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Still Little To Do About a Bad ISP
theY4Kman writes "The Washington Post reinforces the grim situation on Net Neutrality and limited ISP choices faced by Americans: 'The FCC's research shows that 78 percent of American households have access to only two land-based broadband providers and that 13 percent have one. Don't expect that to improve. Many competing DSL services have left the market, spurred by the end of line-sharing in 2005 and other corporate consolidations. A few months ago, for instance, AT&T elected to close its WorldNet DSL service. Meanwhile, technologies that were once promoted as alternatives to phone and cable-based services have flopped. City-wide WiFi access ... turned out to be a business bust. The power-line broadband that then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell lauded as having "great promise" in 2004 fared no better: Last week, Manassas voted to unplug its pioneering service. ... We have a situation full of lawyerly jargon, with risks that can't be dramatized by putting a sick kid on a stage. I hope you like your Internet provider, because you may be stuck with it for a while.'"
Given that "data" must be transmitted over the same mediums used by existing monopolies for decades (cable, phone, fiber, satellite), how could anyone expect anything different. I'm thankful I have at least 2 choices. It took a long time for me to have 2 choices for phone or TV.
All of the shutdowns, buyouts, prohibitive laws, monopoly over the lines, and other occurrences that killed competitors had nothing at all to do with the incumbent providers...
Regulation would fix this. The cost of entry into the broadband market is so prohibitively high that only the largest companies (e.g. Google) can even consider laying down a new broadband access grid. Line sharing is supposed to allow for open competition. But as usual, the ability of companies to donate millions of dollars, through various means, to campaign committees means our representatives listen to them, not us, and not common sense when their lobbyists put forward an anticompetitive bill.
Fix Washington, fix this. Like just about everything else.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Only one phone company.
Only one electric company.
Only one town government.
Only one state government.
All monopolies that abuse their users.
How many houses are passed by FiOS, Comcast, Time Warner, etc. residential broadband services and opt out? We need to understand why.
Do any of those "out-opt'ers" cite lack of speed as a reason? I bet not, I bet they either don't see the need OR can't/choose not to invest in a home computer and on-going monthly expenses.
Many workplaces are wired for internet access, millions of smart phones have some form of internet access, nearly every school building in America is wired to a high-speed internet connection (K-12 and college/university), as are most public libraries (the last two thanks in large part to tax subsidies paid, in no small part, by homes with more than one phone line), and let's not forget book stores, coffee shops, "grilled sandwich" shops, and, last but not least, your neighbor's "open" WiFi connection - the vast majority of Americans have a plethora of choices, and if they feel they need more choices, they need to work on their local PUC that authorizes the monopolies and duopolies in 91% of America.
Ken
Perhaps it is time to split these big companies into two operations - ISPs and network operators.
After you have done that you can then mandate that the company sell back bandwidth on its network to its self as well as the competition. So for example let's say MyISP.Net own all of the cable in Texas, that network provider would have to sell bandwidth on its cable back to its self and any third parties that want to offer Internet in Texas for the same price with the same T&Cs.
That way you open up the network in that area to lot's of competition which encourages lower prices and better quality of service. Plus in addition to that you might spawn new companies who only want to built new cable without having to manage an ISP.
The difference is all the utilities you mention are highly regulated and in some cases run by the local government. If my local water supplier is delivering poor quality or too low of volume or their prices are outrageous I have two different options. One, I can elect a different mayor and city council who will fix the problem or two I can call the feds who heavily regulate water companies and require certain levels of purity and quality of service as well as pricing. When my electric supplier want so raise their rates, they have to ask the feds and they can't exclude my buying power over their distribution lines from the wind farm down the way instead of from the coal plant owned by the distributor. For that matter if I throw up a windmill they are required by law to pay me for what electricity I add to the grid.
Utility companies in general are often monopolies because of practical limitations to the infrastructure, but they're also traditionally very heavily regulated to keep them from abusing that position and because they are considered necessary services. So far internet access is not considered a necessary service and is not highly regulated at all. Companies aren't required to provide service to everyone in the area like phone companies are and they aren't prevented from leveraging those monopoly or duopoly situations by bundling other services.
Please keep in mind that American-style "regulation" is a lot different than that in other areas of the world.
In America, the people involved with regulating industry typically come from industry. A typical career path involves getting an MBA, becoming a mid-level manager at a large corporation, working their way up to a senior-level management position, then jumping to government briefly in order to put in place regulations that are very favorable to large corporations, and finally jumping back to a large corporation to profit from the "regulations" that have been put in place. Benefit to the consumer is completely irrelevant, and is thus ignored.
In other parts of the world, regulators do not come from industry, and they do not work for large corporations. Many are from academia, which does a much better job of putting the welfare of the general populace ahead of that of a small number of corporations. So we end up seeing regulations that benefit everybody, rather than just one party. Consumers are guaranteed safe, reliable products, while industry is still allowed to make reasonable profits.
There is no free market for internet service. I have lived in over a dozen cities in 5 states. In each one, high speed internet service was a monopoly or duopoly.
Which I guess is what the free market is telling us is the cost of delivering
Rather what a fairly closed market tells us the market will bear if they don't have significant competition.
with a population as widely-dispersed as the USA.
Except that even more widely dispersed countries like Sweden have much lower prices.
Wow. Who modded this informative? Did you even read the damn link?
"Getting rid of the Morse Code requirement sure helped in that regard." Is that your idea of "regulatory barriers"? Really? I suppose you think that evil leftist commies erected this terrifying standard of "YOU MUST LEARN MORSE CODE" to prevent all these nascent entrepreneurs from innovating in the space of SENDING RADIO MESSAGES OVER PUBLIC AIRWAVES. Yes, clearly we're seeing all sorts of economic activity now from hobbyists who were tragically forced to learn new things, now going out and buying radio transceivers and antennas so that they can do things that 99.9% of them don't even really care about.
It's kind of amusing that this is really the best example you can come up with to say "GOVERNMENT SUCKS THE FREE MARKET IS AWESOME OMG I JUST CAME."
Because people aren't going to drop their ISP unless they know another one is there to pick up their business. Would you cancel your internet knowing there was nobody else yet to provide your connection?
Here's a good one... I lived in Manassas for over 15 years and only recently moved. This is THE first time I've even heard of them trying to "pioneer" BPL! I thought surely it was some other Manassas but nope, I looked and there's a web site and everything - holy crap! You're talking about an area that dragged it's feet FOREVER to get cable internet. an area where I had to BEG to get the local phone company to sell meDSL - they refused but a third party sold me ISDL at some ungodly rate over the same lines the phone company said couldn't support me. The cable company told me for two YEARS that they were "rebuilding their cable plant" and would contact me when they were ready to sell me 'net service! Meanwhile just a few miles away in Fairfax there was cable internet and the phone company kept sending me fliers for their high(er) speed DSL but duh couldn't cross county lines to give it to me. Finally after years of this crap cable came though and gee not too long after that we finally got FIOS. Cable can kiss my ass with FIOS available.
Why they ever thought BPL would fly in an environment like that is beyond me. DSL in that area was stupid because the phone company wasn't interested, cable is actually pretty decent and most of the area is older with overhead wiring so not hard, and FIOS is making huge inroads also using the overhead wiring in many places. FIOS is smoking fast too and the cable was decent. What exactly did they think BPL was going to offer?!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
So my real question, why can't everyone cancel their service with a monopolist provider, and sign on with whatever new provider came in its place? The only thing stopping this seems to be that most people are satisfied enough with their current service that they wouldn't want to be a part of this, and thus it does't happen.
There are several things at work here. First you'd need motivated people to organize the customers. Next, you'd need someone to create a new ISP, but if you still only have one provider and no competition you might end up in exactly the same situation a few years down the road. Additionally, you need people to understand what is going on. Because our legal system has been fairly okay about preventing monopoly abuse, most people don't even understand the issues involved and assume eventually other competitors will appear, especially if the service can be provided cheaper (ignorant of the government subsidies, legal right of ways, and other impediments to fair competition). And lastly, you'd need people to go without what is a vital service for many of us to conduct our jobs long enough to drive the monopolist out, which could be long time especially if they have no bandwidth costs and they're getting state or federal government investment dollars.
You can't say people are satisfied when their choice is between organizing a complex boycott that may or may not work; or paying now and hoping real competition will some day be available.
Which I guess is what the free market is telling us is the cost of delivering high [or high-ish] speed "last mile" access to a nation with a population as widely-dispersed as the USA.
So why isn't it any cheaper or better in densely populated cities? It's not like the entire U.S. looks like rural Kansas, now is it?