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The Coming Internet Video Crash
snydeq writes "First, it was data caps on cellular, and now caps on wired broadband — welcome to the end of the rich Internet, writes Galen Gruman. 'People are still getting used to the notion that unlimited data plans are dead and gone for their smartphones. The option wasn't even offered for tablets. Now, we're beginning to see the eradication of the unlimited data plan in our broadband lines, such as cable and DSL connections. It's a dangerous trend that will threaten the budding Internet-based video business — whether from Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Windows Store, or Google Play — then jeopardize Internet services of all sorts. It's a complex issue, and though the villains are obvious — the telecom carriers and cable providers — the solutions are not. The result will be a metered Internet that discourages use of the services so valuable for work and play.'"
...or the large players will gather and plot to harm the consumer. Adam Smith pretty much makes the case that you -need- to regulate some industries, since they will not do it themselves. The consumer cannot 'vote with their wallet' when all the players offer the same vile offerings, racing each other to the bottom.
If you have already given the cable companies exclusivity, how do you expect the magical free market to work. If we did not give the cable companies exclusive rights, we would already have free and healthy market. And yes it would have taken care of it.
I pay 40 € per month for a 16 Mbit/s dl and 1 Mb/s ul uncapped internet access on adsl2+. And still find it a bit pricey.
I'm in the heart of Europe.
There are a couple of ways to find a WISP. Most reputable WISPs are members of WISPA. WISPA search
The other way is to ask on DSLReports WISP section. DSL Reports WISP
Good Luck.
"high barriers to entry are typically not an issue of acquiring sufficient capital "
Are you serious? You're telling me that politicians are the reason you can't just start an airplane manufacturing business overnight? Or launch satellites into orbit to provide global communications? Or an offshore oil drilling company... a mining company... a global logistics provider....?
High barriers to entry are there because the resources necessary to set up shop are hugely expensive and often of a massive scale. High barriers to entry become even higher when there are already established players in a space because you will be utterly incapable of competing against them unless you can match their resources. Nothing at all to do with political influence.
And in the natural world, the biggest, strongest wolf gets to stay that way by eating first (and the most) while the runt of the litter eats last.
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
This is exactly right. We went through this in Australia. I remember it quite fondly.
Back at the turn of the century we had completely unlimited cable for around $80 from what I remember. After a while (and with only 1 single broadband provider in the country) they introduced a 3GB cap. Not a typo. THREE GIGABYTE CAP. We hit that cap on the second day of the month 10 years ago. Eventually they got slapped quite hard from the Australian Competition and Consumer Comission and the cap raised to 10GB.
Enter ADSL. This same single broadband provider happens to own all the copper lines. So they offered their service with the same crappy caps but they also sold on their network wholesale to other telecom companies who wanted to offer ADSL as well. ... At a price higher than the retail value. Eventually they got slapped quite hard from the ACCC and they dropped their wholesale prices leading to competition and a rise in the caps again.
Eventually I can't remember who think it may have been the ACCC again required Telstra to offer their exchanges to other companies to house equipment. Several companies jumped on the idea and started installing DSLAMs everywhere. Caps at the end of all this were around 50-250GB depending on plan.
Now we have a situation here where the introduction of Naked DSL and a ruling which requires Telstra to completely offer it's copper infrastructure to other providers means we no longer have a monopoly. End result is I now have completely unlimited internet.
Chronology of events of my internet bills:
2001: $80 unlimited
2003ish: $80 3GB
2004ish: $80 10GB
2006ish: $70 50GB peak + 100GB offpeak on ADSL + $30 phone line rental paid to Telstra.
2009ish: $70 250GB+250GB peak/off on ADSL+ $30 phone line rental paid to Telstra (DESPITE NOW NOT ACTUALLY USING A PHONE ANYMORE).
2012: $60 unlimited ADSL and phone line bundle.
And without the FCC you wouldn't have any spectrum, because the guy with the biggest amp will drown out your puny little signal on whatever spectrum you try to sneak into around the behemoths.
Actually, no, there are a LOT more than 2-3 solutions...
The major reason for usage capping is not the backbone costs of all of that bandwidth, it's oversubscription; the cable companies can't provide unlimited guaranteed bandwidth to everyone all the time.
However, they do have an absolutely MASSIVE pipe coming into your home, even if it is shared - the problem is they are using almost all of it to send you 799 TV channels you aren't watching while you are tuned to the 800th. If they just dumped the traditional broadcast system to use ALL of the available frequencies for IP-based video, the whole oversubscription problem would go away.
Of course, then they might actually start having a backbone issue, but that's a nice scalable problem they have been continuously solving for decades...
Fucking horse shit. The Sherman act was written _precisely_ because it's a la-la-la child's fantasy. You want to see what happens without government intervention? You look at the history of what that act stopped. You want to say oh, it wouldn't happen today? You're going to try to float that _here_, on _slashdot_ ?!!!?!? There simply aren't words. That fantasy is literally inexpressibly stupid.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Austria has unlimited data plans.
;-))
I have a SIM card from drei.at that you can use without a contract and recharge on a monthly basis. It comes at 15 EUR a month and gives you high speed HSDPA+ without a cap. Also, my regular internet comes wireless these days: I have an LTE contract at 49 EUR a month that gives me unlimited 100MBit down and 10MBit up. I live in central Vienna and I actually get the advertised speeds.
There you go Sweden, plus we have better weather and better food (and we don't extradite
Finland — I didn't even see "limited" data plans last month when I shopped for a plan, it was all about how much bandwidth you can use.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.