Congress Turns Up The Heat on FCC's Chairman

Fletch writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin could be in for an uncomfortable spring, as House Energy Committee Chair John Dingel (D-MI) has requested a truckload of FCC paperwork relating to some controversial decisions Martin has made. Those include the FCC's reversal on the a la carte cable issue and newspaper-television cross-ownership restrictions. 'This request has got to be turning the FCC completely upside down. Significantly, it appears to reflect a bipartisan discontent with Martin's performance. Democrats and some Republicans are upset over his recent move to relax one of the agency's key media ownership rules, as well as the rushed manner in which he handled the matter late last year. Other Republicans dislike what they see as Martin's persecution of the cable industry, especially Comcast.' The Committee originally announced its intention to investigate the FCC in January."

Comments

he should refuse to testify

[Adult film producer]

just ignore congress and shred every last document. Why not? Everybody else on Bush's team does this and gets away with it. Democrats in congress make a lot of noise but always bend over and take it when Bush gets angry.

Re:he should refuse to testify

[Adult film producer]

thats not a troll, its a statement of fact. Sorry that it hurts your feelings.

Re:he should refuse to testify

[Gat0r30y]

its a statement of fact Yea, but you don't have to be a dick about it.
Wait a minute, whats your name again? Maybe you do have to be a dick about it.

Re:he should refuse to testify

[SomeGuyTyping]

no, they have top take it because he's right. There has to be a separation of powers. But that doesn't include people that don't report directly to the president

Re:he should refuse to testify

[OMNIpotusCOM]

Yeah, the only part of that that really should have been considered trolling was the "bending over and taking" it portion, but I think that should be classified more as "insightful" seeing as how it could be used as a script for one of the parent's projects =)

Reaction from Comcast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whew!

The checks cleared in time.

Re:Reaction from Comcast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Calls to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's private jet were not returned.

Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[Fierythrasher]

We were just taken over by Comcast (we were Borged by Comcast?) and it's awful. They're already raising my rates 20%! They're my ONLY choice for broadband other than god-awful satellite but we will be going to DirecTV for television. But these packages...really I only want about 20 channels and they're literally making me get 250. A'la Carte TV HAS to happen...seriously it HAS to. How long must the people of America be bent over like this? I was so excited when I heard the FCC was going to do something about it...I hope Congress succeeds where the FCC failed

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[CRCulver]

The summary seems to suggest that some in Congress want Comcast to have the freedom to throttle its traffic the way it does, and the FCC was standing in their way.

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[Sandbags]

This is because cable and satellite companies fill the pockets of congressmen with continual loads of fresh green cash... These companies have powerful lobyists. They understand that under a la carte they will no longer be able to charge people $49 for basic cable when all people want is 15-20 chanels. they also understand that if they value certain chanels too highly under a la carte, then those chanels will fall dramatically in ratings as people switch to watching programming on less expensive cable networks. Cable companies will loose money under a la carte, I have no doubt about it, and they have no intention of letting it happen. The millions they blow in kickbacks and other funding given to congressmen is nothing compared to what's at stake under a la carte.

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[Alzheimers]

IIRC, the reason why the cable companies don't want A-La Carte pricing is because the law only applies to consumers.

Businesweek 12/7/05

While it may be years before any such model is put in place and it's hard to say how the end result will look, a consensus is emerging that some channels would suffer -- if not fall away altogether. Content providers now compel cable operators to offer their niche channels by bundling them with must-haves like ESPN or MTV. Without being bundled into a bigger package, less popular channels such as ESPN Classic and MTV2 could struggle to garner a large enough audience to survive.

So while the consumer can choose what channels he or she wants, the cable company still has to pay for it. It's kind of like if the Grocery Store (cable company) forced you (the consumer) to buy the fruit salad because they bought all their fruit from the same company (TV station) who charges them the same regardless of how many individual pineapples or watermelons they bought. Oh, and noone else is making these varieties of pineapples or watermelons. Now, if you want Papaya (specialty station) you can go to the Grocery Store down the street (Satellite) but they make their fruit salad without the Pineapples which you want.

So the consumer's best option is to get his tropical fruit off someone selling out of his van (P2P), which has it's own set of risks entirely.

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[RKBA]

As a fifth generation American, I find it bizarre that most people seem to be aware that we are being governed by hired prostitutes, and yet everyone seems to think it's "normal".

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[daveywest]

You really don't understand how a cable company operates.

Networks offer packages to the local operator (or big nationals like Comcast). They are package deals. I can personally verify that the small (8k subs) cable operator I work for would never carry MTV2, MTV Jams, or MTV Hits if they weren't part of a package that included Noggin and Nick Toons.

The problem is at the networks, not the cable operator. They are just like the recording industry who still thinks you can put an hour of crap on a CD, throw in two good songs and ship it out the door.

Now that digital cable is really getting wide deployment (again thanks to the FCC), ala carte wouldn't be hard technically, but the economic constraints placed upon an operator by the networks like Turner, MTV, Scripps (Discovery Channel), Fox, etc. prevent an operator from doing so.

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[sgt_doom]

Hold it, Fierythrasher, dood, but according to those slimer trolls tracked back to the Pentagon IPs, Alabama and Trinity University in Dallas (Alabama??? I didn't realize they could type down there???), you are simply dealing with those "free markets" which they continuously evangelize about ad nauseum (Oops, sorry slimer trolls, I didn't mean to goof youse up by using a tad of Latin.).

Accordingly, you are screwed......

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[joedoc]

Though I pity your absorption into the Comcast world (which I wouldn't wish on anyone), you'll have a lot more options with DirecTV. What's so "god-awful" about it? There's very little on cable than you can't get from them, the big thing probably being some kind of on-demand thing, and their new HD receivers will have that soon.

With satellite, you at least have a choice of packages to generally get what you want. In fact, if they don't have what you want, you might want to call them and ask about specific offerings. They used to have special packages that they didn't generally advertise.

The big issue here (AFAIK) isn't the lack of a la carte offerings by the cable companies, but the cost of offering them. This is the part that most people don't seem to want to understand. If you think cable is expensive now, watch what happens when the Congress forces them to offer channel-by-channel packages (which, when it happens, will once again demonstrate the Law of Unintended Consequences).

Current cable distribution technology doesn't allow for users to pick a few channels and pay that way. The cablecos (and satellite companies, to some extent) have to pay per-subscriber fees to carry many of those channels. These fees are charged differently for different tiers of programming (basic, basic extended, etc), which is why some so-called "premium" channels are only available with certain packages (Note: this is the big issue involved in the dispute the NFL has with cable carries regarding NFL Network).

In order to provide a la carte, the cable companies are going to have to build new user equipment that will provide such a service, or alternately, build new transmission equipment that allows them to select channels for each destination at the source. Now, we both know there is technology available to do this now. But to mass produce it, deliver it, test it, then figure out a way to make sure the customer billing matches their channel choices is going to cost a LOT of money if they're forced to do this. I'm certain that as time progresses, they will come up with ways to do it that they can roll out on a gradual basis.

In the meantime, since you're getting satellite, just cutomize your receiver to display only the channels you want. It's easy to do, allows you to password-block specific channels from your kids, and makes your on-screen guide easier to maneuver. On my receiver, I remove all the shopping, foreign and religious channels (except EWTN, in case I skip mass on Sunday), along with specialty and sports channels I rarely watch. You can bring them all back up with one keypress on the remote, unless you block them, which requires a password.

I know this doesn't make thing cheaper. But a la carte will NOT make cable and satellite bills go down. In fact, I guarantee they'll go way up...and everyone will be screaming at John Dingle to do something. At which point, he'll probably ask who the idiot was who pushed a la carte on everyone was.

Re:Go congress! (did I just say that?)

[Sandbags]

Actually, its for exactly your reasoning that cable companies would be loosing money under this idea. Networks price channel packages to cable companies based on the cable operator's subscriber base and demographics (how many people are likely to watch NBC for instance). If some of those people choose not to get some of the chanels in that package, Time Warner is still bound to pay NBC for the base total.

the up side is TWC does not have to offer the channels to me individually. they're allowed to offer packages. The price of each chanel in the package has to add up to the total price of the package. They don't state what chanels must go into each package, or what price they have to assign to it. They could put the 10 most popular chanels together in a package for $40, and most people would want every one of those chanels at $4 each. The "fluff" chanels would be in smaller packages of a couple of bucks each, with 1-2 good channels in each one being 90% of the package price. If they do the math right, they shuold be able to pick out channel offerings that cost the average american MORE money to get similar channel offerings. The problem will be the poor and lower class who will go with digitally broadcast (free) local TV and only the cheap add-ons. the rest of us wil;l have to compensate the cable companies losses on those people.

Of course, in addition to channel line-up pricing, they do have a few extra tools: Set top box pricing can increase, basic connection service fees can be added (or be justified as a "minimum subscription fee"), VoD (start-over) options don't have to be free anymore, DVR package price can be increased, they'll find ways to screw us. They'll scream about profits being lost, and they'll get congress to approve a raise in prices as a proactive measure, then you just wait and see their record profits roll in...

Congress turns up heat?

[Meor]

Saying congress is turning up the heat on the FCC is like saying Chaney is turning up the heat on Bush to get out of Iraq. They serve the same agenda and they're not looking out for the people.

Nothing short of removing power from both congress and the FCC will keep these jokers from leeching from the public.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[nonsequitor]

Not quite. Obviously the FCC is stepping on quite a few toes with the Comcast traffic forgery fiasco. I wonder how much it costs to use Congress to "turn up the heat" on something. The FCC Chairman is not an elected official so its a lot harder to purchase the rulings you want out of him. It only make sense that Comcast found it easier to buy some Congressmen.

I bet if you examine how these politicians' next campaigns are financed you'll find the money trail back to Comcast.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[dgatwood]

Yeah, this is a really rather disturbing abuse of Congress's oversight authority. For the first time since I was born, we finally have an FCC Chairman who actually stands up for the general public. What happens? Republicans and Democrats freak out because serving the public interest is not in the interest of either party. God forbid that the FCC Chairman might actually do his job and regulate scarce resources in a way that promotes fairness and equal access, provides maximum public utility, and preserves the viability of those resources for future generations....

Some of the things this Chairman has done include:

• Standing up to Comcast for their egregious abuse of the TCP/IP protocol to cause downloads to disconnect after a few seconds. This breaks lots of protocols, not just BitTorrent.
• Standing up to cable companies and satellite providers, pushing for a la carte availability of channels.
• Removing antiquated ownership rules whose only effect in a modern, online world is to drive ailing newspapers out of business for lack of the abilitty to consolidate with anyone.
• Taking a stand in favor of network neutrality, ensuring that ISPs can't hold the traffic of clients of other ISPs hostage and ensuring that providers cannot give preferential treatment to their own VoIP services over those of their competitors.

I'm sure there are others. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Bush actually got something right. Judging by the backlash from Republicans, I'm assuming it was an error on his part, but still, we as a community need to rally behind this guy.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[Meor]

Major corporations are always in the pockets of Congress and it'll always be that way. People are blind, they call congress corrupt and then expect them to eliminate corruption in another government organization. The American people are getting played from both sides down the middle; half don't know it, 1/3 don't care, and the rest don't know what to do about it.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[TheCRAIGGERS]

Just out of curiosity, why do you say it's "harder to purchase the rulings you want" out of people that aren't elected? Just like sales people from vendors that take me out to lunch and offer free game tickets and mugs and pens and vacations and all kinds of other crap. In politics it's called "contributions." In sales it's called "gifts."

Actually, it seems like it would be easier to have somebody that's not elected bought, since politicians have to publicly show who is giving them money.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[sumdumass]

Don't forget, it is approaching a major election year. Many of the republicans will be attempting to distance themselves from Bush while some will be trying to imitate democrats to get reelected. This doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't an accident, but it shed some different light on the topic.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is a really rather disturbing abuse of Congress's oversight authority.
This is akin to your boss asking you what you have been doing on company time.

Worse than Congress meddling when the FCC is doing a fine job is an FCC that does not answer to Congress at all.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[nonsequitor]

Do you remember grade school civics? Its the same reason that Judges are not elected. The FCC Chairman serves at the pleasure of President Bush. He doesn't have to worry about politics, therefore he is less susceptible to influence than our elected officials. Elected officials have to worry about people funding their competitors or throwing money at smear campaigns in retribution for unfavorable actions.

His finances may be under less scrutiny, but that sort of corruption would be criminal for both parties. These companies own the law makers fair and square without breaking any laws.

Re:Congress turns up heat?

[dgatwood]

No, it's a stalling tactic. It is akin to your boss asking you to print out a copy of every email correspondence you've sent along with a copy of every project you've worked on, then compile a list of everything you've done accounting for every minute of your time over the past six months. If my boss ever asks me to do that, I'll find another job; if most of the time at my job were spent accounting for what I did with my time, my time would be better spent doing something else, as it's not like I'd be getting anything done for that employer anyway....

How it reads to me...

[Kazrath]

Comcast & other big media could not fully corrupt the FCC into doing what they want but with greater power comes greater corruption and congress turned out to be easier.

Re:How it reads to me...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

Money is the ultimate mover and shaker in DC, as Gov Spitzer as proven this week .

LOL

Re:How it reads to me...

[Captain Splendid]

Sex is the ultimate mover and shaker in DC, as Gov Spitzer as proven this week .

Fixed that for you.

Re:How it reads to me...

[orclevegam]

Sex is the ultimate mover and shaker in DC, as Gov Spitzer as proven this week .

Fixed that for you. With money you can buy sex, so it's still all about the money.

Re:How it reads to me...

[Captain Splendid]

With money you can buy sex, so it's still all about the money.

Feh, that may be alright for the second raters, but a true smoothie uses whatever power and juice he has to get the sex, not pay for it. It's still about the sex, money's just the conduit for those without charm and skill.

Re:How it reads to me...

[bangwhistle]

I read it the other way- that the FCC is not adequately serving its employer (the American people) so Congress, which sometimes DOES serve the will of the people (aka pandering in an election year) is stepping in (though to me the laundry list of points of contention could be viewed as both pro- and anti- industry).

I have no doubts the cable companies can figure out how to implement ala carte. Hell, they'll turn it to their advantage and set pricing structures that will make really nice lemonade out of the FCC lemons.

Re:How it reads to me...

[edwdig]

The sex wasn't the problem with Spitzer. If there was no money involved it would've been news for a while but after that the only people who cared would be Republicans looking for an excuse to hate him.

Re:How it reads to me...

[Gogo0]

you mean like larry craig? no money, just sex and lots of news coverage.
or do you mean like william jefferson, where there was a lot of money, no sex, and little coverage?

Re:How it reads to me...

[dave562]

Or conversely, charm and skill are for those with more time than money. Some of the smoothest talkers I've ever known have been broke bastards with all sorts of free time on their hands. They learned to be smooth talkers out of necessity so that they could charm their way into womens pants and onto the couches of their friends once the women realize that they aren't exclusive.

Re:How it reads to me...

[chortick]

With apologies to Humbert Wolfe:

You cannot hope to bribe or sway,
The Congress of the U.S.A.
But given what this lot will do
Un-bribed, there's no occasion to.

Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Jane Q. Public]

Comcast deserves all the examination it has gotten, and more. They have been terrible.

And "a la carte" cable is the obvious and fair thing to do. The claims of "undue burden" and "technically infeasible" are just so much crap. If they have the tecnical capability to do "On Demand", then they have the technical capability to do a la carte. Q.E.D.

Plain and simple: they just don't want to. Because then they can't charge exhorbitant rates for their bundled "packages".

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[w.p.richardson]

I thought the packages were set up to cover the high cost of certain channels, e.g., ESPN. I mean, in addition to being designed to fuck over subscribers.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Comcast is only a symptom. Comcast would not be able to get away with what it currently can if not for the local monopolies handed to it by the government. The company has manipulated the government to avoid upgrading their lines to actually handle the bandwidth they claim to their customers.

"Comcast deserves all the examination it has gotten, and more. They have been terrible."

The real problem, though, is that the government is able to impose such monopolies on us. It's pointless to go after companies as they become problems, because these companies will continue to spring up. The effective approach is to stop the problem at the source: get politics out of money. Don't permit legislation that creates monopolies and destroys competition. Trash these FCC regulations, and the market will take care of itself. People will have choices, and companies will have to compete to offer what people want at the lowest price possible. And idiotic situations such as the one we currently find ourselves in will not be able to thrive.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Captain Splendid]

That may be true, but why does the consumer have to pay for it? Either ESPN (or whoever) lowers their prices to be competitive, or understands that for that kind of pricing, they'll have less orders.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know first hand it is BS. I can program my Rom103 card with any tiers I want. I can add channels into the tiers or remove channels. Some tiers are on a package basis like showtime and whatnot, but for the most part doing a la carte is easy. They just don't want to do it because it will cost them a lot of money. If it means that their margins decrease then "it is impossible."

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[smooth wombat]

I thought the packages were set up to cover the high cost of certain channels, e.g., ESPN.

That may or may not be correct but I distinctly remember reading a comment last year on this subject. Essentially, it's not that the cable providers (Comcast, Time Warner, etc) don't want to offer ala carte (despite their protestations that they can't technically do it) but rather it is the Viacoms and other programmers who won't let it happen.

If you, as Comcast, want to provide your butt fucks (er, subscribers) with ABC, you have to also carry ESPN, Disney and all other ABC related channels because that is what the programmers are offering. It's an all-or-nothing deal.

I distinctly remember last year there was a blow-up between Charter and the NFL network. Rather than rehash what my memory thinks happened, here is a discussion board which outlines what happened and the money that was involved.

Viacom et al do the same thing with all the packages that cable providers have. So yes, your original comment is correct but there is more to it.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Fatal67]

You are incorrect.

Cable companies will make a lot more money just adding their 10% or whatever it is on a per channel basis in stead of the discounted bundled rate.

Your bundled rate might include 34 bucks right now for espn, but when you try to order it by itself, it will be closer to 7, and won't incluse the other ESPN packages. Comcast, and any other provider won;t hurt. They will still make their money.

Some stations will go out of business due to them being ethnic or niche programming, but that's really as it should be. The programmers will make less money overall, but more money per subscriber. The provider (comcast) will still make their margin on every feed they sell, even more so, because the base cost of the feed will go up. 10% of 2.00 is more than 10% of 35 cents. So instead of 150 channels, 125 which are junk, for the same price you will be able to pick your 20 channels you want. It will cost you more for less, but at least you get to choose. You just will have a lot less to choose from.

I work in the cable industry and I PRAY for ala carte.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Abcd1234]

. The effective approach is to stop the problem at the source: get politics out of money. Don't permit legislation that creates monopolies and destroys competition. Trash these FCC regulations, and the market will take care of itself.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh god, that's good... so idealistic, it's kinda cute.

Never heard of a natural monopoly, huh? Or barriers to entry? I can only assume not, since most libertarian idealists have to pretend these things don't exist in order to maintain their illusions.

See, content delivery is very expensive. It requires laying wires in the ground, ground that you have to gain access to. Back in the day, utilities got access to public easements, and so their job was made a lot easier... because of government regulation. Without that regulation, it's basically impossible to lay new lines, and even if you could get permission from landowners, it would be so wildly expensive that it would cost billions upon billions to achieve (as Verizon has demonstrated). Consequently, all but the most moneyed interests can even get in the game.

So, no, the industry will *not* magically regulate itself. In the absence of regulation, you'd see mergers collapse the few players down into just a tiny handful of monopolies (not unlike today), and since no one would be able to afford to build out new infrastructure, no competition would spring up.

And no, wireless doesn't solve this problem. You still need a) the technology in the first place, b) the public easements to put up cell towers, and c) the money to roll out the infrastructure, and the only people who'll be able to afford this are the big players who're already trying to monopolize the industry.

Honestly, do you libertarians willfully blind yourselves to market realities, or are you really just that naive?

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[rhizome]

Either ESPN (or whoever) lowers their prices to be competitive, or understands that for that kind of pricing, they'll have less orders.

There is a situation you have failed to consider: the cable providers are actually paying ESPN to carry their channels for the privilege of making money off the advertising on those channels. This is the stumbling block for a la carte: Comcast needs all of their customers to take these channels to defray the fees they pay to carry them, that's why ESPN is always in the basic packages.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

No, monopolies only exist because of government interference in the market place, without exception. Government regulation *requires* that consumers be shackled to corporate tentacles, such as in the form of power lines and cable lines.

Homeowners could have easily paid market rate for power grid connector nodes, cable nodes that connect just like plumbing to a centralized neighborhood or city node, at which point businesses can compete to connect to that node and deliver. Thus, many individual companies could compete to deliver content/power while taking on the servicing of individual user lines as part of the service contract. Government kickbacks, bribery by corporations, resulted in government interference in the free market and the resulting corporate monopolies. And as the private home owners all paid for their "last mile" lines when their homes were built (with switches that can allow an infinite number of possible companies to hook their lines individually to all choices of consumer lines) the bargaining power and incentives for competition would constantly grow with more infrastructure rather than shrink the way it does now.

Power never had to be delivered by tentacles tied between consumers users and corporate deliverers. Giant batteries could have easily been recharged at competitive power stations similar to where gas is bought, or it could have been serviced and billed like private corporation garbage pick up. And it likely would be a helluva lot cheaper to not have to maintain thousands of miles of lines as well (not to mention far more terrorist and hacker proof as it was decentralized). The lines are only there so corporations can charge monopoly rates because government regulations required power to be delivered that way.

If you socialists would drop your outdated government interference ideology, which by definition causes poverty through higher prices and lower quality at every instance of interference with free trade, we could work to dissolve the government interference in the free market which is granting corporate monopolies.

Any other government monopolies or interferences in the free market you need me to solve, such as government interference in the health care and education markets resulting in ever higher prices and lagging quality?

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[Captain Splendid]

No I understand perfectly. And the fact remains that if weren't for this protectionist system in place, ESPN would quickly realize they're pricing themselves out of the market.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[dave562]

You're coming across as pretty delusional. So in this world of yours where everyone can provide the service, how does that work? Every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to be a content provider has to run their own network into the major studios? Maybe they can use the internet... but then who owns that? Maybe we can have twenty million different, parallel networks so that people can have some choice. Where are things going to homerun into? You can't use the CO up the street because it belongs to the local telco, so you have to build your own central office. So does Tom. So does Harry. What's the deal with sewers? Maybe everyone can just go ahead and dig up the street whenever they need to upgrade their infrastructure, which pretty much means the streets will always be dug up because of all the parallel infrastructure. Or maybe, there won't be any need for sewers because there won't be any stinky shit being peddled?

On one hand you talk about people having choice in "power grid connector nodes", but you conveniently leave out who is supposed to own the power grid in the first place. Who is supposed to build the infrastructure? If I already have power, why do I want you to have power? Maybe you can pay me enough to give you some power. Maybe I decide that you couldn't ever offer me enough for the power that I have. Then what? You go build your own power infrastructure?

It's really easy to stand up on a soap box and decry government regulation long after that regulation has gotten things to the point where they are at. I think you have to be pretty naive to believe that we'd be where we are today if the government hadn't had a guiding hand in the process. I'm all for shrinking the size of government, but the reality of the situation is that human beings are naturally inclined to build and horde power of all kinds. Without the government there to establish some framework, people simply won't work together and the biggest, strongest, best positioned bully will control all of the resources. If you want to see a true lack of central government, take a trip to Somalia some time. Those warlords are pretty monopolistic, and I'm willing to bet that the central government didn't get together and vote on how much power to give them.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[mabhatter654]

exactly, the cable companies are just middlemen. They are being arm-twisted to bundle by the higher ups. If Viacom or NBC/Universal wants 5 channels of space for advertising, they'll bundle those with something really popular and say air all of them or none. I suppose it also helps to server lesser meet markets... would you buy Home and Garden? Would the football jocks buy SciFi. Without the "socialized" pay for the lesser channels they wouldn't drive enough ads to support themselves.... or rather, the 3-4 big networks would be back to 15 again with lots of niche markets but would cable companies put YOUR shows on a channel if they don't get ad money? Your cable/Dish bill pays for the wire, not the actual content.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[dave562]

Here's an article from Market Watch about Paulson's comments on the consiquences of deregulation in the financial markets.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/paulsons-lament-deregulation-has-been/story.aspx?guid=%7B4AEF15AC-3966-4656-8108-C96712A88D68%7D

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[r_jensen11]

That may be true, but why does the consumer have to pay for it? Either ESPN (or whoever) lowers their prices to be competitive, or understands that for that kind of pricing, they'll have less orders. Or, consumers could say "Hey, I really want ESPN, so I'm willing to pay more for that than the Golf Channel."

People are willing to pay a premium (or differential price) for channels like HBO. What makes you think it would be any different for other channels? I know I'd be willing to pay more for ESPN than whatever the average charge per channel is for standard cable. Why? Because I'm not going to lease Lifetime, Lifetime Movies, Oxygen, any religious channels, Style, Hallmark, or anything else that doesn't interest me. Instead, I would choose ESPN, ESPN2, MTVHD (since it appears to be the only MTV that plays a diverse range of music videos instead their reality TV crap), Comedy Central, Spike, AMC, TBS, BBC America, and HBO. Oh yeah, I'd also get the Big 10 Network. With that combination, I'll have all of the sports I care about from EPSN* and TBS, music videos and concerts from MTVHD, the Daily Show & Colbert Report from Comedy Central, 007 Marathons and MXC from Spike, and great programs from HBO, the BBC, and AMC. I know, for a fact, that if priced with reasonable premiums, that this would cost less than the $40-50 that standard cable costs.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[BooRolla]

I wish I had mod points to give to sibling poster, but come on. It's ludicrous to believe that as long as content and wiring are allowed to exist as one company that competition can exist between cable/phone/other network providers.

The problem is that cables have to be installed and maintained. There will not be the infinite number of producers (or anywhere near it) necessary to have a free market when those barriers to entry exist. 1) It's a large capital expense and 2) No one wants roads, lawns, or anything else in the way to be torn up by N different network providers.

I mean how hard is it to get RADIO ANTENNAS up in some areas for better cell phone coverage. People actively fight them being put up with a NIMBY attitude. You think they are going to accept their lawn being ripped to shreds whenever a new carrier comes in town? And if they aren't accepting of it, WHY WOULD A NEW CARRIER COME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD?

Idealistically, FCC would grow a pair and rip "wire operators*" away from "content providers." Content providers sell us the service (TV, internet, whatever) and the wire operators* maintain the lines. Completely distinct companies without mixed interests. Only then can you have the competition and only between the content providers (which is what you ultimately care about anyway).

*Called such because with all the subsidies Americans have provided since forever, the lines really should belong to the people. After all, we paid for them.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[NeutronCowboy]

First I thought I'd reply to your wildly ignorant statement that "monopolies only exist because of government interference in the market place, without exception." in an rational manner. Then I read your statement "Any other government monopolies or interferences in the free market you need me to solve?" and realized that you are simply delusional.

Here's a simple question for you to answer: would you rather buy a house that comes with power pre-attached, or would you rather buy a house, buy a connector, wait for others to buy similar connectors, wait for someone to determine that there's enough of a market there to service you and your neighborhood, then build the power infrastructure necessary to deliver that power to you? Actually, let me answer this question for you, as you've obviously never dealt with this question: No, you wouldn't. And no one else would. Instead, everyone else would much rather plug into the central electrical system that started when power plants had to be centrally located, and where economies of scale and ownership of lines created natural monopolies almost immediately.

Seriously. Move out of your bedroom in your parents' house, and start sniffing the real world. The only thing good I can get from your misinformed rant is that you're likely to vote for Ron Paul on consistent basis, and therefore will be unable to influence anything.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[maxume]

What exactly is it about the government imposed monopoly that is preventing your giant battery scenario? Are the giant battery capitalists unable to build their own power stations(or for that matter, buy power off the grid), are they unable to buy batteries, are they unable to interface with standard household electrical systems? Is it just a stupid idea?

And don't misunderstand, I think markets are a great way of allocating things, and I think that regulation is often bad. I just don't think it is necessarily bad.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

Maybe we can have twenty million different, parallel networks so that people can have some choice. Where are things going to homerun into? You can't use the CO up the street because it belongs to the local telco, so you have to build your own central office. No, there would only be one network that anyone and everyone could connect into. The "last mile" would be privately owned by every consumer in exactly the same way every suburban house with a drive way owns their own drive way. You are free to contract with all sorts of businesses to connect their services up to and on your drive way. Internet delivery would be absolutely no different. Every house on a block connects to a node, every block in a subdivision connects to a node, every subdivision in a town connects to a node. Internet service providers can build their own private cables to connect to the privately owned cables owned by consumers. And every consumer can contract with a different service provider that connects into the network, and contracts to service the lines of their individual customers as needed. As the network grows and becomes bigger, there's ever more incentive for further future competition, simply because all "last mile" connections are privately owned.

Who is supposed to build the infrastructure? If I already have power, why do I want you to have power? Take a look a gas stations sprawled across the country. There's a perfect free market solution to all power needs. The power station can sell efficient recyclable fuel cell generators which on average cover a month of typical power usage. If you need more, you can buy bigger or buy more. If you need less you can buy less or buy smaller. We don't see Gasoline Pipes connected to every house with a tap on the outside of the house to fill your car, now do we? And there aren't Tubes connected to houses to deliver every consumer item, such as food and furniture. That would be a ridiculous waste of unnecessary infrastructure. It's far simpler and efficient for people to go out and buy their stuff from competitive grocery stores and drive it back home themselves or have it delivered by the store. This model can work for everything which is currently tied by cable and wire tentacles to monopoly corporations.

It's really easy to stand up on a soap box and decry government regulation long after that regulation has gotten things to the point where they are at. You mean a mess of inefficient high priced low quality monopoly services?

I'm all for shrinking the size of government, but the reality of the situation is that human beings are naturally inclined to build and horde power of all kinds. Without the government there to establish some framework, people simply won't work together and the biggest, strongest, best positioned bully will control all of the resources. So Bill Gates goes into the local grocery stores, buys all the food, and Seattle starves to death? Bill Gates couldn't afford to even buy as small a piece of land as Manhattan. There's no reason to horde when there's abundance. Do you buy 100 laptops for your personal use? And we have an abundance of energy, water, food, and building materials that can be delivered much more efficiently by expanding the power of the free market, and dissolving government monopolies where it's feasible and by definition increases net society wealth (thus paying for itself). Water companies, natural gas companies, cable companies, power companies, can be made to over competitive services simply by privatizing the "last mile" for all tubes, pipes, wires, cables. We didn't need government to falsely justify continuing bribery payoffs under the guise of infrastructure incentives which would have existed regardless of government interference.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

Here's a simple question for you to answer: would you rather buy a house that comes with power pre-attached, or would you rather buy a house, buy a connector, wait for others to buy similar connectors, wait for someone to determine that there's enough of a market there to service you and your neighborhood, then build the power infrastructure necessary to deliver that power to you? People started off providing their own power by chopping their own wood. Companies could and did deliver fire wood. They didn't build monopoly tentacle tubes to deliver pieces of firewood to individual consumer residences. It was purely because of government interference that a monopoly tentacle system was built rather than a private evolving network of (real) tubes, pipes, cables, wires. Governments got paid and bamboozled their citizens into thinking they were getting something they wouldn't have gotten anyway, for much cheaper and higher quality. And then politicians have a source of power along with the corporations; and they control people.

The Houses would have been built with all necessary "last mile" connectors, no matter whether it was a tube, a pipe, a wire, or a cable. And you could even today have ordered your power from Green Sources. Subdivision construction teams would have built all the necessary infrastructure in exactly the same way as houses are built with wires and plumbing in the walls.

And no one else would. Instead, everyone else would much rather plug into the central electrical system that started when power plants had to be centrally located, and where economies of scale and ownership of lines created natural monopolies almost immediately. No, they were wholly artificial government created monopolies caused by government interference in the free market, where government usurped choices away from individuals and granted monopolies to power companies. Politicians got paid by corporate bribes and elected by fooled citizens who thought they were getting something (not knowing it was far worse in terms of pricing and quality than what would have evolved in a free market).

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

What exactly is it about the government imposed monopoly that is preventing your giant battery scenario? Are the giant battery capitalists unable to build their own power stations(or for that matter, buy power off the grid), are they unable to buy batteries, are they unable to interface with standard household electrical systems? Is it just a stupid idea? Well this would probably make for a masterpiece work on the economic evolution of power networks in the 19th and 20th centuries, but government mandates by law specific companies who may provide power and the method by which they may provide power. It's regulated. Why would companies who were granted tentacles monopolies to gouge want to compete on a free market? Why would governments who get power and money from tentacle monopolies want there to be free market competition?

We could ask physicists and electrical engineers about the efficiency of energy delivery by cables. We could ask economists about the economic efficiency of building and maintaining underground and overground wire tentacles. If it's so efficient then why isn't Gasoline pumped by tube into every Garage or Gas Station? Why aren't exclusive monopoly State Grocery Stores the sole procurers and deliverers of food? And when is the last time you saw a real time price meter for those power commodities the way you do for gasoline?

A Power Grid system where none of the pieces of the grid are privately owned benefits politicians and corporations at the expense of consumers. Government grants the monopoly, exactly as they did for Railroads and land grants in the 19th century, creating the Robber Barons. It's the exact same old scam of creating a monopoly that gives political power to politicians and corporations, the aristocracy. The death of AOL was the first "tube" battle victory for consumers in centuries.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[maxume]

You still haven't explained what it is about the current regulatory environment that is stopping a motivated capitalist from distributing power in giant batteries.

My personal speculation would be that it would be a great deal more expensive than the government imposed status quo, so no one is bothering. As far as the power distribution stuff, I'm pretty sure that private companies are perfectly capable of negotiating easements and building redundant power lines and power plants, but they simply don't because the number of people that would switch over to their system would never be justified by the increases in efficiency that they would expect.

Here's a thought. Milton Friedman is certainly smarter than I am, and there is at least a chance he is smarter than you are, and he is a huge advocate of free markets(and among the most highly credible), and he still believed in some government intervention.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[NeutronCowboy]

You do realize that merely repeating something false doesn't make it true, right? The first tentacle system was private. Look up the transition from steam to electric power.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

Oh sure, it was "privately" owned by corporations, without any piece of the network, the "last mile", being privately owned by consumers. Individual consumers were denied such license, couldn't compete with the government interference subsidies given to the monopoly corporations. The government didn't give every citizen land grants to build a railroad infrastructure either in the 19th century. They created Robber Barons to confiscate public and private land to build a monopoly railroad network. This gave politicians money and power to go along with the money and power bequeathed to monopoly corporations.

Once you understand this, Congressmen referring to the internet as "a series of tubes" makes perfect sense. It was supposed to be the latest example of monopoly tentacles giving power and money to politicians and corporations.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

You still haven't explained what it is about the current regulatory environment that is stopping a motivated capitalist from distributing power in giant batteries. Don't think the tentacle line network isn't subsidized. Who knows, this could be a business opportunity to be the next Exxon or Marathon.

My personal speculation would be that it would be a great deal more expensive than the government imposed status quo, so no one is bothering. I highly doubt it. If that was true, it should be in the gasoline companies interest to get rid of their entire tanker fleet and truck drivers, and build tubes to deliver gasoline to every single gas station or every single residence.

As far as the power distribution stuff, I'm pretty sure that private companies are perfectly capable of negotiating easements and building redundant power lines and power plants, but they simply don't because the number of people that would switch over to their system would never be justified by the increases in efficiency that they would expect. That's solely because the network delivery infrastructure was built under a subsidized monopoly grant model. If every end consumer owned their "last mile" of pipe new competition could constantly enter the market merely by building a new power plant factory and hooking up that power plant factory to the consumer privately owned network. They would deliver power and maintenance service the private pipes. You see this at many colleges and universities which have their own power plants and infrastructure. So people would switch into competing infrastructure systems, companies would switch into competing on privately consumer owned infrastructure systems. The People can confiscate and privatize these current networks, as the monopoly corporations have already reaped many time the cost of subsidized infrastructure investment. This would bring about true market competition in areas that are highly monopolized; and we would see vast improvements in price, quality, and service.

Government shouldn't intervene for the sake of intervening. Anytime we can show by reason and economic analysis a solid justification to let free trade occur, government interference should be reduced, as it leads to a net wealthier society with more competition, lower prices, and higher quality.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[maxume]

A pipe and a wire aren't the same thing. Among other things, a broken power line presents a small local problem with few long term consequences, whereas a broken pipe presents a much larger problem, as it dumps pollution directly into the environment, and exposes the entire segment of pipe to fire risks. Also, you can nearly instantly take nearly all the energy out of an electrical grid of arbitrary size, something that isn't at all possible with fluid fuels. The electric analog of 'pumping losses' is such that you don't need to put booster pumps in all over the place. It's not a good analogy.

Also, much of the time, universities own their power plants because, in combination, they control enough facilities to make waste steam heat highly attractive, have irregular power needs for research, and find them useful for teaching.

As far as showing solid justification by reason and economic analysis, we wait with baited breath.

Re:Persecution of those who deserve it? Oh My!

[monxrtr]

A pipe and a wire aren't the same thing. Among other things, a broken power line presents a small local problem with few long term consequences, whereas a broken pipe presents a much larger problem, as it dumps pollution directly into the environment, and exposes the entire segment of pipe to fire risks. All the more reason not to have a centralized government monopoly created pipe system. And indeed, natural gas is delivered by such a pipe system, and we occasionally hear stories of pipes and houses blowing up. With a consumer privatized "last mile" pipe system, any number of companies can connect into to the network at any number of random divisional node entry points. A network is a network, whether it's pipes, wires, tubes, or cables -- the principles of economic delivery will hold for them all.

And there are massive security risks from a centralized grid power system. We've seen massive power outages encompassing 25% of North America. Whole neighborhoods routinely lose power during storms. This wouldn't happen if power was decentralized and shipped to individual customers in commoditized storage units.

But city politicians needed to pay off unionized construction voters with make work projects of massively inefficient digging up of streets and erecting of tentacles of utility control. That gasoline isn't delivered by pipe shows that it's far cheaper and safer to not undertake a tentacle monopolized network system. They say the internet "routes around censored control like it was damage". Local power companies and other utility providers damage whole cities, and even States like California, to lock out competition.

Also, you can nearly instantly take nearly all the energy out of an electrical grid of arbitrary size, something that isn't at all possible with fluid fuels. Hence more centralized control, ala Total Recall air pumping style. And we still hear of people being electrocuted by downed power lines. And natural gas *is* a flammable fluid fuel.

It's centralized governments designing cities like they were building defenses for ancient siege warfare, copying the Roman plumbing and aqueduct systems, along with the never old Mafioso skims and control of the populations living in cities. And government already harnesses fear of terrorist attacks on those systems. It's real easy to build switches anywhere along power and internet line and cable systems. And switches exist in the plumbing system as well. There's no good reason to let one monopoly corporation or local government manage those systems. The socialists and government intervention oligarchs had centuries of continually getting it wrong with massive amounts of citizen dissatisfaction for the majority of utility customers (all the while erroneously blaming "the market" for ideological purposes of seizing further centralized power and functions -- see the push for universal health care). They're getting crappy service and price gouged, not by free market corporations, but by government granted monopolies to corporations in exchange for a sharing of the power and wealth kickbacks.

The costs of inefficient utility infrastructure are outsourced and hidden in the form of corporate profits, themselves obscured by funky accounting of costs and inflated management salaries. But the fact that gasoline isn't delivered by pipe should make us highly suspicious that such a tentacle infrastructure delivery system is massively economically inefficient. And it will get ever more so inefficient as technology innovates better decentralized storage and delivery mechanisms.

Moot controversy?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

How many people in the US still rely solely on newspapers for their news? If the point of this cross-ownership restriction is to prevent manipulation of the media, the manipulation will be restricted to the media under the company's ownership. Once people realize the company is feeding them bad information (which they can more and more easily accomplish thanks to the internet), the company will get a bad image and be rejected by willing individuals. A newspaper is only as strong as its readership base.

Remind me again where the problem is?

Re:Moot controversy?

[amplt1337]

A newspaper is only as strong as its readership base.

Remind me again where the problem is?

It's in the readership base -- when was the last time the average American actually looked at (say) a foreign newspaper? Let alone a foreign-language one.

That said, there's no reason for the FCC to go out of their way to enable Information Domination. And do you seriously think that any of these companies would be happy to leave the Internet as an unsullied source of pure truth from outside their grip? No, they'll try to monetize that, and (as collateral damage) limit citizens' access to external sources of information. Not out of a Vast Conspiracy necessarily, but when your business model is predicated on grabbing as many eyeballs as possible, you don't want them looking at other networks, ja?

Re:Moot controversy?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"That said, there's no reason for the FCC to go out of their way to enable Information Domination."

The FCC does what it does because its members are influenced by friends and financiers. The reason I have only one cable choice in my area is due to government interference.

"No, they'll try to monetize that, and (as collateral damage) limit citizens' access to external sources of information."

How exactly can a company with no political influence be able to limit my access to anything? It is only because politics (laws, regulations) are tied to money (donations from companies) are they able to restrict my access. If the local newspaper refuses to print news from outside the city, I will drop them and subscribe to another paper offering more news. I will tell my friends and neighbors to do the same, and they will willingly choose to either keep or drop their subscription as well.

Re:Moot controversy?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The reason I have [deleted: only] one cable choice in my area is due to government interference.

You really think any private enterprise could arrange for the right of ways without governemnt interference? Or, if you are in a rural area, that it is cost effective to run a wire to you and maintain it?

If the local newspaper refuses to print news from outside the city, I will drop them and subscribe to another paper offering more news

Really? How many papers do you have where you live. Most major cities seem to have only one real option. Washington has two (I hear). New York has a couple of good ones. But I've only really heard of one in LA, and everywhere else I can think of. I suppose you can grab a paper from a different city, but you miss out on a lot of local news.

Re:Moot controversy?

[amplt1337]

The FCC does what it does because its members are influenced by friends and financiers.
Sorry, I think you missed my point -- there's no reason that we should encourage the FCC to go out of its way to make media consolidation a reality.
As to whether a hundred flowers would bloom in the absence of "natural monopoly" rulings, I respect the logic of your position, but I think it's naive about the power of an entrenched going concern which owns the wires.

It is only because politics (laws, regulations) are tied to money (donations from companies) are they able to restrict my access. If the local newspaper refuses to print news from outside the city, I will drop them and subscribe to another paper offering more news. I will tell my friends and neighbors to do the same, and they will willingly choose to either keep or drop their subscription as well.

No, really it's just the money. If they own every local newspaper and all the ones outside the city (or their equivalents do), then you're hosed; your dollar vote goes to Kodos or to Kang. The "I'll choose the other guy" response is how it's supposed to work, idealistically; unfortunately the reality is that finding your trustworthy independent news source is very difficult, and finding it in a conventional print or televised medium is approaching impossible.*

And in a world without Net Neutrality, when Comcast owns your cable access, your internet access, your local newspaper, and half the national newspapers, you will surf the websites Comcast has a stake in. Not because they desire to be totalitarian overlords (though I guess it's a perk), but because they desire to make a buck off everything that you do.

* This is the problem with libertarianism generally. Yes, private enterprise and competition are supposed to ensure these things don't happen; but initial imbalances enable firms to snowball their existing success, to the point that they approach and surpass governments in their power to dick with individual liberties. It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice it just can't hold up with the cheaters.

Re:Moot controversy?

[amplt1337]

New York has a couple of good ones.

Hrm... actually we have the Times (mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie -- have you /read/ the articles in their lifestyle section? -- but generally okay), the NY Post and Daily News (tabloid rags = good sports coverage and funny headlines), the Village Voice (your local conglomerate-owned "Independent"), a couple free dailies that basically reprint the AP feed, and some local micropapers dedicated to highly specific segments (e.g. the Amsterdam News for Black issues). If we're considered good, the rest of you guys must be /really/ screwed.

Re:Moot controversy?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"You really think any private enterprise could arrange for the right of ways without government interference?"

They would want to because there would be demand for it. People want the internet, and companies want profits. It is only when you politically force the market to give people only one choice that companies are able to keep prices high and make ridiculous restrictions to save their asses. Given the choice between a company blocking P2P and one allowing it, I would choose the latter and influence my friends/family/coworkers to do the same. We don't have that choice. Why do you believe that the reason you only have one company to choose from in your area is only the fault of the company?

"Really? How many papers do you have where you live. Most major cities seem to have only one real option."

That is a false analogy. The reason the number of local newspapers has gone down is because more and more people have been getting their news from radio (80+ years), television (60+ years), and most importantly today, the internet. That is an example of the market in action. People want their news in a more convenient way and are shifting their funding to these other media. Local newspapers have adapted to the changing market by creating ad-supported websites offering local news. I see no monopoly here.

With that said, in my area we have larger newspapers, and smaller ones, and ones that are free but supported through advertisements. And if I want, I can have one from another city delivered to my doorstep, as you admitted.

Re:Moot controversy?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"I think it's naive about the power of an entrenched going concern which owns the wires."

That may be. I was simply trying to show what the ultimate goal should look like, not necessarily how to get there.

"No, really it's just the money. If they own every local newspaper and all the ones outside the city (or their equivalents do), then you're hosed."

How? Once people realize they're being fed misinformation, demand will surge for a local paper with news closer to the truth, and individuals will see that demand and want to cash in on it. They will create new newspapers to fill that demand. The only thing that could stop that from happening is the barrel of a gun backed by a law. Such a law could not exist if politicians were unable to fulfill the demand among corrupt companies for the ability monopolize the public. These corrupt companies exist, and their demand exists, and politicians are filling the demand. Stop the supply, and the demand will starve to death.

"Your dollar vote goes to Kodos or to Kang. The "I'll choose the other guy" response is how it's supposed to work, idealistically; unfortunately the reality is that finding your trustworthy independent news source is very difficult, and finding it in a conventional print or televised medium is approaching impossible."

Once that "other guy" is found though, word will spread rapidly and the market will shift to support him. His job is maintained provided that he supplies what the public wants, and as long as they want the truth, he will want to give it to them.

"Yes, private enterprise and competition are supposed to ensure these things don't happen; but initial imbalances enable firms to snowball their existing success, to the point that they approach and surpass governments in their power to dick with individual liberties."

Again, you are not making sense. How can a company "dick with liberties" if they have no political power. They cannot physically hold you at gunpoint, because you could call the police - the enforcers maintaining your rights. Only when the government is open to financial manipulation can a company "dick with liberties" and get away with it.

Re:Moot controversy?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I know of and think the Times and WSJ are pretty good. Sometimes the WSJ editorials drive me crazy. And no, I never read any paper's lifestyle section (unless that is where that paper puts the comics.) I feel like there is a third one I am leaving out. I thought the Village Voice was considered good as well, but have never read it.

Oh, I have not read the WSJ since Murdock's acquisition, so maybe I'm living in the past.

Re:Moot controversy?

[chromatic]

Once people realize they're being fed misinformation, demand will surge for a local paper with news closer to the truth, and individuals will see that demand and want to cash in on it. They will create new newspapers to fill that demand. The only thing that could stop that from happening is the barrel of a gun backed by a law.

... or apathy, which explains why it hasn't happened much at all.

Re:Moot controversy?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Given the choice between a company blocking P2P and one allowing it, I would choose the latter and influence my friends/family/coworkers to do the same.

Given the choice between Natalie Portman and a sock, I would choose Natalie Portman. But since I don't have that choice, the point is moot.

Why do you believe that the reason you only have one company to choose from in your area is only the fault of the company?

Hell, at worst there is one cable monopoly and one phone monopoly. That is two companies. If you have fewer choices than that, it is for economic and not legal reasons. Two might not be enough, but if the market cannot support 2, how will it support X, X>2?

The reason the number of local newspapers has gone down is because more and more people have been getting their news from radio (80+ years), television (60+ years), and most importantly today, the internet... Local newspapers have adapted to the changing market by creating ad-supported websites offering local news.

But earlier you said that, " If the local newspaper refuses to print news from outside the city, I will drop them and subscribe to another paper offering more news." So the declining number of papers works against that.

You then claim to have a variety of papers. Where do you live, as I know of no place in the US (or the world, but that is likely ignorance) where many good papers compete?

Re:Moot controversy?

[amplt1337]

You know, I forgot about the WSJ. They're more of a national-financial paper though... but yeah, we have that too. Maybe you're thinking the Financial Times? I think they're NYC-based, though to be honest I've never read a copy.

Re:Moot controversy?

[amplt1337]

Once that "other guy" is found though, word will spread rapidly and the market will shift to support him. His job is maintained provided that he supplies what the public wants, and as long as they want the truth, he will want to give it to them.

*And* provided he can afford to supply it to them.
Someone attempting to start a truly independent paper providing "the truth" under those circumstances would need to charge an exorbitant amount per issue (or run an all-volunteer business -- not a model that tends to produce good results, judging from the examples of it I've seen in indy papers.) You'll have to win readership despite MedCorp's consistent smearing of your efforts as irrational rantings. Even then it would all last only until the place or its staff got bought out by MedCorp (unless you assume that the paper is being run by a fanatic who'll never sell, which doesn't bode well for its objectivity).

But look, that's just a rough sketch. The fact of the matter is, independent papers *are being* driven out of business -- indeed, mostly *have been* -- primarily through economic means. The marketplace has already rejected the better mousetrap (and we can mainly blame the readership for that).

How can a company "dick with liberties" if they have no political power. They cannot physically hold you at gunpoint, because you could call the police - the enforcers maintaining your rights.
The enforcers maintaining your rights, very narrowly defined (and surely even a Libertarian state could suffer from police corruption?). Certain demands cannot be affordably met if the power imbalance between suppliers is too great, but never mind that. Instead, consider researching the polluting effects of mining in Nevada and what they've done to the health and economic values of communities around them. But there's nothing to be done unless you establish legal limits on what another private actor can do with his own property.

But you could say, sure, health isn't a protected liberty; or perhaps you'll countenance laws governing the negative environmental impacts of a business on its community (though that's already a rare stance from a Libertarian perspective; smacks of gov't regulation and all). Suppose, then, that you want to put up a website talking about how the CEO of Warnercast (a fictitous monopolist ISP) is having an extramarital affair. Suddenly you can't find a hosting company, because nobody wants their hosting business torpedoed when their content gets blackballed. Okay, you set up your own webserver. Suddenly your internet access is cut off. Well that's fine, you can just... what? Buy and install your own entire Internet? You'll say "some competing internet provider will emerge to provide the services for me." Using what resources? Warnercast can buy out any attempts to get it started, by driving up the price of the land on which you'd lay your cable, say, or paying to drown out your broadband frequency, or any other number of methods. Because of the tremendous imbalance in economic power, it is very difficult -- probably impossible -- to provide an affordable alternative service, so even if the demand is there at a reasonable price, the monopolist can ensure that the price would have to be unreasonable.
In short, while your right of free speech still exists, you can be prevented from exercising that right in any kind of affordable fashion.

You would need a large-scale cooperative enterprise with central organization, willing to make economic sacrifices for the common good, in order to put together enough economic power to act as a counterweight to this. But that's just another way of saying you'd need a government... so if regulation did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Re:Moot controversy?

[xaxa]

The Financial Times is a London (UK) based business newspaper. Wikipedia says it's the only British paper to have a higher international readship than national readership, so I suppose it's more of an international paper. This is wonderfully irrelevant to the topic :-)

Re:Moot controversy?

[xaxa]

Maybe he lives in Britain. There's quite a few papers, these are the national ones I can think of (the main ones):
- The Times
- The Daily Telegraph
- The Independent
- The Guardian
- Daily Mail
- The Sun
- Financial Times
- Daily Express
- Daily Mirror
- News of the World
- Daily Star
Some are much better than others. The Sun has a nude woman on page three, and the Star has a nude women on every other page (and she probably wrote the articles too), but they're important in that a lot of people buy them, so they have political influence (over men, anyway!).

There's also The Metro (daily free paper, distributed at train/subway/bus stations in larger cities).

Most cities have a daily local paper, in London there's the Evening Standard (it's quite biased IMO). There's also some really crap free papers (The London Paper, London Lite, and another I can't remember), they're so bad that people are employed to stand outside stations in the evenings and push them into the hands of passers-by. Also The World (or something like that), which has an OK front page, but open it up and it's all pro-China propagenda. Then there's local papers for each area of London, probably about 30 of them (e.g. Camden Journal, Islington Times or something), these are pretty much equivalent to the free papers of smaller towns (The Economist is (IMO) one of the best sources for news, but it's only weekly. Private Eye is fun, if you get the humour (I only get some of it).

Re:Moot controversy?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Everything I know about papers in Britain, I learned from "Yes, Minister."

1. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
2. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
3. The Times is read by people who actually do run the country;
4. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
5. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
6. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
7. The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
8. Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Re:Moot controversy?

[xaxa]

A very accurate summary!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdMFRwztl4 (That quote.)

So if I'm getting this right

[milamber3]

Some of the congressmen think that he's making it too easy for the cable companies to make money by relaxing ownership rules and eliminating the a la carte initiative. While some other members think he's making it too hard for them to spoof customer packets and interfere with any and all traffic that they feel like. No matter if he goes easy or hard on them, it seems like someone is going to want his head. I kinda feel bad for him, then again I agree with the guys that question the a la carte reversal.

Thanks for the reminder

[YayArea]

Congress has hte power to decide they want to investigate the FCC? In a perfect world, citizens would vote on bullshit like this, or at least be able to elect people who would not support this kind of nonsense. Out of all the entities which congress could've chosen, they chose the FCC? ..and Citing his rushed manner and the relaxation of media ownership rules? Fsck, what a load of hogwash.

Thanks for the daily reminder that our congress is full of tools with their hands deep and snug in corporate pockets.

If there were a realistic way to instigate change..

This makes me feel like the man has truly won, since this type of event is now commonplace :/

A re-energized House flexes their muscle....

[postbigbang]

And Martin is a great target, because communications decision-making is so controversial. However, there's still a huge number of telco/carrier contributions to various political campaigns and funds that are being ignored here. What of the millions of dollars used to influence policy and legislation? What of congressmen that shill for MPAA/RIAA and the cable/comm companies? It's all PR. Nothing but media blasts and putting Martin on the hotseat (which he richly deserves, for so many reasons).

Re:A re-energized House flexes their muscle....

[Stanistani]

What about all the modern infrastructure U.S. tax dollars paid for, which the telcos 'forgot' to install?

Re:A re-energized House flexes their muscle....

[postbigbang]

Listing the sins would take terabytes that I don't have time for. Sorry.

Re:A re-energized House flexes their muscle....

[u-235-sentinel]

What about all the modern infrastructure U.S. tax dollars paid for, which the telcos 'forgot' to install?

Sounds like somebody has been talking. Now we can't have that can we. I mean if people starting talking it would just give them more incentive to 'slow' down your network some more eh ?

An extra RST packet here... another there...

Before you know it, you're receiving nothing BUT RST packets ;-)

That's why I told Concast to stuff it then told the FCC they need to fix this crap.

Damn congress!

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Comcast would not be able to get away with what it currently can if not for the local monopolies handed to it by the government. The company has manipulated the government to avoid upgrading their lines to actually handle the bandwidth they claim to their customers.

The real problem, though, is that the government is able to impose such monopolies on us. It's pointless to go after companies as they become problems, because these companies will continue to spring up. The effective approach is to stop the problem at the source: get politics out of money. Don't permit legislation that creates monopolies and destroys competition. Trash these FCC regulations, and the market will take care of itself. People will have choices, and companies will have to compete to offer what people want at the lowest price possible. And idiotic situations such as the one we currently find ourselves in will not be able to thrive.

It is called "Sheeple".

[Jane Q. Public]

Not all people are as independent-thinking as you are. The Iraq "war" -- and the continued presence of Gworge W. Bush -- are excellent examples, demonstrating that an awful lot of people in this country believe what they are told by the media, no matter how ridiculous it is.

Re:It is called "Sheeple".

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not all people are as independent-thinking as you are. The Iraq "war" -- and the continued presence of Gworge W. Bush -- are excellent examples, demonstrating that an awful lot of people in this country believe what they are told by the media, no matter how ridiculous it is."

Don't be so hard on yourself.

Actually...

[Jane Q. Public]

The relaxation of ownership rules, today, is by itself an issue that well warrants investigation. It is, plain and simple, a dangerously BAD IDEA.

This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

You asshole moderators, stop modding "troll" just because you disagree with someone's statements. That kind of behavior makes you worse than half the government pricks that get discussed here.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[sumdumass]

actually, most of the comments marks where trolls. It might not be as apparent to you if you have been drinking the koolaid and think it was fact, but it was merely lose opinion presented as fact and done in a way that purposely trolled.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

When someone's statement is declaring an opinion absolute fact, than it is okay to moderate down. If someone states an opinion as fact, and offers nothing to the discussion than it is your duty to moderate down.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

I completely disagree with you, which was my point.

Satire is NOT trolling. Even if he trolls a lot, a comment presented as satire (as this appeared to me) is not trolling.

I have seen MANY cases of satire marked (incorrectly) as "troll". I would appreciate it if people would take the trouble to learn the difference.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[xstonedogx]

Satire and trolling are not mutually exclusive.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[dave562]

Perhaps flamebait would have been more appropriate. Whatever the case, it wasn't really relevent to the discussion at hand.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[sumdumass]

so your claiming that thats not a troll, its a statement of fact. Sorry that it hurts your feelings. is a satire. My god how did I ever miss the joke.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

What the heck are you talking about? That's not even close to anything that *I* wrote!

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

But it just didn't seem to me to be trolling, just an attempt to be funny. And maybe I was wrong. But over the years I really HAVE seen a lot of attempts at humor inappropriately modded as "troll". It seems like satire and sarcasm are sometimes missed by moderators who take themselves too seriously. Or something.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[sumdumass]

Lol. It is what you replied to. Hit the parent link and follow this thread up. It is only 5 or so clicks up and directly above your comment about not agreeing with something not being a troll. That is why I replied to you in the first place.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

Apparently YOU cared enough to comment, and in a particularly childish way. And the fact that you are WRONG about my comments is just icing on the cake.

What makes you think I was "whining"? It wasn't even my post that I was commenting about. If it were, I might accept that I was whining, but it was not. I was merely making an observation. One that had nothing at all to do with myself.

If you want to criticize somebody, why don't you go criticize them for something real? And maybe try to get it right next time.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Jane Q. Public]

Hmmmm... weird. My reply was made to the parent of that post. How did it get attached to that one? Bugs in /.??? How is that possible? :o)

Re:This is not troll!!!

[sumdumass]

heh.. could be bugs. But obviously we are talking about two different things so I guess our disagreement isn't one.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[od05]

-1? This is the most insightful thing I've read this morning.

Re:This is not troll!!!

[Roman Coder]

Yeah I agree, why the -1 ??

Not "only" a symptom...

[Jane Q. Public]

It is also part of the cause. The argument "I did it because I could" is not morally or ethically defensible. Unfortunately, it might be legally defensible. But that's not good enough for me.

Re:Not "only" a symptom...

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Agreed, however, that statement "I did it because I could" is also being made by the politicians who make these regulations. If you legally remove the ability to add restrictions such as this to the market, you prevent the market from being deformed as it currently is in the case of internet service.

Re:Not "only" a symptom...

[Jane Q. Public]

If I understand you properly, I disagree. That is to say, I agree that the unhealthy connection between money and politics should be eliminated. On the other hand, certain antitrust rules (precisely the sort that have prevented content carries from being owned or influenced by content providers) are absolutely necessary, as history has very clearly shown.

Reasonable antitrust (i.e., anti-monopoly) rules are not "unnecessary regulation". They are meta-rules that keep everyone working WITHIN the rules of the free market.

Once monopoly or oligopoly has established itself in a market (regardless of whether it happened with government collusion or not), then THERE IS NO LONGER A FREE MARKET whose forces can "regulate". It therefore behooves us to create such minimal regulation as necessary to prevent monopolies, and to break up those that already exist.

Re:Not "only" a symptom...

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"On the other hand, certain antitrust rules (precisely the sort that have prevented content carries from being owned or influenced by content providers) are absolutely necessary, as history has very clearly shown."

Can you provide any historical examples of a monopoly unsupported in any way by government regulation that was able to persist? I could see one attempting to spring up, but it could only exist if the market chose not to shift away or was unable to shift away (either by force or by lack of competition, ie indirect force).

"Once monopoly or oligopoly has established itself in a market..."

Please clarify both a) how this could happen in a free market, and b) how it could remain in existence if competition is free to pop up.

"It therefore behooves us to create such minimal regulation as necessary to prevent monopolies, and to break up those that already exist."

You have yet to show that which you use as a foundation for this statement.

Re:Not "only" a symptom...

[Red Flayer]

The argument "I did it because I could" is not morally or ethically defensible. Unfortunately, it might be legally defensible.

That which is not forbidden is allowed.

We cannot demand that people obey some moral code, when morality is subjective. This is why in the Old Testament there are the 10 Commandments, not the 10 guidelines for moral behavior. This is why Hammurabi's Code existed. This is why the legal system is based on blacklisting disallowed behaviours, not whitelisting appropriate ones.

Unless we specifically forbid certain activities, we must expect that those activities will continue unchecked.

I agree with you that it's ethically indefensible, but can we really expect anything else?

Re:Not "only" a symptom...

[oldhack]

In market economy, gov't set the rules (i.e., regulate), and corps compete to maximize their profit, within the rules. We should NOT expect corps to be "responsible" for the good of public - that's like asking foxes to care about hens (and that's why the so-called "Corporate Social Responsibility" is one more BS). Public good is the job of the gov't/system.

Corps are obviously doing their job, but our gov't/system is not. That's why Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, News Corp., all these are symptoms, not the cause. The cause is our gov't system not imposing proper rules for the good of public.

I see several comments with a degree of passion from you. Check out the movie "corporation" (heh, I should get marketing fee from those guys). This is a systemic problem at the national and international government level, not a problem of some rogue corporations.

Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[Gybrwe666]

There is more to a la carte channel selection than simply the will of the Cable Co's themselves.

The reality is that the bulk of programming costs for the cable company are directly attributable to a few companies, such as Disney, HBO, etc.

First, you have to understand how pricing for channels from the channel owners is done. Its done based on volume, usually negotiated per head. When Disney and a provider (doesn't matter is its cable or satellite) negotiate a contract, they end up with a per-consumer cost that the cable company pays to carry the channel.

There are two reasons that more than 50% of the channels are complete crap.

1) The really crappy ones are so low cost that they have a negligible effect on the consumer. Channels provided by the non-big companies fall in this category. The one that comes to mind is the Christian Broadcast Network, which only cost pennies per month to the cable companies.

2) The bundle effect. In order to sell advertising, the big media providers (Disney, etc.) want to have as many channels as possible carried, preferably the ones that are in the starter bundles. Therefore, you get at least 3-5 ESPN channels. Unfortunately, none of the cable (or satellite) providers have any negotiating ability here at all. This is unregulated territory, so Disney will just sit back on its haunches and say, "You want ESPN? Guess what...you have to also put ESPN2, ESPN Classic, and ESPN Sports Nobody Cares About" in your Basic Tier.

Do you really think that a local cable provider will be able to refuse? So Disney ends up with a fairly significant portion of channels, which means they get to sell more ad revenue, and build up aftermarket sales of DVD's and paraphenalia.

The cable company is damned if they don't, effectively. They can't negotiate, as there isn't much choice about carrying Disney Channel and ESPN.

So, because of these contractual agreements, the cable companies *CANNOT* unbundle channels, at least in any meaningful way. Because there are only a handful of meaningful channels provided by a handful of extremely large companies, unbundling would, at best, mean having a Disney group, a TimeWarner group, etc. And the big media conglomerates will *NEVER* allow this. If they did, it would eat into their already shrinking ad revenues so fast the shareholders might explode.

So, not to defend the cable companies, but this matter is one that is largely unregulated, and the cable companies are unable to win the battle. While this isn't the only factor (certainly the cable companies want to charge you as much as possible for as many tiers of service as possible), it is one of the biggest. Remember, the highest margins for the cable companies are in the in-house services they control: data, phone, etc. When they have to pay per subscriber (or per event, such as On-Demand or PPV) they don't make nearly as much as they do for services they control.

Remember, also, that some channels *ARE* regulated by government, especially local access channels (my system carries 3-4 of them, I think). This is a huge waste of bandwidth that the cable companies are contractually obligated to provide in order to get local franchises. Again, crap. A waste of resources. But the cable company has no choice but to spend a ton of money and bandwidth to meet these obligations.

The future of cable is obviously to move to digital only services. I know of one small cable company that is actively looking to migrate to PacketCable exclusively, which means that they would deliver everything via packets, rather than channels. The minute the FCC lets the cable companies drop Analog services, expect this to happen quickly.

However, its unfair to only blame the Cable Co's. The Big Media is as much to blame if not more than anyone else.

Bill

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[AK Marc]

First, you have to understand how pricing for channels from the channel owners is done.

I understand and think that a la carte should still be done. What's the bottom line? The cable providers have to take in more than they spend, or they go out of business. Great, so they price the a la carte such that it makes them money. Period. It doesn't matter how they buy it, all that matters is that they sell it for whatever they are selling it for now. The reason they don't like it is uncertainty. Rather than buying $1 worth of programming and selling it for $2, they have to buy the bulk $10 lineup and get enough people on the right a la carte packages to spend $20 on it. They aren't sure what the numbers would be, so they refuse to do it. Once they start doing it, then it will work out to where the averages match what they are now. Once that's done, then the cable companies can go back to the contract negotiating and say "if we drop all ESPN, then we save $5 per subscriber. We don't get anyone subscribing to ESPN2, ESPN classic, ESPN west, so we want to get just ESPN for $2 and not the package for $5, if you don't like it, then we drop ESPN." If all the cable companies and satellite companies were offering a la carte and had similar subscription rates, that would happen. But no one wants to take the chance on runinig their proven-profitable system.

Remember, also, that some channels *ARE* regulated by government, especially local access channels (my system carries 3-4 of them, I think). This is a huge waste of bandwidth that the cable companies are contractually obligated to provide in order to get local franchises. Again, crap. A waste of resources. But the cable company has no choice but to spend a ton of money and bandwidth to meet these obligations.

Bandwidth is essentially free. The content on that bandwidth is the biggest cost. If the local stations pipe in a live feed at their cost, the cable company spends nothing to put it in a home.

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[hondo77]

Remember, also, that some channels *ARE* regulated by government, especially local access channels (my system carries 3-4 of them, I think). This is a huge waste of bandwidth that the cable companies are contractually obligated to provide in order to get local franchises. Again, crap. A waste of resources. But the cable company has no choice but to spend a ton of money and bandwidth to meet these obligations.

Are you really saying that a couple of local-access channels, out of the hundreds my cable company carries, are costing it "tons of money and bandwidth"?

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[ImaLamer]

It should be pointed out that a move to digital only channels will only entrench the consumer in higher bills.

Right now I have the *right* to unscrambled HD content, and the *ability* to decode the analog cable signal freely. If the system moves to be all digital I'll never again be able to simply plug that coax into a TV or a PC tuner again - unless there is regulation in effect that keeps it "open". I don't see that ever happening, as with my local provider (Time Warner) you must call and *request* the ability to output from your digital cable box via Firewire (something that I understand is *mandated* by the FCC).

It sucks when the FCC gets into the cable's business, but to protect the rights of consumers sometimes they must. It isn't always fair to them - but look at your bill sometime - are they ever fair with you? (My city has negotiated a contract with the cable company setting a *floor* price for cable... so they are both screwing me).

If you think digital cable will be 'open', look at how many PC-based CableCard tuners exist out there. (All related technologies are doomed to fail due to both the cable company and the content owners).

Then again the question should be asked: Why do I and the cable companies need to pay for ad supported content in the first place?

If Disney, ESPN, et. al. are making millions on commercials shouldn't they beg the cable companies to carry their networks? Shouldn't *they* be paying for the bandwidth, not I?

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[dubbreak]

So explain to me how legislating à la carte programming doesn't solve this issue?

If all carriers are forced to provide à la carte programming then Disney loses it's heavy weight bargaining chip. If Disney tries to charge a particular carrier more per customer, the carrier responds, "Fine, but less of our customers will subscribe."

There is no, "You must put these on the base tier." As there is no base tier, or at least the customers aren't forced to order it. Pricing becomes priced by consumer price elasticity (plus a margin of profit for the carriers). This is exactly as it should be.

One question for an American versed in sales and consumer laws: Do American laws allow selling the same service or product to different customers at different rates with little or no restrictions? I am all for bulk discounts, but in my experience if you offer one customer a bulk discount another customer purchasing the same quantity must get the same rate... different laws though.

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[Gybrwe666]

You're missing the point entirely. If the media providers have the power, by way of forcing the cable companies into a contract to have the right to carry the necessary channels by bundling them, the cable providers and satellite providers lose any negotiating ability. Since this is unregulated, the cable companies *CANNOT* change the contracts, or even negotiate better ones. They have been placed into a position of no power here.

As you poined out, if *ALL* the providers did this at once, it would work. Unfortunately, they all have different contracts, and different expirations, so the first to do it would lose. Let's say Comcast decides to strongarm Disney, and ends up losing ESPN and Disney. What do you really think will happen? The satellite provider is damn near guaranteed to pick up thousands (if not many, many more) customers. Do you think that the direct competitors in a market will do this?

Now, you think bandwidth is free? Baloney. And it doesn't happen at cost. The cable provider ends up providing all the equipment, the fiber lines, head end equipment, and ends up maintenancing the entire operation. You don't really think that a local mayoral office pays for these things, do you? Not only that, but each analog Local Access Channel costs the cable company 6mz of bandwidth on the system. That's the equivalent a second channel for cable modems, doubling capacity for data. And since most big cities have multiple analog Local Access channels (mine has 3 on analog), thats a huge cost in terms of service that could go to other things.

Bandwidth is *NOT* free. It never will be. Especially in a scenario where there are limits to the system. A cable system has 1000mhz of bandwidth to transmit. Take our 50mhz for upstream, and then start factoring in required services and you end up chewing through that bandwidth quite quickly.

Bill

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[Gybrwe666]

Perhaps. But then, it will also allow the cable companies to provide better services and to slice those services much, much more finely for the endusers. It seems as if you've made the assumption that the cable companies want to provide crap. They really don't. They want to provide the best services that their customers want so they can bill for them and everyone is happy. For every crap service that is foisted on them, they end up losing something.

And as far as requiring a tuner for HD content, that has *NOTHING* to do with the cable companies. You can transmit data without a modem, too. But the bandwidth sucks and the cost goes up. If you don't believe me, then compare the cost of sending a CD to your friend by Fed-Ex versus ripping it to MP3 and emailing it. That's technology. You can get a dialup connection for what, $9.99 a month, maybe less? Versus paying $12-40 for DSL or Cable? You get what you pay for.

I never claimed cable would be open. However, placing blame solely with the cable companies for this issue shows a complete lack of information and understanding of how the system works.

Bill

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[Gybrwe666]

I never claimed a la carte wouldn't solve the problem. However, the fact that we don't have a la carte right now is not a decision that the cable companies have made, and it is most certainly not a decision that they have the ability to make. The only solution I can see is complete regulation. Once everything goes digital, they only solution would be for the FCC or Congress to dictate to *EVERYONE* (Cable, Satellite, Fiber) that everyone gets a la carte pricing. However, from the perspective of the middle-men (Cable, Satellite, Telco's) that effectively makes them nothing more than a pipe for media. At that moment, Big Media will control everything, and be able to dictate everything. This might be bad (think: instead of 5 crappy ESPN channels you can now subscribe to 50) or it might be good (think: independent media gets boost in providing specialized, interesting content, much as musical independents are starting to do without record labels).

Personally, I'm not optimistic that the Media companies have the intelligence to take advantage of this or that they give a crap about such things.

It will be interesting, however, to watch. Probably with horror-filled eyes at the atrocities forced on us.

Bill

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[AK Marc]

Now, you think bandwidth is free?

Yes. Oh, and I work for a company that supplies cable television. The lines in the ground hold more than we receive on the dishes. Adding two channels handed off by a local provider would cost about $500 in connection equipment each and nothing more for operations. That means that the connection has a tiny cost and the bandwith is free. I know this because I do it for a living. Care to tell me what your qualifications are for determining the cost to hand a single additional channel to a subscriber?

A cable system has 1000mhz of bandwidth to transmit. Take our 50mhz for upstream, and then start factoring in required services and you end up chewing through that bandwidth quite quickly.

1000/50=20. Every cable operator I know offers more than 20 channels. I think there is an error in your assumptions.

You're missing the point entirely.

So I'm wrong.

As you poined out, if *ALL* the providers did this at once, it would work.

So I'm right.

Yes, I know no one would do it because of uncertainty. However, that doesn't mean it can't work. That means it would work great if everyone did it, and fail miserably if only one did it where there was competition. Since we can't know whether more would do it or not do it, we can guess one way or the other, but we must acknowldege (as you did) that it would work is all the cable/satellite providers did it, no matter what the content providers wanted. Since the question was initially about whether the government could fix the situation by addressing only the cable/satellite providers, the answer to that is yes, despite all the people that complain that the contracts are dictated by the content providers. That is my point, and you agreed with it 100%, but in a very negative manner.

Let me say it again clearly: If the FCC required cable/satellite companies offered everything a la carte, it would happen and no cable companies or satellite providers would suffer any financial hardship because of it.

Re:Not to defend the Cable companies but....

[Gybrwe666]

Well, if you want to get into a pissing contest, we can.

I worked as an Engineer for a major cable provider for years. I have installed modems, drops, Cisco ONS Fiber equipment, worked on Cisco CMTS's, installed Gigabit Fiber Optic networks, maintained DNS, Mail, and Web Servers for cable customers, done tech support, and many other things.

I have also been a Director at 3 different regional ISP's, responsible 100% for operations and security for up to 150k customers, with 25 people in 4 states directly reporting to me. I've installed modems, DSL, T1's, T3's, OC3's, phone equipment, PBX's, Linux, Unix, and Windows Servers, and I've supported it all.

As far as bandwidth being free, I think you are badly mistaken. That's at best an infantile fantasy.

Let's talk about your home network. "Bandwidth" might be free, but I'm guessing you spent a chunk of change on wiring, 802.x cards, Ethernet cards, a Router and/or switch, plus the PC(s) to actually do something with your free bandwidth. You also spend (spent) time installing and supporting that equipment. When a card or piece of equipment goes bad, you have to spend money to replace it, and time.

Hardly free.

As far as your estimate for supporting the Local Access channels, how much did it cost you to put in the feed? Those channels are *NOT* supplied on dishes. In my system, we had to install fiber to several of the local municipalities. At approximately $8/foot (inclusive) to install, that was, by no stretch of the imagination, free. And when the lines get cut, getting a fiber splicer out there costs a chunk of change. Or when someone at the far end screws something up and you have to send a tech out to fix it. Oh, and you forgot to factor in the time your NOC spends monitoring such feeds, which is a real cost, however fractional.

You also apparently live/work in a system where there is a very minimal number of municipalities with franchises. In the core system where I live, there are over 100 municipalities, each with a separate franchise agreement. There are also 3 counties (where those municipalities reside) that negotiate separately. So we had to maintain many different LO channels, and also split the system geographically to provide the correct channels to the correct areas. Even though every franchise didn't provide an LO channel, many of them did.

Let me tell you, that wasn't free.

You also seem to forget that if that (those) channel(s) were freed up, that would give the cable company the opportunity to provide however many digital channels. For instance, where I live some of the non-American populations would give body parts to get foreign programming. A single tier of Indian/Bosnian programming would probably give my local cable company thousands of subscribers for premium content, just in my local system. My Indian co-worker pays a boatload of money (I think its about $50/month) for Indian channels on satellite. If the cable company fired up a foreign tier, he'd switch in a second. So the lost revenue, while somewhat nebulous, is a real factor as well.

None of this is "free", as you try to make it out to be.

As far as my calculation, I'd invite you to look up the word "upstream" as it pertains to a cable system and DOCSIS.

So, which is it? Will it work in the real world, or won't it? It won't, unless the FCC or Congress has the guts to dictate to some of the most powerful media companies in the world that they should lose revenue by not being able to force cable providers to keep crap channels that still generate revenue.

You seem to be mistaking geek nirvana for reality. You are entirely correct in one thing: the cable companies won't suffer from being able to add a la carte pricing. My guess is that they will welcome it. But compared to TW, Disney, and NBC/Universal, the cable companies are small fish, and money talks.

Finally, I don't know where you live, but my cable system has crammed every open channel/mhz on the system with programming

it's like Nader said:

[trelayne]

Democrats and Republicans in bed with the corporations. It's all about Comcast, a witch-hunt, pure and simple. It's pretty unnerving to see this unfold.

Re:it's like Nader said:

[Cadallin]

Nader is only right to a point. The republican party is owned body and soul by corporations. Almost all of the Democratic party is as well. There are a precious few that are not, and have the voting record to prove it. Unfortunately, none are in my district. We need campaign finance reform so badly there are no words to convey it. Unfortunately, without Proportional representation, the Green party accomplishes absolutely nothing but helping Corporate whores slither into office. I'm feeling rather depressed about the political situation at the moment.

Democracy in the USA has been consumed by cancer. I don't think there is any "saving the body" at this point, for the wounds are deep and many. The Cancer has spread throughout. I don't see the USA going quietly into that good night either, the racking coughs of our demise will cause crisis the world over, most likely.

We need a la carte and open cable boxes Why should

[Joe The Dragon]

We need a la carte and open cable boxes Why should I have to pay $5+ per TV just for the box???

Why can't the FCC fix the cable card mess?

mod parent up +1 correct

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had multiple cable company employees pop up in these discussions in the past and provide background on this subject - it basically comes down to the big parent companies of the networks requiring that cable companies bundle and provide packages for less popular networks in order to get the popular channels (i.e. you can have comedy central, but in the same package must provide discovery, hgtv, oxygen, etc or else no deal)

Mod parent stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

You asshole moderators, stop modding "troll" just because you disagree with someone's statements. That kind of behavior makes you worse than half the government pricks that get discussed here. Really, Jane? Modding someone as troll on /. is worse than government corruption and abuse of power? Reeaaalllly??

No. Read again, please.

[Jane Q. Public]

I did not say that the modding was worse. I said their behavior was worse. Those are two different things.

I felt it was pretty clear that I meant they were doing something that is at least as morally questionable as those they often criticize.

Why not both?

[Mr._Galt]

I've read a lot of discussion about the a la carte pricing idea, and while the opinions vary, the basic premise does not. If cable companies were forced to offer a la carte pricing, why assume they would stop offering the bundles? Seems to me they could offer both. If there is only one or two channels that interest you, you could go a la carte cheaper. If you want more, and they are expensive channels, you could go with a bundle to save money. I don't see why forcing the CC to offer individual channels would preclude them from also offering the bundles.

But I like the persecution!

[wonkavader]

On one hand, I love that they're trying to get documents, and the FCC's done a lot of craziness, and nothing excuses them from having to cough up the documents, but I REALLY LIKE 'Martin's persecution of the cable industry, especially Comcast.' Can we hold off for a few weeks before we crucify the guy, until AFTER he tightens the screws on Comcast?

THEN let's crucify him.

Actually, I have this whole Appian way thing in mind, but I doubt congress will even cut down one tree. All metaphorical, of course...

The Kevin Martin philosophy of free speech

[six11]

"If we can't restrict the use of the words "f***" and "s***" during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want." -- Kevin Martin, FCC chairman, June 5 2007

See???

[Jane Q. Public]

If that was off-topic, then SO WAS THE POST THAT IT WAS A REPLY TO!!!

You can't have that both ways!

Don't forget switchers

[bill_mcgonigle]

Cable companies will loose money under a la carte, I have no doubt about it

Are you counting all the people who switched to satellite due to cable prices?

Cable doesn't rain-fade. And has Internet. And VOIP.

Re:Don't forget switchers

[JLF65]

Cable doesn't rain-fade.

Funny, the last time I had cable (three years ago), it did. Remember that the cable company normally gets all those channels - dramatic pause - via satellite! As such, they often have the same troubles that you get with satellite at your residence. Add in the mandatory "emergency broadcast" tests that ALWAYS occur at the worst possible time for viewers (middle of the premiere of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series, for example), and I'll take satellite over cable ANY TIME.

Re:Don't forget switchers

[bill_mcgonigle]

Remember that the cable company normally gets all those channels - dramatic pause - via satellite!

They have much larger dishes and often receive in different frequency bands than DBS. The dishes at my local cable company are on the order of 12-15' in diameter. When I was thinking about working out the rain fade issue on my 18" dish (no cable here), everybody recommended upgrading to a 24" (IIRC) dish to nearly eliminate the problem.

Maybe you had wet cables?

Re:Don't forget switchers

[Sandbags]

Just as many people as I know who switched to sattelite to get better deals have switched from sattelite to cable because you can't get VoD and many other services on Sattelite, and with the savings, the cable company rapes you on internet upcharges for having broadband without having cable... Also, Time Warner Cable will match sattelite dollar for dollar on similar packages if you push them. They'll tell you the deal is for only 1 year, but in the 12th month call them back and threated to switch again, and they'll price match again.

Also, Cable may cost more for the base package, but I have cable on 6 TVs, only 2 of which have a box. Sattelite would ass rape me for an additional $20/month for the extra set top boxes and I'd need 3 satellite dishes and an ass of instalaltion fees to support the cabling.

It'll work out.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Now that digital cable is really getting wide deployment (again thanks to the FCC), ala carte wouldn't be hard technically, but the economic constraints placed upon an operator by the networks like Turner, MTV, Scripps (Discovery Channel), Fox, etc. prevent an operator from doing so.

All the cable operators have to do is to pass along the actual costs. If it costs $1 for an unbundled channel, and Noggin requires 5 others in tow, then charge $5 for Noggin. When nobody wants to spend $5 for Noggin and their revenues plummet, then they'll adjust their practices.

Do we really care if The 24/7 Midget Pitching channel goes away? OK, bad example, we want that one, but you take my meaning.

don't waste your time

[bussdriver]

These suckers that buy into the propaganda are not able to think clearly enough; therefore, normal reasoning will get NOT WORK. You're wasting your time, it is like trying to explain evolution to a devoted creationist or seeing a wise InvisiblePinkUnicorn. (slam!)

Ironically, people can use a lot of reason justifying their unreasonable positions and end up taking you down to their level and then they beat you at it (to paraphrase an old saying on fools.)

Re:We need a la carte and open cable boxes Why sho

[Overzeetop]

The FCC doesn't know how to bluff, or more to the point, can't tell when somebody else is bluffing. You see, anytime the FCC has the opportunity to make a tough decision (say, ATSC) they call in industry groups to figure out the way that will work the best for them and go with that. If the industry says it will send them out of business, or make their costs so high that people will see triple digit increases, then the FCC believes them.

What the FCC is missing is that it is irrelevant what the cable companies say. They may very well go out of business, but that is also irrelevant because the American public places a high value on entertainment, and new companies will be fighting to fill any gap that opens up, given the opportunity.

Personally, I think the government (or governmental corporation, like the USPS, Fannie Mae, etc) should take over the infrastructure - or require divestiture of all physical plant operations - and allow for real competition in the content market. Imagine the rates for information becoming like the telephone long distance market.

The gov isn't allowed to regulate communications

[SonicSpike]

No where in the US Constitution is the federal government allowed to regulate the Constitution.

Price discrimination - brief background

[Steve Hamlin]

Do American laws allow selling the same service or product to different customers at different rates with little or no restrictions?

Generally, yes. It is called price segmentation, or price differentiation. Think airline tickets as an example. Basically, there are not many restrictions on carving up your market and selling the same same to different purchasers at different prices.

Restrictions that can apply are related to consumer protection, and often apply if the seller is a monopoly, is in collusion with other competitors in setting the market price, is an industry-wide wholesale vendor setting an unreasonable MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price), or is in a period of emergency where gouging and hording are controlled for the public order.

A U.S. law passed in the 1930's can prohibit wholesale vendors who sell to rather identical retailers from altering prices based on volume (which seems odd to me, as that seems to be one of the cleanest theoretical argument FOR price discrimination: high volume from customer = lower marginal overhead for the vendor, better production planning, and thus cheaper prices for that customer to encourage the continued relationship)

As a starting point, see Price Discrimination and U.S. Robinson-Patman Act

In my professional life, I have worked with a large U.S. retail chain that had complicated pricing arrangements with its wholesale vendors (list pricing, volume rebates, advertising support, chargebacks, logistics charges, shared discounting, etc), and the purchasing managers were cognisant of the various potentially applicable laws, including the Robinson-Patman Act regarding manufacturer-set retail prices.

Re:Price discrimination - brief background

[dubbreak]

Thanks for the great reply. Very informative.