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Telcos Want Big Subsidies, Not Line-Sharing
It seems that a recent survey of global broadband practices by Harvard's Berkman Center at the behest of the FCC has stirred the telecommunications hornet's nest. Both AT&T and Verizon are up in arms about some of the conclusions (except the ones that suggest offering large direct public subsidies). "Harvard's Berkman Center study of global broadband practices, produced at the FCC's request, is an 'embarrassingly slanted econometric analysis that violates professional statistical standards and is insufficiently reliable to provide meaningful guidance,' declares AT&T. The study does nothing but promote the lead author's 'own extreme views,' warns a response from Verizon Wireless. Most importantly, it 'should not be relied upon by the FCC in formulating a National Broadband Plan,' concludes the United States Telecom Association. Reviewing the slew of criticisms, Berkman's blog wryly notes that the report seems to have been 'a mini stimulus act for telecommunications lawyers and consultants.'"
Free money, no mandates. This sounds like the initial Bush stimulus package, so it's entirely without precedent.
If their development is going to be subsidized with federal funds, they damn well better open those lines. And they should be required to meet coverage quotas if they want any of those rural development funds.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
have not read TFA but anything the teleco's HATE must not be all that bad...
In most cases, the "lines" (optical etc) are paid for with tax payer dollars. If the telecos cant play nice, we're just going to have to take our toys and go home.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
America is, and pretty much always has been, a fascist nation. I think the recent bailouts of the banking giants and car manufacturers should prove that it is fascist now; Andrew Jackson himself was fighting fascism when it came to central banking back in the 1830's. War and weapons define the American economy. Boeing and Raytheon and Xi could be considered the ultimate achievement of which a fascist society is capable.
Lew Rockwell is fond of referring to the central government as the Welfare-Warfare state. Our country has always defined itself through these two socialist conspiracies against mankind - welfare both corporate and personal, which stunts economic growth and creates a class of victims wholly dependent on the largess of their tormentor - and warfare, which is the extension of corporate power through the state in order to secure resources overseas. We should abandon this socialism, this corporatism, this fascism - and create a government that exists only within strict Constitutional boundaries. Nothing else will do for the good of mankind.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
But since both AT&T and Verizon object to its conclusions I don't need to read about it. Now I know the report must be right.
I'm glad something finally brought AT&T and Verizon together, I hate it when big corporations get in fights. Also, fuck you both for calling the U.S. innovators in wireless broadband, we are in the middle of the pack at best in broadband services.
If the big telcos hate it, I like it.
Was it Cato? It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the big businesses that want freedom from any laws that they find inconvenient and the "philosophers" who have what amounts to be almost the same thing.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"...direct government encouragement can facilitate deployment and drive penetration."
Verizon notes, open access and unbundling would be a bad policy for the United States, largely because of the rural nature of much of the country. "The problem in these rural and low-density areas is that they have been unable to attract even a single entrant," the telco argues. "Imposing unbundling will not only fail to solve this problem, but will only make things worse: if the economics do not currently support a single provider, they are even less likely to support multiple(and potentially an unlimited number of) providers."
I'm not sure that you can have worse service than no service. There are many areas that only allow one (or a few) providers. If that one provider chooses not to give service to a part of it's service area, those people are screwed. Maximum innovation will come from maximum competition. It's called capitalism, but it always seemed to me that capitalists usually want the least amount of competition possible.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Just require companies taking subsidies to cap wages including top executives at 100K a year and bonuses at 5K a year. They'll squeal like pigs and no one will touch the subsidies. Something similar happened with the bailout money. When there were no strings attached everyone wanted their share. Once they started insisting on wage caps suddenly no one needed the money.
At least here in Finland line-sharing did wonders to consumers. It lowered prices and allowed small companies the possibility to offer broadband with completely different business models. Competition also forced the big ones to improve customer service quality. I can't think of any downsides for the customer.
Ahem.. (clears throat). FUCK YOU!
The taxpayer gave you Millions if not Billions back in the 90's for infrastructure upgrades. And now, a decade later, with YOU posting record profits, and infrastructure being upgraded at a rate comparable to snails pace, you have the gall to ask for more money from the taxpayers, i.e. your CUSTOMERS?
Pardon me Big Telco, but FUCK YOU!
Walmart and Fox?
Deleted
Yup. Plenty of small companies would be willing to do it though. Hell, if the govt wants to pay for the fiber and install, I'll start a small company to manage it and happily take $105K/year to do so. And I'll run it with an open access policy.
From Snatch - "You got to deal with him. You just got to make sure you don't end up owing him. Cause then you're in his debt. Which means, your in his pocket. And once you're in that, you ain't ever coming out."
It applies to mobsters and the government.
By law, nobody employed by the federal government is allowed to pull in a higher salary than the President (currentky 400K/yr). This includes bonuses. I see no reason why corporations accepting bailout money should be treated differently.
you have the emotional appeal down solid, its pretty good chest thumping stuff
but you're underpinning your inflammatory rhetoric with poor a set of facts
good propaganda never lies, it traffics in half truths. so, for example, you don't want to say the usa has ALWAYS been a fascist state. not mainly because thats a lie, but also because you undermine your final appeal for a return to constitutional roots... well, if those roots are so strong, how come the usa has "always" been a fascist state? its a contradiction. you can't refer to a strong set of principles that never actually worked
no, you need a sympathetic narrative, a demagogue's best friend: its better to refer a mythological past where everything was perfect, the founding fathers reigned supreme. then evil influences crept in. in your particular fantasy, that would be corporations, and they subverted and ruined the garden of eden
so instead you want to say the usa WAS ONCE a solid strong democracy. instill chest thumping patriotism here with strong quasihistoric visions, you know the drill. then change the tone and talk about how money was thrown around and morals and integrity were corrupted, the founding fathers betrayed... good hollywood stuff
good luck to you sir, you're well on your way to being a solid propagandizing demagogue. you have the emotional appeals down solid. now just hone up on the half-truths and you'll be a rabble rouser supreme!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
End the FCC.
The real problem is the system is gamed heavily in their favor. We should make ALL monopoly connections be discontinued. Here in Denver region, Colorado, QWest has the monopoly on twisted pair, and Comcast has the monopoly on cable/fiber. If we remove these monopolies and regulations, it will allow real competition to come in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
1. Separate the ISPs into separate entities. Phone service in one company, internet service in another, television in a third.
2. Separate the ownership of the infrastructure into another company
3. Make the three companies from part 1 pay company from part 2 for access
4. allow any other company access to part 2's lines for the same fee as it charges part 1 companies
5. don't EVER allow them to merge again
-SaNo
So that would be AT&T, Comcast and Verizon as opposed to AT&T. Comcast and Verizon, then.
And the Corporate State produces serfs and masters, where the only free men are the masters. Since they are the only free men, they hate anyone else getting freedom since it impinges on their rights to abuse the serf classes.
So while technically true, your "free man" isn't the "cosmopolitan man" or the "rational man" or indeed "human". And for this reason they hate the welfare state, it removes their power over the serf whom they care not a jot for except how much can be bled from him.
it's the job of your inflamed followers to attack your detractors, you want to stay above the fray
for attacking you, i'm a tool of the corporate overlords, a slavemaster in the mold of jefferson, etc.
but you don't have to make those accusations, only your followers do
on the plus side, you didn't waver in your mask of the passionate demagogue. you stuck right with the script and didn't at all slide into sarcasm or give any grounds to my alternate views. you hewed straight to your particular peculiar solipsism, good for you
or... horrors of horrors, don't tell me you actually believe the bullshit you're writing
no, no, that will never do. that makes you a crackpot, not a demagogue
oh dear
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
in subsidies.
Why the fuck after no major infrastructure upgrade and no national fibre wiring upgrade are they asking for more?
Sickening.
This is the bill the telco's are strongly opposed to, the one we need to pass:
h3458
if the economics do not currently support a single provider, they are even less likely to support multiple providers.
Invoking economic arguments may not be the most self-interested thing for Verizon to do, because if we're doing that, we may as well admit telecom tends towards natural monopoly and network effects, and that having telecom infrastructure managed by self-interested private parties isn't ever going to produce the same kind of yields that markets do by competition in other sectors.
The fact that the Verizon argument quoted above is correct doesn't even help their case. It's another brick in the wall: in contrast to areas where they tend towards anticompetitive, it's hard for private telecom to serve some markets profitably at all. We and they have sortof accepted this as a balance, and that's one way to do it, but there's always this level of finagling discussed in the post. It might be better to just stop messing around and move to private service over public infrastructure common carriage if we really think of telecom as a utility or public good.
Tweet, tweet.
and thanks for the free service
wait... you mean you want charge us for what we paid for already?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This isn't insightful, mod me down. I totally misread the GP and thought his first sentence was sarcastic. It wasn't. His point was that, despite being a "welfare state", the US has clearly done alright, and that corporate welfare is the big problem, something which we both agree on.
I knew that Verizon and at&t would come out against this. They've been taking additional revenues from the various fees like FUSF, et al and just plowing it right back into the revenue and dividend stream.
You think for a moment they're actually going to do something like build out broadband? Not on your life, unless of course the FCC mandates it. Then it'll be tied up in the courts for a decade or so. By the time a decision favoring the FCC ruling is made, there will already be an upstart and disruptive technology that fills the void, or do I need to remind everyone of the origins of MCI and Sprint.
I've got a wonderful idea - instead of giving telco's tons of cash to build infrastructure, why doesn't the government build the infrastructure itself (much like the highway system) and then simply lease bandwidth on those lines at a set rate to any company who wants it?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
We compete... see there's a 5 cent difference between their plan and ours...
Here is an IDEA
The Govt should come in an break up any telco who has a single point of entry into your house.
1) The telephone company
2) The cable company
They would create 2 divisions, physical plant division who would be run as a non-profit type co-op and a Media div who would have to buy their service from whomever they want.
The rates for delivery of content over the different wires would be set on actaul operation costs averaged out over the whole plant. Ie if it cost $1 per line to maintain the plant then access would be billed at $1 per line.
The govt then could allow these physical plant co-ops to merge so you could purchase coper rights on coax, pairs, fiber whatever is currently run to the house.
All the billing to the users would have a plant upgrade fee which would go into a fund to pay for plant upgrades, ie replacement of the copper with fiber.
This would level the field as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, XYZ Telephone would all pay the same to access a house. The only diff in their costs would be content and back haul charges which there is already competition for these.
What do we need more bandwidth for? Mostly to deliver HDTV video.? All the high-bandwidth applications used by average consumers are video playback. That doesn't deserve a single tax dollar.
Considering the lack of attention to the details of improving rural service, I feel that they do not deserve a single nickle of gov't funding.
Fact is, they got a lot of gall for asking for more money after the stunning YTD they posted on the market, both wireless and wired.
Until they can show REAL (as in purchase orders for equipment, permits for installation of same, they really do not deserve any outside funding at all.
They've been living off the fat for this long, I think that it would be high time to put them on some lean rations for a while.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Doesn't work, they'll just look to get the money some other way, probably through shell companies whose 'services' are used by the company accepting the subsidies. Those kinds of limits can't be codified with our system of laws. If the law could simply say what it meant in clear english and leave the interpretation up to the courts it might be possible, but expensive lawyers will always find a way out of vuagely written laws.
This is slightly misleading. The first recipients of the bailout money were forced by the government to accept the bailouts. Only later were companies lining up for the free money.
If you're going to attempt a car analogy at least make it an accurate one. The Internet equivalent of the highway system—the high-capacity lines spanning multiple states and event countries and continents—is working just fine. The problem is with the last-mile connections, particularly ones in rural areas. These connections are analogous to state and county roads, not highways. These local roads are not managed at the national level; they are primarily funded and maintained by the states, counties and sometimes even municipalities in which they reside. Quality and maintenance vary depending on local preferences; some are little more than bare dirt, while others exceed the qualify of some highways, in full accordance with their typical use and estimated value.
By this analogy, the federal government should stay out of Internet infrastructure matters entirely, and leave the last-mile problem to be dealt with at the local level, by those most affected by it.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Hmm, I don't believe that is what the OP is saying.
How would that help?
Free Martian Whores!
Getting my starts in IT at the beginning of the commercialization of the Internet and being present to see what it has developed into makes me think that the wireless telecommunications companies are off their bloody rocker!
One major difference from the Internet and the many wireless networks (3g, etc) out there is that the Internet through purchase or peering agreements are all interconnected. If the United States could dismantle the current wireless networks in place and deploy the strategically there would be no coverage gaps, even in the most rural of areas.
It makes neither technological or economical sense to maintain so many separate networks.
I don't know the answer, because I wouldn't want the government running the infrastructure, but if maintaining the wireless infrastructure was done by a single entity and if that entity was not any of the wireless service providers communications would be much better in this country.
There should be one unified wireless network that would sell its services for a fee, regulated by the FCC/FTC.
Wireless service providers would pay for access to this network and then resell it to consumers, with value added services.
Cell phone manufactures should not be allowed to be Wireless service providers. All phones made should work with any Wireless service provider. No locking, etc. Wireless service providers could still sell discounted phones in trade for contract commitments but there would never be a scenario like exists today such that a phone manufacture, like Apple, inc, could restrict their phone to work with one wireless provider.
Fees should be regulated to keep illegal price fixing that happens with all the providers today.
How providers bill would be up to them but real unlimited, all you can eat, service with absolutely NO restrictions. This is what happened with the Internet. It was once where you paid for a set number of hours per month or you paid by the minute as you used it. But, economies of scale and demand from the consumers forced the providers to go with unlimited service.
Today, even when a providers sells you an unlimited data plan, like AT&T forces you to do if you use an iPhone it is not unlimited. AT&T restricts tethering and if the feel you have used an excess amount of data they will terminate your account. So, it's not unlimited it just has a secret limit. This would have never been tollerated with Internet service.
True unlimited cell service is inevitable I wish they would go ahead and accept it. Unlimited minutes, Unlimited texts, Unlimited data, no restrictions on tethering, etc..
The day is coming when we won't buy broadband because everyone will have their own personal Internet connection with them, in their pocket (their phone).
I just hope I live through the cell wars to see it. The economics work for the same reason unlimited Internet accounts are profitable. That's because of averages of large numbers. I might use tons of data and talk minutes but my dad, my sister, my roomate don't. It averages out.
All this bickering is making my head hurt. Consumers should group together and sue for being overcharged and price fixing in the cell industry.
ppfffffttt...
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
If you've commented, you can't mod anyone in that thread into oblivion.
Free Martian Whores!
Hell, if the govt wants to pay for the fiber and install, I'll start a small cooperative to manage it and happily take my share in bandwidth.
...As the good salesfolk at the Verizon Wireless store were swift to tell me. I can't stop in at the Verizon Wireless store to pay my Verizon FIOS bill. Verizon Wireless is only majority-owned by Verizon. Verizon itself is the one with FIOS, not Verizon Wireless.
The summary, and the article it points to, quoted the response as from "Verizon Wireless". Looking at the filing itself, "Name of Filer" is "Verizon and Verizon Wireless". I'm guessing that "Verizon Wireless" looks cooler in print. I think it would have been more accurate, though, to simply say "Verizon" in this case.
When there were no strings attached everyone wanted their share. Once they started insisting on wage caps suddenly no one needed the money.
Oh they needed the money, but only because the insurance they had on all their crappy investments wasn't paying out. But then the government stepped in and gave AIG enough money to cover all their payouts and the other financial institutions realized that rather than taking money directly from the government, they could just get their money from AIG with no strings attached.
If we had to bail out AIG, we should have done it with the condition that not only their management would have those conditions placed on them but also the management of any company that accepted payouts from AIG. But since we didn't, AIG became the loophole that allowed everyone else to collect government money without the conditions that made direct bailout money undesirable.
What kind of people rail against giving welfare to the poor but have no problem giving it to the rich?
The rich.
What kind of people rail against giving welfare to the poor but have no problem giving it to the rich?
The rich!
Ron Paul, 2012!
Looking at federal spending, almost all of the subsidy is being wasted on high cost areas for telephone service where we use USF taxes to subsidize $16K per year per phone line http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/americans-are-subsidizing-16834-phone-lines/. USF subsidies work out to about $7B and some of it goes to libraries, schools, and low income families. However, around $5B is mostly wasted on high cost funds.
The tax payer subsidies are not funding the "Internet industry" as you claim. The telecom and cable industry spends about $50B in private investments per year on communications infrastructure and that's 10 times higher than the USF subsidies. The stimulus funding that was approved this year was only $7.2 billion, but it came with so many strings attached that no large Telco or cable company took up the offer.
It's unfortunate that the Slashdot community is going to rate up unsubstantiated claims as "informative".
Yes, because we enjoy spending, on average, 40 hours a year waiting in traffic on our public highways — residents of large cities are lucky to have double that... Can't wait to have more of the same kind of "service" in other kinds of government-run infrastructure!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It should have been into horizontal companies, not vertical.
There should be one company that is responsible for all of the physical infrastructure (copper/fibre in the ground and switches to move data around) and another responsible for providing the services that are on top of that (telephony, Internet.)
Pass legislation that makes this a rule: if you provide telephony/Internet services then you cannot own copper/fibre and vice versa. Also forbid exclusive access contracts and require that access to the media is sold via an open auction process.
Then you will have a situation where all of your ISPs need to bid on getting access to the fibre/copper that runs to your house.
The catch here is that you will likely end up with a monopoly at the copper/fibre layer but the cost to everyone above should be about the same.
Now do the same for cable and satellite.
This won't provide "end to end" perfection that some would like to make you think is necessary, but it will open the market up in new ways that encourage more competition.
What you described is the situation I pointed out in my reply called "price fixing".
Price fixing is defined as: "Establishing the price of a product or service, rather than allowing it to be determined naturally through free market forces." This procedure is an illegal practice in the United States.
AT&T and Verizon have already been accused of price fixing on what they were charging for individual text messages. If there was not price fixing in the cellular service industry there would be a price war going on to compete for customers. But, the price difference between one provider and another is non-existent. I guess we are supposed to just believe that this is not obvious. After all we are stupid Americans! *LOL*
I wish I had the resources to start a cell network. I'd sell unlimited (true unlimited) cell service with the lowest profit margin possible. Until someone assassinated me. *CHUCKLE*
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
But that doesn't mean the monopoly telecoms won't play make-believe
You mean the telcos will lie? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
Everyone needs to read this,most aren't old enough to remember it,but the man said alot of things that are now coming true, http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html I saw a bumper sticker recently,it said "Flip this house", it was a picture of the White House. I think it is time to fire all our representitives and hire new ones, maybe then we will be able to see the "true puppeteers" that are running our country.
No more source for handouts => No more handouts => No more incentive to ask for handouts => No more lobbyists.