Fixed wireless vendors we work with cannot keep product on the shelf now. The money is pouring into this segment (even though it hasn't caught the attention of Wall Street very much). Manufacturers are racing along with non-line of sight innovations, conversion of multipath into a benefit instead of a problem, etc. Costs for equipment are spiraling downward. This all creates an opportunity for a cost-effective alternative network. Incidentally, futurist talks of "radically cheap fiber" never did explain what catalyst would force carriers to slash their fiber capacity pricing - here's your answer. My microwave backbone covers half a state and costs me a hundredth or less what the same capacity would run leased on a carrier's fiber.
Bet on more local incumbant and longhaul fiber carrier bankrupcies, as more and more capacity fires up that has costs at a fraction the retail rate offered. And per Salon's worries, regulation of this sort has only fueled circumvention before. People want reasonable cost broadband and no fat, dumb and happy incumbant is going to tell them otherwise.
*scoove*
Who controls access to the airwaves in the US? The FCC. And who controls the FCC ...?
There will be several "competing" giants, but in your neighborhood, you'll only be able to subscribe to one of them. They'll tell you the price, take it or leave it. All ports will be blocked on your end, so you won't be able to put up your own "content". It will only exist so that you can connect to commercial sites.
Also, as in the first century of the phone system (and most current cable TV systems), it will be illegal to connect anything not on the approved list. This list will include the latest releases from Microsoft, and nothing else.
If you don't like it, well, you don't have to use it. Connectivity is a privilege, not a right.
Then, after maybe a century, we'll have some new laws making it legal to connect your own equipment that runs unapproved software. At that time, we'll see a huge expansion of the Internet, as the first innovations in many decades hit the market and the companies upgrade the lines to more than 100KB.
Remind yourself that if the old Bell monopoly were still in place, we'd still be using the old black rotary phones, one per customer unless you pay a surcharge for an extension line. Also, note that right now most of the cable companies are blocking port 80, preventing customers from being "producers" and limiting them to a "consumer" status. And we've read the reports that MSN has been buying up ISPs and blocking email access to everyone but Windows users.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Where in the constitution can you assume that or justify that the above is inaliable or even a civil/moral right
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
...for unfiltered IP access. As the article so insightfully points out, the issue isn't cost or even availability, it's that pretty soon the companies that rent you a cable modem or DSL connection will be the same companies that own (or have an interest in) a whole stack of content. These are the people who bought the DMCA, the people who want to buy DRM legislation like the SSSCA in its various incarnations. Now they will control the creation, the ownership, the distribution and the delivery of content. So much for the original intent of copyright law.
Ask yourself this: when your choice of access is a subsidiary or partner of either Disney or AOL-Time Warner, why would they even need to buy legislation? For your safety and convenience, they can just block everything except port 80, map that to their caching proxies, and firewall off any part of the 'net that challenges their profit models.
You think they won't or can't do it? Why not?. The FCC's position is that competition should be across technologies, not within technologies, and they seem to be lumping cable and DSL in as one technology. The cable/DSL providers could offer (e.g.) filtered 2048/64 cable modem or DSL for a giveaway price of $10 a month; if the competition is $100 a month 512/128 satellite service, or a range limited and contended 2.4Ghz wireless service, then that will just about kill off the idea of unrestricted residential (not consumer, dammit) broadband. That's quite apart from rate/bandwidth capping and billing depending on whether you're downloading content that you've bought from your provider, or if you're daring to go out onto the big wide internet.
Yes, I know that we've no right to demand cheap unrestricted content, and that we should vote with our wallets and so on. But here's something to think about. If you truly believe that an unregulated free market will take care of this, then you wouldn't object to a shell corporation representing the Chinese government buying AOL-Time Warner or AT&T-Comcast and owning 40% or more of the cable networks in the USA, right?
I use that example because the free market, in its purest sense, means that anyone who can afford to buy or do something should be able to do it. The assumption is that purchasing power is obtained through persuading people to give you money of their own free will, and that your actions will continue to be along those popular lines. There are holes big enough to sail an oil tanker through in that theory, the biggest being that once you get in a position to demand money, or you sell a service that has no effective competition, or (my example) you are spending the taxes you collectd from taxing a billion people, then you can continue to leverage that hold indefinitely, especially if there's a large capital investment cost to entering the market.
Capitalism suffers from exactly the same problem as communism: it works great in theory, because it assumes that people are basically good and honest and will cooperate with the spirit as well as the letter of the system. In practice, any system of human governance or interaction requires constant vigilance to prevent tyranny, even if that tyranny comes wearing a pair of big friendly round Mouse ears. I think we need to be asking our government if they understand that the whole point of the Constitution and of the American State is to prevent situations where We, the People can be oppressed and (de facto) taxed without representation. I'd say we're well past that point already; the only question is how far we'll push it before we either see mass civil disobedience, or we tear up the Constitution and start over with a political version of an End User License Agreement, complete with all the usual disclaimers of warranty.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So you either pay up, or go without. How many here would actually give up the internet in protest? Round about none I'd wager.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
That the Internet and the networks that happen to make up the Internet themselves are fundamentally two different animals.
Remember the roots of the word. An internet is a network made up of a bunch of networks.
The reason the internetworking in general, and the Internet in particular, work, is because we all agreed on some standards, and a global addressing scheme that ensured unique, routable address space.
Far more important in the long run is making sure that address allocation is impartial and open to everyone. Even now this is erorded.. for reasons that seem unavoidable at present.. but it's still eroding.
You see, before, you could get a block of address space assigned to you, whether or not your network was hooked to anyone elses. Why would you do this? On the mere POSSIBILITY that one day you would hook it up.
Everyone could get unique address space, and network together at will.
Now.. you ahve to prove your precise need for those addresses, and you must get them from your isp. This makes sense if you consider the increasing scarcity of addresses.. but there is a quality that is being lost.
My point is.. we have to make sure that, regardless of who is offering what, that global IP routability is still there, and that Joe Farmer, if he invents a new transmission method, can get routable address space.
Separate platforms exist for separate purposes, and have separate capabilities. While I am as enamored of Bluetooth as anyone it is not the same as a fat cable pipe.
The FCC rulings do not (as I understand them) prohibit one company from owning multiple "platforms" If the local wireless net, and cable, and DSL all come from the same source then nothing has been gained.
In any location where one company has a monopoly on most services such as broadband, etc. Where is the incentive to develop a new "platform"? If a town has cable and DSL controlled by AOL then I have little or no incentive to develop a wireless alternative there. The startup costs will be (as they are for anything) huge. In order to break even (until I get a lot of subscribers) I will have to charge more than AOL can charge. So, while I am depleting my cash reserves trying to undersell them they are a) selling at a fraction lower than me, and b) blocking my ads from running and my web page from working on "their" lines and c)running news on their service saying that I torture kittens in my spare time. Then once I'm gone they can jack up the prices again.
Where is the incentive to invest in infrastructure going to come from? Once you have a service that "works" and are facing no competition, why upgrade? Why waste your cash reserves on making life better for your captive audience when you could be working on expanding your audience.
Monopolies are only good for themselves, and the economists that they pay.
Heck, oligarchy describes nearly every large political system ever.
Thats a terrible idea.
Ask anyone that owns a car with expensive wheels shod with low-profile tires what they think about how the govenrment handles public roads. One pothole and its a bent wheel and an annoying steering wheel vibration until you replace the wheel.. usually at a tune of several hundred dollars.
Or think of this - the roads are perpetually underconstruction to provide work for the latest general contractor who had a 500 plate at the latest politicians power-lunch.
Government is the most inefficient possible action agency. It has the curious talent of doing the pathalogically worse possible thing in all situations. Destryoing roads that are good, never fixing roads that suck, always destroying traffic flow for months at a time (i have NEVER seen a sign saying 'fines double in construction zones' and actually seen construction WORKERS in said zone!)
So, imagine what internet access would be like if the govt managed the last mile. It'd take 3 days for someone to walk over to the dslam and notice that now _both_ power supplies had failed (the primary having failed 6 months prior and no one cared at the time). it'd take another 2 weeks to get someone from the Power-Supply-Installers union to replace them both (finding this person would require 2 or more layers of contracting agencies).
I dislike big corporate involvement in my data access. I dislike big government involvement in anything. I can choose a different big company, or i can choose no company at all.
When you try and choose no government at all, you usually end up getting shot.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Under current conditions, anyone who can get a good SDSL connection (for instance, Covad/Speakeasy, available in all the major population centers) can, for a bit over $100 a month, run a medium traffic Web server, ftp, a listserv, dns.... You can't do that over cable, and you can't do that over telco ADSL.
Now, you can do that by renting space at a server farm somewhere, but then you'll also need broadband to administer that at all efficiently. On the low end you can match that $100 a month, but in the middle range - say you want to have lots of content available, multiple URLs, custom configurations of Apache and whatever, you're talking about something over $200 a month for a dedicated server, plus your own broadband - tripling the price. So you significantly raise the bar for citizen participation in Internet publication. Where's the public interest in this? It's like giving the dominant newspaper control of the price of paper and ink.
As a small note: cable isn't even in the picture if you don't have cable - and some of us out here have no interest in $35 a month for basic cable - the effective cost of cable broadband is that much higher if you don't want that crap.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The large ISPs also promote spam. Consider Qwest, Verio, and UUNET just to name a few. These companies are so large they know they cannot be blacklisted, so they just keep on selling the pink contracts and to hell with the rest of us.
Unforunately, at this point it look like only a national law will even begin to bring those companies to heel (and a law will only affect companies with a significant business presense in the country that has the law...). I hate saying that - I dislike the "There outta be a law...." types, and any anti-spam law will have severe negative consiquences, but this is the direction we are being driven in.
www.eFax.com are spammers
First, Let's refer to...
Marriam-Webster
1. exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2. exclusive possession or control
3. a commodity controlled by one party
Notice the word exclusive as in exclusive ownership, exclusive control, exclusive possession
Litmus Test
Q. Do the Baby Bell's have exclusive control over the publicly owned telephone telecommunications infrastructure?
A. No, They currently have Primary Control now as they are required to share thier control with other providers.
Q. If the current FCC proposal allowing Baby Bells to deny access to the network access, will the Baby Bells return to thier Monopoly status?
A. Yes, The current FCC proposal will give EXCLUSIVE rights to the public infrastructure, making the Baby Bells Regional Monopolies. IE, No more Covad or Flashcom.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
But the far more urgent concern is that media conglomerates will use their control over broadband pipes to restrict access to content, information, or technologies that compete with their own content or otherwise threaten their interests.
In a democracy, those who control the flow of information control the country. Grassroots movements can't get started without free communication, and as the Internet is becoming an increasingly used political sounding board, this deregulation will give the media companies more power than we realize. Unlike the government, which is required by the Constitution to allow free speech, the media companies have no such requirement - they can deny access to anyone without any justification whatsoever. Those with views unpopular (say Jews, Christians, or Muslims...) or critical of the ISP, may find themselves silenced without any legal recourse.The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
AT&T before deregulation was a government-sanctioned monopoly.
AT&T had acheived monopoly status by the 1930's. It chose to submit to a set of business restrictions (primarily other markets, e.g. computers) in order to be allowed to remain a monopoly in 1956. It was hardly a passive entity, before or after.
By definition, a private corporation in competition with other private corporations couldn't have survived behaving that way.
By definition, a monopoly isn't in competition, leaving very few mechanisms for "forcing them" to do anything.