Verizon and New Jersey Agree 4G Service Equivalent to Broadband Internet

An anonymous reader writes with news that Verizon and New Jersey regulators have reached a deal releasing Verizon from their obligation to have brought 45Mbps broadband to all NJ residents by 2010. Instead, 4G wireless service is considered sufficient. From the article: "2010 came and went and a number of rural parts of the state are still living with dial-up or subpar DSL. And even though the original deal was made in the days of modems and CompuServe, its crafters had the foresight to define broadband as 45Mbps, which is actually higher than many Verizon broadband customers receive today. ... In spite of that, and the thousands of legitimate complaints from actual New Jersey residents, the BPU voted unanimously yesterday to approve a deal with Verizon ... According to the Bergen Record, Verizon will no longer be obligated to provide broadband to residents if they have access to broadband service from cable TV providers or wireless 4G service. ... Residents who happen to live in areas not served by cable or wireless broadband can petition Verizon for service, but can only get broadband if at least 35 people in a single census tract each agree to sign contracts for a minimum of one year and pay $100 deposits."

Comments

So how long

[afidel]

So how long until the BPU commissioners get their nice cushy jobs as lobbyists for Verizon or a Verizon supported trade group?

Re:So how long

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's pointless to regulate businesses because they'll just take over the regulatory agencies...got it.

Re:So how long

[Nethemas the Great]

Absolutely. Don't bother regulating because then these businesses can make their evil ways canonized into law. Far better to let them just run rogue.

Re:So how long

[whistlingtony]

Why try to stop evil? Just let it do what it wants. If you try to stop it, it fights back..... So there's no point. It's far better to just let evil get REALLY evil.

• 1. Let business do whatever they want.
• 2. They go rogue and start abusing everyone.
• 3. ??
• 4. It magically fixes itself!

I'm seeing ?? as either the pipe dream of Revolutionary Patriots or the Invisible Hand of the Free Market. Both of which are imaginary.... But ok. Y'all just sit back and let the liberals try to fix everything that conservatives let happen to our country... It must be so hard to just be against everything and have no ideas.

Note. Democrats are, for the most part, not that liberal. There are a few exceptions.

Re:So how long

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Things would work just fine, if only whistlingtony from Slashdot were in charge.

What're the odds?

Re:So how long

[Arker]

Nice strawman. It exists only in your imagination.

The alternative to regulation, which existed before the latter was invented, is law. Liability law, primarily, although other aspects could certainly be invoked from time to time as well.

Regulation was invented to shield business from liability law, so it makes perfect sense that repealing it would mean a return to liability. It makes no sense at all to assume the alternative is *nothing* but hey, it works better for dismissing me without the discomfort of thinking, right?

Re:So how long

[Anonymous Coward]

"So how long until the BPU commissioners get their nice cushy jobs as lobbyists for Verizon or a Verizon supported trade group?"

More importantly, how many times can someone see this happen and still cling to the absurd belief that government regulation leads to anything other than regulatory capture.

Maybe people look at countries other then the USA and wonder what is so different about the USA that they cannot have any sort of working regulations while every other country does? For example, here in Australia, regulations let me have a large choice of ISPs (http://broadbandguide.com.au/plans?gclid=CPmf4O3s-r0CFdd7vQodAgQABw lists a few but there are more) where if there were none (or USA style) then I would have a choice of one or two if I was lucky. And that is just ADSL2+ options, I also have a choice of 3g/4g wireless (it is expensive compared to anything other then satellite), and I almost had a choice of 100mb+ fibre till the new government decided that replacing the century old copper network with a network based on fibre was a bad investment (better to give money to the telecommunications companies so they can make record profits fleecing us on wireless)...

Re:So how long

[whistlingtony]

Oh god no. i would never want that job.

Re:So how long

[whistlingtony]

What strawman did I hold up?

So... before regulation, which, I imagine has existed for a long time, really ever since there has BEEN government, there was liability law? What?

And... I'm having problems following you here, I'm very sorry, but.... regulation was invented to shield businesses from liability law? Please explain. The restaurant business is regulated for certain cleanliness standards. How does that limit any particular restaurant from liability if they poison their customers? Etc.

Please don't assume I don't think. It's quite rude.

You had said that regulation always leads to regulatory capture. I disagree. There is a sweet spot. We've had it before, and we can have it again.

I get what you're saying, I think. If we did away with regulation and some company poisons us, we can sue them into the ground and that would make them behave. I just disagree. Lets keep the regulation. They shouldn't be poisoning us, and there should be clear guidelines about that. Further, we can STILL sue them into the ground to enforce their behavior. Realistically of course, in both scenarios they have FAR more money and organizational power and willl likely evade any attempt to sue them. We have this threat now and they don't give a shit.

So why get rid of regulation? I wholeheartedly agree that we have regulatory capture on a GRAND scale in the U.S. If the criminals are bribing the cops, I don't think the solution is to get rid of cops. That doesn't actually HELP anything.

And if I'm incorrectly assuming that you want to get rid of regulation, as you seem to hint, it's only because you espoused an ideal of .... going back to liability law and doing away with regulation. They're your words man. So say a few more and lets have a civil discussion.

Re:So how long

[whistlingtony]

Further, no, it does NOT make perfect sense that repealing regulation would magically mean a return to liability. We've been scaling back regulation for years. I don't see a "return" to liability. I don't think we've ever been there. Please tell me when we had liability law but no regulation? Please tell me when regulation was "invented". Please tell me when we had law, but no regulation.

Law IS regulation. Of behavior. That's kind of the point. Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but you said it....

One could argue that we DID have little/no regulation on say... banking... before the Great Depression. Then we passed a Law called the Glas-Steagal act, regulating banking. And we had many many decades of banking stability until it was recently repealed. The minute it WAS repealed, they did stupid things, and caused a giant crash. Again.

I'll admit to a bit of frustration on this point. I hang out with conservatives, and they keep saying that we should get rid of regulations and let the Free Market regulate companies. I have to keep asking me to show them a free market anywhere in the world. Anywhere. It's a mythical beast used in econ101 textbooks. Then I have to ask them how We the People have punished ANY of the companies that have screwed us over in recent decades. Please. They can't. So, yes, I've been listening to their stupidity for years and it's made me a bit suspicious whenever someone starts crowing about deregulation. And frankly, you sound like them. Liability law indeed.....

Back to the topic at hand instead of our little side Thing, Verizon and the state of NJ are clearly in collusion, and yes, this IS a fine example of regulatory capture. The real problem isn't that this is happening. It's that we're letting it happen. We let it happen every day. Punishing Verizon for this shit behavior WOULD stop them, but that's not going to happen. There will be no mass migration of customers away from Verizon, because people are comfortable and don't give a shit. The other solution is to attack NJ government and threaten them with democracy. Alas, that probably won't happen either because of the same reason... but it DOES have a better chance of happening. Sigh.

P.S. I'm highly involved in trying to get money out of politics, which I consider the ONLY issue of our time. Nothing else will get done while our representatives don't represent us, but do represent those that pay for them to get reelected.

Re:So how long

[Arker]

"So... before regulation, which, I imagine has existed for a long time, really ever since there has BEEN government, there was liability law? What? "

Well there's your first mistake. In the US, at least, the predominant legal model for business was still liability, not regulation, up into the first part of last century. This means that in regards to, well lets says environmental damage. Let's say you live upstream to me and you are poisoning my water supply, not on purpose, but as a side effect of your business. The liability remedy is to go to civil court and seek an injunction (to stop future harm) as well as a monetary judgement.

To some this seems too permissive for business (since there is really no prior restraint, they can go ahead and try what they want to try and if it turns out it was a bad idea later, the court may not really be able to make the people they harmed whole.) But too many of the wealthiest players it seemed too restrictive by far, and unfair to them specifically since they have more to lose in a judgement.

The modern regulatory system was just starting to take form in 1906 with the Pure Food and Drug act, and did not really take hold of the economy until the 30s. And what it does is say, the bureaucrats now have the authority to make rules concerning allowable amounts of poison, garbage, etc. and as long as you follow their rules in good faith, you are immune to civil suits for the damage you are causing! Just as long as it was within regulations.

Sure, it sounds reasonable. Until you factor in the known reality of regulatory capture.

And yes, judicial corruption could have the same effect. But the judiciary at least can be expected to be somewhat resistant to capture. Judges almost never sit on cases where one of the parties is a likely future employer. They are only supposed to know the law, and rely on expert witnesses for technical knowledge outside their field, while regulators instead must be hired specifically for knowledge of the industry they are to regulate, and the skills they learn on the job are in the same field as well, and this leaves being the regulator or the regulatee as their two main options for employment, so capture is effectively guaranteed.

I am not trying to be rude but your argument is wildly historically inaccurate. You think we had a 'sweet spot' and we can get it again but you also think that a system that has existed for approximately a century has been around for centuries if not millenia as well. You assert that if a company poisons you while following EPA regulations you can still sue them, which is not simply wrong but mistakes the nature of the regulatory system completely.

overprice wireless

[p51d007]

So, ma & pa down on the farm, are suppose to pay for overprice 4G service? Might as well give up trying to watch netflix, amazon or do anything useful!

Re:overprice wireless

[Penguinisto]

So, ma & pa down on the farm, are suppose to pay for overprice 4G service?
Might as well give up trying to watch netflix, amazon or do anything useful!

There is some (relatively) good news on the rural front... there's enough competition among Sat providers to give Verizon and such a very hard incentive to drop their costs. Even though most sat providers (Dish, HughesNet, etc) only provide around 7-10Mbps, they've started bringing down the prices just to keep ahead of the competition (for example, not even a year ago, it used to cost around $100+/mo just to get a 5Mbps connection from HughesNet with a ridiculously low bandwidth cap. - own it's dropped to $60/mo for 10Mbps and no cap, $45/mo for the same from Dish ($30/mo if you already have their TV service), etc.

Now consider that in the some rural areas, *if you could get DSL*, you would pay a mint to get DSL installed plus $70/mo for 3Mbps from CenturyStink. If you were really lucky, you could get cable Internet (but you had to live in a small-to-mid-sized town to get that). The only advantage DSL had was that you could game on it, but that was about it.

I suspect that as more players get into the rural broadband game, the costs will drop even more while services go up... Sat/wireless ISP service is one of the few places where you can get a decent deal, and since there's no monopoly, they have to compete.

As for Verizon? I just saw their rural 4G offerings/plans, and quite frankly, Verizon can go eat a dick - 4G and Sat are almost equally laggy for gaming, so no advantage there. Maybe someday they'll figure out that they can't run the same scam as they do in the smartphone arena, but that day isn't today.

Re:overprice wireless

[adolf]

. there's enough competition among Sat providers to give Verizon and such a very hard incentive to drop their costs. Even though most sat providers (Dish, HughesNet, etc) only provide around 7-10Mbps, they've started bringing down the prices just to keep ahead of the competition (for example, not even a year ago, it used to cost around $100+/mo just to get a 5Mbps connection from HughesNet with a ridiculously low bandwidth cap. - own it's dropped to $60/mo for 10Mbps and no cap, $45/mo for the same from Dish ($30/mo if you already have their TV service), etc.

Nope. All $59.99 buys from Hughesnet is a 10/1Mbps connection, with 10GB of "anytime" data, and another 10GB of "bonus bytes" (which can only be used between 2AM and 6AM). Per month.

If that's not a cap, I'm not sure what is.

Metered billing

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll find a way to charge you more. They always will.

Democracy at work

[Antony T Curtis]

People get the government that they voted for. If they are upset, they need to regard and blame their neighbours.

Re:Democracy at work

[organgtool]

I'm getting really tired of this shitty argument. We currently have a system in which rich people and corporations can donate nearly unlimited amounts of money to all political candidates, essentially buying them all out and you insist that the problem is with the voters. When every candidate is bought, there is no one left representing US! Stop acting like there is always a perfect candidate and somehow we pick the wrong one 100% of the time.

Re:Democracy at work

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting really tired of this shitty argument. We currently have a system in which rich people and corporations can donate nearly unlimited amounts of money to all political candidates, essentially buying them all out and you insist that the problem is with the voters. When every candidate is bought, there is no one left representing US! Stop acting like there is always a perfect candidate and somehow we pick the wrong one 100% of the time.

Hey, don't leave out the public employee unions. They buy pols, too.

Re:Democracy at work

[Grishnakh]

Everyone has the government they deserve. This is apparently the government that New Jersey residents deserve.

Re:Democracy at work

[jfengel]

I *do* insist that the problem is with the voters. If the voters were that irate about the politicians, they'd vote them out. Even if the new ones were just as bad, the voters would express their ire by voting them out, too.

Political donations don't buy votes. No politician is going to risk going to jail for taking bribes.

What political donations buy is the election of candidates who are sympathetic to you without having to be paid. They can't give money directly to the candidates anyway. The unlimited funds go to "uncoordinated" separate groups who spend it not on limousines and fact-finding tours to tropical islands but on campaign ads.

That's the point of connection. They're not buying the politicians. They're buying the voters. And they're buying them not with money, but with whatever tools of mental manipulation the ad-makers can dream up. They spend the money to blanket the airwaves.

All the voters have to do is to think, question whether the ads are telling the truth, and wonder why if they can form an objective picture from two biased, manipulated sets of mutually contradictory ads. That doesn't seem like a lot to ask, but the fact that the incumbents are repeatedly returned to office is a strong clue that they're not.

Maybe it would be futile and ineffective to keep turfing out politicians in favor of new ones. But it's not an experiment the voters have tried. If they did, maybe the politicians would change the way they operate; I don't know. I do know that your picture of how the process works is deeply flawed, and most voters seem equally uninterested in actually learning how it does work.

Your outrage at the politicians is too easy. They're doing what the voters tell them to do. If the voters are doing what the money is telling them to do, don't tell it to the politicians, or to me. Tell it to them. If you can figure out how to get them to listen, I'm all for it.

Re:Democracy at work

[Ichijo]

If you don't know why our current system tends to favor only two viable candidates, then you are part of the reason that, in your words, "there is no one left representing US!"

Re:Democracy at work

[geminidomino]

And what do you suggest knowing about it can accomplish? The number of politicians who are the ones to benefit from the broken system barely even constitute statistical noise.

This bullshit about it being the voters' fault is because morons DON'T understand Duverger's law and still cling to the delusion that everything would be unicorn farts and fairy semen if everyone would just "catch on" and vote for fringe 3rd parties.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Hen Housing Project still just gets to choose from two choices for the Vulpine HOA.

Re:Democracy at work

[profplump]

SCOTUS just told us that it's only a bribe if you can prove quid-pro-quo. Which essentially means bribes *are* legal.

Besides that, the idea that "buying a politician" and "buying an election" are separate is absurd. If you want to call them independent contractors feel free, but the flow of money and control are unaffected by such labels.

Re:Democracy at work

[Anonymous Coward]

We currently have a system in which rich people and corporations can donate nearly unlimited amounts of money to all political candidates, essentially buying them all out and you insist that the problem is with the voters.

The Supreme Court has allowed that and, guess what? Voters voted in people like George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush who appointed the Justices that passed those decisions down. No one put a gun to our heads and said, "vote for these ass clowns who you know damned well want to allow this sort of behavior".

Re:Democracy at work

[bobstreo]

MPAA seems to disagree:

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

Re:Democracy at work

[chaboud]

Technically, those unions are generally corporations.

Re:Democracy at work

[Anonymous Coward]

From www.allgov.gov the amount of money the Koch brothers directly contributed to political candidates and PAC's was $413 million. This does not count money contributed via darkmoney groups like ALEC, AEI AFP etc. On the other hand the top 10 unions contributed $153 million. ALL union contributions must be disclosed unlike the Koch brothers. Thus David Koch exerts as much influence as all the members of the top unions in the country

OH MY those nasty old unions, that represent their members, are buying elections. Give me a break

Re:Democracy at work

[zippthorne]

Well, you could get together with a number of your fellow citizens and form an organization large enough to put some lobby pressure, at least.

Guess which organizations are typically the targets of "campaign finance reform."

Re:Democracy at work

[JesseMcDonald]

If the voters were that irate about the politicians, they'd vote them out. Even if the new ones were just as bad, the voters would express their ire by voting them out, too.

That would be a good start, but one would hope that after a while they'd learn to stop voting them in. Just leave the office empty and let people get on with their lives in peace.

Re:Democracy at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Political donations don't buy votes. No politician is going to risk going to jail for taking bribes.

Yeah, you're right. Instead, they'll look the moron voter dead in the eye an claim that campaign "contributions" aren't the same fucking thing, while ensuring those "donations" remain labeled as a legal activity.

Wow, you couldn't be more delusional about this shit, could you...

Re:Democracy at work

[suman28]

I would have to disagree. It is great that there is a chance to vote the candidate out, BUT it is in the next election cycle. The damage is already done by that time. Any candidate that promises to repeal those laws will come in and get comfy till the next election cycle. There is no need to take any bribes, because adding to this problem are the mindless voters who can't vote out the rubber stamp candidates and you got the policy mess we are in now.

Re:Democracy at work

[jfengel]

When you talk about the "mindless voters", I'm not sure you're disagreeing with me at all. The voters have the power to fix it, or at least make a change in the individual, and that would create powerful incentives for the one in power to be different.

Re:Democracy at work

[jfengel]

I don't think I agree with your interpretation of this event. The MPAA discovered that even though they are sympathetic to Democratic lawmakers on most issues, they disagree on the pocketbook issue that makes the MPAA different from the sum of a bunch of Hollywood lefties. Those lefties are probably still supporting Democrats as individuals, but their collective action on financial matters runs to right-wing, pro-business, anti-consumer tactics.

So they're probably fighting against themselves, and donating out of both sides of their pockets. Which actually isn't uncommon for people whose social consciences say one thing but whose livelihoods say another.

They weren't buying the Democrats; they don't want to buy the Republicans. Republicans want to give the MPAA what they want; that's the way they actually believe the world works. So they're going to put money into getting Republicans elected over Democrats. Which is going to have effects on a lot of areas other than IP matters, and I think it's going to make them very unhappy.

Re:Democracy at work

[jfengel]

The money does not flow into the politician's bank accounts. That's why it's not a bribe. They are not getting wealthy off of it; even the revolving door promises that they'll get a lucrative position after they leave Congress can't really explain it since that is often years or decades away.

The politicians are mostly wealthy to start with, and their income sources are fairly obvious. They make money the old fashioned way, being lawyers and executives with comical salaries, which they spin into even bigger investments. The politicians who start poor tend to remain poor. (Or rather, middle class. It's practically impossible for an actually poor person to be elected. But they're poor compared to the millionaire's club which makes up about half of Congress.)

sounds great

[dlt074]

sign me up. i can get more than that many neighbors to agree to those terms. alas, we don't even have that option. we'd pay many times more for the chance.

it's all relative.

Re:sounds great

[mysidia]

sign me up. i can get more than that many neighbors to agree to those terms. alas, we don't even have that option. we'd pay many times more for the chance.

Sure thing... they'll be happy to install a 4G tower in your area.

By the way, the fee for going over the 250 Megabyte data cap has been increased to $25 per Kilobyte of data transferred.

Re:sounds great

[ArcadeMan]

By the way, the fee for going over the 250 Megabyte data cap has been increased to $25 per Kilobyte of data transferred.

You call that an increase?

Signed,
Canadian cellphone providers.

We are tools

[alphatel]

1. Deregulate
2. ...
3. Profit!

the old customer vs consumer confusion again

[NemoinSpace]

Customers, have the responsibility to know what they want and be willing to shop somewhere else.
Consumers open wide and ingest whatever is shoved down there throats.
Then of course there is New Jersey. I can't help you with that.

Re:the old customer vs consumer confusion again

[Iniamyen]

In case you haven't been keeping up with the times, internet access is becoming one of those "basic necessities," and can't really be fairly represented by your simplistic argument.

I'd like to charge you $100 per mile to drive on my roads. Oh, you can't afford that? Well just wait until the next election cycle and you can change the laws. By that time you won't have a job to commute to anymore, but at least you will have proven yourself a non-consumer.

Re:the old customer vs consumer confusion again

[FuegoFuerte]

'd like to charge you $100 per mile to drive on my roads.

Who are you, Dow Constantine?

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a contract that says you need to install fiber/cable, how the fuck is NOT installing fiber/cable fraud?

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean NOT fraud. This is fraud, plain and simple. The amount of evil is unbelievable.

Re:How?

[Russ1642]

They are altering the deal. Pray they don't alter it any further.

Re:How?

[alen]

verizon has FIOS in the civilized parts of NJ
i've been out to Sussex and some other hick parts of NJ and all i can say is if you want to live that far out, you take the good with the bad

no one is dumb enough to spend $100,000 to run fiber to your one home for $50 a month in revenues

Re:How?

[quetwo]

Except you, the taxpayer already paid that amount to Verizon to run fiber/HSI to your house back in the 90's and 00's. Verizon already cashed the check a long time ago -- they just didn't provide the service.

Re:How?

[bleh-of-the-huns]

They did not specify the medium in the original contract. They merely specified 45mbit as broadband.. which they weaseled out of by a technicality since LTE does support that speed... but at a cost.

Re:How?

[Darinbob]

LTE isn't broadband though, unless they're providing an in house router for it instead of getting a phone service and tethering to that.

Re:How?

[Stewie241]

You mean like that?

Re: How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's not just rural NJ. I live in Princeton and many communities here never got FIOS as promised.

Re:How?

[Trekologer]

verizon has FIOS in the civilized parts of NJ

No it doesn't. Verizon hung the fiber on the poles in my neighborhood in 2007 and put the head end equipment in the central office but never hooked them up and seems to have no plan to do so. My town's population places it in the top 20 municipalities in New Jersey.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in exactly the same situation in Maryland. Fiber's hanging out on the main road. Town of 40000 people. Very, very suburban; not "rural" by any reasonable definition of the word. If I fart in my driveway, 8 neighbors will hear it. The net income in the community seems to be upper-middle class; people have boats, garages, multiple new vehicles, and so on.

In 2007 they CALLED us (we were their DSL customer at the time, so they had the right to do so) and told us FiOS was "weeks" away. We called them back every few weeks for about 4 years to see if the number of weeks had changed, but apparently it's still "a few weeks" away from being installed, 7 years later.

Verizon is one of the scummiest companies on the earth. I wish nothing but eternal gruesome misery on the lot of their decision-making employees.

Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Onuma]

...now with more corruption!

Re:Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon made the same empty promises in PA.

Re:Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Anonymous Coward]

/EVEN/ more...? What is this? Virginia?

Re:Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Onuma]

And to think...I moved from NJ to VA several years back. -_-

Re:Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Anonymous Coward]

...now with more corruption!

Gee, I'm shocked...

These days, little Susie's lemonade stand has bitcoin backend funding and is engaged in HFT...

Re:Welcome to the NEW Jersey...

[Onuma]

The lemonade lobby is powerful, indeed.

in this thread

[circletimessquare]

will be a bunch of cynical comments about this being just the way it is

but there are countries like canada and the nordic countries that, while not perfect, do a much better job of keeping money out of politics than the usa

cynicism is common, but i don't like it because people use it to think they have to lie down and accept this sort of legalized corruption

in many ways, i think the cynicism is worse than the malicious corporations. because there's always people who are robbing you in this world. you have defend yourself and fight them. but what can you say about people who roll over and take the abuse?

we don't have to accept it

and we start by changing the lame cynical attitudes out there

that might be you

that might mean speaking up when you hear cynicism and people snickering or nodding in agreement with it

for speaking up and say wallowing in mindless cynicism is a form of accepting the abuse and is part of the problem, you may get ridiculed and flak for that. but think about what kind of mindset is mocking you, and take it as a point of pride

we have to be the solution here. all of us. i didn't say it was easy. but i and many others are not going to continue to accept this, and i would hope more people would join us

start by losing the cynicism

Re:in this thread

[Grishnakh]

will be a bunch of cynical comments about this being just the way it is

It IS the way it is. Better get used to it.

but there are countries like canada and the nordic countries that, while not perfect, do a much better job of keeping money out of politics than the usa

The USA is not a Scandinavian country. Saying "we should be more like Norway" makes as much sense here as it would to go to Somalia, Afghanistan, Mexico, or Zimbabwe, and tell them "you just need to be like Norway!".

cynicism is common, but i don't like it because people use it to think they have to lie down and accept this sort of legalized corruption

What are you going to do about it, huh? Vote for someone else? You could try the loud protest route, but look how that worked out for the OWS demonstrators. The cops in this country are violent and brutal, and are more than happy to do the dirty work of their corporate masters.

we don't have to accept it
and we start by changing the lame cynical attitudes out there

I'll bet some Romans said this too. Look how things turned out for them.

that might mean speaking up

  In case you haven't noticed, people have been speaking up. It hasn't made much difference. The systemic problems in this country are much too far gone to fix things at this point, just like things were too far gone in Rome by the 400s.

Re:in this thread

[Princeofcups]

start by losing the cynicism

At some point you have to accept that you are living in the last days of Rome, and nothing is going to turn it around. The USA will be burned to the ground, economically, by the uber rich, and they will not leave a scrap of meat on the carcass. The barbarians are already at the gates. It's over. It's time to start planning what comes after. It's the rebuilding that will be exciting.

Re:in this thread

[circletimessquare]

when i describe a pathetic attitude, it helps not to respond by exactly fitting the pathetic description

Re:in this thread

[circletimessquare]

so you want to be the poster child of exactly the sort of loser i am describing?

Re:in this thread

[profplump]

And so your solution is to do nothing? And you expect people to agree with you?

Re:in this thread

[profplump]

Your point appears to be "it can't be changed, so start planning for change".

Re:in this thread

[Grishnakh]

Hey, if you want to live in fantasy land, don't let me stop you. I like to watch Star Trek TNG and fantasize about living in a world where everyone is hyper-competent and there's no greedy sociopaths running things, but I'm under no illusions that such a thing is actually possible, since it's never been achieved before in 8,000 years of human civilization.

Re:in this thread

[Grishnakh]

You can do what the smart people in Germany did around 1935. Remember, there were some people who tried to change things there; it didn't go well for them (I seem to remember guillotines being used for dissenters).

Re:in this thread

[schnell]

You could try the loud protest route, but look how that worked out for the OWS demonstrators.

The OWS protestors accomplished nothing because THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY WANTED. They were just protesting against bad things, with no common agenda on how to fix it or what they wanted instead. Christ, they even had to have public meetings (at least in NYC) to decide if they as a group wanted to buy sleeping bags, and even then it took hours because they wanted consensus and some douchebag would always sidetrack the conversation into whether sleeping bags were exploiting the Earth and they should knit their own out of free trade organic non-GMO dandelion roots.

Loud, ORGANIZED protests have a good history of working in this country. See the civil rights movement, anti-nuclear power (for better or worse), anti-US involvement in Vietnam and others. So maybe that's a viable way to go here. Loud protests about what people don't like with no specific agenda or proposals on what they DO want? How can any sane person expect that would achieve anything?

Re:in this thread

[circletimessquare]

I want us to be as successful at controlling corruption as Canada and the Nordic countries.

I didn't know such a goal counts as science fiction.

I described a certain mindless cynic in my post. You are exactly such a loser. You are the problem.

Re:in this thread

[Grishnakh]

I want us to be as successful at controlling corruption as Canada and the Nordic countries.

Think, for a second, about someone in Zimbabwe uttering this line. Does that not sound utterly ridiculous? Same goes here. You seem to have some wacky idea that the US could somehow be like Nordic countries. It simply can't, just like countries like Zimbabwe and Mexico can't. When corruption is ingrained in your society's very culture, you can't somehow magically change your culture to be like a culture where corruption isn't ingrained. You have to change the culture first, and that just doesn't happen.

Re:in this thread

[Shados]

Of course, in this particular context (broadband availability and cost), corruption or not, Canada makes the USA looks good, so its probably a bad example for this article.

Re:in this thread

[circletimessquare]

you are truly the poster boy for mindless cynicism. 100% loser

Re:in this thread

[Grishnakh]

It's rather pathetic that you can only stoop to childish name-calling rather than make any kind of sound argument.

Re:in this thread

[riondluz]

"Organized" Protest has changed more governments in the last 15 years than ever before.

Just google Gene Sharp. His formula has been adopted by the underclass world-over. He and his book have been declared "emeny of the State" in banana republics world over (incl Russia).

His 1st Directive: Have a solid strategic plan.
Wish OWS leadership followed his advice.

Re:in this thread

[circletimessquare]

it's not name calling. it's an objective description of the content of your character

NJ seems to be regularly in the news these days

[blackjackshellac]

For all the wrong reasons. Spread your cheeks NJ.

Verizon using the Vader Playbook

[Eristone]

And New Jersey, I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

Give Back The Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon was given a shit load of cash in tax breaks, rate hikes, etc in return for providing 45Mb broadband to all state residents.

Re:Give Back The Money

[fahrbot-bot]

Verizon was given a shit load of cash in tax breaks, rate hikes, etc in return for providing 45Mb broadband to all state residents.

I'm sure they'll ship that money back at 4G speed...

Re:Give Back The Money

[Shados]

Those bribes are expensive man. They need to get something back for them!

When will Verizon deliver TRUE 4g (LTE Advanced)?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not one single Cellular network in the United States offers TRUE 4g.

What they offer is relabeled, bastardized 3g+ (4G LTE is an enhanced 3G - long term evolution standard, it is not by definition 4g)

Look at the specs.

Verizon isn't out of the woods just yet, they actually have to bring in TRUE 4G first.

Good on New Jersey for forcing them to upgrade their networks :)

45 Mbps?

[wiredlogic]

Since when has the definition of broadband been so high in the US. Last I knew it was still officially classified as anything faster than ISDN. Got 1Mbps down on your DSL link? Enjoy that sweet broadband citizen.

It seems most likely that such an impossibly high target (for US infrastructure) was purposely snuck in by industry lobbyists to make it more likely to be waived in the future.

Re:45 Mbps?

[Anonymous Coward]

it was a number pulled out of someone's ass back in the dark ages when telcos were scamming billions from taxpayers to 'build out infrastructure'... the 45mbit nationwide infrastructure never saw the light of day... and neither did the billions and billions of dollars--once the telcos got their hands on it that is. the 'deals' themselves for the fast internet and the 2007-10 or whatever deadline? mostly forgotten about or forgave, as in this instance.

Re:45 Mbps?

[lister king of smeg]

Since when has the definition of broadband been so high in the US. Last I knew it was still officially classified as anything faster than ISDN. Got 1Mbps down on your DSL link? Enjoy that sweet broadband citizen.

It seems most likely that such an impossibly high target (for US infrastructure) was purposely snuck in by industry lobbyists to make it more likely to be waived in the future.

10 mbps hahahahahahah.
We pay for 7 where i live and maybe get 4mbps when it is "fast" around like 1-4 am the rest of the day it is usually around 3-2.5mbps.
Our options consist of centurylink dsl or centurylink with bundle with cable. Cell signal is neither fast nor reliable (3g if the weather is good if its bad... one bar if you sit in the window sill). oh and dial up. fuck the tellaco's

Re:45 Mbps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Got 1Mbps down on your DSL link? Enjoy that sweet broadband citizen.

10 mbps hahahahahahah.

He never said 10 dumb ass.

Re:45 Mbps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Got 1Mbps down on your DSL link? Enjoy that sweet broadband citizen.

10 mbps hahahahahahah.

He never said 10 dumb ass.

Attempt at unit policing?

1 Mbps = 1000000000 mbps. Except I'm not so sure whether fractional bits are a valid construct....

Re:45 Mbps?

[drinkypoo]

Since when has the definition of broadband been so high in the US. Last I knew it was still officially classified as anything faster than ISDN

Uh no, and it never has been. Last I knew, it was 6Mbps, as defined by the FCC — which also understands the definition of broadband.

Re:45 Mbps?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had the foresight to specify a minimum download speed at a time when everyone is interested in watching video, so bandwidth caps and peering eyeball monopolies matter more than download speed. Once you're above 10Mbit/s or so it's all the same, and 2Mbit/s is enough for 720p if you really get the 2Mbit/s.

"eh, it's good enough"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not, screw you guys.

You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[Sycraft-fu]

It isn't quite as good as people think with regards to money and politics, and certainly not with regards to the Internet. Canada's 'net speeds vs costs do not compare all that well to the US's.

Canada is a very nice (if cold) country that I visit every summer (I'm a dual citizen) but it isn't the utopia some Americans seem to think it is.

Re:You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have noticed that American's who rarely leave the country for more than a week at a time on vacation if at all think a lot of countries have all the answers.

Re:You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[circletimessquare]

i don't think canada is a utopia

i specifically said "canada and the nordic countries that, while not perfect, do a much better job"

every country has problems. and there is corruption in canada. but canada is doing a much better job of keeping corruption in check than the usa. we can demand better, we do not have to accept the lame status quo in the usa og basically legalized corruption such as with 2010 citizens united when the supremes basically betrayed the american people to corporations and plutocrats

doesn't mean i think we can defeat corruption forever. doesn't mean i think it will be easy. but we can, and should, get money out of politics to the best of our ability. and certainly not roll over and accept it and say "well, that's just the way it is." no, it's not just the way it is

Re:You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[circletimessquare]

or perhaps canada is actually doing a much better job of controlling corruption

Re:You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[phorm]

It somewhat depends on where in Canada you live. Although the costs are going up in the West lately, at least you are getting decent speed/service for it.

Re:You might wanna look a little better at Canada

[dryeo]

That's true, for only $80 a month I occasionally get this good of a connection

[dialing]
atz
OK
ATDT604-xxx-xxxx
CONNECT 28800 V42bis

of course I could be another 60 kms further west without being in the ocean.

That's Very Realistic

[organgtool]

If Verizon Wireless is the only option for broadband in your area, I would hate to see the bill for a family of four that uses Netflix. How about downloading a 13GB patch for a single game? Can these people send their bills to the state for reimbursement?

Re:That's Very Realistic

[Ichijo]

Consider it part of the cost of living away from civilization.

"If you love nature, stay away from it." --Henry David Thoreau

Re:That's Very Realistic

[Nethemas the Great]

In part I share that sentiment. That is, right up to the point that the innocents that don't get choice where their parents force them to live are affected. If you choose to live on the fringes of the grid, that's your problem. If your kids suffer from lack of opportunity because you force them to live on the fringes of the grid, you're a douche bag.

Setting all that aside however, we have a company that was given all manner of financial benefits in exchange for their obligation to provide 45Mbps broadband. They failed to deliver and now are being given a free pass instead of being forced to return the money. That's complete and utter bullsh*t.

Re:That's Very Realistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that Verizon is doing this even to communities that are very well built up with tens of thousands of people, and a population density much closer to "urban" than "rural". The "move into the inner city and crowd into a tiny overpriced apartment to get decent Internet" argument is really getting old.

The problem isn't that Verizon won't bring FiOS to a guy living alone on 300 acres of property without charging the guy a dime. You are taking the extreme position, which is a fallacy, because you aren't accounting for the many, MANY situations where the circumstances are much less extreme and the same negative result occurs.

I live in a community of over 40,000 people. Within a 2 mile radius of my house are 13 pizza shops, four grocery stores, a four-lane 65mph highway, five gas stations, and four fully occupied neighborhoods that were built between the mid-80s and the early 2000s, plus numerous strip malls, physicians, law offices, and a post office. The roads are constantly jam-packed at all hours of the day and the median income is in the top 15% of the US.

Sounds like a nice, well-to-do place to live, right? Apparently not according to Verizon. None of the four neighborhoods have FiOS, despite the fact that the town right next door, which is only ever so slightly larger and with almost identical population density, has FiOS. I can hop in my car, and traffic willing, I can be in a neighborhood that has FiOS in under 10 minutes. But Verizon won't come here. That's because, although it would be profitable for them, it wouldn't be *extremely* profitable. The way Verizon deployed FiOS is that they picked a few communities with the best tradeoffs between median household income and population density, and put FiOS there. They only skimmed THE MOST profitable communities off the top. There are still tons of communities with well above average figures that are left out in the cold. They could most certainly reap a ROI on FiOS install here, but it might take them a couple more years to recoup their investment. The tragedy! That poor, *poor* corporation. They'll have to wait a few more years to start rolling in the dough.

No. Fuck them. And fuck them doubly because they took taxpayer money from many local and state governments explicitly with the purpose of servicing these less-profitable communities, and even the marginal ones (which would have an even longer ROI than mine) -- but the service never came, and it never will. They put the money into building out LTE instead. Which would be all well and good -- my LTE is extraordinarily fast -- if they offered reasonable data caps (at least as much as Comcrap, for heaven's sake) or unlimited.

This is an unmitigated theft of taxpayer money for absolutely no service rendered. The Verizon execs responsible should be serving jail time in some dreary state penitentiary right now. But instead, they get to take 3 week long cruises on their personal yacht while the common man they've left out of their plans has to fight tooth and nail to get marginally acceptable access to the global economy (aka the Internet).

Seriously, fuck Verizon.

Mission Accomplished!

[Anonymous Coward]

4 years late, still not done. Mission Accomplished!

Re:When will Verizon deliver TRUE 4g (LTE Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

nerds bitching over acronyms and being pedantic over naming are tiring

A different viewpoint

[SternisheFan]

I just.got.a.Virgin.Mobile Samsung S3 that gets 4G, and yes, it is comparable to WiFi speeds. It is much faster than 3G, maybe 10X?? And.since right.now I don't need WiFi for my laptop as much, this will work (for my current needs).

Verizon doesn't offer 45Mbps

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but no. While it may be true in some places in Canada, the LTE bandwidth and latency can meet or beat the landline cable company, every LTE access place in the US I tried was in the low 10Mbps range.

If nobody in that census tract plays online games, they may not even care. However because the data capping aspects are different between landline and wireless (basically landline caps is pure greed, while wireless has actual technical reasons) one is not guaranteed LTE speed even when connected at LTE.

That said, I have to wonder why no internet service co-op's have sprung up. It seems like anyone not in a 50 story condo is getting substandard internet because the cable companies don't want to run fiber to every unit, and the phone companies don't want to run fiber to the building to begin with.

So...

[oh_my_080980980]

So I guess Verizon isn't going to give back all the money New Jersey residents handed them in order to build out broadband.....time to litigate.

What good is 45Mbps...

[Overzeetop]

What good is 45Mbps when you hit your monthly cap in just under 12 minutes, and then get charged $1.50 per minute of full-rate data after that?

When compared to AT&T, Verizon wired, Comcast, and TW, the cost for wireless "broadband" (even capped at 250GB/mo) is astronomincal, running over $1000 per month.

Re:When will Verizon deliver TRUE 4g (LTE Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. Different acronyms mean different things, ie contractual obligations. Not like they will actually be held to it, but your anonymous cohort brings up a good point.

Technically, it is

[Guspaz]

There's no technical reason that good LTE coverage isn't going to give you a broadband experience. I've got 50/10 meg VDSL2, and three-bar LTE coverage provides similar downstream and way more upstream.

The problem, then, isn't the technology itself. The problem is the 1GB data cap and $15/GB overage fees. My VDSL2 connection comes with 300GB of data, on an LTE connection that'd cost me $4,500 a month. At those prices, even if LTE is capable of acting as broadband, you can't use it as such.

Re:Technically, it is

[hawguy]

There's no technical reason that good LTE coverage isn't going to give you a broadband experience. I've got 50/10 meg VDSL2, and three-bar LTE coverage provides similar downstream and way more upstream.

The problem, then, isn't the technology itself. The problem is the 1GB data cap and $15/GB overage fees. My VDSL2 connection comes with 300GB of data, on an LTE connection that'd cost me $4,500 a month. At those prices, even if LTE is capable of acting as broadband, you can't use it as such.

Well, there is one Technical reason -- the same reason that limits every wireless protocol -- there is a limited amount of frequency spectrum available to wireless signals, which puts a cap on the aggregate bandwidth available. Multiple sectors and channels can help, but it's still not the same as wireless -- just like how 300Mbit 802.11n Wifi in the office doesn't give everyone the same quality of service as 100mbit wired connections -- it's great when only a few people are using the Wifi, but when everyone tries to use the fileserver at once, they all have to share the same bandwidth.

Wired infrastructure is also aggregated and shared on the back end, but there are fewer limitations on available bandwidth since the fiber backhaul has a lot more capacity than the limited RF bandwidth available to carriers. Increasing LTE capacity often means installing a new cell site so each site serves fewer users, which can take years from planning to implementation. In comparison, adding additional wired backhaul capacity is often as easy as lighting up another fiber strand (or using faster transceivers).

Re:Technically, it is

[profplump]

But they aren't using wireless for the backhaul, they're using it for the last mile. And they're doing it because it's cheaper and quicker to install than improved wireline connections.

So if they want to use wireless to meet this obligation they should be held to the same standard as if they had met it with wireline service.

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

But but but but the last mile is 1000 customers. So you have a giant 45Mbps hub where each customer gets 45kbps pie. Wireless is limited by physics called *bandwidth*. And there is no way around it.

With wired network, each wire how a given amount of bandwidth. You want more? Add another wire. You max our your connection? Theoretically, you are not affecting the wire that goes to your neightbour.

Wireless is dead for dense installation precisely because of the last mile problem. I have no idea why people don't understand these basics.

Re:Technically, it is

[hawguy]

But they aren't using wireless for the backhaul, they're using it for the last mile. And they're doing it because it's cheaper and quicker to install than improved wireline connections.

So if they want to use wireless to meet this obligation they should be held to the same standard as if they had met it with wireline service.

My point is that wired gives dedicated bandwidth to the aggregation point. With wireles the bandwidth is shared, so the more users that use it, the more it degrades. I thought that was clear when I made the analogy with Wifi.

Oh, but in many rural areas they *do* use point-to-point wireless for the backhaul. Since it's point-to-point, it's not subject to the same sharing constraints, but it's not the same as a hardwired fiber connection.

Re:Technically, it is

[Guspaz]

These companies are using LTE to deliver service to rural areas with low population densities, and they have massive amounts of spectrum. Rogers has 170MHz of spectrum, for example, enough to deliver ~2.5 Gbps to fixed wireless to a single cell with LTE. Obviously they're not going to dedicate that much spectrum to fixed wireless, but in rural areas they could afford to spend most of it.

Re:Technically, it is

[Guspaz]

I'll sort of repeat what I said above: Rogers has 170 MHz of spectrum, so 1000 customers in a single cell would still not be a problem. And if it was... you can shrink the cells. These are rural areas we're talking about here, not dense installations, and even dense installations can usually still shrink cells. We're nowhere near the point where we don't have enough spectrum to fuel growth.

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

But that doesnt matter, the contract says that they should be able to provide up to 45mbps. So if they provision the tower with 45mbps it's fine...

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Just increase tower density! That is, after the local community objections have been rightly silenced; you have no right to complain about costly cellular broadband unless you are also eagerly in favor of removing retarded and antiquated zoning restrictions imposed by local/county/state governments that inhibit tower growth and don't give them enough places to install their towers.

Outside of Detroit, population density is a pretty stable number overall in Random Suburb, USA. A fully established neighborhood with 100% occupancy (no foreclosed or abandoned homes) will have an almost constant population density over 20 years. Now... for any given population density figure, it stands to reason that there is a critical point where a given tower density will meet or exceed the demand for service, even assuming 100% of the residents go with your service as their primary ISP. That critical point, for a neighborhood with middle class, 2-story cookie-cutter homes, is not that much denser (in terms of # of towers per square mile) than what Verizon has already installed.

In fact, for most suburbs, increasing tower density by 33% - 50% should be sufficient to keep the towers from being saturated most of the time. Sure, you might see a little contention at 8 PM when everyone tries to stream 1080p video off of Netflix for their evening movie, but by and large it'll be fine, and you can account for slight contention by buying more spectrum (which is going on the auction block soonish) or increasing spectral efficiency, which LTE Advanced promises to do.

This is a viable solution to "the suburb problem" that doesn't involve fiber to the premises or fiber to the node or anything like that; you just level a small strip mall somewhere, or a gas station, and replace it with a tower and the required infrastructure. Suddenly you have the capability to sell everyone unlimited data, because you've got more available spectrum than you know what to do with (which is precisely why LTE was unlimited during the first few years of its rollout; they had so few customers that they literally did not care if you streamed Netflix 24/7). We can get back to that with just a little reasonable public policy and a tiny smidgeon of pro-consumer decision-making at Verizon.

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Increasing LTE capacity often means installing a new cell site so each site serves fewer users, which can take years from planning to implementation.

Actually with LTE, it's different, because LTE is self-configuring. You literally just pop in the simcard into the micro-cell (eNodeB), and plug it in. The backend connection can be IP over ethernet, or IP over ATM or IP over LTE, or IP over SDH. Mostly the ones I install are IP over ethernet to a VDSL modem backhaul.

Disclaimer: I install LTE. It's more like installing 802.11 accesspoints than installing GSM cells, only the performance is much better than 802.11 because it's TDM (Mikrotik and Ubiquity also support mutually-incompatible TDM over 802.11, but LTE is standard).

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

LTE also uses IP for backhaul, so you can plug a cell into practically any fast-enough internet connection and establish service. I've personally installed LTE using VDSL, GigE, LTE, 802.11a, and licensed proprietary SDH over microwave links. It all depends on the reliability and bandwidth required.

The old thinking with GSM was that everything has to be "carrier-grade" and 99.999% availability. With LTE we still have "carrier-grade" for large cells as fallback for voice, but with LTE, being self-configurable, you can quickly and easily grow capacity by plugging additional cells into whatever network happens to be available, and if it falls over, it will of course fallback to those carrier-grade cells. It's basically TDM wifi with functioning roaming, though all the user IP still goes back to a central office before being dispatched to the greater internet.

The longterm goal, hence "long-term evolution" is that LTE cells of all sizes are ubiquitous, and you don't have to think: am I at home? can I use wifi?

Of course this is going against a carrier mentality used to paying six figures for cellsite installations, not two. When your home (and everyone else's) fiber or DSL comes included with an LTE eNodeB, you shouldn't have to wonder how much bandwidth you can use or how much it's going to cost you.

The tragedy of wifi is that it's everywhere, and yet it's nowhere. Everywhere you go, you can get out your phone or notebook and see 5~30 APs, but unless you have some arrangement with the owners, you can't get online. With LTE+home internet bundles, it stands to solve the dillema, because the LTE eNodeB backhaul is excluded from the home internet connections accounting, so by having a eNodeB micro/nano/femto-cell in your home, you benefit by having highspeed cell coverage, and everyone else nearby also has the same benefit (with your only cost being a tiny energy bill). If you think about the wifi around you, it's already sufficient to cover everyone's cell service (in that area), it just completely fails to provide any sort of roaming.

Everyone could just turn off authentication on their wifi, and firewall them to only access the internet, but nobody wants to accept responsibility for other people's internet activities (given the current state of law) or the bandwidth. What is needed, and what LTE provides, is a market solution. The LTE network operator provides the backhaul (in our case anyway, we are an ISP and cellular network, and we supply our customers with femtocells with their DSL and PON connections as part of a home internet + cell bundle). The cellular industry really did learn a lot from wifi, particularly the importance of being uncomplicated and easy to install and use.

Of course a big LTE cell still costs five or six figures and requires a bunch of forward planning and notably, are not self-configured. They also have much higher performance, reliability and all sorts of nifty things like spatially diversified coherent detection (two or more cells can act together to form a channel) and MIMO. SDCD in particular allows for a signal to be resolved even when both cells are seeing (different) interference. With enough nodeBs and computation power, in principle every UE (handset, etc) has the full LTE spectrum available for it's own use.

Re:Technically, it is

[Guspaz]

I don't disagree with anything you've said, except that I'll point out that the roaming issue (on wifi) is a purely software one. As soon as you have any sort of Internet connectivity, any other problems (like roaming) are just a matter of configuration, in that there's nothing stopping you from using an IP tunnel with a very low timeout and auto-retries to ensure that your mobile device is always has (or is NATted through) the same IP, and is always discoverable to the Internet. In fact, many mobile services are already designed to do this at a higher level to survive the rapid topology changes that mobile devices can present. Skype might find itself randomly switched between the cell network and random different wifi networks, but I can receive Skype calls regardless.

Re:Technically, it is

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not a software issue, you just eluded as to how the software problem is solved (excluding the handover time in regular wifi is too excessive to maintain roaming voice). It is, as I thought I had tried to illustrate, a sociopolitical issue. Nobody wants you clogging up their wifi and backhaul without any benefit to themselves. LTE solves some technical problems with wifi, like fast handoff, TDM spectrum sharing, and so on, but none of those technical problems are barriers to universal coverage.

The barrier to universal coverage is that every wifi AP is in a separate administrative domain, and for any given person, almost all of those domains won't allow them access.

In LTE, even though the physical infrastructure is managed by the home users and businesses, for femto and micro cells at least, though usually still owned and leased to the users by the telco, it is all centrally managed at the logical and spectrum level, so roaming works everywhere because you have a UE sim from the telco, and it is accepted as authorisation by every LTE cell in the considerably vast network.

To reiterate, there is no *technical* reason this all can't be accomplished with wifi, it's just the split domains that mean this won't happen. Perhaps it's different where you live, and all the wifi APs are open-access, but where I live, virtually all APs are using WPA, WEP or RSN, and I only have the PSKs or certificates for about a hundred SSIDs (and I would guess that is far more than most, I work at a lot of sites), out of the perhaps 500k APs in my city (ballpark figure).

If you could wave a magic wand and turn all those APs into one administrative domain, and provide universal access, it would be a sweet miracle, but I can't see that happening. What I can see happening is telcos cashing in on the lack of universal service with femtocells and microcells.

I used to believe in free love networking, and the mesh apocalypse where ubiquitous wifi mesh networks killed ISPs and cellular networks overnight. Then I saw what actually happened, wisened up, and realised that too-cheap-to-care is better than free in most cases. I've even helped people build wireless meshes in poor and wealthy rural communities (who both get no service from traditional telcos for whatever reason), and I've tried the same thing in the city, and seen it abjectly rejected.

The difference is in rural communities, the tangible benefit is good internet vs. terrible/no internet, whereas in the city, it's "I already have good cheap internet, why would I want this, it sound's complicated, what's in it for me". With LTE, there is zero cost or complexity to the end user, as it's integrated into their CPE, and probably half the users don't even know it's there, and the benefit to the telco is clear: better service, more access fees.

I don't really see any reason a dominant ISP couldn't have done the same thing with centrally managed wifi, perhaps even there are some ISPs doing this and providing roaming coverage to their users, but I know virtually every LTE network operator is doing this as there's simply no other way to meet users bandwidth demands. You just mail the femtocells to your customers with a instruction card telling them how to plug it in. It's no more difficult than installing a cordless telephone.

NJ broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

This is no surprise given desire of BUTT-KISSER CHRISTIE and the other robber baons to please the plutocrats and swindlers above all. Consider moving to Kansas City or Chattanooga to get much better service!

Re:Not!

[ArcadeMan]

We're all going to end up driving Lada while they drive Mercedes.

Verizon and New Jersey Agree 4G Service Equivalent

[ArcadeMan]

And it's only 100 times more expensive.

Re:Not!

[HornWumpus]

Don't feed it.

Voters are absolutely to blame ...

[drnb]

I'm getting really tired of this shitty argument. We currently have a system in which rich people and corporations can donate nearly unlimited amounts of money to all political candidates, essentially buying them all out and you insist that the problem is with the voters. When every candidate is bought, there is no one left representing US! Stop acting like there is always a perfect candidate and somehow we pick the wrong one 100% of the time.

If anyone has a shitty argument it is you. Votes are politics true currency, money is just a tool to influence voters in order to get their *vote*.

A 1% has *one* vote. A 99% has *one* vote. The 99% have the power but they squander it, to believe otherwise is to be a denier of reality like climate deniers, to let politics blind oneself to reality.

Look at the two most powerful lobbying groups in the country, the AARP and the NRA. They have so much power not because of political campaign contribution but because ***their members show up on election day*** highly motivated to vote based on a single issue. Their opponents often fail to understand this, think it is simply political contributions, and in the NRA case raise huge amounts of money for anti-gun groups and then fail and fail again.

Politicians value votes beyond all other things. It is votes that put them into office and keep them in office. The secondary nature of money is easily illustrated. No amount of money spent on TV and web ads by Bloomberg will convince NRA member to vote in favor of restricting guns. No amount of money spent on TV and web ads by the Koch brothers will convince Occupy Wall Street members to vote against banking restrictions. Only the ignorant or ambivalent voter is persuaded.

To deny that the real issue is the ignorant/ambivalent voter is to doom one's efforts at reform. Only when the 99% insists on politicians representing their interests, and voting out those who do not, will politicians change their behavior. Reelections communicates to politicians that their actions are OK with voters.

Voters *are* communicating to politicians that it is OK to cash in. Until *voters" say otherwise nothing will change. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

Why was my post deleted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I put a link to what Christie said about this. He is the most powerful man in the state, so I don't understand why you people think you have the right to try to censor him. He is on our side on this so fucking him over like this is rude. Fuck you deletionists. You ruined Wikipedia and now you're attacking another site.

Re:Why was my post deleted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I put a link to what Christie said about this. He is the most powerful man in the state, so I don't understand why you people think you have the right to try to censor him. He is on our side on this so fucking him over like this is rude. Fuck you deletionists. You ruined Wikipedia and now you're attacking another site.

Posts on Slashdot are never deleted.

Re:Why was my post deleted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you've never posted something that mentions the Beta. They get deleted pretty quickly.

Not really 45Mbps

[tomhath]

And even though the original deal was made in the days of modems and CompuServe, its crafters had the foresight to define broadband as 45Mbps

Not really. If you read what Verizon agreed to it was "up to 45 Mbps". Which obviously means nothing. If you can watch video they met their obligation. I don't think the agreement mentions anything about a cap either.

Turn-based gaming

[tepples]

The only advantage DSL had was that you could game on it, but that was about it. [...] 4G and Sat are almost equally laggy for gaming

A high-latency connection works fine for games so long as they're turn-based instead of twitch-based. Moving also works, though I grant its impracticality for many.

Chris Dodd confessed to quid pro quo

[tepples]

But didn't MPAA head Chris Dodd fess up to quid pro quo in 2012?

Re:Chris Dodd confessed to quid pro quo

[Attila Dimedici]

Yeah, but that's OK, he's a Democrat.

Approval voting

[tepples]

Remove the limit of one vote per seat, and the resulting system is called approval voting. It appears to have fewer opportunities for insincere strategic voting than plurality. But does it have a counterpart to Duverger's law?

It does seem to be the case

[Sycraft-fu]

I like Canada a lot, have a lot of relatives there (hence the Canadian citizenship). I wouldn't mind living there, other than the cold.

However what with all that, I understand some of the downsides. There are things which aren't as good there as in the US (Internet is one of them in general, cellphone service another). There are some that are better. There are others that are kinda a wash, in that the problems are different than the problems in the US.

I find that people who have never been there, only been there only briefly, have a much rosier opinion of the situation in Canada than I do, or than my family that lives there does.

30 GB cap

[tepples]

From that page: $120 per month for one-eighth of the cap that people used to deride Comcast for having

Re:30 GB cap

[Stewie241]

I don't disagree with that argument at all - the problem with LTE in general is that there is at least some notion of scarcity and the cost is prohibitive if you want it to serve as an alternative to regular broadband. Nonetheless, the problem is *not* that you have to get a phone service and tether to it.

Re:30 GB cap

[Stewie241]

Cost is prohibitive *and* bandwidth caps are ridiculous.

This is freaking ridiculous.

[ZorinLynx]

We need a universal service directive similar to the one that was in place for landline POTS telephones.

The Internet has become as essential today as telephone service was before it. Why shouldn't it be subject to the same rules?

And no, an expensive cellular data plan with a low cap is NOT an adequate substitute. If the providers want to argue that wireless service will suffice, then they need to make it compete on price and data volume with wired services.

Re:This is freaking ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a universal service directive similar to the one that was in place for landline POTS telephones.

The Internet has become as essential today as telephone service was before it. Why shouldn't it be subject to the same rules?

And no, an expensive cellular data plan with a low cap is NOT an adequate substitute. If the providers want to argue that wireless service will suffice, then they need to make it compete on price and data volume with wired services.

Be careful what you ask for, unless you feel that your electric or gas bill is a bargain, and $4/gallon gas is cheap.

If you think it will get cheaper, you're an idiot. The only thing you'll face with regulation like that is price consistency along the lines of gasoline. EVERY provider will be at a fixed cost of Fuck You Sideways.

Gingrich House

[tepples]

Now I get it. The MPAA is trying to bring back the heyday of the Gingrich House when things like the No Electronic Theft Act, Copyright Term Extension Act, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act enjoyed wide enough bipartisan support to pass with voice vote.

Telecomms act of 1996

[Khyber]

Time to make New Jersey and Verizon pay us back the entirety of that $200 billion given nearly two decades ago.

Re:Telecomms act of 1996

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to make New Jersey and Verizon pay us back the entirety of that $200 billion given nearly two decades ago.

...along with every CLEC the LECs drove out of business, especially since the Act was about bringing competition, not fucking destroying it.

that wishful

[Anonymous Coward]

They're politicians out there that are good willed but, depending on which office their going for it is a losing game. There are too many dipshits ahead of them that are being bought off. And you'll learn quickly that if your not going to play the game, you will be out of there next election.

This whole bullshit about 'rock'in the vote' and all they other propaganda over voting is peddled by the idiot press/media, and yet I have not seen one damn story or in depth report asking why people don't vote.

Re:Verizon and New Jersey Agree 4G Service Equival

[Trekologer]

And it's only 100 times more expensive.

In fairness, only 7 times more expensive. The mean for residential fixed access broadband usage in Q1 2013 was 47.7 GB. A Verizon 4G LTE data access plan to satisfy this usage level would be $355/month. A Verizon Fios 15/5 Mpbs plan is $49.99/month.

Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that Verizon's 4G service in New Jersey works better than it does in downtown Los Angeles where speeds top out at around 150kbps.

I trust they remove their bars on competition?

[samantha]

If we want maximum progress and job growth then the entire US should have at least 1Gbps service. 40mbps is only a drop in the bucket. And why is it permitted that most people are prohibited from running servers on their home internet connection they often pay quite a bit for? This means that that wide open place you can still start a business without a ton of regulators landing on your head, the internet, is not accessible for the majority of people to legally take advantage of from their home! Instead they have to pay more to put it on Amazon EC2 or similarly or have someone else hosts it, often with more restrictions on what they can and cannot do.

We are headed into virtual reality, augmented reality, most everything wired up directly or indirectly. And they want to give someone a partial monopoly to leave people with service no better than 4G if that?

Re:Not!

[umghhh]

In winter Syberia Lada is a better choice probably.

Last time German vehicles were tried en masse on the general direction of Sybiera they failed all and there were many casualties.

Re:When will Verizon deliver TRUE 4g (LTE Advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Current LTE is already very close to reaching maximum theoretical spectral efficiency. The throughput isn't actually a problem. Ping isn't even a problem.

In fact, if they would start offering unlimited plans again at a reasonable price (I'd say $80/month is reasonable), and increase tower density to make more spectrum available, current-gen LTE as deployed by Verizon would be plenty fast enough for most people, even for 3d gaming.

More base stations == fewer users per base station == less saturation; why do you think you aren't charged $10/GB to transmit WiFi on your home router; the broadcast range is minuscule. Verizon doesn't need as many LTE towers as there are WiFi routers today, but they certainly need more than they have right now. Communities that simultaneously complain about "view pollution" by towers and also the absence of FiOS need to get a clue: Verizon already has a very aggressive schedule for deploying LTE Advanced, and all their towers will eventually get it. If they're not gonna give you FiOS, your next goal should be to open up every plot of land possible for the installation of a tower, and negotiate with them to offer unlimited data to at reasonable cost to customers who have a permanent address in your community.

I could see LTE Advanced (if not, indeed, current-gen LTE) as being a very suitable, reliable replacement for FiOS or VDSL to the home. The only things blocking it are (1) Verizon doesn't offer unlimited plans, and (2) communities are constantly fighting Verizon trying to prevent them from installing more towers for the stupidest reasons imaginable.

My nearest Verizon tower is about half a mile away. On the second story of my house I get around 32 Mbps downstream and 25 Mbps upstream on my phone. I have unlimited data (grandfathered) and I pay extra for the ability to legally tether my phone to my computer (either via WiFi or USB). I've had no landline phone or internet service for about 4 years. I'm happy to pay hefty flat fees to Verizon for my unlimited data plan, and more hefty charges for full-retail upgrading to the latest and greatest phone, as long as I have unlimited and am allowed to tether. I only wish Verizon would offer this to more people. To do that, they'd have to increase tower density so that saturation is only really possible in major metropolitan areas (like at airports and sports stadiums, where you'd need dozens of towers in a 1/4 square mile radius to give everyone acceptable speed; hard to pull off). In most suburban communities it would be easy for them to double their tower density from what it is now, and there simply aren't enough people with phones or HomeFusions living in those areas to saturate the towers with the increased density.

It could really work, but neither Verizon nor local governments have the foresight realize what great potential LTE holds for a potentially utopian internet solution to the 'my neighbor has FiOS but I can't get it' problem.

No I'm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Privatized road tolls. Oh you can't pay our arbitrary fee set only to make profit? That's too bad. WHY WON'T YOU DIE SO WE CAN ROB YOUR CORPSE!!!

Re:No I'm ...

[FuegoFuerte]

RIght... still sounding a lot like Dow Constantine.

For those who don't know or care enough to look it up, he's the County Executive in King County, WA (contains Seattle, Redmond, and a whole lot of places that aren't Seattle or Redmond). He was recently pushing for higher sales tax and $60/vehicle annual license fee increase to continue subsidizing the ridiculously cheap bus routes that mostly serve Seattle and Redmond. Also a fan of toll roads (upwards of $5 to cross a bridge) and other shenanigans.

Re:Not!

[ArcadeMan]

Funny +1

Re:Verizon and New Jersey Agree 4G Service Equival

[ArcadeMan]

But seven times as expensive is not what I'd call equal broadband access to everyone.

Semantics

[Arker]

"Law IS regulation. Of behavior. That's kind of the point. Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but you said it.... "

Like most words it has a range of meanings emanating from a basic root meaning. In this case 'to make regular.'

Regulation in the 18th century was in general use in a broad sense, for instance when a shotgun barrel had deteriorated it would be regulated so that all the shot would have equal access to smooth bore again. 'Regulating trade' was understood to mean prohibiting barriers and distortions in trade, not decreeing the details of how trade could and could not be carried out, but just making sure that a farmer from one side of a state line had access to markets on the same terms as the farmer on the other side of the state line did.

But in this century when you hear someone speak of 'regulation' they are normally referring to the system that became important nationally in the 1930s where a 'regulatory agency' is created which then sets and enforces rules across an industry. I thought this meaning was clearly intended from the context.

"I have to keep asking me to show them a free market anywhere in the world. Anywhere. It's a mythical beast used in econ101 textbooks."

You sound like a creationist patiently explaining that no one has ever witnessed evolution. You're both wrong, too. There are free markets all over the world, even (perhaps especially) in the midst of the most oppressive systems on earth people come together for consensual trading constantly, in back streets if not in public squares. Productive human economic activities depends on the market and even where prohibited it arises because it must. Even in the darkest days of the Soviet Union markets continued to function and sustain life, and even today in North Korea the same is true, there are markets where one can buy everything from rice to uncensored internet even in a rigid Marxist dictatorship.

"Then I have to ask them how We the People have punished ANY of the companies that have screwed us over in recent decades. Please. They can't."

And that's a direct consequence of adopting the regulatory system. In order to get punished they would have to be caught breaking the regulations, and that could only happen through tremendous stupidity on their part, since they have ready avenues to influence and alter those regulations in whatever direction they want instead.