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US ISPs Using Push Polling To Stop Cheap Internet
An anonymous reader writes "What happens when a new ISP is started somewhere in the United States that completely blows out of the water all the other ISPs in the area, in terms of price and performance? Apparently, that question is being answered in North Carolina, where Greenlight Inc., a company started by a city government, is trying to offer faster, more reliable, and cheaper Internet service to the local residents. Time Warner and Embarq can't compete. So they are not only lobbying the state government to destroy the upstart competition, but are now using push polling methods to gain support, across the two cities that could benefit from the new ISP, for the 'Level the playing field' legislation they got introduced in the legislature." A local news outlet provides coverage more friendly to the incumbents' point of view.
Surprise someone finally realized that the last mile is a natural monopoly and should be a utility.
This totally ruins their business model of selling something that costs almost nothing for a lot more than nothing.
Of course they're going to pull out every stop to well stop this from happening.
And I fucking RAGED.
*You* didn't want the customers, fuckers, *YOU*. They came to you begging for service. You denied. Now they did it themselves and you blame unfair competition? Go jerk off in some cold closet, incompetent bastards...
At least in the Triangle area in NC, TW pays the local municipalities a bribe, I mean an "Access Fee" that can approach something like 15% of the revenue. While their methods are all unsavory, they are rightfully angry that their bribe is underwriting a competitor.
The government here is in the wrong for poking its nose where it doesn't belong. Either the entire ISP business should be under government control or none of it should be. By cherry picking certain parts, the government has made a very bad decision with long term ramifications for all business in the state.
Then let's privatize the Fire Department and all other services exclusively run by government.
Or even better, let's put the entire issue to a public vote. This would be the ultimate form of democracy. How about that?
You are one of the folks that thinks that anything run by government is bad as if, when you find yourself on the death bed...being bamboozled by insurance companies...as if who provides the service you need at the material time matters. What would matter to you is how you can get the help you need. I do not care who provides a service as long as I am satisfied.
People with your thoughts are partly responsible with the current financial crisis. It's insane. I would like you to call for a referendum on this issue instead of ranting around here.
Remember, a drowning man will cling to a reed with the hope that it will offer a lifeline of some sort.
What really stinks, especially in rural areas, is that you have to buy your back-end bandwidth from a person you are competing against.
They get their money either way, charging a fortune for a 1.5 Mb T1 line, again, especially in rural areas.
So they make a killing off of a bunch of bonded T1 lines or a partial DS3, and then you have to compete with them against their own offerings (i.e. 19.99 and 29.99 a month DSL).
So you get the headache of customer support and make a little money, and the phone company does good either way. Your niche market in a rural area is areas not serviced by the phone company, which means when the phone company does go into a new area, you lose your customers in that area because you can hardly compete with the people who own the infrastructure.
Again, I know there are more options in larger cities, but there is a reason a business likes to be a monopoly.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
You ring lots of people on the pretence that you want their opinion. Then you ask leading questions like Would you vote for candidate X even though he has voted for higher taxes in your city, or some such. The idea is to promote an idea about candidate X, not to find out where the votes are going.
It is a very popular political tool.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You know, socialism isn't outlawed by the U.S. Constitution. I'm in favor of the government doing whatever it can do better then big business, e.g. replace the joke of a medical insurance system with a single payer government run system.
Admittedly socialism doesn't work well in many cases because the process is corrupted by the rich and powerful and special interests. But on the local level, a socialized industry might work better then on the national level, because the people will have more influence to avoid corruption then they do on the national level.
If cities can provide broadband service cheaper then private companies, I want them to. As long as its self supporting and not subsidized.
I'm tired of CEOs making millions of dollars for doing nothing unique or that a lot of other people making far less couldn't do.
And the telecoms are among the worst of the bunch in undeserved profits.
This ad space for rent.
The city of Ashland in southern Oregon operates a fiber-optic network that's open to multiple ISPs. The city does not operate its own ISP at all, and they don't sell Internet access directly to residents; you have to sign up with an ISP, and the ISP pays the city for access to the fiber network. The city sets the speed and charges the ISP more for faster speeds, but the ISP provides the Internet connection, tech support, etc.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
And there's the rub.
When I was growing up, we used to have two choices for cable TV - Warner Cable (later became Time Warner) and Viacom Cable.
Warner was the "newcomer". They started running "specials", subsidized by their monopolies on OTHER cities. For a while, you got a basic cable package for $15/month and the pay channels like HBO for another $5 or so.
Then, Viacom folded. They couldn't compete any more, they were losing customers in droves to the "specials" because at that price, Warner was actually selling the service below cost (but claiming it was a "special" and a "sale", so getting around state laws against below-cost permanent pricing).
What did people find out once Viacom was dead? TW did what they do to everyone once they have a monopoly - they started running TV ads with the "happy king" declaring "I declare Warner Cable for my entire kingdom!" with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Meanwhile those "special" $15/month rates were expired out, and within 3 months the base price was $80/month.
Look at the prices you're offered for ISP service. If you are in a "competition" area, one of the lucky SOB's on a border (and the borders move as they put each other out of business), you can probably swing some ridiculously cheap pricing. Otherwise, what do you get? Comcrap pretty much has a monopoly on our area. DSL service is technically "available" if you want roughly the same data rate as a pair of 33.6 phone modems (no seriously: they haven't upgraded their equipment in 10 years or more).
Comcrap, 10 miles down the road, offers their "high tier" speed at $40/month. For us, "low tier" is $50/month. That's because 10 miles down the road, Verizon owns the lines and is offering FiOS to compete with Comcrap. Meanwhile, Comcrap's own internal memos show that they could double the speed to EVERY USER IN THEIR NETWORK, both up and down, for a mere $6/customer one-time cost, and they refuse to do it.
That's the kind of shit you deal with. They all want a monopoly so they can gouge the crap out of you.
Has anyone actually bothered to read the bill in question? All it's doing is making sure the city-owned ISP isn't---or doesn't in the future---engage in the kind of abuses I just posted about. It's specifically to make sure they can't lower their rates by subsidizing themselves with tax dollars, exempt themselves from paying telco taxes, and similar. Here are the relevant pieces:---
Anyone opposing this is basically saying, "I want cheap Internets by making you pay for it."
Liberty in your lifetime
I'm with you on this -- the monopoly is completely anti-consumer. The problem is that with significantly lower operating costs, the city will be able to drive the telcos out, and then THEY will be the monopoly. I hate private monopolies but I hate the state as monopoly equally. Simple solution here. Tell the city they cannot collect fees/taxes on the ISPs we're all good. I definitely want the city to come in and bust up the Telco monopoly -- I just don't want one monopoly to be replaced by another.
"
I agree the way the telcos are going about this is wrong though. I'd rather see legislation like: Where municipalities set up their own ISP, they cannot assess city taxes or fees on competing ISPs."
It's all about operating costs -- make those as equal as you can, and THEN let everyone compete.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Read the senate bill: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S1004v1.pdf [state.nc.us] I hate the telcos as much as anyone, but this bill says that when the city enters into the communications business, it should have to pay all the same taxes and fees as private business would, and be burdened with the same oversight. They also say that other fees the citizens pay (trash, water etc) cannot be used to fund the communications business. I don't see how this bill is unfair at all. The telcos are essentially saying "If we didn't have to pay any fees to the city to provide service, we could be competetive." If government wants to set up a business, they should have go compete with other businesses on a level playing field. If municipalities want to open up their own ISP, I am all for that, but then they should stop collecting fees and taxing the other ISPs they are competing with.
Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. The government is not running a business; it is providing the best service it can to the citizenry. If that prices out some private ISPs, fuck 'em. If they want to establish taxes specific to the ISPs, fuck 'em. If the people _vote to make private ISPs illegal in their community_ (perhaps because they have a history of gouging, monopoly, and privacy-breaking practices), then they can do that too!
Municipal government should not be using taxes and fees to provide a commercial advantage for themselves. I think the "level playing field" is actually a good title for this bill, and not an unreasonable request. We're all hopped up on this because it's something that's near and dear to us, but imagine if the city set up a taxi service, but then did not have to pay gasoline tax or hackney licenses. Obviously it benefits the public who uses taxis, but is it fair to the taxi drivers and cab companies that they now have to charge more than the city taxis.
Awesome, sign me up for that taxi service. Democracy comes first, capitalism comes second.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
From the techjournalsouth article-
"If the cable/phone companies really want a level playing field, they'd open their books just like we do in the spirit of open meetings and open records law. They don't want a level playing field. They want to be the only team on the field."
It seems the community internet operating books will be transparent, so people can see what costs are, and where the money is going. It's a public service, not a for-profit business like Time Warner is.
While it's true a monopoly is generally anti-consumer, a publicly open/owned monopoly is far less likely to be in a position to price gouge for crap service, where the larger, established private monopolies already are.
There was a case about 5 years ago...I think it was Verizon then, fighting a Chicago(?) suburb that was trying to get fiber-to-the-door paid for through tax bonds. They called everyone in town and asked them how they felt about their tax money going to provide child pornography.
There was a more recent one in Louisiana where Cox and Bellsouth (now AT&T) called around and said that the town would start rationing TV if they owned the lines.
It's real shady crap. It's usually done politically. The biggest political one I can think of was the Republicans accusing John McCain of having an illegitimate black baby in a push poll in South Carolina in '04 (And yes, amusingly, they had to do an information campaign there in '08 to convince people that had been a lie).
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.