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Cablecos, Telcos Working To Strengthen the Duopoly
The LA Times is running a piece on cooperation among cable companies and telcos. No, not cablecos cooperating with telcos; rather, both industries working on industry-wide initiatives aimed at getting a leg up on the other. AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest have been working on a site, Moveroo.com, aimed at easing the pain of people moving within the US — by making it easier for them to hook up with the incumbent telco at their destination, for instance. Odd that there is no mention of which cable services might be available where they are heading. The cablecos are cooperating on a more ambitious initiative to standardize targeted advertising nationwide, using data gathered from the set-top boxes used by Time Warner, Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, Charter, and Bright House Networks. The article quotes a spokesman from a utility consumers' action group: " [The spokesman] said these moves by the telecom and cable industries may be good for the respective businesses, but they almost surely won't be good for consumers. 'All they're doing is creating obstacles to each other's industry from gaining an advantage,' he said. 'That's not competition.' Well, it is. But not the kind that benefits customers."
The pieces became obvious last month. It's not something that could happen in a competitive system and it's not something I would have imagined just a year ago but the end of the free internet is here.
The cable company doesn't need to know that the screen is blanked, the audio is off, and you've left for the weekend -- meantime, your STB is religiously searching out reruns of Speed Racer or maybe the original Star Trek. If one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they'll ignore it. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they'll ignore both of them. And three people do it, they may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day? And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
Well, Arlo, what if millions -- yes, millions -- of people sold their non-watching cable time to run up the viewership for worthy programs like My Little Pony? Easy enough to coordinate over the internet, after all. Either the producers go into panic mode changing their programming or else they give up on spying on their "customers." Either way, it's all good.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Obviously, you don't pay for electricity in Houston, Texas.
No sir I live in the Treasure Valley here in south western Idaho. Where we primarily rely on hydro (with some coal), which depending on what side of the salmon debate your on has been pretty good to us. Some of the lowest per capita carbon emissions of the top 100 metro areas in the states and fairly cheap power to boot. And every year when they request a rate adjustment is splashed all over the front pages and up for discussion. Exactly the kind of thing needed for services such as communications and internet. Seeing as how our whole economy is getting wrapped up and around such services it isn't prudent to let private corporations have such leverage...
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
There's a problem with these companies trying to fund lobbyists to politically further their agenda, and you want to get the government more involved? The root of the problem is government involvement in the first place. If the federal government wouldn't grant favors to certain industries (cough, farms, cough corn-based ethanol, cough), there would be a lower incentive to spend money on lobbying instead of on serving the customer. A great example that proves my point is the current situation in Peru. The government taxes everything so heavily and then redistributes so much unearned income that a huge percentage of companies' budgets are spent competing for that unearned income from the government instead of developing new products for consumers. The heavy taxes keep consumers from building wealth & savings, which means there is less money available for companies to borrow, so interest rates go up. It is therefore more difficult for companies to borrow to fund their investments in new capital, which means in the end the consumer suffers.
Increased regulation and nationalization will (like always) only make problems worse, not better. For more examples of failed nationalized industries and government economic plans leading to mass death and starvation, see the Soviet Union from 1928-1958 (Stalin's reign). For examples of what happens as a result of government control of capitalist economies, see the "Great Depression." No, the GD was not caused by the failure of the free market but by the failure of government. (Surprise! - that's never happened before...) If you don't agree, take an introductory macroeconomics/finance class at your local university that isn't taught by a Marxist, or just read Free to Choose by Milton Friedman.
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
Back to the topic at hand, I firmly believe these industries need to be nationalized.
'These industries'? Who do you mean? You mean Verizon, TimeWarner, Cox, Charter? Basically, the ones who lay lines through your yard.
what about the second/third tier? Skype, Vonage, Cavalier?
Do we also include other comm companies/technologies, such as Trillian, Pigeon, AOL IM, etc?
I firmly believe these industries need to be nationalized.
I'm not so sure this would be such a great thing. Though, after FISA, it is pretty much the same thing. The Feds and the Telcos colluding.
Localized, yes. Nationalized, no.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
So, April 2009 and the digital conversion?
February 2009? Whatever. I'm there already. Rabbit ears and a converter box work just fine.
I have a cabin way out in the woods. A homemade Gray-Hoverman works great there.
Have gnu, will travel.