How ISPs Collude To Offer Poor Service

alexander_686 writes "Bloomberg is running a series of articles from Susan Crawford about the stagnation of internet access in the U.S., and why consumers in America pay more for slower service. Quoting: 'The two kinds of Internet-access carriers, wired and wireless, have found they can operate without competing with each other. The cable industry and AT&T-Verizon have divided up the world much as Comcast and Time Warner did; only instead of, "You take Philadelphia, I'll take Minneapolis," it's, "You take wired, I'll take wireless." At the end of 2011, the two industries even agreed to market each other’s services.' I am a free market type of guy. I do recognize the abuse that can come from natural monopolies that utilities tend to have, but I have never considered this type of collusion before. To fix the situation, Crawford recommends that the U.S. 'move to a utility model, based on the assumption that all Americans require fiber-optic Internet access at reasonable prices.'"

Comments

Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Crawford recommends that the U.S. 'move to a utility model, based on the assumption that all Americans require fiber-optic Internet access at reasonable prices.

This all sees well and good. Too bad it's not capable of happening, since the USA is run by corporations, and it'll be a cold day in hell before they shoot themselves in the foot.

If you want not retarded internet, your single only option is to move out off the continent.

Re:Interesting theory

[locopuyo]

It could be worse. It could be like Australia where they have fast downloads but roflbad upload speeds.

Re:Interesting theory

[pkthunders]

Luckily the government can control things like this if we cry hard enough. I mean they're the ones who can wiretap us against our will and wanted censor the internet too... Owait ~_~

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want fiber-optic Internet access at much lower prices than we have today, you'll have to convince millions of others.

There are millions of people on 1.5Mbps or less DSL who see no need to pay even $1 more.
There are millions of people on dialup who don't need to stream anything at all.
There are millions of people who don't know what all the fuss over this Internet thing is about.

But you want those millions of people to buy you a pony!

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

America definitely has this problem as well.

It costs $500+/mo to get about 3meg upload in far northern california.

Re:Interesting theory

[cdrguru]

Absolutely. Step 1 is figuring out if the statement "all Americans require fiber-optic Internet access" is true. So far, it isn't by a long shot and the assumption that it is true is one of the big problems.

If Internet access is needed by everyone, then maybe a utility model would work - everyone pays and everyone gets service. However, if it isn't true then moving to that kind of model would impact a huge number of people in very negative ways, especially in the pocketbook.

Another aspect that should be considered is if the Internet is ready for everyone to need it. What would happen if the entire US had unlimited fiber access? Well, my guess is that spam would increase (ha!) and that scammers would get a lot richer. Most of the people that do not have access today wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it and would certainly believe that a Nigerian prince was holding millions of dollars for them, if they only send $125 to him today.

Does this sound like a good idea?

Re:Interesting theory

[PPH]

If you want not retarded internet, your single only option is to move out off the continent.

Or get your municipality to run their own fiber as a public utility.

I want common carrier broadband. AT&T doesn't offer it, nor does Comcast. So there's no issue of public entities competing with private business here.

Re:Interesting theory

[darkfeline]

Depends on what you mean by "require". Not everyone "needs" electricity, gas, telecommunication lines or water either. Hell, why don't we all go back to the days where everyone lives in cottages on a ranch with maybe a well and some farmland?

The point is, Internet access has an infrastructure dependency and provides a service which fits perfectly with the utility service model, so it makes no sense that we use a better model for gas and electricity and not for Internet. This is Economics 101, here, but the wikipedia page provides a good explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilities

Re:Interesting theory

[DragonWriter]

Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

The essential good angle is about the importance, which is one piece, but the real basis for utility treatment is the impracticality or undesirable consequences of mutliple competing sets of infrastructure, and is common with delivery networks of all types. For food (and lots of other goods) that's why you tend to have either publicly owned or privately-owned-but-publicly-licensed-and-tightly-regulated delivery networks (e.g., roads for food -- generally publicly-owned, but you see the same thing with power grid -- largely privately owned but as regulated utilities -- and many other things.)

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Your local DMV no longer offers services X, Y, and Z, because they can be done online. Get internet.

Re:Interesting theory

[The MAZZTer]

The Wii U has a huge day-one system update patch, weighing in at 5GB. I have FIOS (15mbits/s) and it took 30-45 mins to download. Steam and other digital distribution systems are becoming more popular and games easily weigh in at multi-gigabytes. Today I just got Assassin's Creed 3 as a gift and it is a 15gb download.

As services like these are more commonly used, more people will eventually figure out that they will need improved internet connectivity to better use these services.

Re:Interesting theory

[mkraft]

If you want not retarded internet, your single only option is to move out off the continent.

Or get your municipality to run their own fiber as a public utility.

I want common carrier broadband. AT&T doesn't offer it, nor does Comcast. So there's no issue of public entities competing with private business here.

Then your municipality would get sued by the Telco/CableCo for being anti-competitive (of all things):

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/09/12/2326251/telco-sues-municipality-for-laying-their-own-fiber
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/09/telco-to-town-were-suing-you-because-we-care/

Re:Interesting theory

[PPH]

Huh? If a city starts selling broadband services, you don't see that as competing with both Comcast and AT&T?

Not at all. Comcast and AT&T are not common carriers. If that's what my city offers, how can they be competing with these private entities. They are two completely different products.

Re:Interesting theory

[alen]

So? You don't need the update to play single player

Play a few games, set it to download and go to sleep

Re:Interesting theory

[Galactic Dominator]

Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

Because for utility like services, the barrier to entry is extraordinarily high, dangerous, or otherwise seemed some sort of national threat.. Also for these reasons, competition is scarce. Again this warrants government intervention since there aren't any grocery store monopolies in any major urban center and I believe nearly all population centers greater than 10,000 has multiple chains and likely distributors servicing them. Yet in the 150,000 population city I live near, you have 1 option for wired internet with speeds greater than 1.5 Mbps. The second major competitor sold out when the city in question refused to let them lay their warehouse of fiber since that would upset the monopoly.

This all seems obvious. I don't supposed you hate any "guberment" programs in general and as such are unwilling to look at reality?

Re:Interesting theory

[gutnor]

You are looking at the problem the wrong way. Step 1 really is "Does the US needs all American to have fiber-optic access". That is a political decision that is first strategic as it may be crucial for US competitivity in the future. But also societal/cultural: should the US become a society that is more connected (get the work to you) or a society that is more mobile (go to the work).

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

As a dialup user, I still have a smartphone if I want to stream anything video.

The main problem with dialup these days isn't even the slower connection speed (I have seen as slow as 21600 bps) or the host-based softmodems (HSP or HSF modems). The main problems are: bloated oversized page graphical elements, websites using tons of JQuery and/or Yahoo API and/or Google API and/or Facebook API. Many of those sites use additional scripts just for user tracking and that's even before addressing the ad-serving scripts on the page. Watch that modem process and process sometimes for well over 10 minutes before the site finally loads--IF something doesn't time out and cause a Page Cannot Be Displayed error to be generated by the browser.

Turn off scripts, and see how fast the actual HTML-only content of the page actually loads over dialup. But, then the page is still mostly broken because buttons and even hyperlinks on some pages are dependent on client-side scripting.

In summary, it's shitty web design all over "Web 2.0" that designs every page as a dancing and singing application in a web browser instead of a mostly static page with a few optional active elements. I would welcome a throwback to the earliest days of web pages where they would still load over 14400 bps and used mostly HTML-only elements for the page, graphical content was minimal and any graphics used as small of a size as possible balancing quality with loading speed. Either that, or stop using my client-side bandwidth for page control processing, user tracking, and ad serving--do all that shit on the server-side and give me a quick-loading client-side page that will actually respond on click--not a few seconds later.

Re:Interesting theory

[marcosdumay]

Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

So much for learning history... Roads have been made public for food and army distribution. As those services are critical, eveybody already called for it a long time ago. Today nobody even thinks they can be left for the free market.

Re:Interesting theory

[LDAPMAN]

Actually, in some parts of the country Walmart has eliminated the competition. There are many areas where they have an effective monopoly on grocery distribution. I'd say your analogy should actually be looked at in reverse and we take a good hard look at the impact of having a single distribution chain.

Re:Interesting theory

[flyneye]

You'll have to cry tears made of money, thats what Congressites and Senatoids eat( besides newborn babies) Further , you'll have to bleed more money than the ISPs that currently feed them for their own immortal porpoises.

Re:Interesting theory

[tgrigsby]

excellent point. And the only solution is to fix the election process and take the money out of politics by limiting donations to individual donations only, of 1000 dollars or less. when elections are decided by the will of the people and not by corporate might the government will serve the people again.

Re:Interesting theory

[PlusFiveTroll]

>Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

I see you know little about America and what is 'nationalized'.

You've not been reading much lately, ISP's have consolidated and are not profit taking at record levels after years of fights cities laying their own fiber, luckly in this case the city finally won and is laying their own fiber at much higher speeds. I worked for one of the ISPs that fought the city at the time. We offered them shitty low speed service and would not spend the capital to upgrade their system. Instead the company spend millions in lobbying and advertizing to keep the city from building its own network.

Re:Interesting theory

[HangingChad]

But you want those millions of people to buy you a pony!

You want people to fund your kid's school.

You want millions of people to subsidize the roads you drive on.

How is this really that much different? Before motorcars took over, millions of people got by just fine with their horses. You ignore that internet service isn't as much an entertainment option as a utility today. A utility that's rapidly changing the way information and notices are delivered to homes and it's in the hands of private companies colluding to keep prices high and speeds slow.

The market is not going to fix this problem. I'm sorry you have to help pay for the new railroad coming through town, but it will make getting goods from the big city out to the frontier easier, there grandpa.

Re:Interesting theory

[Runaway1956]

The pony was bought and paid for. The telcos have accepted money over the years, from the government, purportedly for the purpose of getting broadband internet out to the "last mile".

We're not asking for another pony. We just want to ride the frigging pony we've been promised. The pony that we paid for already.

I would agree with this mockery you make, except, just across the water in Europe, everyone has the pony. Fast ponies. They have pony races, just to see how fast they can go. We can't even climb on a broken down old circus pony to be led around a little rope corral.

Obviously, we're doing something wrong on this side of the pond.

Re:Interesting theory

[Galactic Dominator]

Actually, in some parts of the country Walmart has eliminated the competition. There are many areas where they have an effective monopoly on grocery distribution.

If there are so many then I have to assume it's easy for you to cite a 10,000+ population center with the only available grocer as being Walmart. Can you name one such instance, or are you just assuming their market monopoly and claiming knowledge on it?

Do you want to know why Wal-Mart's pricing is so low? It's because reality is the exact opposite of your delusion. Wal-Mart hasn't eliminated the competition. ISP's have therefore you pay more and get less.

Re:Interesting theory

[Runaway1956]

You're very much right that not everyone actually requires fiberoptic service. First, separating wants from needs is important. I'd like to have super fast fiberoptic, but I don't "need" it. Few of us do, really. We can be patient, and wait for ten minutes to get a file that would have downloaded almost instantly on fiber. So, we're in agreement there.

But, you're a lot less right when you say that the internet isn't required by everyone. In today's world, if you don't have internet, then you cannot be competitive with the competition just a couple miles away. I live out in the sticks, where internet service was very spotty until five years ago. The access that is available is still pretty crappy today.

My "auto parts" store of choice lost business to franchised auto parts stores, until they finally got online. People searching for things simply couldn't find them. The franchised stores were either on line, or they were represented by a corporate headquarters site which listed them, along with a map with directions to their stores. My supplier simply didn't exist. Even though I knew where they were, I couldn't go online to find out if they had a particular item in stock, or if they would have to order it.

Now that Mr. Baker has an online presence, he does get more business. His online presence isn't a very good presence, because he is not tech savvy, and doesn't understand the need to hire someone who is tech savvy. Still - he's there. And he gets business that he never did get before.

If the old guy would hire someone to market him online, he could gain a lot more business, because he offers things that the franchise stores don't. Farm and tractor supply parts, tractor trailer parts, small engine parts, that O'Reilly's and others don't offer at any price. The bulk of his business comes from word of mouth advertising. A real on line presence, tailored to suit his needs would easily increase his business by 10%, probably 20%. I could potentially increase his business by 100%, but there's no way to prove it until someone actually does it.

I say that in today's world, internet access is a necessity. You simply can't compete unless people can find you.

Re:Interesting theory

[simtel]

I used to do that for a 200MB file on on dialup. I think the point is that content sizes are growing rapidly, expecting broadband speeds to keep up. The concern is that people are afraid of the current stagnation, and how it might mean that in a few years, your download of that 50GB patch will take longer than 30-40 minutes.

Re:Interesting theory

[flayzernax]

If we were to move were is the best place to go for super good internet? Asia? Japan?

Re:Interesting theory

[TheLink]

How do you fix the election process? Who has the power to fix the election process? And who has influence over that person/group?

Re:Interesting theory

[hairyfeet]

You simply cannot fix a corrupted system by working within that system, why? Because they will simply change the rules to insure that you can't win silly!

While I was never a fan of Ron Paul (to me libertarianism is just an excuse for rich to hoard and starve the poor and I think if we ever did have a libertarian government we'd have a full scale uprising from the poor within a decade) but frankly anybody that thought they could change things by working within the system should look up "Jon Stewart Ron Paul" to see how truly badly the thing is rigged and how the MSM is in bed with the megacorps controlling the elections. In the Stewart video he shows clip after clip of stations all over the country, national and local, treating Paul as 'he who shall not be named' and even going so far as to name the first, second and FOURTH place finishers in a race. The last clip even has a reporter saying to the anchor "Here we are talking about Christie and Palin, who aren't even in the race, and not Paul who is doing well here" and the anchor gets a douchebag smirk and looks straight at the camera and says "Well if you get Palin or Christie footage send it up, you can keep the Paul stuff" with another douchebag smirk.

Add to this the people in charge of counting votes in several places in NH saying "The numbers the RNC reported were NOT what we handed to them, they aren't even close" or the "voice vote" on allowing the Paul delegation to speak where they caught it on film that the vote results were already on the teleprompter before the vote was even cast? You can give it up friend, all you can do is take as much as you possibly can and wait for the entire rotten mess to collapse which it will, probably in the next decade as the bubble they have blown in the financial market will make the crash of 29 look like a bad weekend when it blows.

Short of violent uprising and revolution there is simply nothing to be done, the same cabal of corps owns the MSM, controls the elections, its all as kayfabe as pro wrestling. Why do you think no matter how you vote nothing changes, and it never gets better? As the lat great George Carlin said "Things will NEVER get better in this country because the owners WANT it this way! They own the country, they own you, and its never gonna get any better!" and he's right, the system is so completely corrupted that it would be impossible to ever fix it, they control what you see and hear, the price of Internet keeps going up to keep more and more peasants away from it, and its never ever gonna get better.

Re:Interesting theory

[joocemann]

To clarify.... Not everyone needs internet just like not everyone needs roads... What? Not everyone needs roads? Correct. Some people don't go anywhere, or go places on foot and on bikes, which could be mountain bikes, and using dirt footpaths. They don't need roads...

But they DO need roads.... they want a pizza delivered. They want the ambulance to show up when their kid biffs hard on his bike. They want their neighbors to be able to get to work 40 miles away and come home in time for the neighborhood bbq.

Sure.. you don't need internet to have fun, or maybe for your own personal choices. But you need internet for the businesses around you to keep their prices lower with digital age technology. You need your government to have communications tech so they can protect you from the various nutjobs around the world that are angry for debatable reasons. I could go on with a million examples of how you passively take benefit from the internet --- so much so that your current state of life, even without you personally using it, NEEDS the internet.

Re:Interesting theory

[hairyfeet]

The problem is more and more of our content is gonna be digital, you have everybody including ALL of the major OSes pushing the appstore model, yet instead of laying lines you have the ISPs putting ever nastier caps. Ever see how much streaming video takes? Or buying a game digitally? I know that I probably went through 50GB on the Steam Summer sale and I wouldn't be surprised if I go through that or more before the Xmas sale is through, how many of those sales do you think they'd get if I was paying $1.50 a GB which is what some of the caps they are proposing run?

This next gen will probably be the LAST generation where the games come on discs, not only are the games getting bigger but digital distribution allows for cheaper games and can all but kill piracy since most won't have the skills to sideload digital games and hack a Xbox 960 or PS5, so what then? because its obvious the ISPs don't give a shit, not if they have the option to just cap the hell out of everybody and keep the profits. We are finally beginning to reach a point where you can truly have the world on demand, movies games and shows will all be cheap and instant, but if the ISPs just keep adding nastier caps the world will get this great new digital age and we'll be stuck on the equivalent of dialup. Of course the stocks will never be higher, have to think of the stockholders ya know.

Oh and to the guy talking about "all the millions of slow DSL or dialup" how many of them have any actual choice? I live in a town of over 20,000 and there is plenty of places where your choice is dialup or nothing, hell when I lived in Nashville a while back there was places even in a city that size where it was dialup or nothing, so who says they have any choice? I have several customers on the lowest DSL so you would count them as "not needing faster" but in reality they all tried the highest tier AT&T had and all it did was raise their bills, speedtest.net showed no change for that extra money. Should they simply give AT&T an extra hundred plus as a prezzie so they'll be counted? I tried the highest tier at my cableco, it gained me a whole 3Mbps and cost $120! more a month for 3Mbps more download and 1Mbps instead of 512Kbps upload. Do you think I wouldn't jump at the chance to get anything faster at a fair rate? Hell its costing me $110 a month now for just net and home phone service, but since their phone don't count against the cap and something like Vonage does its not like i have any options, and in my area if you are LUCKY you'll get 2Mbps DSL, most don't even get 756Kbps.

Re:Interesting theory

[LDAPMAN]

Sure, Choctaw Oklahoma, Population about 12K. At one time there were three different grocery chains with a presence there. Today the three nearest stores are all Walmarts. There are thousands of more examples.

Drive through any city in the central US and you will find multiple empty and abandoned grocery store properties. Note that I didn't say anything about Walmarts effect on prices. My concern is with the lack of alternative distribution channels. The idea that we have a healthy and open market for groceries is flat wrong.

Walmart is keeping prices low by squeezing their suppliers. A single dominant distribution channel is not healthy in the long term.

Re:Interesting theory

[Galactic Dominator]

Sure, Choctaw Oklahoma

Wrong try again although I suspect your delusion will persist.

Drive through any city in the central US and you will find multiple empty and abandoned grocery store properties.

Sure, but empty lots existed before Wal-Mart and will do so after it's gone. This point doesn't even defend your original statement directly. Only if you leave to reader to assume Wal-Mart has forced out all or very nearly all competition. This is just fiction.

Walmart is keeping prices low by squeezing their suppliers.

You answered how. I asked why.

Re:Interesting theory

[DragonTHC]

and yet my comcast gives me 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

They just don't want me to use it. They'd rather I downloaded from their networks with services like hulu and any other video services which require a cable subscription to be viewed on the Internet. ISPs should not be in the content business as well.

Re:Interesting theory

[Smauler]

Few of us do, really. We can be patient, and wait for ten minutes to get a file that would have downloaded almost instantly on fiber.

That's all very well for small files. Loads of games on steam are over the 10Gb download mark now.

Re:Interesting theory

[trevelyon]

I personally think that internet service should not be handled as a utility rather cable plant should be. Let the utility maintain all the inherently monopolized components (cable plant, gas/water pipes, etc) and then allow as many providers offer higher level services that build on that infrastructure. Customers can then shop amongst those providers. A single SEPERATE service utility (as in not in any way associated with the cable plant provider) can be allowed in areas where there is no or insufficient offerings for required services (ISP, phone, gas, etc). By regulating how much these infra utilities are allowed to overcharge you set the amount of infra improvement they will make (assuming the utiity is run as a non-profit).

The current system is simply a recipe for maximum milking of the customer and stagnation of infrastructure. Pretending these companies are not government granted monopolies (either via spectrum purchases or right of way) is simply delusional.

Re:Interesting theory

[dokebi]

I used to care about users like you--on dial up, or huge latency, etc.

Use to. Until I realized that my ad revenue from you is basically zero.

Welcome to the capitalist web.

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

not everyone needs roads

roads, POTS, electricity, water/sewer, public schools, universal health care.... all of these are of a benefit to everyone in the US... EVERYONE, at least indirectly, even if one does not personally utilize one or more of them themselves.

with internet access becoming a requirement for easier access to government services, for paying taxes, for obtaining permits and licenses, and for school (public and private, and at every level, junior high and up).... internet access is fast becoming a material need in society. the number of things online, and becoming 'online only' is increasing every day.

sure you can live without the internet, just as you CAN live without electricity or running water, but soon the day will come when not having internet is going to be as big a pain in the ass (maybe even more so) as not having electricity or running water. so we might as well start the ball rolling to achieve a goal of unadulterated and unmolested, unfiltered (filters available on request, however.. would likely be a requirement for any public funding) uncapped, net-neutral broadband available to 98% of the lower-48's population at a price point under $30 for 10 mbps (without special promos or bundling), $50 for 50 mbps, and $80 for 100 mbps... wireline download speeds (upload about 10% of those) there.. cell-based and satellite would of course be slower, but cell-based would not have the puny quotas.. think 100gb not 1-5gb monthly with speed limited by generation of the technology utilized and slower but still usable-for-email-and-light-surfing over that; i.e. no overage charges. satellite would obviously still need something as well due to finite capacity and high cost to increase it.. say a 25gb rolling weekly quota @ 3-5 mbps minimum before things slow to approx 100 kbps until your rolling average is back below quota.. again, no overages here either.

no overages, no caps (generous quota before throttling on wireless and satellite based services), no fine print, no bundling or other gimmicks, strict privacy controls, no content filters, no usage restrictions, no unwarranted monitoring or logging, no ad injection, no dns munging... etc.. etc.. just big dumb pipes. that's what we need and that's what an internet service provider *should* be selling.

Re:Interesting theory

[LDAPMAN]

There are many citations of the same observation I just made. Here is great one:
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/21101/1/sp06ma03.pdf

Re:Interesting theory

[citizenr]

It could be worse. It could be like Australia where they have fast downloads but roflbad upload speeds.

or national fiber-optic network with Download CAPS for internal traffic.

Re:Interesting theory

[citizenr]

Australia will soon be $100 / month to get 10mb upload, 100mb download

and a full 33 minutes of download until you run out of your CAP, welcome to Australia NBN, bend over and pass the lube.

Re:Interesting theory

[flyneye]

Sorry, I 've reconsidered Ron Paul to be a Repubmocrat wearing Libertarian clothes.
Not always sure I agree with Libertarianism either. The open borders thing grates against the Constitutional directive to protect our borders. Besides, we see the problem with borders as open as our have been. No need to throw out the baby with the bathtub.

Re:Interesting theory

[Siridar]

Nope, FTTP - Fibre To The Premises. FTTN was the failed model that Tony Rabbit and his cronies want to use. Noncompetitive, more expensive, and slower...but, of course, provided by "Private Enterprise" - which has worked SO WELL for us in the past...

Re:Interesting theory

[Siridar]

I think you're shopping at the wrong ISP's. Both TPG and DODO have indicated they'll be doing unlimited NBN, and PennyTel already have plans.

Re: Interesting theory

[Urza9814]

$75 per month for 50mbps down and 25 up in New England :)

Re:Interesting theory

[mbstone]

Walmart outcompetes many supermarkets in many areas of the U.S., particularly in those areas where many supermarkets are unionized. They are not at all competitive with certain supermarket chains in the western city where I live, either on price or on the quality of their meat / dairy / produce, and I wouldn't describe them as having monopoly power (the power to fix prices) here.

Re:Interesting theory

[GameboyRMH]

Wait, there are places where you can get non-laughable upload speeds without paying for a "business" connection at 10x+ the cost?

Re:Interesting theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure the infrastructure is run at cost, or you will see them hiking the price to high heavens just because they can.

Happened in Norway when the power plants started competing on price, while the cabling was still operated by the local "monopolies". End result is that the cable maintenance part of the bill, formerly subsumed in the usage costs, became massively inflated.

Or consider newspapers. In recent years the trend has been to spin off the advertisement department as its own company, and leave the loss leading news reporting to slowly spiral into bankruptcy.

ovo -hoot

Re:Interesting theory

[Baldrson]

The primary problem with "violent uprising and revolution" is that fifth generation warfare (what might be called Web 2.0 warfare) depends on the "plausible promise" which must be simply and transparently stated so that it can organize action toward its realization.

Here's a proposed plausible promise.

"Sorting proponents of political theories into governments that test them."

Any system opposed to that can be considered an enemy to be neutralized by any means available to individuals acting alone or in concert with each other.

Re: Interesting theory

[pipatron]

$40 per month for uncapped 100 down and 100 up in olde Sweden. :)

Re:Interesting theory

[volmtech]

Fiber runs BY MY HOUSE, AT&T wont hook it up. I talked to an AT&T worker, he told me they don't want to invest any more in land lines, they want to go all wireless, it's much more profitable. I have disconnected my land line and use a Verizon cell phone.

Re:Interesting theory

[sjames]

Sadly, the gouging and crappy service is so bad that group 1 would still come out better over a few years time going with municipal fiber without paying even a penny more than they do now. Many in group 2 and 3 probably wouldn't mind getting 'cable TV' over a shiny new fiber connection as long as the 'cable box' makes it look like it comes in on 'channels'.

Nobody here is asking for FREE internet service, just reasonably priced decent quality internet service. All of the examples in TFAs will or have already recouped the buildout and operating costs based on reasonable monthly fees paid only by those who wanted the service.

The incumbents are the ones who want us all to buy them, a pony.

Re:Interesting theory

[sjames]

Yeah, it's like that crazy indoor plumbing thing. Since the dawn of time people just pooped outside and they liked it that way.

Re:Interesting theory

[Galactic Dominator]

That study may very well be accurate, but it does nothing to support your original point. However, it is consistent with your approach of making a bold and false statement and defending it with strawmen and red herrings. I'm not interested in all these diversions and lies presented.

Re:Interesting theory

[sjames]

Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

The barriers to entry in that market are orders of magnitude lower. For example, a grocery chain doesn't have to dig a trench through everyone's yard in the region to enter the market. As a result, there is much healthier competition.

If market conditions were such that many areas had only one grocery store within a practical distance and at most had at most 2 stores to choose from, you can bet there would be calls to nationalize grocery stores.

Re:Interesting theory

[sjames]

And sadly, the courts don't laugh at those suits and order the plaintiff to pay the defense's legal costs like they should.

Re:Interesting theory

[Bengie]

Same thing can be said about loading web-pages in general. Want to check your weather? Start loading the page and it should finish by the time you wake up.

Where do you draw the line?

Re:Interesting theory

[hairyfeet]

Well I've never cared for libertarians, it to me smells too much like the age of the robber barons and the raping of the commons, but no matter WHAT you believe the simple fact that with Paul people actually tried to work within the system to change the system and got completely shit upon should have made it clear that you can't change a corrupt system by working within the system.

And while I'm no fan of libertarians, in fact I lean more socialist than anything, I will be the first to point out truth when it is spoken and here is a great video on voting that speaks to the truth of the complete sham that is voting and I hope you watch it. After all as he points out in the video, how many decades have people been voting for a smaller government? for less war? For stopping the bribery and influence of money on our officials? yet nothing changes, the reason being the choices are made before you ever get to the polls, if anybody that doesn't toe the line like Paul manages to sneak in they WILL be crushed by the MSM and the officials in the party, the corrupt simply won't allow the non corrupt to stop their gravy train.

Re:Interesting theory

[aurispector]

All of these countries are a lot smaller than the US. People always point to South Korea as broadband heaven, but you're basically talking about wiring one big city as opposed to a huge continent.

The economic reality is that laying cable is expensive. Wireless is much cheaper to roll out. The market for wireless services is maturing, new tech keeps getting rolled out. As people get more internet centric, cable companies will become redundant and that's when prices will drop and service will rise. Besides, FIOS is already available from verizon - also a big wireless carrier - wherever they can make money from it. They're the biggest crossover company out there yet they always get ignored in these discussions.

Government schemes to speed up this stuff always fail because they don't make money.

Capitalist free markets for the win!

Re:Interesting theory

[jbo5112]

Move to Kansas City. We're getting 1Gbps synchronous connections that give dedicated bandwidth to a router on the Internet backbone for $70/month I suppose it might be the most oversold access, since all all the servers on AT&T and Verizon have to squeeze through a 100Gbps (each company) backbone, limiting them to 100 full speed connections. There's nothing Google, the 1Gbps ISP, can do about other companies being lousy, except force them to change or die.

Re:Interesting theory

[flyneye]

While I'm no fan of socialists robbing my pocket to support the slothful instead of putting their money where their mouth is, I can say I have enjoyed watching undercover Paul be a burr under the saddle of the Repubmocrat dictatorship. Still I think working from within is worth a spit in the ocean as far as usefulness.
Yeah the Electoral thing is crap and everyones vote should count. But , then that's what helps keep the Repubmocrat dictatorship rolling .Don't expect to see it change any time soon. Kind of surprised you resent the current administration as it reflects the sort of socialism acceptable in Europe. That IS what you wanted isn't it? The rich supporting the poor instead of employing them? But then, why work when the Chinese can make all the consumer garbage we can fill the dumps with?
I kind of suspect you're just someone who wants to right wrongs, that makes you human, the opposite of socialist.

Re:Interesting theory

[nobodie]

and Veriscum gives me 15 down and 5 up for $55 a month. I use it .... sometimes..... but when I test it, it is there. And we run a fair number of devices most of the day here at the house (3 desktops, 3 laptops, two tablets, two smartphones and an Internet enabled TV -- with no cable, only internet--)
So I can't complain too much. I also refuse to pay extra for bandwidth we don't need right now.

Re:Interesting theory

[hairyfeet]

This is where you and I differ friend, for while I say there will always be a few bad apples frankly the amount of "support" someone on government help gets is so damned low in most places if there was a choice most would rather work. Ever see what somebody on disability gets in this country? in my state its $7800 a YEAR on average, would you be able to live in any way other than in grinding poverty on that little? I know the number because i have a relative trapped on disability, he could probably work but the meds that make him capable of working cost $110,000 a year (the same drug in mexico or Canada? $13k) so he's stuck in a catch-22 where he would like to work but if he does he can't have his meds and won't be able to work.

I believe as my grandfather, who was a card carrying socialist believed, that NO MAN should go without food in their belly, a roof over their head, clothes on their back, or access to medical help when they are sick. If they want more than what frankly should be considered universal human rights? Then he has to work, simple as that.

Of course the thing you miss in the whole debate is that capitalism, like communism and fascism and every other ism, is simply doomed, why? what is the basis for capitalism, the trading of labor for capital, correct? Well what are you gonna do when the majority of labor isn't needed because technology makes it worthless? I would argue that if the US government removed those handouts you rail against we would hit 60% unemployment within 3 years because frankly without the government making those service industry jobs viable they wouldn't exist. What in Mickey D's couldn't be done just as good or better by robots and assembly lines? Nothing, same with much of the jobs at Walmart and Wendy's and a billion other places. you can't make an entire country of rocket scientists and even if you magically could the simple fact is the world wouldn't need them anyway. So unless you support massive sterilizations and a police state to implement it the simple fact is there are people in this country right now being born that will NEVER have a job without government "make work" because their labor is just no longer required.

The machines don't get sick, don't ask for a living wage, never take breaks. you could wipe out half the population tomorrow, I'm talking the wholesale slaughter of half the people on this planet, and thanks to our technological advances not only would the quality of life not go down but it would raise the quality of life because the people left would have value again. So either you accept that the days of trading labor for capital or over and you pay the masses to sit at home or create "make work" jobs for them, or you deal with huge masses of starving peasants that outnumber you 10,000 to 1 and will be quite susceptible to any radical religion or belief system that comes along and promises them a better life, just look at Germany in the 30s which was once a thriving democracy until their economy collapsed.

Re:Interesting theory

[flyneye]

Gotta say, in all the "hoods" I see, people are quite satisfied to live in roachy crappy circumstances as long as they don't have to work.
Most good people would rather work, good people are fewer and farther between. Most now have been raised free of responsibilities and ethics.

The rest seems to be the regurgitated opinions and shallow observations of the socialists that came before you, which work on the level of a laundry detergent commercial, but don't deliver when reality sets in. Some anthropology and a look back at civilization. The basis for capitalism isn't trading labor for capital, although it would be an example of a part of it. The basis is the representation of value for the talent,inteligence and rigor traded amongst people in order to improve their lives and set aside for their old age and furtherance of their progeny. This is a natural condition of man which juxtaposes socialism as a cancerous hack by the lazy when meta-viewed. When we tariff on imports as we are supposed to do in order to fund the basic functions of our government( pre Repbumocrat dictatorship talk here) we keep our industry within our borders and outsourcing becomes more expensive. When industry is back, we can trade our talent,etc.. More money circulates within our borders and jobs flourish eliminating needs for unions because we have a laborers market then. Industries will have to compete not only with each others products, but for workers, with money and employment conditions.We don't need a country of rocket scientists, but we do have people who hold value in other areas, many others. Jobs needn't be created by a government. It isn't their job. If you want to see the job of the government, look to the Constitution. That's all they are given to do, anything else they CHOSE to implement by convincing us of horseshit has brought us to the current socialistic state of affairs. It is the job of the Christians to care for the poor, if they really believe their God, and of course those with hearts beating in their chests. The Bible calls for a 10% tax called a tithe to support itself and do the work of God. So there is your seed money. Let the helping begin. When there is necessity, it happens. When there isn't , you get the current state of things with all the corruption and lies and every other bit of crap that comes with it.
          We have a form of government that works if we dig it out of storage and use it, but over time the Repubmocrats have dumbed down the population and made them believe the government is there to take care of them instead of just doing maintenance to facilitate the pursuit of happiness along with life and liberty. Modern man trades freedom for safety, so, as Franklin said, they deserve neither as they sell their posterity to slavery. Don't think there's slavery? Ask anyone working to support themselves and those the government FORCES them to support, along with the government itself, who are supposed to run on tariff money.
            Machines can still be our servants, not our masters. People market their skills, ideas, labor and those who won't can starve or live off the church or their relatives. Three choices, what's wrong with that? Of course there will be those with only two choices, but that is still a choice. Looking to other countries as examples is not going to give us much more wisdom than we already have available, as WE are the example to them.

Re:Interesting theory

[dokebi]

Ok then tell me, when would be a good time to EOL support for dialup users? When they are 5% of users? 1%?

Re:Interesting theory

[flyneye]

BTW, I noticed by your email that you are possibly a bassist. If so, I am a luthier. What do you look for in a bass?
You see, I am one still working the original american dream in spite of current conditions. I work a regular slave job as well as building my own industry.
Soon I hope to trade my ideas and labor, rather than my time , muscle and health. This will make for a pleasant retirement and leave a luthiery to my progeny to either work and facilitate jobs for others or sell for its value. Guess I'm just an outlaw, I'd rather teach others a trade than GIVE a penny to their able bodies. My dream is also to be able to make enough to give more than my current 10% to those in need, but currently I support a socialistic government and those whose votes they buy with the chunk of money they steal from me.
As you take in the philosophies of others, it is handy to recognize there is not only another side to the coin, but also the inverse of the coin, the origin of the coin and the expected wear of the coin. So you are correct to question every bit of information from both trusted and untrusted sources.

Re: Interesting theory

[Man Eating Duck]

$40 per month for uncapped 100 down and 100 up in olde Sweden. :)

Yes, and Bredbandsbolaget has even had a cheap 100/100 option since when? 2003 or so? You Swedes were early on that account :)

- Envious Norwegian

Re:Interesting theory

[airdweller]

"you're basically talking about wiring one big city as opposed to a huge continent."
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees... How about wiring just one big US city like LA, NY or SF the way Seoul or Tokyo are wired? Is that comparison easier for you to comprehend?

to the surprise of no one.

[retchdog]

``I am a free market type of guy... but I have never considered this type of collusion before."

no shit. try doing some homework. here is a quote from that rampant communist, Adam Smith:

``People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." — book I, ch. 10, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published 1776.

Re:to the surprise of no one.

[Crescens]

And I'm stuck reading that quote in Leonard Nimoy's voice. Damn you Civ!

Re:to the surprise of no one.

[Greg Merchan]

I'm glad someone else noticed it.

Re:to the surprise of no one.

[SpaceLifeForm]

The other angle is that the darkside has a mantra to attack the U.S. as that is the heart of global military power, and as any true fascist knows, they must have control over global military power in order to rule the planet. So one of the main attacks is to screw up the U.S. economy. The other is the attacks on the legal system via software patents and collusion between between Boards of Directors wherein company X loses to company Y in order to set legal precedent, so that company Z can be attacked economically.

Re:to the surprise of no one.

[Z00L00K]

Maybe there shall be a separation between physical net and carrier service and make sure that no operator gets exclusive right to a fiber network.

Completely unforeseen!

[Qzukk]

but I have never considered this type of collusion before

What, you never possibly considered that collusion happens because nobody wants to stop the gravy train? AT&T and Verizon and everyone else there have got it good, their train will chug along with minimum investment and massive profits for as long as none of the people aboard says "Stop the train! I want to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure investments and charge less to compete with you head on!"

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[postbigbang]

The history of utilities until they became massive monopolists was that various jurisdictions granted them easements, right-of-way, and lots of other considerations in exchange for getting services built. The telcos were independent, and a long distance network consisted of AT&T, ITT, and others. Then came Judge Greene, a breakup of AT&T, GTE and ITT consolidations of the Baby Bells, and the sense that utilities were unbridled and focused on shareholder return based on serious assets.

The landlines were different than what is now the Internet. Most were analog copper cables that had muxed data channels. Fiber is only the last 20yrs.

So there is this mixed bag of monopolist thought as we've boiled down the US landline carriers to six, wireless carriers of significance to four, each with a territory in landlines. Some communities did their own fiber optic services, but they're rare. Communities became forbidden after their state legislators were sufficiently bribed to prevent community utility access. Co-ops went the same way, although there are still some around.

Collusion? The telcos shifted much away from the State PUCs to the Feds with the TCAct, so they'd only have to fight (I mean bribe) Washington and deal with the FCC.

And in reality: this is a huge freaking country, and trying to cover it with copper, fiber, or wireless still takes a lot of capital. How do you get capital? A business plan with a guaranteed return on investment. How do you get guarantees for revenue floors? Collusion? What a bright idea.

Utilities are unique and used to be cooperatives and had a ceiling on revenues, each price increase in front of a state or perhaps federal committee, breathing down their necks to keep prices reasonable. Government doesn't protect people much anymore, it protects the interests of business in the blind faith that says: in doing so, you're disciplining investment. Bullshit.
 

Re: Completely unforeseen!

[alen]

Between my wife and I we had all the iPhones on AT&T since the 3G which barely hit 1mbps in 2009. Here we are three years later and our iPhone 5's can download at 20mbps on a normal day in midtown manhattan.

Verizon is the same. Sprint has always sucked but that is their problem.

The only people who haven't seen an improvement are the ones who live in places where the cows outnumber the people

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[Attila Dimedici]

The telcos were independent, and a long distance network consisted of AT&T, ITT, and others.

AT&T WAS the phone company. Oh, there were a handful of tiny, independent telephone companies, but for the most part everybody in the U.S. had AT&T (you know Mama Bell). If it wasn't for Judge Greene, there would not have been any Baby Bells to consolidate. They would all still be AT&T.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[postbigbang]

Your sense of history varies from mine, but let's say for a moment, AT&T was it, and there was no ConTel, no ITT, no GTE, and so forth. Yes, Judge Greene broke up AT&T, and then the landgrab was on.

Today, AT&T is a reverse merge of Southwestern Bell primarily, which had acquired Ameritech, Southern Bell, and so forth. Verizon took on GTE/ConTel, Nynex, and others. But there are landline and longlines assets, datacomm infrastructure (yes, real OC12-OC192+) that are intermixed.

I said nothing about cable, which is another travesty, but from a different direction.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[Attila Dimedici]

AT&T, before Judge Greene, was the biggest company in the world by any measure (revenue, assets, market cap). They had become a monopoly through the actions of the federal government. When AT&T was broken up, everybody thought the big money was in long distance.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[postbigbang]

We can agree on the size of AT&T and its monopoly in numerous areas. They were gargantuan. They became a monopoly through the actions of their board of directors, and what the directors did. The government gave tacit approval in most cases, to their actions.

MCI, Sprint, WorldComm, many other Tariff 12 Carriers started to thrive. When the data business blossomed, and cellphones looked to rule the day, many different actions happened. The breakup of AT&T lead to many other countries taking everything from token to incredible action to break up their PTTs. Then things changed again.

But AT&T prevented other companies from using their lines, their services, and so forth. Today, there's a sense of ownership by the telcos-- that they OWN the rights of ways, OWN the easements, OWN the frequencies, and so forth, as capex assets. They share whenever it makes economic sense, and not one femtosecond before that.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[Attila Dimedici]

Today, there's a sense of ownership by the telcos

AT&T had that sense of ownership before the breakup. Today's telcos inherited that sense of ownership from the original AT&T, it is not a post-breakup phenomena. At one point before the breakup of AT&T, you were not allowed to connect a non-AT&T device to your telephone line. AT&T owned your phone. The first step that led to the breakup of AT&T was a lawsuit because AT&T would not allow you to connect your own modem to their phone lines.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[postbigbang]

AT&T in 1980 is not in most reasonable ways, the AT&T today. It tries to act that way, but it's Southwestern Bell with lipstick, covered in testosterone patches.

AT&T often rented your phone to you; you didn't even own it, as you mention. That's when Western Electric got its first competition, sometimes by GTE, ITT, and others. I lived through that entire era, battling what was AT&T through the breakup and ostensible reformation. I watched the squirrely tariffs, the State PUCs, the FCC, and all of the companies involved fighting. Prices went down, choices went up.

Today, not so much. The K Street Lobbyists are in control. They are more powerful than the Congress and the President of the United States, because they have wicked amounts of $$$$$$$$$.

Re: Completely unforeseen!

[BitZtream]

So basically most of the fucking country. Ironically, you'd starve to death without those places where cows out number people, you're just too ignorant to realize it.

God I hate attitudes of morons like you.

Also, 20mbps, not even a little impressive, neither was 1mbps in 2009. Pull your new yorker head out of your ass and get a clue.

Re:Completely unforeseen!

[Lawrence_Bird]

And I hope everyone who thinks it would be a great idea to go back to monopoly utilities (as the original post suggests) remembers this - assuming they were not in diapers at the time. ATT raped people in any way it could -which was just about any way imaginable. If there is collusion or other nefarious acts by these companies then they should be prosecuted and any fines returned to the consumer (and not the general revenue fund). Returning to a utility company model just gives us the worst of all worlds.

Make them operate like utilities.

[Roger Wilcox]

The situation as it stands is unacceptable. The telcos have proved that they cannot operate broadband service fairly without regulation. Therefore: something akin to common carrier laws should be in effect for all broadband service providers.

Re:Make them operate like utilities.

[Anonymous Coward]

Food ought to be a utility

With all the subsidizing going on, it pretty much is.

Re:Make them operate like utilities.

[valley]

But as Corporate America now rules Congress, the chance of regulations in favor of the consumer is close to zero.

Re:Make them operate like utilities.

[Anonymous Coward]

Regulation != provided by
Everything you list is regulated.

Re:Make them operate like utilities.

[jodido]

Right--anyone can't afford food, let 'em starve. In the richest country ever.

Re:Make them operate like utilities.

[PlusFiveTroll]

I think cars ought to be operated like utilities. You know, flat screen TVs too. Everyone needs food, too. Food ought to be a utility.

All of this should be regulated and provided by government.

And if one day in the future everything is made by robots, it will be.

Antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we just enforce the antitrust laws? Where are the DoJ and FTC?

Re:Antitrust

[U8MyData]

On the payroll...

If it's underground, it's a utility

[Anonymous Coward]

Fill in the blank.

Water is underground. It's a utility.
Gas is underground. It's a utility.
Electricity is (sometimes) underground. It's a utility.
Fiber optic wiring is underground. It's a ______.

Unfortunately, cable TV/internet is underground, and it's a crappy monopoly.

We'll Get There

[nicobigsby]

Competition will solve this problem. It may take a little while but Google's beta test of their ISP service seems to be going well and has the telcos running scared (even reportedly going door to door in KC checking on customer satisfaction). Google is making a move here and I can't believe they intend to come to some sort of gentlemen's agreement with the telcos considering one of the motivations for Google entering the market was to thwart extortion attempts by the major ISPs where they were attempting to force Google to pay them a fee in order for them to deliver Google's content at the higher speeds, when we already pay them for the service of delivering Google's content to us. This move by Google smacks of the style of the old industrialists, like Rockefeller building oil pipelines to circumvent back door deals made by the railroads to charge him more money for shipping oil. This industry is still young, but if Google proves it can be profitable to lay new fiber and thereby dispels the idea that we have to use the existing infrastructure of the telcos, we will see even more new players enter the market. Already many cities are partnering with local companies and universities to offer residents high quality local ISPs for less money. I think it's too early in this industry to jump on the whole "we need the government to fix this for us" train... in the end I can't see that being a great answer anyway... especially when you consider that all conventional utilities have to do is provide consistent power/water supply to their customers, and there is a lower quality of service ceiling than in the ISP game.

Re:We'll Get There

[Anonymous Coward]

So many self-proclaimed free market capitalists simply don't "get" capitalism. Most such types have never even studied economics in any depth, and are embarrassingly ignorant of Adam Smith.

The facts I am about to state are often dismissed out-of-hand by people who do not know how to think like sociopaths, and hence can't think up what kinds of underhanded things one can do to maintain total control of a market. There are many, and history has repeated this story many times.

1) A controlled market is the exact opposite of a free market, regardless of whether the controller is a government, a single monopoly, or a cartel of ostensible competitors. None of the benefits of free market capitalism are manifested in a controlled market.

2) Once control is established over a market (most commonly: those who defeated most of their competitors then buy and/or enter into cartel arrangements with the rest), the controllers establish barriers-to-entry which are effective in preventing any new competitors from getting a foothold, even if the competitors have a superior product (buy-out is the most obvious, but there is also: lock up all potential suppliers and/or customers in long-term exclusivity contracts, temporarily undercut prices to operate at a loss until the competition starves, bankrupt the competitor with frivolous lawsuits, repeatedly hire all of the competitor's talent away with better salaries, saturate all available advertisement space, hire thugs to damage the competitor in any number of ways, force the passage of corrupt laws, and on and on).

3) The only way to keep a capitalistic economy strong is to force the issue of competition when it stops happening spontaneously. Once there is a clear winner or group of winners, they MUST either be broken up into smaller companies (ideal), or hit with a lot of government regulation (for natural monopoly situations).

Remember: rich people do not abide threats to their wealth, and hence will not abide competing businesses once they are powerful enough to stomp them out.

Re:We'll Get There

[Mashiki]

Competition will solve this problem

At one time there was competition in the US, not anymore. The US is where Canada was back in 99 through 2008. Back oh 10-12 years ago, I was in total awe of the US broadband speeds(I live in Canada) compared to what my parents could get in Florida, or my best friend was getting in Indianapolis/Franklin(15/1@$33/mo with no cap on cable). Jump a head 9 years when I'm at a state where I can winter travel and work, to avoid to cold and what can I get in Florida at my winter place? 6/1 cable @$55/mo, no DSL service options there, no FIOS options there. Right now I'm getting 25/1@$42/mo with a 300GB cap in Canada.

When the rules changed about letting other ISPs rent out from the head-ends and DSLAMs, the competition went away. The prices skyrocketed, and the QoS fell through the floor.

Re:We'll Get There

[nicobigsby]

Did you read the rest of my post? Competition is happening. Competitors are cropping up all over the place, one of which is one of the most powerful companies in technology.

Re:We'll Get There

[Mashiki]

I sure did. I also remember the "competition" being killed in the last decade by incumbents crushing them out of the marketplace. It doesn't matter that it's one of the most powerful technology companies or not, especially if they're locked in with peerage agreements and continue to do their best to push them out.

Re:We'll Get There

[davecb]

That's one of the things suggested, by myself as well as others, to the CRTC in Canada. We suffer from, guess what, a duopoly of Rogers Cable and Bell DSL. Ditto Rogers and Bell wireless.

Re:We'll Get There

[geminidomino]

(NB: Not grandparent poster) No it doesn't. His 1) talks about a free market and his 3) talks about a capitalistic economy and keeping it strong, without mentioning a free market.

In fact, his 1) and 2), taken together, show why there is no such thing as a "free market" it anything but the shortest of terms.

NEVER HAPPEN

[Anonymous Coward]

"move to a utility model, based on the assumption that all Americans require fiber-optic Internet access at reasonable prices"

Sure, this is common sense.
Sure, this could be a major national economic stimulus.
But - politicians are required to enact such a move and
                they know who is buttering their bread and
                they know it's not you.

Re:NEVER HAPPEN

[Kaenneth]

"they know who is buttering their bread"

Yeah, but once in a while they should think of 'We, The People' who provide them the bread to be buttered in the first place.

Eminent domain

[Ichijo]

Municipalities should take over the physical wires and allow each customer to choose which ISP to connect them to.

Re:It's your fault

[tepples]

The alternative, moving your whole family to a geographic area served by a good small ISP, is often far more expensive.

Google Fiber

[Qwavel]

Isn't this why Google created Google Fiber?

The primary purpose of Google Fiber is to give the industry a kick in the arse.

Re:Google Fiber

[EmagGeek]

The primary purpose of Google Fiber is to allow them to drill even deeper into your personal life and private information so they can "sell you" to advertisers.

Re:Google Fiber

[nickittynickname]

I would happily give that up than work with my two options, Comcast and ATT. I'm sure the competition drills deep into my personal life anyways.

Re:Google Fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no.

The ability to mine it for information is a plus to them, but their primary motivation was to FORCE the local providers to get off their bum ass and do their jobs.

I honestly hope google spreads and actually becomes a major player that the local providers have to compete against on a national scale so they have to upgrade and give us decent service instead of this 1 meg up 45kb/s down they want to give us now in some areas.

Google is offering what the other guys should have ALREADY been offering but refused to do so and for that, I thank them. Do I like the fact they are mining my information online when/if I use them? I am not particularly thrilled about it but it is their entire core industry and they do not hide that fact now what they do with it so I honestly have no issues with it with how they are currently doing it and just follow the rule of "Never put online what you don't want the world to know" and for the other stuff, encryption is your friend.

My biggest issue with google is not standing up to the US government on requests enough. As far as I am concerned, the government shouldn't be able to ask for information without a warrant period unless in emergency life or death situations and even then, that would be a 90 second phone call to get a warrant.

Re: Google Fiber

[grcumb]

True enough, but the means by which they achieve this goal is by creating an environment in which internet access is a commodity. As long as your internet is rationed, so too is their access to your data. So the question becomes: 'Is better internet worth this price, and, more to the point, is it preferable to what I have today?'

Re:Google Fiber

[DragonWriter]

The primary purpose of Google Fiber is to allow them to drill even deeper into your personal life and private information so they can "sell you" to advertisers.

Since its a paid service where the consumer is the service, I think that there is at least some reason to consider that (in addition to pushing the incumbent players in the market in a direction which improves accessibility and usefulness of Google's existing services) its a move to diversify their revenue stream so as not to rely solely on advertising, rather than primarily about improving access to information to be used to sell advertising.

Re:Google Fiber

[Stormthirst]

I completely agree.

And all the more reason to use SSL encryption for every transaction, every webpage on the internet.

Re:Google Fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

And all the more reason to use SSL encryption for every transaction, every webpage on the internet.

And if you're using Google Fiber they can still log every DNS request you make. Traffic analysis is just as valuable.

Re:Google Fiber

[Pollardito]

The primary purpose of Google fiber is to threaten anyone in the industry that would charge Google (as a content owner) a fee to move data to their customers (i.e. network neutrality). "You charge us to reach your customers, and we'll make them our customers or less profitable customers with a price war." They probably only need to successfully wire one city to do that, so we'll see what happens after that. They try to avoid entering industries that require a lot of customer service, so it seems unlikely they'd follow up K.C. with a lot more deployments unless they feel they need to do so to prove their point.

Re:Google Fiber

[Bengie]

They don't DPI the information, they just get LOTS of useful information on data-flows. It's like.. ohh, look at this big name YouTube movie trailer, wow, look at those data patterns.

You don't need to see the data to get useful information. ISPs already do this because YOU HAVE TO, if you want to do any amount of educated infrastructure investments.

Re:Google Fiber

[Stormthirst]

So don't use their DNS servers, and use a local cache so even they don't know how many times you've visited a particular page.

Re:Google Fiber

[strikethree]

Do I like the fact they are mining my information online when/if I use them?

And you think Cox, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are not already doing so as well?

1Gpbs

[jasonvan]

FTA: "A smarter goal would be to give most Americans access to reasonably priced 1 Gb symmetric fiber-to-the-home networks."
So when I read the FCC said speeds of 4/1Mbps was a minimum at first this seemed like a big number to me. Like in the line with luxury internet is what I mean to say. I considered it for a bit, and I conceded by 2020 that is fairly reasonable as popular as streaming video is becoming. Then this 1Gbps number gets thrown out there (or at least implied) as a "necessity". Now I'd love to get 1Gbps. That would be one of the happiest moments of my life. However, I'm fairly happy with my 10Mbps/768Kbps. Thinking of that being considered 100 times slower that what should be considered as vital as electricity is, just throws the credibility of the entire article right out the window. I might assume most Americans don't even have gigabit switches or gigabit NICs and I don't think I'd be wrong. In 2020 that will probably no longer the case. My logic here is that if something like a web server or an AD server can operate without saturating a 100Mbps link in a medium sized business, it's fairly up the wall to say everyone NEEDS 1Gbps in 7 years. Just my two cents.

Thanks to...

[Whatsmynickname]

..all your elected Congressmen and Senators elected by informed, focused voters who stay on top of issues like this. They all make sure these corporations will not get away with this...

Re:Right

[obarthelemy]

You're funny. The last string of balanced budgets was under Clinton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CBO_-_Revenues_and_Outlays_as_percent_GDP.png

Leak

[JWW]

Google needs to "leak" a presentation about their fiber project in KC with a slide that says.

Project Completion

- When Time Warner has no more customers in The KC area.

Cringely was prescient on the subject..

[sstamps]

The current situation has a long history in a multi-billion-dollar ripoff of the taxpayers and customers of these companies. Cringeley wrote an amazingly prescient article on the hows and whys we have what we have today (I believe it was even featured here a few years ago when it was published):

The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen.

This all is nothing new, it was planned in the 90s, and we have pretty much the implementation of that plan today.

Does it piss you off? It pisses me off for sure. How do we go about fixing it?

1) Stop supporting the companies that screw us and found/support companies which do it right.
2) Get your friends/family/neighbors/community to vote out the bribed politicians that either enabled it, or turned a blind eye to it, and vote in politicians who are not bribed and will actually fix it.
3) Be willing to suffer for a while for a better future. The companies who perpetrate these scams set it up such that people will accept the suboptimal crap they are peddling because they won't take the inconvenience of being without said crap for a short enough time to send the message that the situation will change, or else.

But no, human nature (and American culture itself) dictates that nothing will change; the telcos have already won.

Capitalism in America?

[Required Snark]

You must be new here.

They could take a leaf out of the UK's method...

[s0litaire]

Pass a law requiring incumbent ISP's (if they run a monopoly in the region) to provide competitors with access to their copper/fibre network at wholesale cost.
Also tag on an addition that each incoming ISP has to give the ISP they are buying from the same ability to buy bandwidth at cost from them as well. Stopping a single big player taking over multiple markets and force others out by sheer financial weight.

So competition and the ability to provide better/ value for money services in other area outside their usual network means less stagnation and fewer "single entity monopolies" in the country and the users win ^_^

Re:Right

[Attila Dimedici]

You're funny. The last string of balanced budgets was under Clinton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CBO_-_Revenues_and_Outlays_as_percent_GDP.png

Which were not passed by Democrats. The Republicans controlled Congress at the time.

It's been tried

[raymorris]

Until 1984, national telecommunications was a regulated utility, with the government controlling prices. A long distance call was $2.87 per minute. In 1984, it was deregulated and natural competition quickly brought the rate to $0.10 per minute - a 97% reduction. Tight government regulation of internet service as a utility is a great idea, if you want to pay $12 / GB. I can understand how this might have been debatable in 1812, but in 2012 we've already tried both ways over and over again. Competition beats government fiat every time. Maybe you haven't noticed the existing competive system has brought us from 14 kbps to 14Mbps, a THOUSAND times as fast as a few years ago?

Re:It's been tried

[sstamps]

Until 1984, national telecommunications was a regulated utility, with the government controlling prices. A long distance call was $2.87 per minute. In 1984, it was deregulated and natural competition quickly brought the rate to $0.10 per minute - a 97% reduction.

Tight government regulation of internet service as a utility is a great idea, if you want to pay $12 / GB. I can understand how this might have been debatable in 1812, but in 2012 we've already tried both ways over and over again. Competition beats government fiat every time.

Gotta love revisionist historians...

The cost of long distance pre-1980s was due to the existence/enforcement of a monopoly, not due to regulation, but due to the incorrect assignment of the telephone network as a NATURAL monopoly, which it never was.

In 1982-4, the monopoly was broken over the collective knee of the People, and natural competitive market forces kicked in, just as they should have been allowed for the previous 70-odd years. Regulation wasn't done away with until the 1996 Telecommunications Act which, by that time, had seen the price decreases you allude to. SINCE 1996, very little has changed, except that the broken-up Baby Bells have now been re-merged into a few massive monopolistic players which are ripping off customers and taxpayers all over again.

Maybe you haven't noticed the existing competive system has brought us from 14 kbps to 14Mbps, a THOUSAND times as fast as a few years ago?

Dude, I don't know what planet you live on, but I have 3Mbps ADSL, which is the fastest I can get in this area without running my own damn lines (WHICH, btw, I am prevented from doing by local ordinances which, you guessed it, protect the fuckin' monopolies again). In 2000, I had 2Mbps cable. So, I've gotten a whopping 50% increase in speed in the last TWELVE years. Before that, I had 1.5Mbps ADSL for a few years. It's been over TWENTY YEARS since I had to depend on 14.4k dialup. "A few years" my arse.

The existing "competitive system" isn't about competition at all. It is about monopolism, fraud, and greed, which is pretty much the gory, but oh-so-real history of American Capitalism itself.

Regulation is a necessary evil, as is keeping a tight rein on monopolistic practices. Sadly, our government generally is bribed into ineffective regulation and to ignore the monopolism. Thus, we get screwed until the end of the next gyre in "history repeats itself" completes. In the meantime, we have ineffective and incompetent solutions, allowing other countries to gain huge technological advances over us.

Re:It's been tried

[Stormthirst]

It seems neither system is ideal.

Government monopoly means everyone gets access, but the quality is rubbish.
Private monopoly means people in high population densities get semi-reasonable access, everyone else can go fuck themselves. Even if everyone else wants the government to intervene they can't because the private monopoly has bought the government.

Re:It's been tried

[buss_error]

I pay $80 a month for DSL and local phone service.
My internet DNS is so bad, I switched to Open DNS, a free service, because DNS provided by my DSL provider times out 90% of the time.
My packet loss is always > 45%, and my internet speeds for "3.0M down, 750K up" are 128K down, and less than 56K up.
Wrap "open market works" around you in the night, fondle it, and stroke it.
But it's a pipe dream. It doesn't work, not here, not for me, and not for people around me.

Re:It's been tried

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you haven't noticed the existing competive system has brought us from 14 kbps to 14Mbps, a THOUSAND times as fast as a few years ago?

14k modem service was about fifteen/twenty years ago. This is still in place today, except that now you MIGHT have cable or fiber service, which is a replacement technology and a different service provider.

There is no competition here, it's like saying boating is slower than cars. There is only 1 local cable company in any given area - by regulatory law, in fact.

Not going to happen

[Dereck1701]

Not going to happen, and if it does it will happen in a way that will REINFORCE the monopolies of the current big players. Just look at how the wireless spectrum auction went down a few years back. Even Google, throwing around billions of dollars couldn't get a part of the spectrum designated for public use. Thankfully they were at least able to get open apps and devices pushed through, but the big players even fought that tooth and nail.

Re:US != World

[wmbetts]

There is more to the world than US. I've never heard of Verizon, Comast or time warner

First time to slashdot?

collusion

[shentino]

Lack of demand my ass

When a city tries to start its own municipal internet and the incumbent telecom sues their asses off, gets an injunction, and then drags out the court case while they build their own internet right under the city's nose, it's not lack of demand, it's blatant anticompetitive rent seeking.

investment

[iggymanz]

a national fiber network would be a huge infrastructure investment with lasting benefit, like the highway system.

Correction - 50% price reduction from deregulation

[raymorris]

That $2.87 rate is in today's money, in other words inflation adjusted. The correct rate decrease immediately after seregulatuon was about 50%. Of course competition also brought us VOIP. With Vonage, for example, long distance is 0 cents per minute, a 100% reduction from government regulated rates.

Call the number to disconnect service

[DrHappyAngry]

I've found with Century Link, if you choose the option to disconnect service, they'll connect you to someone who can actually get you good speeds and at a good price. Kind of sad it has to come to that, but now I've got 40/20mbps DSL with a static IP without having to pay for a business account. They're only charging me $35 bucks a month, though it'll go up to $75 after 6 months. Still better than anybody else in town by far. Oh, did I mention no monthly bandwidth cap? I can't say this will be the same everywhere, since it might not be possible at that location, but they'll hook you up with a far better deal than their sales or tech departments. This should last me until the city's gigabit fiber project comes to my neighborhood in Seattle.

Fool

[Charliemopps]

As usual, someone that lives in a large city has no concept of what it's like to live outside their metropolis. His plan might work in New York, but in Iowa, not so much.

Wasn't that long ago....

[Tagged_84]

It wasn't that long ago that I used to envy the US infrastructure here in Australia, amazing how fast things can turn around. We now have access to AU $100 plans with 1TB/month at 100/40 Mbps speeds, it's things like this and our free health care that have our citizens up in arms over how our government continues to meddle in our lives!!

20% of your income is "free"

[raymorris]

Free healthcare in Australia? I thought most people on /. were WAY too smart to buy that BS. Of course the government healthcare doesn't pay for important things like say, ambulances, but it does cost the average family $8,800 per year in extra taxes. Almost nine thousand dollars for crap coverage and still some people are thankful because it's "free" (meaning the govt forces you to pay for it.) After being forced to do it the govt way, Oz has worse healthcare than 46 other countries. (Based on availability of doctors, other metrics put Australia 25th through 70th, but always beneath some banana republics.) Don't drink the Koolaid.

Re:20% of your income is "free"

[Tagged_84]

Are you sure you're not the one drinking the Koolaid? I don't pay anywhere near 20% of my income for health care and having chronic depression means I don't go broke every time I have an episode. I haven't worked since Feb and just coming out of a deep episode and yet here I am not having to turn over my life savings in order to survive. If I tried to do that in the states I'd probably be homeless and without any care. So, was it worth living in a country for "free" healthcare at your quote of "$9,000"? Absolutely!

Instead of saying how low AU is ranked what about a comparison? I've yet to find a ranking showing AU is worse off than the US in healthcare.

Re:20% of your income is "free"

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

Free healthcare in Australia? I thought most people on /. were WAY too smart to buy that BS. Of course the government healthcare doesn't pay for important things like say, ambulances, but it does cost the average family $8,800 per year in extra taxes...

The average family earns about $590k?

Re:It's your fault

[ewieling]

Which ISPs run their own wires to the customer? All ISPs I'm aware of use someone else's copper to get to the end user. Guess who owns that copper? That is right the cable company or telephone company. We need to treat the wires as a utility, not internet service, telephone service, or cable television service. The only exceptions I know of is fiber run to large buildings.

I was just in Choctaw

[raymorris]

I just spent a week in Choctaw. I didn't enter Walmart during that time. Meaning, I bought everything from their competitors, which you claim don't exist. YP.com gives 166 results for "groceries" in Choctaw. Some are bogus, I bet, but even if 75% are bogus, that's still 41 outlets other than Walmart.

Re:I was just in Choctaw

[LDAPMAN]

There is not a single grocery store in Choctaw unless your counting convenience stores. Thats the point...they are all closed. There is a Country Boy grocery in Newalla and and there is another independent grocer in Midwest City. All three of the stores formerly in Choctaw are gone. They were killed by the three nearby Walmart stores. There were several Krogers, Homelands, and IGA stores in Midwest City. Almost all of them are gone now as well.

YP.com must be pretty useless.

Oh yeah

[buss_error]

And posting this comment took 3 tries due to network timeouts.

They are not "natural"

[InPursuitOfTruth]

The problem here is you are proposing new government regulations to correct the damage of previous ones. The truth is that competition is restricted by government, notably localities, who do not want unlimited wires in their neighborhoods. Wireless space, likewise, is limited by FCC licenses. Both are government imposed limits that help to create local monopolies and oligopolies in general. Your assertion that these are natural monopolies is not true. In fact, a natural monopoly is very rare today. Nearly all monopolies today are the consequence of laws and regulations. I do not consider such monopolies to be "natural"

This has been happening for years

[Anonymous Coward]

In the small Northeast town in which I live, the TWO, ONLY high speed providers divided up the streets. One street gets cable, the next dsl. Sometimes it is neighborhood by neighborhood. Some main roads get both, but prices are similar based on other bundled services. There are no other options because these companies own the physical infrastructure. There is no competition. There is no market. It's controlled so neither provider gets accused of being a monopoly. This happened over a decade ago when this area first got wired up for broadband.

Re:Right

[obarthelemy]

As opposed to the deficits that came before, or after, or the record deficits nowadays... oh, wait !

You can try and push a political agenda, though Slashdot is arguably not the place to do that. You do need to get your facts straight tough,, or, better,adjust your worldview.

CxOs avoiding Sarbanes-Oxley Prosecutions

[Anonymous Coward]

They advertise high data rates, but don't build out their networks to match. Since this has not appeared in their SEC filings over the last several years, executives have two choices: throttle usage, or go to jail.

Re:Right

[Attila Dimedici]

You were the one who suggested that Democrats had passed a balanced budget, when in fact the ones who passed the balanced budget were Republicans (only when a Democrat was President). I am not sure what political agenda you are suggesting that I am pushing. The Democrats have never passed a balanced budget and the only time the Republicans did so was under a Democrat President (although even then it was only balanced on paper, not in actuality).

isp collusion

[volmtech]

I can't get dsl service even though there is a central office within two miles of my house in either direction. I spoke to an AT&T serviceman who was working in one of the enclosures. He told me the other central office was the one that supplied my phone service and it was too antiquated to support dsl! Then he tells me fiber already runs past my house and in a year (or two) AT&T is supposed hook everyone up, maybe. Until then I will have to use low cap, high cost (17gigs for $80 a month) satellite service.

Re:It's your fault

[Bengie]

If you look up Fiber roll-outs from the past 8 years, they're almost all "smaller" ISPs and offer cheaper/faster internet and most have already paid off the infrastructure costs.

Small start-up ISPs have been offering faster and cheaper internet in rural areas than Comcast/AT&T/etc can offer in a suburb.

Re:Right

[MobyTurbo]

This will happen as likely as the Democrats actually passing a formal balanced budget. I wish American business was as much about the customer as it is about the bottom line. You know, you can do both.

I hate to get partisan, I didn't even vote all Democrat last election, but the only two Presidents with a post-war balanced budget (actually a surplus) were Bill Clinton and Lyndon Bains Johnson, both Democrats. Today's Republicans, on the other hand, have manged to convince everyone, essentially with corperatist propaganda, that the best way to balance the budget is to cut taxes on the wealthy (i.e. bring less money into the government), and not touch a dime of the Department of Defences' money (the majority of Federal government spending), and then somehow cutting the remaining welfare (less than 10% of the budget) without causing riots or starvation will somehow balance the budget rather than a sound fisical approach. They've been trotting out this "cut taxes on billionaires and it'll bring in more revenue" farce since the "Laffer curve" in the late 70s, using largely discredited models of supply-side economics dating back from the late 1920s. (In other words, the type of economics that leads to worldwide depressions.) Then people wonder why the government seems like it's going to fall like a house of cards financially, and take the rest of the country with it.

I'm not particularly happy with Obama either, mind you, he's quite incompetent at dealing with the mess that Congress hands him, a necessary part of the job of any President, and is really George W. Bush II (with different rhetoric to confuse the peoons) in terms of his actual policies. I should also note that I'm not a liberal or conservative, just someone who's responsible who's tired of seeing our elected officials act like spoiled children on the corporate and special interest doles.

physics, not politics

[minstrelmike]

Too many conspiracy theorists here and no can see the forest.
I have three wires into my house, electricity, cable TV, and phone landline, all 'natural monopolies (price Last Mile buildout before complaining about monopolies).
I can get internet thru two of the wires and they compete with each other for my business. There is supposedly a way to use electric wire for networking but nothing is commercially available. When it is, there will be 3 companies competing.
1. How close do I have to be to a wireless provider for decent speed? (I assume cell-phone coverage)
2. When everybody and his brother is now using the same wireless spectrum how fast is the speed? (There is a reason cable becomes slower when more people use it).

The reason traffic on the interstate slows down during rush hour is not because the contractor was skimming profits or was married to the mayor's sister.