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Google Fiber's Latest FCC Filing: Comcast's Nightmare Come To Life
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from BGR: What's every incumbent ISP's worst nightmare? If we had to guess, it looks something like the filing that Google just made with the Federal Communications Commission. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Google this week told the FCC that reclassifying broadband providers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act would have a big side benefit for Google Fiber because it would give Google Fiber the same access to utility poles and other key infrastructure currently enjoyed by Comcast, AT&T and other big-name ISPs.
Why not just run one fiber, ditch all the copper, terminate it at the local POP and then allow various vendors access to that fiber and compete for my business?
More like every internet users dreams come true!!
... it can only be good for us...
This law exists mainly so conditions could be placed on service providers that forced them to serve areas that would not be profitable for them. It started with phone, electric, and TV services but the phone and Cable TV operators found ways to expand their business by offering data communications over the same lines they already had access to.
This meant they could effectively use their privilege of serving an entire population center and the already installed infrastructure to deliver something that would cost other significantly more to otherwise do. The bonus was that while they could dual use the lines (say voice and data like with DSL or Cable TV and Data like Comcast) their competitors could only deliver data communications because a condition for them servicing the unprofitable portions of an area was exclusive access to the profitable portions for a period of time. In many places, that period of time is still in effect.
How much does it cost to wire up a town for high speed internet access? Why would a company invest that unless they were confident they'd get a profit? That's why the town offers a special deal and access that the ISP otherwise has no right to.
You think anybody should be allowed to use whatever city infrastructure they like?
Not that I actually want to defend the mess that is the current system. Perhaps the obvious solution is to allow cities to put in their own ISP structure, but then that's government using it's advantage of force to compete unfairly with private business, which is the reasonable argument for some states to prevent such competition.
Socialist solutions to ISP infrastructure work, but the US tends to have a difficult time with the idea that everyone should be forced to pay for what private companies are already providing to people voluntarily paying for what they actually use.
If the US decides to treat broadband as utility infrastructure, taxes come into the equation, which is money taken by the threat of force, which is completely the opposite of what people like about capitalism. It is a reasonable expectation that it will destroy a private industry and the innovation that is driven by the motive of profit, which is no small trade off in an industry which is rapidly changing.
I actually think that the ISP industry needs to be more strictly regulated by legislation, but it won't take many mistakes to end up with a worse problem than the one we have.
Why does anyone have to be classified, by the government, as a provider, under title, yada yada?
Poles, conduits, rights-of-way should belong to the local authority, managed and maintained by the lowest bidding contractor. Anyone or any company then has the right to use, for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, said infrastructure to run their cable or fiber, upon payment of a reasonable fee to cover the upkeep.
I am not a fan of eminent domain, but if the incumbent says "We installed these poles, they belong to us" then they should be bought out.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Back in the 80s and 90s lots of smaller cable companies lobbied local governments and were granted easement access to install their poles, wires, and equipment. Many poles belonged to various utility companies and Ma Bell and access was also negotiated with them. This is a very long process with lots and lots of red tape.
Bigger companies like Comcast bought these smaller companies primarily for these rights. Anywhere smaller companies overlapped the wires were pulled off of poles to prevent any chance of a competitor gaining easy access to these rights. Any new competitor would now need to start from the very beginning like the smaller companies did in the 80s and 90s in obtaining access.
In my city we had a choice of Dimension Cable and Cable America in the 80s and 90s. Both of these smaller companies did all of the busy work for Cox which gobbled both of them up and dismantled the redundant perfectly good infrastructure of Cable America.
Comcast did this on a much larger scale.
You know what, at this point I don't care if Google vows to sell every single bit of traffic I send through them, or changes the business vow to "Do Evil Whenever Possible", I want Google Fiber regardless of the cost to any freedoms or privacy I may enjoy now.
I had fiber years ago and have missed it ever since, living under the Rule Of Comcast... so I don't care what happens anymore, just let Google consume all network providers everywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have mixed feelings about Google Fiber (I strongly believe that open-access municipal fiber networks are the better option) but I consider this a tremendous New Year's present that utterly decimates the misguided viewpoint that common carrier rules will impede such projects. Every free-market preaching tool that has said "The next Google FIber won't happen with Title II!" Can now procede to eat crow.
We already tried that. There was one set of communication lines, and various companies had access to them, at rates set by the government. Somebody had to maintain the infrastructure of course, and their rates and profit margins were heavily regulated. The company managing the infrastructure was called Bell.
Under that model, calls could cost a dollar per minute. We then tried a different model, and immediately rates went to 10 cents per minute. Later, we now have four different companies providing competing coverage, redundant towers covering the same area, and I pay $25 for unlimited calls and unlimited* data.
Your proposal makes perfect sense on a planet with no humans, only perfectly logical machines, or Vulcans. It's been tried here on earth many, many times in various ways and it always fails when there is actual human nature involved. Humans are greedy and lazy.
When the various wireless companies compete, meaning they each try to provide better service in a particular area (meaning putting towers in the same area), their greed offsets their laziness. In order to get my money they need to provide better service than the other three companies, and/or a better price. Without that, you end up with "we're the phone company, we don't care".
Again, what you suggest SOUNDS logical, and would probably work if it weren't for humans. It never works in this world though, unfortunately.
Most places have one cable provider. There were supposed to be two per market. Due in no small part to the cost of running cables over existing infrastructure. It's expensive and nobody else thought it was worth the investment so far. But none of them were Google.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."