FCC Commish - US Playing 'Russian Roulette' with Broadband

LarryBoy writes "In a speech given at the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps lambasted US broadband policy, saying that the US is 'playing "Russian roulette with broadband and Internet and more traditional media."' Copps also took issue with an op-ed piece ('Broadband Baloney') by fellow commissioner Robert McDowell last week. 'In his speech, Copps didn't mention McDowell by name, but he did claim that broadband in the US is "so poor that every citizen in the country ought to be outraged." Back when then OECD said that we were number four in the world, he said, no one objected to its methodology. Copps also had fighting words for those who blame the US broadband problems on our less-dense population; Canada, Norway, and Sweden are ranked above us, but all are less dense than the US. Besides, this argument implies that broadband is absolutely super within American urban areas. Copps noted, though, that his own broadband connection in Washington, DC was "nothing compared to Seoul."'"

Comments

Quit Capping the Upstream

[RunFatBoy.net]

>In his speech, Copps didn't mention McDowell by name, but he did claim that
>broadband in the US is "so poor that every citizen in the country ought to be outraged."

I don't know if the average citizen would even realize if their downstream bandwidth were boosted significantly. If my mother can download her web page in 3 seconds instead of 5, I am not sure she really cares.

The real battle seems to be with the upstream. Face it, sending photos sucks. If I have to do any sort of large .ear deployment over my work's VPN, it sucks even more.

And to worsen things, I don't believe this is an infrastructure issue. These are obviously artificial caps levied against all users (both the legitimate and abusing customers). Maybe they could throttle the upstream for those with prolonged heightened levels of usage?

Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/ - A workout plan for beginners.

Re:Quit Capping the Upstream

[devilspgd]

So?

If I get 11Mb/s total (I do, 10Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up), let me adjust the caps myself. If I want 5.5/5.5, or 9/2, let me have it. If I want 1/10, it's the same difference to the local cable loop.

Re:Quit Capping the Upstream

[Vellmont]

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about the internet not being a web-browser. The content you're talking about is poor quality short clips, intended to supplement a web page. The content I'm talking about is a well produced high quality television broadcast that'll compete with cable and satellite producers, but also have the nearly infinite amount of choices. Right now if you want to distribute content like the cable stations produce, you need a ton of money to buy time on a satellite. An internet TV revolution would eliminate that need and open up an entirely different means of content distribution.

I'm talking about the internet taking over the television and going into the family room, not the computer room. That's starting to happen a little with consoles, but nowhere to the degree I'm referring to.

Re:Quit Capping the Upstream

[jez9999]

The internet is a hell of a lot more than just a series of websites

Absolutely. It's a series of tubes!

Re:Quit Capping the Upstream

[stonecypher]

Right now if you want to distribute content like the cable stations produce, you need a ton of money to buy time on a satellite.

No, you don't. Several television shows have been brought to the internet by amateurs. The ton of money is there to make the video in the first place. It takes a bunch of people and a bunch of equipment to make the kind of film you're talking about.

An internet TV revolution would eliminate that need and open up an entirely different means of content distribution.

Yes, it did. That's why that Argentinian station moved to YouTube - it needed a different infrastructure, because the state took away their means, and the internet was mature enough to handle it. The lack of high quality content that you are correctly observing has nothing to do with the internet. It has to do with the difficulty of production. Most people just don't put that kind of work into their hobbies. The near-infinite variety of content on the internet exists because standards are low. If you move to high quality professional standards, you don't have that flow anymore.

Do not confuse your crap filter for infrastructure issues. Many television stations use the internet as an infrastructure adequately. Movies are distributed over it commercially. Video phones have been working fine for almost a decade now. The internet does require that you have a good solid connection at the server end to pull it off, but any Joe Average can get a ten meg unmetered line with a box for around $1200/y; that's not exactly huge scratch.

Moving to the internet reduces costs dramatically. If anything, it makes the kind of broad, high availability content you're currently desiring easier, in that the people who have the means to pull off two big things can focus on funding and production, and leave distribution to the world wide wank. Look what's happened with gaming for a similar clear example.

Density?

[Skjellifetti]

Canada, Norway, and Sweden are ranked above us, but all are less dense than the US.

I agree that their aren't many folks as dense as us at the moment, but which are more dense? Norwegians or Swedes?

Better yet...stop overselling bandwidth!

[StringBlade]

It's not so much the caps that are the problem it's the fact that your broadband provider is selling 10x (or more) the bandwidth they have available working on the presumption that you will not actually use your full bandwidth most of the time.

This was all good and well when email (not spam) and simple web pages were the Internet norm, but with dynamic pages, streaming video, audio, other content, and unparalleled levels of email we need to stop over-selling the actual bandwidth available. If what we have isn't good enough to service the customers -- upgrade the infrastructure to something that can handled 30MiB/s down and 15MiBs up (or whatever)

Also, stop calling them "unlimited" plans with the simple truth is every provider limits your bandwidth usage either by threats or through packet shaping.

Re:Meh

[Mattintosh]

Your connection is not the norm. I'm in suburban St. Louis, MO, and I have a "choice" between The Phone Company (AT&T) and The Cable Company (Charter), neither of which is required to care about anything either by law or by market forces.

AT&T offers the following plans, generally:
- Mediocre DSL: 6M/768k, $60/mo.
- Crap DSL: 3M/768k, $40/mo.
- Crappier DSL: 1.5M/384k, $30/mo.
- Why-Bother? DSL: 512k/128k, $20/mo.

Charter offers similar plans, like so:
- Mediocre Cable: 6M/512k, $60/mo. plus cable TV
- Crap Cable: 3M/128k, $40/mo. plus cable TV
- Useless Cable: 1M/128k, $20/mo. plus cable TV
- They-call-this-broadband? Cable: 512k/64k, $20/mo. but no cable TV requirement

Personally, I'm on a grandfathered DSL plan, at 1.5M/768k for $25/mo. I don't call AT&T for service, because if I do, I will get my plan changed to something current and end up paying more for less. Yes, it beats dialup. No, it's not good. I drool at the thought of having even 1/10th of what is "normal" in Korea.

Density *could* be factor, mostly just monopolies

[gethoht]

Ok folks, comparing the density of sweden or norway is not like comparing the density of the US. First of all, the US is a shit-ton larger than those countries. I understand the argument, but I don't think they're really incorporating the total size of the US. When you take the lack of density and spread it out over an area that is many multiple times larger than norway AND sweden combined, I think you can better understand the technical problems and costs involved with such an endeavor.

That being said, I do believe that the ridiculous telco/cable monopolies that have been governmentally supported for so long now has an effect as well. It's a combination of alot of factors, just like most other things in life.

Godwin's

[El Cabri]

There should be some equivalent to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law for arguing that the US is a less densely populated country when faced with the fact that such and such service or infrastructure in the US is inferior to its counterparts in other industrialized countries.

Incorrect Priority Alignment

[TheWoozle]

As far as I can tell, the one and only reason that we lag behind in broadband is this: the current situation favors entrenched monopolies squeezing every last drop of revenue out of existing (government-subsidized) infrastructure while slowly rolling out higher bandwidth solutions in select areas.

If you want to fix this, I suggest the following it: take all of the cables away from the existing telcos and make one nationwide heavily regulated company that would just maintain the lines and sell bandwidth to whoever could afford it. That would go a long way towards leveling the playing field.

Sure, you could de-regulate: end geographical monopolies and grant any company wanting to run cables access to the public rights-of-way. However, this would needlessly duplicate infrastructure, and companies would use inter-networking contracts to limit competition. The biggest impediment to offering new services in a telecomm market is to connect to existing networks. Incumbent networks have a huge advantage because they already connect many, many customers. If you create a startup telco, your customers expect to be able to talk to people on the other network. The incumbents can simply price you out of the market by making it expensive for your customers to talk to theirs.

Re:Incorrect Priority Alignment

[Abcd1234]

And somehow a single government controlled monopoly will be better than numerous independent monopolies?

Yes. Because the mandate for a governmental body is to, above all else, benefit *the people*, as opposed to the pockets of the shareholders.

We have watched as the monopolies have leveraged their power, money and influence over plenty of other government entities (financially mostly) and what makes you think that they won't do the same thing here?

Uhh, that's what rules and the legal system exist to solve. If the wire-leasing entity is required, by law, to be neutral, and there's evidence of impropriety, then the victims sue. Problem = solved.

Of course, this is all based on the assumption that you have a fair, functioning democracy that would create such an entity and set up it's mandate appropriately. Unfortunately, institutionalized bribary (aka, lobbying) in the US system makes this all but impossible (see the US Copyright Board for an example).

Yes, I just contradicted myself in my own post. :)

Re:Meh

[ivan256]

Seriously, there is good enough to get the job done, and then there is digital penis envy.

Of course you're going to think yours is big enough if you don't know how to use it...

Faster broadband, both upstream and down (especially up) would have an enormous societal impact. Think of all the travel that could be avoided (jet fuel not burned) if video conferencing didn't suck. Think of all the commuting that wouldn't have to be done if VPN access were equivalent to sitting on the corporate LAN. Some of us with fiber-optic connections are already seeing the benefits. $0.99 Amazon movie rentals that only take 12 minutes to download, for example. You can literally start watching in seconds. The whole thing is done transferring in less time than it would have taken to drive to Blockbuster and back... Remote desktops are actually usable for non-graphical apps, and even for some CAD applications...

Faster internet access really would provide better quality of life for many people.

Re:Density *could* be factor, mostly just monopoli

[Zironic]

The point is that if Sweden and Norway can get high speed internet into the wilderness then the US should at least be able to get high speed internet into their cities.

The fact that the country is larger shouldn't make it more difficult as such. Making a large network is just connecting two smaller ones no?

Monopolistic Conflict of Interest

[KiltedKnight]

When the people who maintain the wires are also allowed to sell the broadband services over them but are required to "open up the lines" to competing services, you basically have a conflict of interest. There are exactly three entities that can put lines up on your local phone poles or in the conduits: local power company, local mega-baby bell, and local cable contract holder. That's it. Nobody else. Otherwise, if you have above-ground lines, you'd look up and see wire after wire after wire after wire.

Enter the loophole in the law that states that if they build a brand new line from the central office to your house, they can control its content. Guess who can't put in new lines? Right... the "competing services" who are supposed to be able to access the lines that already exist. Therefore, you have a conflict of interest in that the line maintainers are the only ones capable of putting up new infrastructure... thus guaranteeing a monopoly of service. Now, while it may make business sense to wire up the areas that can and will be heavily subscribing first (it's called "return on investment"), you'll find that some other areas that have gotten it only did because they're in between the source and target area, so they just went and wired up that section too.

That said, I cannot get FiOS in my neighborhood. Neighborhoods around me are getting wired for it and receiving it. We aren't... and believe me, it's not because we're a poor neighborhood (probably has more to do with our being an older subdivision that still has above-ground lines). I've called Verizon a few times and the response I always get when I ask for a date is, "We can't give you a date because that would commit us." Duh! That's the point of my asking for a date or time frame! Verizon first sticks it to us with FITL, so we can't get any form of DSL other than IDSL/ISDN, unless you go with a T-1 or other dedicated line like that... then they stick it to us by not wiring up the neighborhood... and they further stick it to us by being the only telco that can do so, and limit the service to themselves. I'm sure there are other companies that could be wiring up neighborhoods too, and would love a shot at doing it... if they were legally allowed to do so.

Basically, like you said... the ones who maintain the lines should not be allowed to sell the services. Give the line maintainers one responsibility: infrastructure maintenance and upgrades. Everyone else, including Verizon, would have to "buy" their time and space on the lines.