Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Finally Files Suit Against FCC Over Traffic Shaping
Following up on their threat last year to sue the FCC over sanctions imposed, Comcast has finally filed suit, stating that there are no statutes or regulations that support the FCC's authority to stop traffic shaping procedures. "First, let's recap: After months of proceedings, hearings, and investigations, the FCC concluded on August 1, 2008 that Comcast was discriminating against certain P2P applications using deep packet inspection techniques. These methods thwarted the ability of users to share video and other files via BitTorrent. 'Comcast was delaying subscribers' downloads and blocking their uploads,' declared then FCC Chair Kevin Martin. 'It was doing so 24/7, regardless of the amount of congestion on the network or how small the file might be. Even worse, Comcast was hiding that fact by making [affected] users think there was a problem with their Internet connection or the application.'"
Why are you directing this at Republicans when Democrats have a veto and filibuster proof control of the entire government?
Following up on their threat last year to sue the FCC over sanctions imposed, Comcast has finally filed suit, stating that there are no statutes or regulations that support the FCC's authority to stop traffic shaping procedures.
Traffic shaping is writing rules like "give ssh and http packets priority over ftp-data". This is good and something almost all ISP that care about good customer service already do. What Comcast was doing, aka packet forgery, was a deliberate attempt to disrupt certain types of transfer. NO good ISP does this, by definition.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Comcast could be free to throttle. Except that the initial cost of building the "Comcast owned" networks was paid for by tax payers. Also, because they acted dubiously, and pretended that it wasn't them that was throttling, but instead some connection problem, or other problem with the application. Throttling is ok, provided you have a choice of choosing another provider (internet providers usually have a monopoly, or at best, duopoly, in most areas) and that they make it completely clear to the customer what they are throttling. Throttling all instances of a specific type of traffic, even when there is no congestion going on, is really not what anybody wants.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The only reason Comcast gets my money is because they were granted a monopoly for Cable in my area. IMHO, we really need to start talking about taking away cable and in some places fiber monopolies.
On another note it would be way cool to be able to have whichever company's box has the broadcast channels on it that you associate with your home town, in my case New York and San Francisco. Do particular broadcast company stations have monopolies as well for geographic areas? I'm pretty damn sick of monopolies, we need to go antitrust hopefully with this administration before its too late.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
On top of your great observation, the article blurb specifically states: "..."First, let's recap: After months of proceedings, hearings, and investigations, the FCC concluded on August 1, 2008 that Comcast was discriminating against certain P2P applications using deep packet inspection techniques...." Now, IIRC, we had a Republican administration in the White House at that time and a Democrat majority in the House and Senate. So, who was responsible for the August 1, 2008 conclusion by the FCC? Why, the Republican administration, of course. Sure, there may have been members of the House and Senate (various committees) that helped push or prod it along, but it was the Republican administration, which the FCC falls under, that gets the majority of the credit here. I believe the grand parent is a bit myopic.
Do you need any more proof that the government needs strong regulative powers?
This is stupid one-sided political trolling. Why don't you take your partisan blinders off and ask yourself who it was that supported telecommunications deregulation back in the 90s? My memory is a little hazy but I'm pretty sure he was a Democrat who had a fondness for cigars and centrist (some would say "corporatist") domestic policy.
One could also make the counter-argument -- that it's the very involvement of government that gives Comcast their monopoly in the first place. Ever ask yourself why you can't just find some investors and start up a cable company to compete with them?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Because it is always the other party's fault, no matter what the problem is, when it started, or who started it.
I think he was trying to give an example of why gov regs are good. ;x
Why was that modded down? I don't see how either party is involved, except that Bush appointed the FCC Chairman who shot down Comcast. If anything, wouldn't that be one of the (possibly few) good that he did?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
No this has nothing to do with government regulations it has to do with the business practices the business is doing. Which is why the FCC stepped in. Comcast in their terms of agreement are too vague and too heavy handed. Comcast is using this to "say" they are trying to maintain the network bottom line is Comcast got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and now are trying to blame the government for stepping in hoping their customers have forgotten or gotten used to their business model. If Comcast wants to block certain content that is their prerogative BUT they must disclose this and stop selling "unlimited" services and then trying to pull a Bill Clinton and "define" unlimited in stupid ways.
Dear Comcast:
FUCK YOU.
- a former customer
Regional Monopolies are either utilities subject to intense regulation, or are subject to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Where's your Attorney General now? Seriously....where is he/she??
Comcast forges RST packets and intercept DNS requests using man in the middle attacks. This not only disrupts legitemate use of peer to peer technology but corporate VPN access for people working from home. If you or I were to do the same thing, we could be arrested and charged as felons under the DMCA and other "hacking" laws. Comcast is a criminal organization, its time for them to be held to account for the federal felonies that they are committing. Unfortunately, the limited liability of the America corporate system ensures that these felons will never serve jail time even in the unlikely event that something is done to stop their crimes.
Comcast is currently looking for lots of content to buy. They will then need to be able to cut WAY back on competing companies to force those companies to pay Comcast as well as their ISP. Now, lets see what the dems will do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In a perfect world the FCC will rip Comcast apart. Seriously. When Comcast is looking to buy a content provider like Vivendi or Disney, rather than investing money into infrastructure improvements, then something is entirely, completely off kilter and needs to be corrected. First, while I know that big companies are in business to make money, Comcast should not be in a financial situation to buy a company the size of Disney nor Vivendi. Second, and more importantly, if they are going to operate as a service provider, they should invest profits into ensuring they are able to be the best service provider they can. But, of course, they don't have to because they don't really compete with anyone so they can be a sub-par service provider who over charge for their service and make stupid amounts of money.
With luck, the FCC will get pissed and make an example of Comcast. I know it won't happen, but I can hope.
Yes. The Republican administration took regulatory action against Comcast's pervasive and dishonest traffic shaping, so it's very appropriate to snidely tell Republicans that they are idiots for ... well, apparently for not regulating enough. I honestly can't figure out what the OP is trying to get at. It's either some deep magic breed of sarcasm I'm not fluent in, plain stupid, or both.
I think he was trying to give an example of why gov regs are good. ;x
No, he was trying to pander to the left-leaning partisan audience with mod points. Why else would he aim his comment at Republicans? Are all Republicans opposed to all forms of regulation? Are all non-Republicans automatically in favor of them?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Go FCC, snuff out Comcast.
You mean like the strong regulative powers that handed Comcast the data provider monopoly it enjoys in many places?
... a Republican is a Democrat is a Politician ... they're all the same
Lack of government regulation can be bad. Some government regulation is good. Massive amounts of government regulation is bad.
who here disagrees?
They don't.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
My wireless router had a bug where it would hang after seeing some large number of connections (memory leak?), which went away after a firmware update. Perhaps your cable modem has a similar issue?
No, he was trying to pander to the left-leaning partisan audience with mod points.
If he's a karma whore he's not very good at it; there are a LOT of Republicans here. I think what he was trying to point out was that the last administration was one that viewed the government as "always the problem", and face it, the Republicans deregulated, deregulated, and deregulated some more. Of course there were exceptions, but on the whole they're mostly for deregulation.
Not all regulation is good, not all deregulation is bad; what you need is effective regulation.
Free Martian Whores!
That might be viable, except that Comcast has never had common-carrier status.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Comcast's case must not be so great if it has taken them this long to file it. One would think that their case will also be much weaker under the current administration than the last one. What Comcast seems to fail to realize is that they are an effective monopoly in much of the area that they serve and monopolists aren't allowed to just go out and do as they please.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comcast is doing this for one reason: so it can continue to vastly oversell it's network. "Unlimited" = "Unlimited because we hope you're all grannies who check their email once in awhile."
"When I use a P2P client to download a torrent, invariably it reaches a point where my internet connection slows to a crawl, then stops. Then nothing connects, neither my browser, email or P2P client. I have to toggle the power on the cable modem, and after it reboots and reconnects, everything is peachy for a few hours"
Blame the router: that's typical symptom on P2P over cheap routers of congestion problems with the connection-tracking table,.
Consider that the only thing keeping hordes of State regulators from insisting on much stricter requirements (and even open access to that "last mile") is Federal preemption. If the FCC doesn't have the authority to do it, the States do.
Biting the hand that shields you. Smooth move, Comcast!
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The FCC doesn't regulate the internet... not yet anyway. However, the problem described does seem to illustrate some very deceptive business practices on Comcast's part. So perhaps the FTC or the Justice Department are more appropriate government entities to address the problem.
The proper response to this news is not to push for regulation. It's Comcast's network they can do what they like with the data so long as what they are doing is part of the customer agreement the user signed up for. The proper response to this news is to push for anti-trust prosecution against Comcast, Time Warner, et al who are running monopolies in their markets and force competition. Whether that is in the form of forcing them to allow unrestricted usage of their network (for a fee of course) by competitors a la the power grid or some other form. It is not data shaping that is really the issue. It is lack of competitive choice for customers.
Fred
That's all fine and dandy, except what Comcast was doing wasn't packet shaping. What they were doing was actively manipulating traffic (inserting reset flags onto P2P packets to disrupt connectivity). That's a big no-no that they should suffer for dearly.
Because it is always the other party's fault, no matter what the problem is, when it started, or who started it.
If only each person who said "that other party is to blame" would instead say "the two-party duopoly is to blame" we might actually have real reform.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
Although the prose is a bit dated, this is some remarkably "back to basics" thinking that could do some people a lot of good. I quote:
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer
More
Just to be clear, your first paragraph is talking about Federal Government, while the 2nd paragraph's discussion of monopolies should be talking about Local Government. Though frequently the monopoly is handed out by non-governmental organizations like the developer who is building the community.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"I'm sure if the FCC threatened to revoke their common carrier status, Comcast et al would pipe down quicker than you could blink an eye."
That would work great - if indeed Comcast had common carrier status. In the US, data services are generally exempt from common carrier regulation.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I was going to suggest the same thing. I switched my Linksys to the DD-WRT firmware (http://www.dd-wrt.com/) and now everything works much smoother.
Why don't you take of your partisan blinders and look at how the free market treats consumers.
The last 3 places I have lived at had only 1 cable company "choice".
Why do you think that is?
Because the government has encouraged there to be only one cable company in most areas. I don't know what the current laws are, but I remember when cable was being rolled out. Different cable companies would apply for the franchise to operate in a particular area (if it was an area that was lucrative enough that more than one was interested), then the local government would grant a monopoly to one of them. I remember some major scandals when it was discovered that some local officials were accepting what amounted to bribes to grant the local franchise to one company or another.
So, to reiterate, the answer to your question as to why in most areas there is no competition among cable providers is that the government set it up that way.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
" The last 3 places I have lived at had only 1 cable company "choice". "
That is because the local government in the last 3 places you lived had a franchise agreement with the cable provider. That means the government IS the reason you have no choice, which pretty much makes your argument poop.
'Unless you re-write the laws to make cable a "utility" you can't govern the way they provide service.'
Actually, I believe the time has come to re-categorize internet providers as utilities. Most ISPs operate as either a monopoly or duopoly, have municipal districts and are considered to be an essential service for both business and home. All of these are common traits for a utility. It's time to start treating them as such.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Do you think that things would be no different if local governments were not handing out protected monopolies to cable companies? If the federal government did not begin the telecommunications monopoly? If you want to see more regulation then fine. Do not though make the mistake of thinking that this problem is caused only by a lack of regulations. There may be some blame to spread from existing regulations themselves fucking you in the ass from good ole "Uncle" Sam.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Not to mention, the writing on the wall is, if they want the right to be non-regulated despite deep inspection on the data they carry, they clearly are responsible for the data which they carry. Seems they are begging to fall under telephone regulations; which they absolutely don't want. Either they are a transparent pipe or they are going to be held responsible for inspecting, routing, prioritization, and monitoring all traffic they carry. Seems they want to have their cake, eat it, and all the while rape your mother with no price to pay. Hopefully Congress will grant the power to the FCC to remind ISPs the privileges they've already been granted.
Aside from the title troll (Cheney? WTF?), your faith in the current administration is almost touching in its naivete.
Think I'm wrong? It's entirely possible. But consider this - Comcast waited until a change of administration to fight a ruling that went against them. Sound familiar? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft.
Everyone here bitched about MS getting off with a slap on the wrist because of the change in administration, replete with details about campaign contributions, etc. Think maybe lightning will strike twice?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
At the end of the day who cares about what political party caused the problem. The real issue is if the current government is capable of solving the problem. Maye the Democrats did de-regulate the industry and cause the current issue. But do the Democrats aknowledge and have a plan on how the fix the mess?
Take the current credit crunch; a lot of the problems were caused by a short term bonus environment which encouraged excessive risk taking. I'm a lot more interested in hearing a UK party actually come up with a workable regulation system to discourage that, than hearing the Tories take cheap shots at Labour about Brown and Darling's inability to do anything to fix the issue.
Then again I'm so tired of insulated Westminster politicians out of touch with anything not to do with the City (term describes London's Financial Sector) I'm looking in to see if I can afford to join the Pirate party and stand in my local area. I won't win but maybe the local MP will pay more attention to certain issues.
I feel as though many home broadband connections and business connections are really at the mercy of these shenanigans because there are no SLAs or anything like that, everything is "best effort" delivery. The ISP is promising to try to bring you network connectivity, but they are not promising much beyond that.
I've also been a little afraid of where net neutrality could go. I agree with it 100% in principal, but if congress says that the ISPs cannot essentially shape or prioritize traffic without the approval of the federal government (lets not kid ourselves, that's what it would really end up doing) we could just end up giving the lobbyists even more power over what kinds of content get to our doorsteps. I think the expansion in power behind something like a properly functioning net neutrality law would open the door to the federal government direct restricting the use of things like P2P networks.
Not ALL Republicans are anything but Republicans. However, if you aren't aware that the Republican party makes a lot of noise about how bad government regulation is then you aren't paying attention. It's a key part of their platform. The clear tendency has been for the Republicans to claim to want less regulation and the Democrats to advocate more. Now I question the sincerity and consistency of most of the politicians of both parties, but if you run across Joe Sixpack and he identifies himself as a Republican, ask him what he thinks about "government regulation".
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
It's Comcast's hard earned money, they should be able to expand their monopoly as far as they can without government interference.
You are absolutely correct, except for the fact that Comcast HAS a monopoly because of government interference.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
They may well qualify -- but in the USA, common-carrier status (at least for telecommunications) isn't automatic. The company has to apply and be granted CC status (which is not without liabilities). Comcast never has.
And, no, IANAL and can't give you a source.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Although, I have a feeling that some place in the jungle of the Comcast TOS, there is legalese that lets them do this, but is it still right?
Just goes to prove that EVERYONE needs to be critical of their ISPs TOS and practices. Buyer Beware!
Wait, what?
I'm lost. First you argue that this should fall afoul of the wiretapping act, then you argue the TOS could let them out? Would you argue that your phone company (assuming that is also not Comcast, now that they offer VOIP) could avoid wiretapping laws?
Heck, your cellphone carrier is not allowed to read your text messages without following the same procedures that apply to listening in on a voice call, why should your ISP be able to declare "We are allowed to inspect every packet and read your email"?
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
One could also make the counter-argument -- that it's the very involvement of government that gives Comcast their monopoly in the first place. Ever ask yourself why you can't just find some investors and start up a cable company to compete with them?
And the answer is found in Econ 101 - significant barriers to entry (massive infrastructure requirement) and the inefficiency of duplicating expensive infrastructure. It's the same reason that you don't find duplicate toll roads paralleling each other. This type of system naturally gravitates to a monopoly - whoever gets there first has a huge advantage over latecomers, and can drive them out of business by undercutting their prices, after which "hello monopoly pricing!"
Partisan politics doesn't enter into it until you get one group of people who have as their religion "free market always bad" facing off against another group whose religion is "free market always good". The truth of the matter is that it varies from business to business, product to product. Adjust policy accordingly - if the system has high barriers to entry or increasing returns to scale, regulate it to level the playing field and/or protect consumers. If it has low barriers to entry and decreasing returns to scale, let competitors duke it out in the free market.
As a law student who is taking a communications law class fall semester, I must say...
I think I found a good topic for the required paper...
To be fair, Comcast does allow you to opt out of the DNS redirection and they processed my request for this quite quickly.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It took two to tango in the late 1990's, as the Repubs had a majority on congress during that time. Deregulation was the thing to do in the 90's. Everyone was partaking in the deregulation kool-aid.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
Interesting bias, but utterly wrong in this case. The answer to severe problems created by dopey regional and local government "regulations" (I would term them franchise agreements, absent of any regulation and loaded with exclusivity) has always been Federal oversight and, if that fails, Federal regulation.
Has been that way since the Civil War.
Also, see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
Federal "regulation" is a Constitutionally mandated solution to this sort of nonsense.
--
Toro
Comcast was actively snooping traffic and munging it up. denying it. and conspiring with other companies to block net neutrality. that is racketeering and corruption and organization. RICO. like the mob.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
And as much as I'm a card carrying independent and hate the duopoly, they'd be just as wrong.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
Since it is so completely incorrect and misleading. Comcast doesn't do traffic shaping. They send tcpip reset packets.
AccountKiller
No, that's not fair. Most customers are unaware of these practices. Just because they let people opt-out when they get caught doesn't mean they're justified to any degree.
I've heard that theory put forth by libertarians many times, and it is as wrong now as it has been every other time. There are two very fundamental problems with that theory:
That last one bears explaining. A few years ago, I watched a new cable company try to set up shop in a small university town of about 10,000 people. Here's what happened.
The original cable company is an entrenched business. Regardless of monopoly status, it has been around for years and owns all its own lines. It has no debts because the lines are paid off already. Therefore, its only costs are buying the service from upstream, line maintenance (minimal), handing payments (most of which is done by mail sent to/from a regional office somewhere), and sending people out to connect/disconnect customers and swap out cable boxes. In short, it is largely a cash cow, and has huge profit margins built in.
The new company has to put in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cable, equipment, etc. It now has a huge debt. It also has to compete with the existing cable company. It must either do so by providing more channels or undercutting them on price. Unfortunately, because of the construction debt, it must make a certain amount of profit just to stay in business.
The result is that the new company undercuts the entrenched company and makes them angry. The entrenched company undercuts them far enough that they cannot compete and still pay off their construction debt. In spite of taking over a third of the entrenched company's business, after five years, the new company is still hemorrhaging money. Thus, it gives up, declares bankruptcy if needed, and sells all of the new equipment to the entrenched cable company. The entrenched cable company then raises rates to make up the money it lost while competing with the now defunct new company, all the while enjoying the lower maintenance costs of the new equipment that it bought for pennies on the dollar.
And this, my friends, is what inevitably occurs when a business with such huge startup costs tries to compete in a fixed-size market. There is truly no way to prevent this except to take the startup costs out of the picture, either by the government giving a colossal grant to the cable company to cover its infrastructure costs or by the government building the infrastructure to begin with and leasing it out to multiple competitors.
The only way telecom competition can work is if the infrastructure provider and the data provider are not the same company---if the infrastructure provider leases access to the data provider on a nondiscriminatory basis. The government is an ideal builder of infrastructure because it can afford to build it and run it at cost instead of making a profit. Therefore, the ideal form of telecom competition is one in which the government rolls out the fiber and leases fiber access to half a dozen telcos. Everywhere that has done this has seen incredible competition in the telecom space. Most communities that have not done this have little to no competition even if they are completely willing to allow multiple telcos or cable companies to do business in the area. At best, they have partial competition in which the government forces the incumbent telcos to lease access to the lines (e.g. DSL competition).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
How about I redirect your car's fuel line to my own tank until you opt-out, huh ? It's fair, right ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
It seems to me that if the ISP has the right to shape traffic/ force resets etc, the customer should have the right to shape payments.
If I sign up for 'up to' 10 Mb broadband, I should be paying 'up to' £Amount per month with the actual amount paid decided by me based on my own criteria, just like the amount of bytes i get is decided by the ISP based on their criteria.
Let the ISP ring MY 'customer support' (during hours I decide to provide it) to cry about how I have shaped their monetary stream down by 90% from what they signed up for.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
How do we have different companies for other items like phone service? Wait.......I know, we don't. I mean it is not like you can call Verizon and say "Bye, going to AT&T."
This is similar to going to each person's house, looking over their shoulder while they are looking at their morning paper over coffee (does anyone do this anymore), and crossing out articles they don't like with a black marker. Then they turn around and blame the newspaper for it's horrible printing methodology. Censorship is censorship by any definition. The RIAA has already gotten a bunch of people to court by IP address obtained through legal means. There is no need for an ISP to be censoring data in any way, shape or form. Comcast, just stop trying to screw your customer base over. PLEASE! This goes for you, TIME WARNER, as well. AND YOU Verizon. A little for Cox Communications, although they are WAY better than the previous three mooks. I have said it before, but cable companies need regulation like electric, water, and garbage companies. This is what having a virtual monopoly does for your freedoms. The government actually got it right for once. Republican, Democrat, who cares?!?!?! JUST GET IT RIGHT!
Actually, you need effective regulators. No more kickbacks, incompetence, and laziness.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I've seen this before between a medical device manufacturer and the FDA. The manufacturer sued the FDA over some rules they made up and won in court. The FDA responded by sending their most detail oriented auditor they had and cited them on violation after violation until the company went out of business from the cost of dealing with it. I don't know if the FCC has that level of authority over the industries they regulate, but I would not be surprised to see a similar reaction.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Couldn't agree more. My only problem with that reasoning is when the other party is so intent to regulate that we descend into a nanny-state. Worse yet being that in order to provide even a perception of increased safety, the nanny-state has to tax ALL of us (not just the pussy-asses who don't know to jump upon the desk of their "oppressors" and bitch until the situation was rectified) have to be taxed 9-ways-to-Sunday in order to PAY FOR IT!!!!
-Oz
The system of local franchise agreement was created by the Federal government. The fact that it was dopey was a result of the hodgepodge of local governments all doing things a little bit differently.
I suspect that fixing the mess that the government made of cable TV (and now Internet) will require additional Federal regulation. However, we should look for regulation that will increase competition rather than regulation that merely increases the power of government (by regulating and protecting the incumbent monopolies).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Seconded. The default firmwares on Linksys routers are notorious for filling up memory when p2p'ing. I'd be curious to see if the grandparent was running a router as well as the modem, or the modem directly into the computer. I'm running DD-WRT now and I haven't seen any problems with it since I switched.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
And how do you propose the problem get solved? I see two options: a) Remove the monopolies granted to the cable and other ISPs (I presume your solution) or b) Set up a better system of rules the providers have to play by and actually enforce them. Neither is perfect, but both require government intervention and regulation. There is no way around it.
In option (a) the government must interfere (again) to "open" up the playing field so to speak. However, it is unclear what that even means. There is only so much pipe to go around (unfortunately). Are you going to let every Tom, Dick and Harry dig holes all over the roads so that every start-up company can own their own infrastructure, so that we can really have a true market place? If not how are you going to allocate the resources? By letting the companies do it? The ones that already took tax payer dollars and would rather buy Disney than spend it on infrastructure improvements? If so what price do they get to sell it for (market value? what's that if they already own all of it?). Leading to the question of why would they even sell it to anyone else? Presumably some rules would need to be set for all these things (who would do that?).
At least in option (b) the rules are set up front. Theoretically they are more transparent because it's an explicit statement of, "these are the rules", and we would potentially get a say in the process. If politicians say one thing about the rules but do something else at least you can not vote for them in the future. I realize this is a small consolation, but the other alternative is a monopolistic company (again how do you get rid of the monopolies without government intervention?) with control and then you don't even have that option.
Either way some kind of government regulation, like it or not, would have to be in place, even for a "deregulated" ISP market.
And yet they're veritable geniuses compared to ACs.
And the answer is found in Econ 101 - significant barriers to entry (massive infrastructure requirement) and the inefficiency of duplicating expensive infrastructure.
Neither one of which has stopped the wireless industry from rolling out no less than four different networks across large portions of the United States. That's not even counting the regional players either. Am I supposed to believe that T-Mobile can find it profitable to roll their own network to compete with AT&T and Verizon but some upstart couldn't do the same with cable in my community if the local government would let him try?
whoever gets there first has a huge advantage over latecomers, and can drive them out of business by undercutting their prices
What makes you think it's all about price? Verizon has come out and said that they don't intend to compete on price with regards to FIOS. And they don't have too -- many people are perfectly willing to pay the money they are asking for the service they are offering. You wouldn't do business with an ISP that promised not to mess with your traffic and have hours of downtime just because they cost a few bucks more than Comcast?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's actually a local government problem. In the very republican area that I live in, we don't require ridiculous franchise agreements, so we do have a second cable company which competes against Comcast. In addition to that, we had Fios installed years ago, and were offered TV as soon as it was available, so we can get internet, tv, and phone bundles from three seperate companies. The end result is lower rates, higher speeds, and better perks.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
What Comcast was doing is not, and never has been, "traffic shaping."
What Comcast did was fraud, the equivalent of stealing the mail out of someone's mailbox or a Fedex/UPS employee walking off with your package.
Neither one of which has stopped the wireless industry from rolling out no less than four different networks across large portions of the United States.
Yeah, remember that part where he said you have to view different businesses differently?
Wireless is very different than cable. Smacking oneself in the face with the obvious relevant ways is left as an exercise for the reader.
The enemies of Democracy are
and face it, the Republicans deregulated, deregulated, and deregulated some more. Of course there were exceptions, but on the whole they're mostly for deregulation.
You won't get any argument out of me that the Republicans fucked up and dug us a hole that will take the better part of a generation to dig out of. I'm just tired of left-leaning partisans wielding the GWB administration as a shield to deflect any and all criticism of the current government. Here's the typical conservation with one of them:
"I'm worried about the national deficit and how much it's going to rise under Obama."
"When George W. Bush took office he had a SURPLUS. Then he passed his TAX CUT FOR THE RICH and now we have a huge deficit. Republicans can't claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility any longer"
Umm, yeah, and how does that relate to my current concerns?
Not all regulation is good, not all deregulation is bad; what you need is effective regulation.
I don't have a problem with all regulation. It's clearly called for in some instances. I just don't think it's fair to blame the free market for the likes of Comcast when Comcast isn't operating under anything that remotely resembles a free market.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
> The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
And neither is it a lack of regulation. Like any complex system, it needs revisions, not complete scrapping.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
I got it recently. Yes, it's more expensive (16 Mbps up and 2.5 Mbps down, 5 static ips is $100/mo), but it's much faster than the advertised speed. I get 6 Mbps up, and I have no trouble seeding my torrents.
no less than four different networks across large portions of the United States.
They duplicated infrastructure in densely populated areas because it was financially worth it and capacity was needed. For telecom considerations, wireless has a pretty low infrastructure requirement. In less populated areas, there is a lot of transparent roaming going on. So there isn't really 4 networks across large portions of the US.
What makes you think it's all about price?
That wasn't his larger point. A rational incumbent economic actor in a high cap industry will dramatically reduce prices if an interloper tries to deploy a similar product. People will be less inclined to switch and the expected profitability and customer penetration can't be met for the interloper, forcing their withdraw. And for the record, I'd love to pay more for FIOS, or Uverse, or any other high speed option to cable. No company seems particularly interested in serving my neighborhood.
Very few areas have a system like the poster is talking about. Look up the UTOPIA project for one example I am familiar with, though can't get. The government builds the network and leases space on it to all comers for the same prices. In reality, you end up able to choose from many different providers for internet, phone, and even TV. It's working very well. It's much like the government building the roads and charging people to use them via taxes and such. We can choose to have our packages delivered by FedEx, UPS, USPS, whatever. It works well taken on the whole.
Are all Republicans opposed to all forms of regulation?
No, but it certainly seems like a lot of the loudest conservatives (note: not all conservatives are Republicans and vice versa, but people rarely make the distinction, same with liberals / Democrats) are always shouting about limited government, free capitalism, let the free market solve all our problems, and so on. Really, you need only tune into some conservative talk radio to hear these themes ad infinitum -- think Hannity, Boortz, Limbaugh, Cain, Beck, Levin, and whoever else. When your exposure to conservative ideals comes from these guys, it's easy to think that their constant pounding of the Laissez Faire Drum is a huge plank of the Republican platform. Of course, there is some truth in that, but it's not "all".
It's usually accompanied by lines like "Do you really think the government can do anything right?", but the people asking are usually happy to be protected by a government-run police, fire, and military force, drink from the municpial water supply, drive on state-constructed roads, use cellphones and GPS and other things made possible by NASA, eat food and take medicine knowing it's been inspected by the FDA and they don't need to personally inspect the farm / pharmacy, live and work in buildings that won't collapse because they've been built to government-approved codes, and so forth. Seems a strange position to take, if you ask me.
Okay, tangent over. Back to our regularly-scheduled slashdot.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
I agree, I think certain things are definitely the fault (whether good or bad) of parties. And some the fault of both, and some the fault of neither.
But the knee-jerk reaction for any "bad" thing is "It was the previous President"/"It was the other party"/"It was the previous Congress." .. presuming, of course, your party is not the one in control previously :)
No, that is not the argument, that is the consequence of the argument.
Public utilities of all kinds oversell their capacity: telephone companies, ISPs, the power company, the roads, water service, etc. Why? Because, as GP said, given that most people aren't using it all the time, the most efficient use of resources is to build just enough infrastructure to provide decent service most of the time.
Are you adequate?
For telecom considerations, wireless has a pretty low infrastructure requirement.
And? The cable company doesn't have to write a check with nine zeros on it to the US Treasury in order to establish themselves. Not having worked for the accounting department at AT&T or Comcast I can't attest as to which one is more expensive but I'd wager that whatever money the wireless carrier saves by not having to string wires is offset by the amount of money that they had to pay to obtain licenses for the frequencies that they operate on.
So I would again ask why it's necessary for local Governments to guarantee a monopoly to the likes of Comcast and Time Warner? If the barrier to entry is as high as you say it is then why do the cable companies willingly operate under such a system? Do they enjoy paying franchise fees or do they get something out of the arrangement?
A rational incumbent economic actor in a high cap industry will dramatically reduce prices if an interloper tries to deploy a similar product.
Such behavior may very well be illegal and would seem to be easier to address than the clusterfuck that we have now. In any event that doesn't directly answer the question -- why is government complacent with the cable monopoly? They don't (at least in my area) franchise the power company or the telephone company. Only the cable company is singled out for this treatment. Why?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
We kind of do have that ability in the wireless world. The big difference is the infrastructure cost. You can drop one cell tower for $75,000-$200,000, depending on location, and it can potentially service a 25-30 mile radius. If you stick it on the roof of a building, you can have it up in days. In rural areas, fiber is going to cost you on the order of $16,000 per mile, so if you have one customer at the edge of that 30 mile radius, it's going to cost half a million dollars to reach that one customer. It's easy to see why having multiple wired providers has a lot more trouble with infrastructure costs than wireless, and even with wireless (where competition is theoretically allowed everywhere), there are still many places that are not covered by all of the major wireless providers, and some places that are not covered by any of them....
This just further illustrates why the government should build out wire line infrastructure. If companies want to augment that with their own, fine, but municipal infrastructure should be ubiquitous instead of just being in a handful of cities and towns as it is now.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Sometimes you fill up your tank too much and gasoline falls on the ground, or else Comcast can install a drain on the ground without your permission to catch this gasoline. Then they try to sell it back to you. That's a better analogy... You got a 404'd domain so you weren't going to get anything anyway. Comcast is making a potential sale by offering to sell you the domain that didn't exist anyway (gasoline that wouldn't have been used anyway because it was on the ground).
Uh, Dems really don't. The number may be 60, but not all of those can really be considered Democrats. Unless it is ok that they talk and back a Republican candidate during the RNC.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
This is nonsensical.
The solution to bad government regulation is effective government regulation. Countries all over the world have effectively run networks that are under the control of the people through democratic action, not subject to the skew of the profit desires of some private entity.
There are some things that cannot operate in a totally free market, like banking, health care, and utilities. The reason is because modern societies require these things to operate, and they should not be left to the wild swings and herd mentality of the market. Nor should my ability to get health care be affected by someone else's incentive to deny me health care. Nor should a banker be allowed to repackage bad debt as good debt through collusion with another company and sell it to me. Nor should a private company be my only option for local utilities service.
Let me put it like this: if there's a free, unregulated market for MP3 players, that's fine. Duke it out. Screw your customers. Worst case scenario, they have a broken MP3 player and they don't have the money anymore.
If there's a free unregulated healthcare market, don't be surprised if you end up with corporations who don't care if children die of leukemia if they can get out of providing care on a technicality. They have no obligation to do the right thing, and their shareholders only know of a single value: profit. Worse case scenario: you are dead, or at least bankrupt for the rest of your life.
Internet access probably falls somewhere in the middle.
No, but it certainly seems like a lot of the loudest conservatives (note: not all conservatives are Republicans and vice versa, but people rarely make the distinction, same with liberals / Democrats) are always shouting about limited government, free capitalism, let the free market solve all our problems, and so on.
If you tune to some of the loudest leftists (note: not all leftists are Democrats and vice versa) you will hear them shouting things that would have made Karl Marx cringe. The rich only got rich on the back of the poor, Wall Street is responsible for every single thing that goes wrong in this country, "General betray us", etc, etc, etc.
When your exposure to conservative ideals comes from these guys
Do you judge liberalism by the likes of Michael Moore? No? Then why judge conservatism by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh?
It's usually accompanied by lines like "Do you really think the government can do anything right?"
Can it though? In my area we have a mixture of private garbage collection and municipal. Some communities have municipal service and some have private service. Follow the two trucks around for a few minutes one day to see the difference between the private sector and the public sector. The private guys haul ass -- the municipal guys prod along and are lucky to cover half the ground that the private guys do. You know what makes it even more pathetic? The muni guys are paid nearly three times as much.
but the people asking are usually happy to be protected by a government-run police, fire, and military force, drink from the municpial water supply, drive on state-constructed roads, use cellphones and GPS and other things made possible by NASA, eat food and take medicine knowing it's been inspected by the FDA and they don't need to personally inspect the farm / pharmacy, live and work in buildings that won't collapse because they've been built to government-approved codes, and so forth. Seems a strange position to take, if you ask me.
I don't think it's strange at all. Some of what you just listed could be accomplished more efficiently by the private sector (municipal water). NASA didn't set out to deploy GPS -- it set out to keep us competitive with the Russians. It's great that we got some civilian applications out of that investment but don't kid yourself into thinking that's why we spent the money.
As far as the FDA goes, I don't trust them at all and many people would argue that they've done more harm than good. They've turned the process for approving new drugs into a bureaucratic nightmare and have denied dying people the right to take experimental medicines even though they are fully aware of the risks of doing so. Given the events of the last few years I think I'd trust an organization like the Underwriters Laboratories more than Uncle Sam. My UL approved outlet and appliances have yet to burn my house down. My FDA approved peanut butter and drugs on the other hand....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Uh, this is Slashdot. If anything, it has conservative leanings. Really, Libertarian, which has things in common with both sides, but tend to come off as more conservative on this issue. So I really doubt he is pandering...probably trolling. If you wanted to pander to the left, you would be posting on digg.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
So I would again ask why it's necessary for local Governments to guarantee a monopoly to the likes of Comcast and Time Warner? If the barrier to entry is as high as you say it is then why do the cable companies willingly operate under such a system? Do they enjoy paying franchise fees or do they get something out of the arrangement?
I don't agree with the local monopoly of cable companies, but I understand how it came about. It was considered the same as a utility. At the time building distribution infrastructure was one of the most capital intensive industries out there. Now maybe wireless licensing is more expensive than stringing cable overhead. But I think you answer your own question. They know the approximate rate of cable adoption, and they can manage the costs of buildout and franchise fees, in exchange for the monopoly market. Companies don't like it when you move their cheese, unless they feel like you are replacing it with something cheesier.
why is government complacent with the cable monopoly? They don't (at least in my area) franchise the power company or the telephone company. Only the cable company is singled out for this treatment. Why?
Well until recently electrical companies had monopolies in TX, and until not terribly long ago local landlines did too, in a state with a raging pro-market Republican/Libertarian bent. I'd say it is probably just a matter of more effective lobbying by the cable company to your local government.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
This is one of the more dumbed-down and destructive libertarian slogans being regurgitated by pro-corporate toadies.
A "100% pure" (read: extremist) de-regulated market cannot produce a cable TV or ISP period. So yes, the answer to abuses created by monopoly conditions is indeed government regulation of an industry that government made possible.
As consumers we have zero power in this market. As citizens we have a chance to rectify an intolerable situation.
We did not invent the Republicans. The Republicans are from Jersey. The Republicans are constantly finding Jeeves.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Same here, I opted out (via modem's MAC address) and had my request processed in just a few days. It still doesn't make it right however.
What's next? pop-up Ad/Tracking software that runs in the system tray? And if there is little to no software activity running, it kills your connection until it's re-established? I mean, at what point do the ISPs start treating our connection as though it's only to be used for entertainment purposes? Screw what the Internet was *supposed* to be used for. You use it how we say you use it Mr-Mindless-Zombie consumer you!
Life is not for the lazy.
Divide and conquer is the main reason for having a two-party duopoly.
As long party fans's energy is focused against the other party (and fans), their "teams" can do whatever they want.
Circus for the people, unlimited power for the powerful (true fact: no accountability == unlimited power).
No, the duopoly IS at fault, here. Our founding fathers specifically warned AGAINST letting the democratic system devolve into a two-party system.
Once it came down to Republicans and Democrats as the majority parties, America started going to shit. It's always white or black, no shades of grey.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I live in an apartment.
I have Verizon, Earthlink, Comcast and Time Warner Cable options available to me for internet service.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The Republicans are constantly finding Jeeves.
I thought the Al Gore rhythm killed Jeeves.
And look which party is trying to stop national health care. There is no defense of the Republican party. The very notion that they are willing to let people die so that they might feel a bit more secure makes me want to get a rope. As for Comcast I want to set those creeps on fire before I hang them. Give me band width or give me death!
Nations are exactly the same. Whoever gets a technology edge first can gain total control and keep other nations in poverty forever. The New World was a huge store house of natural resources and the second great advantage was a low population count. Given that edge we could kick other nations around for a couple of centuries. But now the great store house i not full, the population is way too large, and worse yet we no longer have the habits that cause great scholars to prosper. Other nations now have greater wealth, high quality scholars and worse yet are used to suffering a bit to get the job done. We are in deep trouble.
Cable TV and ISP's would exist even if the government had not granted regional monopolies to certain companies. It would have taken slightly longer for cable to get rolled out, but there is enough money to be made to support more than one cable TV provider in most areas.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Nor should a private company be my only option for local utilities service.
You are absolutely right, you should have the ability to choose between several private companies.
If it wasn't for government intervention in medical care (Medicare and Medicaid) in the first place, health care costs would not have skyrocketed the way they did. Before the institution of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs rose at the same rate as inflation. Immediately after the institution of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs bean rising much faster than inflation. And my question is, what are you going to do when the people making those decision are the government, so there is no longer anybody to turn to to challenge their decisions?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
a) Remove the monopolies granted to the cable and other ISPs (I presume your solution) or b) Set up a better system of rules the providers have to play by and actually enforce them.
What makes you think the new, expanded rules will be better, they will just concentrate more power in the hands of the people who screwed it up in the first place.
In option (a) the government must interfere (again) to "open" up the playing field so to speak.
No, all the government has to do is allow competitors in. If you want to put in wires or cable or fiber optics, you need to get permission from whoever owns the land. If the incumbent has wires or cables or fiber optic in public right of way, you can put wires or... there too. If you need to dig, you need to put things back the way they were when you started.
At least in option (b) the rules are set up front. Theoretically they are more transparent because it's an explicit statement of, "these are the rules", and we would potentially get a say in the process.
You mean like those bills in Congress that it is "unreasonable" to expect Congressmen to read and understand before they vote on them?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
if you run across Joe Sixpack and he identifies himself as a Republican, ask him what he thinks about "government regulation".
Then ask him why he thinks what he does. See if he has an answer other than "because Fox News says so".
Of course, it should also be noted that there are plenty of Democrats whose only reason would be "because Republicans are evil". Blind allegiance without rational thought is in no way monopolized by any one group.
Comcast forges RST packets and intercept DNS requests using man in the middle attacks.
This is where my problem is - Comcast is committing fraud by doing this and then denying/obfuscating/lying to their customers about it. I don't necessarily think new laws or regulations are the answer. I think we should prosecute them under existing fraud statutes. Blaming your customer or their personal equipment when they call and complain that things aren't working, knowing full well the customer's equipment is not at fault? This is fraud. I'm a libertarian who thinks we have too much government. But the moment you as an individual intentionally mislead, attempt to defraud, or otherwise deceive a party to which you have an agreement or contract, I expect you to be prosecuted and pay dearly for this.
I believe this especially when it comes to situations like Comcast where they have a significant portion of knowledge about the technical details of the network that is not accessible to the vast majority of their customers. Comcast uses this divide in the knowledge and technical skill to mask their activities and further the deception.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
Do you judge liberalism by the likes of Michael Moore? No? Then why judge conservatism by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh?
I'm pretty sure that was the point. If you judge a group by the loud and obnoxious extremists, you greatly mischaracterize the majority of the group. Not all conservatives or Republicans are insane or drug-addled, and not all liberals or Democrats are annoying, whiny asshats.
take medicine knowing it's been inspected by the FDA
I'm pretty sure Limbaugh is quite appreciative of the FDA.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
From a certain perspective, it makes sense though. There's a limit to how many wires you can run in to everyone's homes. Having a different company close off and/or tear up your street every month to place new wires isn't feasible either. Because of these limitations, it's pretty much impossible to have anything close to a free market in telecommunications service. Whether or not governments handled it well in the first place is definitely debatable, but like other infrastructure elements such as roads and sewers, a certain amount of government control is the only reasonable outcome.
But I think you answer your own question. They know the approximate rate of cable adoption, and they can manage the costs of buildout and franchise fees, in exchange for the monopoly market.
And you don't think that cable network would still be expanded even without the benefit of the monopoly? In the modern era where people want high speed internet access and 200 channels to zone out with? Somehow I suspect someone would be there to service that market even without the promise of a Governmental monopoly. Whatever arguments could have been made for it in the past don't really seem to apply to the modern world.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yeah...
The FCC should just do what the rest of the government does and invoke Sovereign Powers junk that lets them say 'Sorry you cant sue the government'.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
No, all the government has to do is allow competitors in.
That is called government regulation. There is a limited amount of resources. Who are they going to let in? How much do they get to buy in for? How are they going to take away the bandwidth/infrastructure that the current ISPs already have? What are the new rules that they all play by now? No rules? Who's going to stop the richest player from buying everything up and become an even worse monopoly?
you need to get permission from whoever owns the land
In most cases this is the government. In the cases it's not, what happens when one individual or small group owns a critical piece of land and only allows Big Monopoly with lots of money through?
If you need to dig, you need to put things back the way they were when you started.
And what about all the major roads and public areas that laying these cables will displace while they are being put in? Are you just going to allow them to be torn up any time a new competitor wants in? How will people get to work?
You mean like those bills in Congress that it is "unreasonable" to expect Congressmen to read and understand before they vote on them?
What's your point? Regardless of whether a member of Congress understands what he/she votes for is irrelevant. If you don't like what they propose or vote for you can cast your own vote to replace them. While most of your options may not be appealing you at least have the option, unlike under corporate control. Have you tried voting Comcast out of your neighbourhood lately?
Cable just isn't the type of thing you can have a "free" market on. Large portions of the cable must be placed on public property and the inconvenience to everyday activities is too great to allow anyone access to tear up the land whenever they want. The government has to be involved. Sticking your head in the sand and wishing it would go away won't solve the problem.
Before the institution of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs rose at the same rate as inflation. Immediately after the institution of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs bean rising much faster than inflation.
Do you have a citation for this? As far as I can tell, health care costs have doubled since 2000. Medicare and Medicaid were started in the 60s. Could it be that insurance companies were invested too heavily in the stock market to make extra profits, and were then forced to overcharge their customers and deny procedures in order to cover their ass? Sounds like a likely scenario to me.
And my question is, what are you going to do when the people making those decision are the government, so there is no longer anybody to turn to to challenge their decisions?
This of course depends on a healthy democracy, who are willing to participate in the governance of themselves. Right now, if you have coverage with BCBS, and they deny your coverage, you can sue and hopefully get treatment before it's too late, if you win the case at all. In every other country with a single payer system, you just go to a doctor and get treatment. In most countries you don't even have to fill out any paperwork. And they pay about half of what we do, and have the same life expectancy.
I fail to see how this helps your side of the argument.
And my question is, what are you going to do when the people making those decision are the government, so there is no longer anybody to turn to to challenge their decisions?
In theory, there is somebody to challenge government decisions, and they're called voters. Of course, in theory, the free market solves everything...
And you don't think that cable network would still be expanded even without the benefit of the monopoly?
No, they would. After a sufficient period of having a hissy fit, stopping all investment, threating that their service would degrade because they couldn't possibly eek out a profit with competition, once they decided the local politicians weren't going to give in, and they would have to compete for customers, they would start expanding again. Perhaps even faster once real competition shows up on the scene.
You will need some regulation to prevent companies from coming in and abusing the public right of way. Perhaps both legacy and newcomers will need to pay right of way fees to keep it under control.
You will need some regulation to prevent companies from coming in and abusing the public right of way. Perhaps both legacy and newcomers will need to pay right of way fees to keep it under control.
Hey, I've never said that some regulation isn't required. You just have to be weary of regulatory capture that results in companies like AT&T abusing the right of way with the full force of the law backing them up. To me the ideal balance would be somewhere between "you must negotiate with each landowner over the placement of each utility pole" and "we can put whatever we want on your property and your only choice is to bend over and take it"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
their service will suck and customers will flee.
Not if that's the only choice for broadband. In most places people do not have a choice whom thy get broadband from. They either get it from a monopoly or they don't get broadband.
If they go over 10%, though, they're throwing money down the drain.
You're missing a key word here, specifically an adjective. That adjective being "taxpayer", which modifies "money". Taxpayers gave cable and phone companies $200 Billion in subsidies to build out broadband. But all these businesses did was pad their bottom lines, line their pockets.
Either they deliver what they were paid for, or they return the money and get out of the way of those who will provide what they refuse to.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"Why are you directing this at Republicans when Democrats have a veto and filibuster proof control of the entire government?" For my 2 cents... ALL govt activities are the results of BOTH PARTIES working in collusion (hope that's the right word). NOTHING is ever done in dc unless BOTH PARTIES want it, in spite of how they try to play the blame-card for the public's consumption. America will be a far better place when we ALL recognize this and do something to change it, like maybe firing all the players and starting up a new team! thanks for lis'nin' seekertom
Personally I would like the local government be required to obtain and maintain right of way poles and underground ducts, and they have authority to approve right of way use, and police abuse of the right of way between landowners and utilities. Approving use can be required to be done in a fair and non exclusionary way.
I sure don't want non essential utilities able to have any en-masse control of right of way acquisition. There's virtually no way to prevent abuse.
The statement I replied to was a black and white statement. The Party system has certainly NOT created every problem the government has.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
Don't got it, but I know parliamentary systems experience many of the same problems. Breaking the duopoly is no panacea.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
No, I ask Joe Sixpack about the government upholding binding contracts between any businesses or private persons or punishing those who constantly violate the rules.
A company that sells Internet access and made a contract with Joe Sixpack damn well needs to enable him to access the Internet, not "The Web", not "authorized websites run by trusted partners" but the thing they promised in ads and contracts.
That is no regulation but fraud prevention. And IF they have it in long legalese on page 35 of their 60-page "acceptable use terms agreed upon after reading the first letter", it's still fraud, because a reasonable person, a group of peers if you will, probably thinks that, too.
And I seriously doubt Joe Sixpack will make a liberal argument for the right to scam. Honest contracts for trivial services don't have 30 pages in arial-condensed 4pt and honest contracts don't include clauses that make the other contract partner puke or clench their fists. As I don't drink beer, I can only guess what Joe Sixpack thinks about it, but I have the impression that honesty, truth and fair-pay-fair-service are pretty high on his list of priorities.
IMHO, we really need to start talking about taking away cable and in some places fiber monopolies.
The Economist, a pro-free-market newsmagazine, proposed something like that recently:
Thanks for the link, I missed that issue.
The "Economist" is a Free market, and liberal (libertarian in the US), publication which is why they may propose that. Cable, and fiber, owned by the same company that offers the service it is capable of is a monopoly and opposes free markets.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
really
Really they do. Where I live channel 9 is a Fox station and I can not broadcast on that frequency. Or any other frequency for TVs, without paying millions of dollars to buy a license, if anyone will sell me theirs.
Since they have to get their broadcast feeds from the networks, it's hard to imagine the networks granting more than one station franchise
That does not matter. I couldn't start broadcasting even if I wanted to make my own shows. Since I used trains and model railroads before I will again. If as a model railroad enthusiast I wanted to start a model railroad channel and broadcast it, I could not legally without a license. Forget the equipment, that's pretty cheap, the cost is in the license. And the scarcity is an artificially imposed one [pdf].
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You mixed up and down. (so you know)
Also, the reason you're getting more is because 1 to 3 weeks ago (depending on your area) comcast upgraded the entire countries speed tiers. The normal 8/1 is now 16/2 (basic home internet) at $45 a month. They also added a cheaper tier which is like 1/384 or something of that nature. The top tier is now 50/10. So if you where paying for 16/2 then you're probably now paying for approx 24/5 but I do not have the exact speeds memorized.
If I was you I'd switch from the business line to the 50/10 for the same price. The only difference between retail and business is 1) business has better tech support on the phone and 2) static IPs. Business users are also suppose to get priority above home users but the truth is the type of modem you have decides priority in the end so someone currently paying for 50/10 which requires a docsis 3.0 modem will have higher priority than a business 24/5 user with a docsis 2.0 modem. If you switched to a docsis 3.0 modem for your business line then your priority would be same or greater than the 50/10 user. However, even in the most congested of areas with the new docsis 3.0 network changes you should never see a slowdown currently.
I agree.
Time for some regulation that levels the playing field and gives the consumer some choices, and allows the consumer to choose the winners with their patronage. Clamping down on a fundamentally unfair monopolistic system with increased Federal bureaucracy would akin to how we handled Ma Bell before the breakup. It didn't work.
Good luck getting sense out of this Congress, though. We're going to have to visit the voting booth before we get what is needed.
--
Toro
There are some things that cannot operate in a totally free market, like banking, health care, and utilities.
There is no free market in any of those. Banks, if they are federally chartered need to follow Federal Reserve and FDIC regulations. State chartered banks have to follow the regulations of the states they are located in. The biggest mortgage companies implicated in the banking crisis are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and both were created by guess who??? The Government.
There is no free market in health care either, and hasn't been since WWII at least. Back then the government passed laws with price and wage controls. Among them were restrictions on how much businesses could pay employees. they were not allowed to pay more than a set amount. However so employers could attract employees they were given tax breaks for offering benefits such as health insurance. So now, if an employer can afford it, because of the tax breaks it's cheaper to get employer sponsored health insurance than it is to buy your own insurance. That is no free market.
Utilities like power companies are an example of natural monopolies. In many places possible competitors are barred from using the right of way or easement. I could not lay cable, phone, or powerlines in a right of way the incumbent provider uses. So if for example I wanted to start a wind farm and owned the land for it, I could not run my own powerlines in the right of way so I could deliver electricity to those willing to buy it from me. That is no free market.
If there's a free unregulated healthcare market, don't be surprised if you end up with corporations who don't care if children die of leukemia [msn.com] if they can get out of providing care on a technicality.
Ah, competition. If one insurer won't offer good insurance another will. People always complain about the competition of outsourcing but refuse to acknowledge the same thing can drive their own cost down too. To them competition is always bad.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
In every other country with a single payer system, you just go to a doctor and get treatment. In most countries you don't even have to fill out any paperwork. And they pay about half of what we do, and have the same life expectancy.
And there is rationing as well as waiting periods. "When Canadian Member of Parliament Belinda Stronach needed breast cancer surgery herself in 2007, she went to a California hospital and paid cash." "When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it."
If Canada's health care is so great why are Canadian members of government coming to the US for surgery?
Meanwhile here in the US I as a student with no insurance had an accident and was Medivaced by helicopter from the accident scene to the hospital. I spent about a month in the hospital, some of that tyme in a coma. I was then transfered to a rehab house where I lived several more weeks. Afterwards I went to the hospital I was originally taken to for therapy twice a week for several more weeks. All together my medical bills, which none of the medical personnel or facilities were guarantied to be paid for, came to more than $120,000. Despite not being able to pay I got all that medical care anyway.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
All I want is unlimited, unrestricted, fast, and reasonably priced internet. Why can't any of these ISPs just give that to me and then leave me be so I can use the internet in peace? Why must my ISPs continually screw me until year/s later when the contract is finally over?
No this has nothing to do with government regulations it has to do with the business practices the business is doing. Which is why the FCC stepped in.
You're right! We don't need no stinkin' government regulations. We just need to make sure the government regulates business practices. While we're at it, let's keep government out of our Medicare!
I think you missed the point. He clearly was referring not to politicians, but to all the ordinary "government is the problem" Republican-voting citizens. This is an example where regulation is a good thing. Something those people should take note of. Nothing a Democrat did will disprove that point.
National healthcare as proposed is not the best option, and we shouldn't adopt it here in the US because it would bankrupt us. There are better alternatives that keep costs minimal while ensuring good care, which is a big part of the question. It would be less problematic to have taxpayers subsidize the uninsured if the cost of doing so were lower, and the government-sponsored option coexisted with the private sector. Now if you really want to cut healthcare costs, support tort reform. Both Dems and Repubs are to blame for lack of progress there (that's what happens when you have a government full of lawyers, elected by lawyers' money), although Repubs are the the biggest opposition.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I have DOCSIS 2.0. 3.0 is not in my area yet. Will be by the end of the year. I already checked with several people, including the install guy.
If your inability to broadcast on channel 9 means that your local Fox station has a monopoly, then the butcher shop at 108 W. Main has a monopoly since I can't open my own butcher shop at that address.
Your inability to afford a license to broadcast is perhaps a valid criticism of the regulation framework that exists, but it does not mean that there is a monopoly on broadcast television any more than the barriers to entry for pharmacy, including licensing, mean that the place across from my office has a monopoly in the field.
You really aren't describing a monopoly at all, is the point. You're describing things that may be worth complaining about, but nothing truly exclusive.
I contacted the local Comcast office about going with a commercial account back when I telecommuted. I figured I'd get the Business account and get better speed, since the best of the Residential accounts is limited to an advertised 256K up which is really closer to 120K in reality.
I could have really used the speed for telecommuting. Even with a traffic-shaping-capable router, trying to upload a >1MB file while on my Vonage line took upwards of a half hour, and sharing my desktop was pretty much impossible even if I dedicated my Internet connection to it.
Comcast told me they wouldn't sell me the contract because I'm in a residential-zoned area. Customers in residential areas are limited to residential accounts.
I'm currently on their $50 3MB plan. I could spend an extra $15 a month to go with 5MB download, or an extra $25 to go to 7MB, but I've still got the same anemic upload speed and the 250GB/month cap. So I fail to see the point of those plans - 3MB down is really more than I need even when watching YouTube.
DOCSIS 1.1 is the only standard they technically support unless you rent one of their cable modems ($10 a month). You can GET a DOCSIS 2.0 modem on your own, but they won't recommend any brands that work with their Axxis gear, and they won't state whether even the major brands will negotiate a DOCSIS 2 connection with them.
I'd go with a competitor, but Comcast has none, or at least I've not been able to get a clear answer out of FairPoint as to whether DSL is available here (they seem to be imploding after purchasing all the landlines up here, and asking them a question is almost as productive and pleasant as using a Magic 8 ball while being pummeled with a baseball bat).
Having said all that, Comcast has been really great here about maintaining really good latency. Their predecessor, SusCom, obviously built out a good backbone. And I understand that to some extent the fact that their bandwidth sucks contributes to the fact that they can keep latency low.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
There is no free market in any of those. Banks, if they are federally chartered need to follow Federal Reserve and FDIC regulations.
The reason they are federally regulated is because before the creation of the FDIC and the rules of the Great Depression, there were bank panics every ten years during the 19th Century. You can read about them - the panics of 1819, 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893. This was before the move to a fiat money system, so don't try scapegoating that.
Your comments about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not only factually incorrect, but entirely misleading. The sub-prime mortgages were popularized in the private market before Fannie and Freddie joined in the fun. This is not to say they were well run, but they were not any worse off than other participants in the whole mess. In fact, given the most recent data, Fannie and Freddie are faring better than private mortgage holders.
Your comments about health care are fine in theory, as is all economics, because it's based on the fairy tale of "all else being equal." There are dozens of western countries who have found a non-market solution to the health care problem, they are living just as long, they are paying less, and their people are happier with their care than we are with ours. In a vacuum, the free market can solve everything, just like communism. As learned elsewhere, if you can't disprove an argument in your own head, that means the argument is an extremely poor one.
Duplicating infrastructure is simply stupid. Even the founders understood this, so they gave government the power to make roads and manage interstate commerce. The main reason is because the amount of monopolies that would spring up would be tremendous, because you would then be asking the question of "How much are you willing to pay for running water and sewage?" versus "How much does it cost your local government to provide running water and sewage?" With the first question, if 20% of the society can afford $100 a day, and 80% of the society can only afford $1 a day, what is the incentive for the company to run sewage to the poorest members of society? What is the damage done to that society as a result? If a society next door provides all the same services to everyone for $1 a day, how long do you think it would take before they are far surpassing their stupid neighbors in life expectancy, education, and general health? The answers to these questions aren't hard to arrive at.
Ah, competition. If one insurer won't offer good insurance another will. People always complain about the competition of outsourcing but refuse to acknowledge the same thing can drive their own cost down too. To them competition is always bad.
If there were some mechanism to have a fall back private insurer, this might make sense, but as far as I'm aware insurance companies will not give you insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, meaning there's no way to get well once you are out of the loop. It's their goal, therefore, to throw you out of that loop once you get expensive, which is usually when you need insurance the most.
Again, you are only burdening your society if you make each generation relearn from the same mistakes. We evolve as a society not when everyone starts from zero, but from when you start with the lessons of the previous generation as a guide. There is no free market reason why Blue Cross couldn't bonus their top employees millions of dollars until the company was bankrupt, and then throw all of their customers into the street with no coverage and no refund of the money they've paid in. This means that your well-being is dependent on the lack of greed from a human being who never has to confront you face to face.
This is an important thing to remember about the free market theory. It depends on equality, which is why Adam
and face it, the Republicans deregulated, deregulated, and deregulated some more. Of course there were exceptions, but on the whole they're mostly for deregulation.
You won't get any argument out of me that the Republicans fucked up and dug us a hole that will take the better part of a generation to dig out of. I'm just tired of left-leaning partisans wielding the GWB administration as a shield to deflect any and all criticism of the current government. Here's the typical conservation with one of them:
"I'm worried about the national deficit and how much it's going to rise under Obama."
"When George W. Bush took office he had a SURPLUS. Then he passed his TAX CUT FOR THE RICH and now we have a huge deficit. Republicans can't claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility any longer"
Umm, yeah, and how does that relate to my current concerns?
I think the reality-based conclusion to your phantom left-leaning partisan's argument is closer to: "... and so this administration has to spend massive amounts of money now on social investments and new regulation that will hopefully pull us out of the economic nosedive handed to us by a corrupt Republican-ruled government." You may disagree with that strategy, but don't dismiss the argument.
I think the empty rhetoric laced with outright lies is tiresome too. This particular tactic is still paying off for the GOP, and unfortunately a large portion of the public is still buying it. Setting up strawmen to joust doesn't solve the problem though, even when it feels good.
Of course we're all concerned with the deficit, and I'm no economist, but I don't see many alternatives to the current plan. We're spending as a means to curb the most devastating aspects of the current economic crisis. Projections from late last year suggested we'd still be dropping like a stone in an empty well, but we seem to be headed for recovery. Maybe with a little forethought and oversight we can manage the deficit too - but not with 10+% unemployment.
Also, as much as I hate Comcast and its ilk, they have little to do with the economic climate that resulted from massive deregulation, nor was comcast mentioned in mcgrew's comments. Fed rate massaging combined with deregulation of the housing and lending markets are clearly closer to (if not at) the top of the culprit list. I'm not really sure why you bring up Comcast at all, actually. It's a non sequitur in this discussion.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
And this, my friends, is what inevitably occurs when a business with such huge startup costs tries to compete in a fixed-size market. There is truly no way to prevent this except to take the startup costs out of the picture, either by the government giving a colossal grant to the cable company to cover its infrastructure costs or by the government building the infrastructure to begin with and leasing it out to multiple competitors.
The only way telecom competition can work is if the infrastructure provider and the data provider are not the same company---if the infrastructure provider leases access to the data provider on a nondiscriminatory basis.
An alternative is to force the companies to lease their lines at a modest cost (where the price is set by a government agency). This has worked very well in some EU countries, where they wanted to convert government utilities to a free market.
any hospital with a legal or compliance department would be ensuring that any data that would be covered under HIPA would be sujbect to that laws data security standards
"FTP Today considers its services "HIPAA Ready," and proper use of the tools we provide should meet your needs of HIPAA compliance, however you should consult your own attorney in that regard."
xTy Technology: "When enabled, the encryption strength of our products meets (exceeds) the HIPAA data encryption requirement.
"FTP Voyager Secure is a fully HIPAA compliant FTP client."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If your inability to broadcast on channel 9 means that your local Fox station has a monopoly, then the butcher shop at 108 W. Main has a monopoly since I can't open my own butcher shop at that address.
OK, so can I broadcast on another frequency? Without spending millions of dollars to buy a license? I can't, not without the FCC unleashing agents to shutdown the broadcast. The incumbents have a monopoly on broadcasting.
Your inability to afford a license to broadcast is perhaps a valid criticism of the regulation framework that exists, but it does not mean that there is a monopoly on broadcast television any more than the barriers to entry for pharmacy, including licensing, mean that the place across from my office has a monopoly in the field.
There are no regulations, or laws that I know of, that prevents 10 different people from opening pharmacies in a cluster next to each other. But the FCC will not allow 5 radio or tv stations to broadcast next to each other. Heck the FCC shuts down pirate radio stations even though they do not interfere or bother others. I can broadcast with a 5 watt transmitter and not cause any problems, yet if I continue I'll have a visit by the police if not the FCC.
You really aren't describing a monopoly at all, is the point. You're describing things that may be worth complaining about, but nothing truly exclusive.
They are exclusive. A fox radio station has an exclusive license to broadcast on a given frequency, and only so many broadcasters are allowed within a give area. But by your definition even though courts have ruled MS is a monopoly it is not because there are alternatives to MS software.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There is no free market in any of those. Banks, if they are federally chartered need to follow Federal Reserve and FDIC regulations.
The reason they are federally regulated is because before the creation of the FDIC and the rules of the Great Depression, there were bank panics every ten years during the 19th Century.
There is still no free market in banking. Also the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, during the Great Depression, introduced more regulations as did the Banking Act of 1933 or Second Glass Steagall Act.
In fact, given the most recent data, Fannie and Freddie are faring better than private mortgage holders.
There is no data there about commercial banks, not is there comparisons between different banks. All that link of yours is about is "loan modifications by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac", copy and paste. Try again.
There are dozens of western countries who have found a non-market solution to the health care problem, they are living just as long, they are paying less, and their people are happier with their care than we are with ours.
Yea, they're so happy many of them come to the US for surgery and treatments. 24% of Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room." And let's see about cancer mortality: "Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher." Let's see about test rates, from the same link:
Duplicating infrastructure is simply stupid.
Oh I agree, as far as physical infrastructure is concerned. I didn't say otherwise either. I've actually argued ownership of infrastructure should be separated from ownership of services it can deliver. I live in Minneapolis and I wouldn't have a problem if the city installed fiber to the door then allowed, key phrase here; different entities whether businesses, charities, or coops; to use the fiber to offer subscribers internet access, phone service, or TV. I've posted links to news about a group of communities in northeastern Utah who did this which I support. Private businesses can use the infrastructure the local governments built to compeat with each other.
"How much are you willing to pay for running water and sewage?"
I have no problem with local governments running water and sewage. I actually oppose privatizing water. I however do not want the federal government controlling any of it.
I disagree with other libertarian positions too, for instance many libertarians advocate privatizing roads. However I oppose that, I however think local and state government should do more and the federal government less.
If there were some mechanis
Should there be a Law?
Sure, except I paid for the damned gasoline, it's mine regardless of where it falls.
If an ISP fucks with the bits coming down your line, the service you paid for, well I think we have the right to fuck back, because we "own" those bits.
-Billco, Fnarg.com