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Cable Equal Access Case Goes to Supreme Court
DCTooTall writes "The FCC has ruled that Cable High-Speed Internet is an Information Service, and therefore not subject to the same equal access regulations that govern DSL. Brand-X Networks sued the FCC for equal access to the Cable Networks and won. The FCC appealed the decision and next Tuesday the case goes to the Supreme Court. The Telco's have repeatedly used the current FCC stance on Cable Broadband in their fight to get the same monopoly on DSL. This case has the potential to not only open the Cable networks to competition, but also prevent the Telco's from further attempts on limiting DSL options."
You should be receiving your subpoena for my lawsuit demanding equal access to first posts in 5 to 7 business days.
The price is still a little hairy, though. If this opens up price competition, I'm liking it.
DSL is theft anyway. I don't know what insane trickery is involved in allowing voice AND data go over the same medium, but I don't like it. It smacks of devil-worship.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If cable companies paid to put in their infrastructure, why should they be required to share it? Or, worded differently, did the govt. help pay to put in their system?
Could someone please explain this "regulations" thing to non-americans?
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
is the FCC. They started this new philosophy of "let's deregulate, and all our problems will go away," and look what happened. The media sources are consolidating, and the telcos are consolidating. Did the FCC WANT this to happen? Sometimes I think so, since it seems so damn obvious that it would. Why would you EVER want to monopolise the cable and telephone lines? How is DSL NOT an information service? The FCC has to recognise that whether it's IP over coax or fibre or phone line or WHATEVER, it's still internet service. They've just really turned the wrong way in the last few years, and it's hurting us all.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
If the cable companies are forced to open their networks, it would hopefully allow one to eventually obtain "naked cable." I'd like cable internet access, but the price for non-subscribers is $20 over their already inflated price.
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
I hope it happens. It'd be nice to finally be able to get better than 2mbit down and 256kbit up.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
One possible bad outcome from this is that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate any of it. ... and the Phone company ( was one big one, then baby bells and now ...) and the cable companies and do what ever they want .....the courts are going more and more big bisness..
They're not considering Schiavo because every court has held that the Florida court has acted properly, and there's no legal reason to retry the case in a higher court. The Supreme Court isn't for Republicans who want to cry to mommy when daddy says "no". SC appeals require that justice has not been served in the lower court, and Schiavo's parents have had their days - years - in court. Let the husband bury his wife in peace, instead of perverting the entire system of US justice to have a political argument about metaphysics. Our courts are for mundane matters like network access, not for faith debates.
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make install -not war
It has happened thousands of times before. What has never happened before is another party (her parents) having the money and the political savvy to involve politicians in the process.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Done there, been that...remember the 1970s?
If the FCC wanted the telcos to become a monopoly again, all they would need to o is ask the Supreme Court to go back on their earlier decision to break up ATT&T and the local BellCos.
So in the words of Nappy Dyn-o-mite, "...IDIOT...".
"High-speed Internet connections are not telephones," HA!
One involves the FCC, which is a federal agency, while the other focuses on state law. Provided that the state law isn't violating some federal law, or especially the US constitution, the SCOTUS should definately put it pretty low on the priority list. Actually, I think the SCOTUS' policy is not to get involved at all in cases that are at the state level--that is, they are in the state's juristiction rather than federal jurisdiction.
While this could be a good thing for customers there are several technical considerations to look at. 1. There is not enough upstream bandwidth in a typical cable plant for several providers to provide their own service over a seperate cmts. 2. If multiple service providers try to offer their brand of "service" over the same cmts there wouldn't be a difference in service from what there is today (Except content) If one provider tried to sell a higher bandwidth package it would affect customers from all different providers on the same cmts. 3. Who pay's to maintain, power, and house the cmts ? The way that dsl ir provided (Each ISP installing their own DSLAM) works great because there is a seperation of where the last mile to the customer terminates - The only leased telco facilty is the copper from the service address to the CO. If service providers had to share the same DSLAM and had a limit of bandwidth that could be provided dsl would be a huge disaster.
As far as I can see, the issue here whether the cable network should be opened in the same was as the phone network. However, isn't it the case that the phone network is considered to be a public asset whereas the cable network is a private one? This is certainly the case in the UK where the phone network is a public network that is gradually being made open to any internet supplier. However, there's no reason that I can see that Telewest or NTL should be expected to open a network that they put there own private money into. Is this not exactly the same thing? If it is, although one might like the cable company to open it's networks, it doesn't seem to me that there is any obligation or regulation that should expect it.
The FCC is basically offering the cable companies a de facto monopoly on cable internet in order to ensure that more people can get connected and the size of the network is increased. After all, if the cable company has a monopoly, the only way it can really grow is to hook up more people.
But if, on the other hand, other companies are permitted to use the network, the cable companies may feel that expanding their network is not worth the cost, thus preventing people from ever getting high-speed internet.
Personally, I think it's a relatively hard decision to make. Allowing the monopoly screws over those people who already can get cable internet, but offers the greatest incentive to extend access to more people. Not allowing the monopoly gives cheaper prices to those with cable internet, but pretty much ensures that the networks won't get expanded, especially to more rural areas.
Perhaps a compromise of a limited-time monopoly would be best. Cable companies get a 5-year monopoly on new networks, and afterwards must open them up to competition.
Way back when Time Warner and AOL merged. They had to open up their cable network to other broadband providers. Now you can get service via Earthlink thru their cable system as well as others.
Here, let me download you a copy.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
but I've never gotten "information" from my cable modem provider. All they sell is a pipe and the information comes from elsewhere. It's not that much different than using the telephone, in which case the "information" comes from the people I call, not the phone company.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
And involving politicians is a sure way to make sure the right thing gets done.
So, sworn testimony should no longer be considered a valid form of evidence?
Most of those questions aren't "still open" in THIS case, which is all the SC would have (correctly) considered.
A modern day witchhunt.
Of course, the former argument sways me more because I don't actually own a cable company. Considering most Americans are like me, I'll bet polls show everyone wants the lines opened.
I'm currently paying US$108/mo for digital standard cable + high speed cable internet from Time Warner. This seems like way too much to me, but I haven't seen any better deals out there. Has anyone else?
Could this effect VoIP?
The FCC should not be able to regulate VoIP, because it does not use the airwaves.
At the same time, the government should not allow cable co's to block VoIP, because the cable co's can not be allowed to monoplize the land lines.
If the cable co's want to sale Internet access, they have to let one use the Internet however they want. If all the cable co's want to block a port, or access to something, then the Government should step in and regulate. If the Government wants to allow the cable co's to block the way info is shared, VoIP or whatever, then the people should take to the streets.
I always hate how aprtment complexs always try to tell people that only one type of broadband service is available in their buildings. Liek where I live now, they told me I would have to go through Qwest. Meaning I would have to have Qwest phone service plus shitty Qwest DSL. Instead I called Speakeasy, had Covad come out and install some sort of bypass so I dont' need a phone line, and now i have 6mbit down 768 up with tons of extras for $100 a month, and I can resell the bandwidth on a wireless access point. Screw telcos.
The deal with a common carrier is that a common carrier has to accept anyone's traffic. ie. If the railroad ships wheat for company X then they can not refuse to ship wheat for company Y.
Cable did not start as a common carrier. It started with small providers grabbing signals off the air and stuffing them into the cable to sell to their subscribers. Since they weren't charging the TV stations to get their signals to the subscribers, they weren't acting as common carriers. They weren't charging people to get their signals somewhere.
Telegraph started out as common carrier in that if they sent messages for company X, they had to send messages for company Y.
Telephone is a common carrier because they were forced to be one. I think that will happen to the cable companies too. The minute they started dabbling in internet services and telephone, they opened the gate and they won't be able to shut it.
This case has the potential to not only open the Cable networks to competition, but also prevent the Telco's from further attempts on limiting DSL options."
Or, it could allow the Court to redress what it may see as a fact no longer in existence. They could decide that equal access is unenforceable regardless, in which case the telcos would be allow to prevent competitors from using their equipment.
You can never tell in these cases because the SC can be thinking anything. But I do agree, it will have an impact.
The FCC is supposedly there to help the public out by regulating phones, internet, RF, etc ... Why would they appeal this sort of thing? It should be blatently obvious to anyone that opening up cable lines to outside companies is in the public interest (even if the cable companies gripe and do a half-ass job at it). I mean, sure, they can defend themselves in the first suit just to defend themselves. But why appeal it? This is ridiculous. The operation of the cable companies as monopolies is obvious ... with their erroneous fees here and there, their slow service, the whole "wait 60 days until you get service again", bundling services so you can't get internet unless you have cable, etc, etc. None of this stuff would be as bad as it currently is if there was true competition, because they would be out of business at the drop of a hat! I think the FCC positions need to be elected or something, so at least there is SOME pressure to serve the public interest.
I thought the phone companies had to share the lines because the government gave them the monopoly to lay down all the wires. Are cable companies granted the same monopoly rights in their laying of cable?
The questions are NOT wide open they are VERY WELL DEFINED.
Her parents are trying to REDEFINE a VERY CLEAR set of rules.
If her parents get their way THEN chaos will ensue becuase there will no longer be a set of rules to follow. They will have violated logic, science, the law and common sense. After that what's left? Whim?
Great.
Isn't the local monopoly status of most cable companies granted by the local muncipality? Doesn't the local muncipality have the power to insist on common carrier status for Internet access? I know that more savvy communities used to hold the cable companies for community access channels, video equipment, classes, etc.
Is this just another situation where the elected officials are not working in the best interest of their constituents?
jh
I refuse to believe that the SC has made the correct decision to not hear this case. The ramifications of such a blank check to spouses is terrifying.
Whether you choose to put your complete trust in them is up to you.
The case law regarding this case is almost solely from previous decisions of this case itself. Therefore, none of it stands in the event that it is overturned. And if it is upheld, which it might very well have been, then we could have at least hoped for a better and more detailed analysis of the rights and responsibilities of a "surviving" spouse.
This is not some wacko Right to Life problem we're talking about. We're talking about the willful termination of the life of another human being. As far gone as their mind may be, without a living will, can a spouse (on the evidence of only their word) be able to terminate the spouse's life when challenges exist to the veracity of that evidence and the ability of transfer of guardianship to an interested party?
Some how you have gotten off the subject here. This is about cable networks and not living wills and right to life..
This is silly.. if you don't like the cable company, work to change it.
EVERY cable company must have a contract with the local city/town to operate.
I worked at a public access TV station in a small town during this. They are usually 3-7 year contracts, the cable comittee is usually made up of people from the town/city.
Our managed to get MediaOne (at the time) to give free cable modems to all the schools, as well as free cable service, on top of what they were required to give the public access TV station. They also had to agree to offer high speed access across the entire town in 2 years or less.
It came VERY close to dumping them and going with Adelphia.. if that happened then everybody in the the town would switch to Adelphia and MediaOne (now Comcast) would have been OUT.
Also, you can get Earthlink service over cable via Comcast..
Free Mac Mini
To me, an information service sends data one way, from provider to consumer. A telecommunications service allows two-way communication.
The Internet's most popular service is e-mail.
What if the Postal Service was (privatized and) declared an information service? Would I no longer be able to send letters to some addresses because they belong to a different carrier service? Would I have to pay extra postage for cross-carrier service?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Does this mean that my Cable company will provide me with a connection and that I could choose a different ISP. To get for example a line where I could run servers and a web hosting farm out of my basement? If that is the case I welcome the change but it would be bad in the short term for the Cable company and I predict that my service would suffer over the short term.
-- Ecks
ILECs complain that they can't make any money. They all want in the long distance and wireless business, not the margin challenged local business and whine about how legislation prevents that and they do their best to use passive aggressive behaviour like dragging their feet on third party DSL installations.
Unlike the post office, telcos don't have to provide service to remote locations, so they don't. Residents of remote areas usually set up co-ops to run their local phone service. The strange thing is that they typically have much better service because of it even though their physical costs are higher.
Putting these two observations together, here's what I propose:
Force all ILECs to sell their local exchanges to the residents of that exchange who run them as co-ops. Allow the ILECs to change their business model to compete with long distance providers. Allow individual residents to choose from any long distance provider who's willing to hook up to their local exchange.
Do the same thing with cable providers. The local cable 'exchange' runs cables to the neighbourhood, and individual users get to choose, which cable content providers they get hooked up to with video, radio and ISP service being independently selectable.
This system allows for competition on content and services, while putting the part of the system that needs to be a monopoly in the hands of the people who are most interested in and affected by the actions of the monopoly.
There are lots of details left out here, but this should get the germ of the idea across.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
I live in a region that Comcast monopolizes. They've been doing all they can to kill RCN who has tried to offer competitive rates and have succeeded by keeping them 30 miles away from here. It's just too much power to give a company if they supply you with phone, cable, internet, news media. If I wanted that I would just have moved to one of the last remaining communist countries where I could be given all of that by one source, the government.
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The slashcode sports site
Not quite.
Terry's already got 2 million dollars to cover her medical bills. In fact, they are tied up in a trust that is locked except to pay those bills. Unless, of course, if she dies. Then her hubby gets it all.
Of course, rather than divorce her, he'd rather kill her. See, in a divorce, a judge would split that original judgment down the middle, or more likely award it all to Terry for her continued care. But unfortunately for her, her loving husband didn't remember any of this "I don't want to live like that" take until after that money was already in his hands.
I think part of the problem is we are talking about two different issues here. On one hand, we have the issue of wether the SC should have heard this case. I'm not sure (personally) that any court should have heard the case, but that's just me. I think the spouse should get to make medical decisions. Will it always turn out that the spouse actually does what the afflicted spouse wants? Maybe not, but it's no less likely than anyone else making the same decision. Political influences, emotional influences, those things affect everyone (parents, judges, politicians). At least if a surviving spouse makes the decision, you probably get as close as possible to maximizing the number of times the will of the afflicted person is actually carried out. I feel confident that in almost any such situation, allowing the spouse to decide is more sure to bring the will of the afflicted than allowing judges, politicians and social/political activists to make/influence that decision.
IANAL, but I believe the role of the SC court, generally, is to ensure that lower courts don't do things like violate constitutional issues. Whatever side of this issue you stand on, I don't think there is any evidence that anything like that happened. There are a lot of people involved, and there is no real reason to suspect any sort of foul play on the part of any of the judges or anything like that.
Incidentally, I don't believe that her husband actually made the decision to remove the feeding tube. My understanding, is that for whatever reason, he didn't want to make that decision, and initiated something in a court to allow a judge to determine what she would want. He testified that her wishes would be to die, other people testified a variety of things, and the court decided her will would be to be allowed to die. Seems to me to be a pretty decent way to get unbiased people (presumably, the judge wouldn't have emotional ties, so would be able to make an unbiased decision) involved in an exercise of rational consideration of what she would want. My information comes from here.
nt
This isn't a blank cheque to spouses. It's a blank cheque to spouses whose mates have suffered a tragic medical accident which has left the mate in a vegetative state. This wasn't a right to life problem until the right to lifers picked up the banner and denied Micheal Schiavo his unarguable legal right to do what he knows in his heart that his wife would want. The parents in this case have had more than their chance to prove that the State should transfer legal guardianship of Terry from Michael. They have not. It's time for the "morally superior" right wing to get over it. You lost.
I live in Maryland and all I can get in my area is Comcast. I would love to be able to get Adelphia. A friend of mine has it and she pays less for both cable(with HBO) and internet through them than I pay for just extended basic alone.
Technoli
...dumbass.
It's about monopolies.
I would imagine one factor to be taken into account for supporting or objecting to this would be if these networks were financed by taxpayers or investors.
At 5 Mbit, my cable broadband outstrips anything the telcos can offer, and without that embarrassing DSL 18,000-33,000 ft range problem.
Not for some, apparently.
Besides, is it no longer a monopoly when the cable company still owns the HFC, but leases access out to a reseller? I fail to see how that's getting rid of a monopoly...
If the husband deemed her life to be inconvenient, why hasn't he simply turned over her care to her parents? I have mixed feelings based on arguments from both sides, but the one thing I can' agree with your point is that the husband sees this as inconvenient. If anything, I think he's looking at this as a compassionate move on his part. He's turned down money by those offering to "buy him out" and I understand that he's stating that he'll donate any money, from earlier settlements, to a charity of the parents choice. These actions don't sound like someone who doesn't care for his wife but someone who truly wants to act on what is likely her wishes. However this ends, the one truly positive affect will be that people are more likely to write down their wishes. I know my wife and I have discussed this in the past, but this is motivating us to follow through.
I thought cable was already opened for broadband competition. Here in Central Florida, there is only one cable provider in most areas (Bright House Netorks, with a bit of overbuild with Adelphia and or Cox in some areas), but where broadband ISPs are concerned, everywhere that Bright House Networks offers service, you have the choice of any of 4 ISPs.
Bright House themselves doesn't have a 'house brand' (Road Runner is considered by some to be the house brand, but Bright House owns no stake in Road Runner as far as I know), but I thought this was exactly the thing that caused them to add other providers 2-3 years ago.
What did I miss? Is it the case with Bright Hosue that they didn't necessarily have to allow competition but decided to anyway?
Long signatures suck.
I was in the video store once, and a couple of guys were talking in the checkout line about movies. One asked the other if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11, and the other said: "No way, I wouldn't see anything by that commie."
I wonder what he thought "commie" meant anyway. I would have loved to hear him explain it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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Here in Canada, the former-monopoly telco's with their monopoly-supplied last mile runs have long had to share their systems (at federally approved prices) to DSL resellers/competitors.
NOW that's also being extended to Cable, cable companies are now having to allow other providers onto their monopoly-supplied last mile cables.
AND NOW this summer, you will be able to get DSL without having to have a phone, zero extra cost. Of course Bells are also taking that very moment to start rolling out their own VOIP solutions - but basically they've all realized they need to compete in the future, not try and desparately hold on to old technologically inferior monopolies.
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if the FCC needs it to be a monopoly for it to have the reach that is needed -- then it should be publicly owned (non-profit /w users as members) and accountable through public voting/referredum; giving some company handouts so they can milk the public isn't the right approach
However, if the cable itself costs that much, the non-profit created should banned from creating content or anything else. It should just do the wires or the part that causes the monopoly to form; and then auction-off the timeslots, channels, etc. Any extra money earned can then be put back into more public infrasturcture; or used to reduce taxes
Telephone polls are paid for by taxpayers, and the government regulates who and what can put on them. So yes, we taxpayers paid quite a bit for it. If cable companies wish to be subject to free market conditions, then they must be forced to run their own wiring and polls, and also pay private citizens for the land rights to put such polls up.
just like powerline networking. You better pay err.. lobby the FCC to further monopolize electrical distribution as an "information service", too. Don't forget to think about AM/FM radio if you think non-baseband content has anything leverage in this issue.
I'd really appreciate more competition for Cable internet. I'm too far for any DSL options, and i've gotten really annoyed with the cable connection from Charter. When I forst got the service, I was really happy with it. 1.5mbps down and 768kbps up. You'd like to think that years after the original service prices would decrease, and faster bandwidth options would open up. Instead the reverse has happened. Prices gradually went up, and bandwidth varied. For a while I was getting 2mbps down and 128kbps up. The increase in down bandwidth I didn't really care about, but cutting upload bandwidth to 1/6th, that was horrid! They finally relented and changed it to 3mbps down and 256kbps up. The change in download bandwidth hasn't really mattered to me, and the upload bandwidth is still 1/3rd the original rate.
I assume this likely occured because in the first few years, they didn't have too many customers and had plenty of room on the infrastructure, but now that its getting more crowded. I'd hope competition would hopefully encourage spending effort on increasing bandwidth options, even if that requires laying down more lines.
Too many cooks.
I love how many people glom onto this corporate bashing stance of forcing "competition" without any idea of the technical wherewithal involved in making it happen and the degredation of service in the near, mid, and long term.
I've worked for DSL CLECs which had resellers self-branding what they sold for another partner ISP which actually supplied the IPs and had a layer two frame or atm circuit to us and we had one then onward to a partner CLEC which held the facilities where we didn't have a build and from them over ILEC copper to the customer using a customer owned CPE.
Can you say clusterf*ck? I knew you'd try.
Occam's Razor applies here.
On top of this, are we going to legally require the cable companies to give away connections for free? No? Then we can add the charge they give to the competing ISP on to whatever the other ISP charges the customer.
It gets better kids. Think about this... How big are the cable providers' fiber nets? Many of them either own a load of their own or they combine their sizeable assets with others. We're not talking a couple DS3s on a dial-up ISP here, we're talking major OC fiber lines handling hugantic ginormous (thank you Bruce Almighty) amounts of data quite well every day.
I'm supposed to want someone other than my cable company for what reason? So I can say that my last mile is cable but the undersized backhaul is on an overutilized interface on an underpowered Cisco router administered by some nineteen year old cert whore? So that I can say I'm doing business with TWO different entities instead of one? So that I can say my ISP is a mom and pop (or t-shirt wearing crew of Linux geeks) unlike those big corporate cable people (in polo shirts)?
If you want something done right, you use the right tools and methods, and you do it with intent to succeed. You don't host a mission critical commercial web server on a DSL line, you have it hosted professionally on a good pipe. You host a personal vanity server on DSL.
Similarly, my broadband is too important to sacrifice to some so-called competitor's vanity. Even today in DSL we still see ISPs taken seriously whose idea of a NOC is two teens occasionally taking time out from their endless Half-Life game to run pings in five or six windows and don't even know what Matt's Traceroute is, never mind even know how to check the atm traffic on their own router. Such have been contributory to the disasterous collapse of some CLECs. I know, I used to work with such yahoos and was there when they helped down us.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Would you people please stop using all this money on court cost and use it instead to RUN CABLE AND/OR DSL TO MY HOUSE!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Hmmm, in Bellsouth land, it appears no third party DSL providers have access. If I wanted DSL, I'd *have* to use Bellsouth DSL. So where's the equal access?
Comcast here: $52.95: Basic Digital Cable, that is all your regular channels, all the music channels and Encore/Starz package or whatever that is. $42.95 5 mbps Down & 300k+ Up.. with taxes it comes to like $104/month and change..
Unforturnately the corporations own the Government!!!
Look the original given reason for giving the FCC regulatory powers over phone companies was that AT&T was an interstate network and so by crossing state lines it required Federal regulation. Most cable systems operate a network that is only within a city or subdivision of a state so the Federal Government really SHOULDN'T have jurisdiction over the network. The company may cross state lines, but the network doesn't, so while the SEC may have jurisdiction over the corporate shenanigans I have never understood where the Feds (in the guise of the FCC) should get to regulate anything.
The cable company builds its own network, at its own expense, under a contract or deal negotiated with the local jurisdiction and connection to it is entirely voluntary. Under what theory of Federal jurisdiction is the Federal government entitled to regulate anything about the cable companies' standards, channel arrangements, required carry rules, or rates? The Feds are only supposed to regulate INTERSTATE commerce; an enterprise conducted solely within the state is for the state to regulate. If the Feds want to regulate the industry they should stick to regulating ownership rules between content distributers (cable companies) and content creators (Movie and TV studios) and forbidding amalgamation between the two (As blatant antitrust violations) other then that they should butt out. With any luck the courts will tell them to do just that.
So long as a cable system doesn't cross state lines and they don't use public airwaves the FCC should have its jurisdiction sharply curtailed.
i wish this would happen to the telco's in Australia, our cable companies are locked up to any competition (there are 2).
You're a pretty sick bastard to call 15 years, working to get his wife the dignity of actual death, a "whim". Or her hopeless coma "life". Or the thought of her perpetuated by machines, bankrupting his family, using resources better spent on patients with hope "inconvenience".
Or to demand for a written will, when he has her word - between spouses. You're probably out there banging the drum over the "sanctity of marriage" when it means hating gays. Scumbag - you prefer Anonymous political posting Cowardice to actual compassion, in the name of fraudulent compassion. Go to hell.
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make install -not war
Allow the cable company to provide access only (be an IAP) and allow competition by independant service providers (ISPs.)
We need to stop letting entities with monopolies of any kind try to play the free market card. They are not operating in a free market. Therefore it is reasonable for the government to seek to regulate their market to the benefit of the public. I have doubts that the government can do this, but I also have doubts that a company with a monopoly advantage will do better for the public.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
In New York State all cable franchises are non-exclusive. Exclusive franchises are not permitted by law. In practice, however, you rarely see two or more franchises covering the same area. Most of the cable companies are owned by large MSOs (Multiple Systems Operators). They don't step on each other's toes and small independent operators can't afford the construction costs required to compete with the big guys.
Overall, I think all this competition is good, but when third world countries say they hate American wealth, you have to wonder about a country that is so wealthy and yet so bad at regulating itself that it is easier for us to build three or four identical national infrastructures (at huge expense) to achieve the same purpose than to plan effectively. So finally we get may get decent broadband - a utility that should have been available ten years ago. Aren't we ranked like fifteenth in the world now for providing broadband internet?
I live in the country, and no-shit, I bank at the (wait for it) Hicksville bank.
Anyway, I called comcast for the surrounding area and asked if Cable Internet was available to us. They told us not yet and that they would send a team to investigate the area. They did so and we were told that comcast still declined to lay cable. Too few people, I guess, not to mention the hicks who don't have time fer us city slickers and their fancy-pants computers.
So I called our current subscriber for our 56K (read 42K MAX) dial-up connection and inquired about their DSL service. They informed us that SBC controls the phone lines in our area and we'd have to go through them because SBC will not contract with locl-net to provide DSL. Then, if we decide to use SBC's DSL service, it'd be a long distance call 24/7/365.
So, besides comcasts economic reasoning to refuse to lay cable, I'm also cought between locl-net and SBC's political crap-storm.
Don't get me started on the cost of satellite internet!! ~2600 for 18 months and we already get Sat TV.
You're a pretty sick bastard to call 15 years, working to get his wife the dignity of actual death, a "whim"
Terri's nurse was asked by this "saint", and I quote - "Is the bitch dead yet?"
He was offered a huge sum of money by her parents and a divorce agreement, if he would let them take over her care. He refused. Don't you think her parents would be willing to go along with him if it was in everyone's best interest?
Terri isn't catatonic - she can move around, laughs at jokes, and can speak a few words. Just about the only thing she can't do at all is swallow.
The only issue on the table here is his perverted desire to have her killed. I think you're a pretty sick bastard to take this guy's side.
He doesn't have to be a "saint" - just a regular person under extraordinary pressure, still doing the right thing. The only place I can find your quote is from an allegation by a nurse - on Fox News. What about the years in court? Where her well funded parents could have convinced a judge, if there were anything to convince? I'm not going to get into my personal experiences with people in comas, and their alarmingly similar reflex reactions to stimuli despite their unconsciousness. Because I'm not her examining doctor, and neither are you. Her doctors, and there have been many, have made a clear medical decision, which has withstood many challenges in court. And even the bribe you mention was declined - obviously proving this is no "whim" of his, and making clear which side is the ethical one.
You're spitting back the pap reverberating in the rightwing vulture media echo chamber. Since you're so riled up, why don't you channel your compassion into helping a brain-injured Iraq veteran, or their family, return to a normal life. Of course you won't - Schiavo and other "compassion" cases are just a way for your to hate people you don't even know, when you've got nothing yourself on the line. Talk about sick "whims".
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make install -not war
Godwin's law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Godwin's law (also Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies) is an adage in Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states that:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, whoever points out that Godwin's law applies to the thread is also considered to have "lost" the battle, as it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand Godwin's law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.
Nevertheless, there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any intentional invocation of Godwin's law for its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful. See "Quirk's exception" below.
Godwin's law is named after Mike Godwin, who was legal counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the early 1990s, when the law was first popularized.
Well weren't YOU the lucky one! And there I was chugging....along....on...my....2400....baud.
So it's statically-assigned dynamic?
"The only place I can find your quote is from an allegation by a nurse - on Fox News."
So? This is from an affidavit filed by the nurse. Its as good or better than any other information.
Watch this video of Terri, and decide for yourself. You could take it either way, of whether she should be laid to rest or not, but I'm sure you'll be convinced that starving her to death is inhumane, and just the wrong thing to do.
You're spitting back the pap reverberating in the rightwing vulture media echo chamber
Look who's talking.
I can't tell from that video whether her damaged brain is moving her around in response to stimuli out of habit. And I've seen people who I've known for years in deep comas, who also demonstrate weird flashes, sometimes complex and lasting for many minutes, of old motor feedbacks. Like opening their eyes, smiling and nodding when their name is called - over and over again, but without any response to any other stimuli. But that's just the reason that I know I am not qualified to determine exactly what Schiavo's condition is - or how hopeless - either from a video or even in person. That's a medical diagnosis made many times over the past 15 years, examined relentlessly in courts. So doctors have made their case, and several judges have made theirs. Now the mob, led by their flagrantly opportunistic politicians, is meddling in this private matter that has been resolved medically.
Yes, I think that starving "her" (body) to death is inhumane. I think they should give her a lethal dose of sedatives or opiates. But the courts are so caught up in the primitive sentimentality of keeping hearts beating once the mind is gone forever, that that is the only available option. Starvation for a couple of weeks is less barbaric than keeping her blood flowing through a vacant body for another 15 years.
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make install -not war
Next Tuesday, March 29th, is also the day on which MGM v. Grokster gets argued. Two 9th Circuit Internet cases on one day.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.