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Landlords, ISPs Team Up To Rip Off Tenants On Broadband (backchannel.com)
"Network operators like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and ATT, in cahoots with [real estate] developers and landlords, routinely use a breathtaking array of kickbacks, lawyerly games of Twister, blunt threats, and downright illegal activities to lock up buildings in exclusive arrangements," reports Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford.
itwbennett writes: Eight years ago, the FCC issued an order banning exclusive agreements between landlords and ISPs, but a loophole is being exploited, leaving many tenants in apartment buildings with only one choice of broadband service provider. The loophole works like this: Instead of having an exclusive agreement with one provider, the landlords refuse to let any other companies than their chosen providers access their properties...
"This astounding, enormous, decentralized payola scheme affects millions of American lives," Crawford writes, revealing Comcast's revenue-sharing proposals for property owners and urging cities (and national lawmakers) to require broadband neutrality in residential buildings. Other loopholes are also being exploited, Crawford writes, and "it's why commercial tenants in NYC pay through the nose for awful Internet access service in the fanciest of commercial buildings... We've got to take landlords out of the equation -- all they're doing is looking for payments and deals...and the giant telecom providers in our country are more than happy to pay up."
"This astounding, enormous, decentralized payola scheme affects millions of American lives," Crawford writes, revealing Comcast's revenue-sharing proposals for property owners and urging cities (and national lawmakers) to require broadband neutrality in residential buildings. Other loopholes are also being exploited, Crawford writes, and "it's why commercial tenants in NYC pay through the nose for awful Internet access service in the fanciest of commercial buildings... We've got to take landlords out of the equation -- all they're doing is looking for payments and deals...and the giant telecom providers in our country are more than happy to pay up."
Vote for Trump!
it would be a shame if something happened to it.
While a good idea in theory, ultimately Telecom has a massive and very effective lobby. This also fails to address the very real problem you sometimes have in the Northeast where competing installers will cut or pull another guy's cable during an install, either to make room for theirs or out of a more childish nonprofessionalism in some parts of installer culture. However, there are plenty of ways to deal with that which do not stifle competition.
Real lawyers write in C++
...and I live in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley.
There are two choices of "broadband" here: Comcast, AT+T DSL.
We are 15k feet from the substation. AT+T claims you can get "Up To 768 Kbps". Really? In 2016? To me that doesn't qualify as broadband. You pay $30 / month with a maximum of 300GB of data, and you probably see 1/3 of that speed at this distance.
Which leaves Comcast as the only real choice. They are terrible and I hate them, but they offer 10Mbps for $39.99 / month which beats the pants of of the crappy DSL from AT+T. You can also step up to 25Mbps or 75Mbps and you come close to those actual speeds in speed tests. So what choice remains? There is fibre just a few miles from my house but nobody is running it out here because the building won't let them.
Has Cox cable, don't want it. Called Dish Network, they said no problem for apartments as they have small dish units that hang out window or something. Install guy gets here and is told by maintenance guy that they can't install it, and to remove all others currently being used because cableco is already available to tenants (but not free). Slime bag landlords.
In mainland China we had the same issue. We were paying about 10,000rmb a year ($2000 US) for awful slow broadband (5mbps fibre). After 5 years we noticed we could see our house from the office, so we bought two antennas and wireless APs and beamed our fast 100mbps home internet which cost 1600rmb per year ($320) and ran the entire office off of that. Commercial building lockdown should be illegal
Really.
The cable companies take over the cable (coax, rg59 etc) and the telephone companies take over the copper.
Anyone can run new cables. Anyone can also provide wireless from outside the buildings and put indoor equipment. The trouble is that at a bgp level (really city wide peering centers but the fact remains the same that they are the main ones using bgp) there is an absolute monopoly from there out. The trouble is no longer last mile, it's the distrubution from peering centers that allows these absurd monopolies.
It would be really simple if the condo owners just let companies install cat5 to each room, or did it themselves with a contractors help (because face it they are too stupid to actually do it themselves) and then just tie it in to a link which runs from the building to a peering center.
The reality is that these companies are full of crooks and because everyone apparently (since Greek culture) needs to fight to "survive" (fucking morons) we end up with this shit for a utlitity which is what the Internet is.
It was the same thing before with Water, Gas and Electrical companies. It's just Greek culture (yes that means today's United States) to fight for everything. The simple fact is that they don't know so they fight rather than learn because that's "how it was".
Really, the funny part is how fucked up they all are. See progress...
People are just too submissive. They won't fight hard enough against corrupt authority. They only have themselves to blame.
Put down you iPhone and pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun
They left off the leading 'fucking'.
There may be situations where a landlord has a good reason to limit who is accessing and modifying the cable/wire infrastructure of a property - so, a blanket ban on such is probably not a good idea.
On the other hand, I don't have any problem with banning the kickbacks/payments that encourage the practice at the cost of renter choice.
Own or Rent ?
Time Warner has got an almost complete stranglehold on the residential market in LA due to these shady anti-competitive actions. All they have to do is convince the landlord to agree to claim that new network service installs would leave unnecessary extra holes in the walls (even when its not true, though usually this is technically true.)
It's much better to take millions directly from foreign governments, while actively serving in office, amirite?
Satellite Internet service is a cable-free option, but I'd be concerned about security.
I don't see how this is not an exclusive agreement.
Yes, it's not an agreement in writing, but the landlord and the ISP clearly agree that no other ISP will be able to sell to tenants. How is that not exclusive?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The ISPs throw that term around every which way so that nobody has any idea what the hell it actually means, or even just whether it's good or bad. Clever.
everyone thinks that if this is specifically outlawed, everyone will be cool with it, and the landlords won't do anything to recoup the lost income like, oh, say, raise rents
https://slashdot.org/submissio...
https://slashdot.org/submissio...
https://slashdot.org/submissio...
Slashdot survives on readers' submission and over the years I have done my share of submissions
Whenever I submit an article, I submit articles that I think is interesting, something which is related to 'tech', something for the geeks to enjoy, as the geeks make up a large part of the Slashdot reader base
Something must have happened in Slashdot recently, however --- All 3 of my most recent submissions have been tagged as "SPAM"
I am putting up the links to the 3 "spam submissions". You guys decide if they are spam, or not
FYI, I never expect all my submission to be adopted
I recognize that the editors have the final say on which submission to use, which to reject
Anyway, anyone else experience the same treatment?
I am posting as AC because they have locked up my account and not letting me to use it to post comment any more
Info of my account is at https://slashdot.org/~Taco+Cow...
Just in case you need to know if any of my submissions were ever accepted, here are a few examples
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
https://slashdot.org/story/16/...
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
And yes, in my account, my karma is still rated as *EXCELLENT*
In France, when an operator installs broadband in a building, after 6 month, he must allow competitors to rent the lines for a regulated price. This was done to avoid the situation where some buildings had fiber from multiple operators where others had nothing.
It can be useful as a way to prevent the landlord-isp-tenant conflict since once the building is cabled, there is no need for other operators to access it.
BTW, this rule didn't prevent operators from investing and I would't be surprised if it was a EU-wide decision.
So what if the building allows only one ISP? There are multiple buildings to choose from. Higher ISP prices with kickbacks are basically a higher rent in disguise. Maybe its cheaper for a building to only support one ISP.
Just like with phone landlines, dump those piss poor "broadband" wired lines and go for 4G mobile data. Not perfect, I know, but it sounds like the wired offerings are worse and more expensive. Mobile data is getting cheap fast - or do you guys also have cartels there?
Apartment dwellers exist only to be good little consumers.
Trapped in their cubicles like cattle in a pen.
The farmers don't care if the cattle wants better broadband in their pens.
You consume what you are told how you are told. Now go buy the latest iphone.
So what if the building allows only one ISP?
It's anticompetitive and expressly illegal, that's what.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
We are required to get 60% affirmative to allow upgrades. With empty rental units, owners of rental units that aren't available, and with units under foreclosure, it's nearly impossible to get 60% affirmative yes. That's why the building I'm in is still stuck on dial-up. A lot of Chinese investors plus a few empty units mean we'll never get the 60% that Seattle requires.
Our rulers are anti-Internet. Blame the voters, not them.
Lived in six different places on Seattle the past twenty-one years. Fastest connection I've had is ISDN. People keep blaming the landlords, but it is the Director's Rules that block us from getting fast access.
But when the landlords refuse to hire lawyers and refuse to work to get the 60% of owners I. The area to agree to upgrades, it is their fault.
We are required to get 60% affirmative to allow upgrades. With empty rental units, owners of rental units that aren't available, and with units under foreclosure, it's nearly impossible to get 60% affirmative yes. That's why the building I'm in is still stuck on dial-up. A lot of Chinese investors plus a few empty units mean we'll never get the 60% that Seattle requires.
Sawant is a socialist, and she agrees with the 60% affirmative rule. Because her husband works at Microsoft, and they're anti-Internet, they don't want us to have Internet access. That is why she keep voting to keep us from getting Internet access. I still have ISDN at home and pay per minute charges.
No, not Lucy's Ricky, but RICO (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) a law originally intended to go after Mafia syndicates. It basically makes decision makers responsible when a criminal conspiracy is uncovered.
But recently it has been applied to a wide variety of conspiracies. From Wikipaedia* or thereabouts "In April 2000, federal judge William J. Rea in Los Angeles, ruling in one Rampart scandal case, said that the plaintiffs could pursue RICO claims against the LAPD, an unprecedented finding."
If ISPs and property owners are conspiring against tenants, RICO is worth a try. There are probably other conspiracies that slashdotters are aware of too- like the recent 'no compete' agreement between the big Silicon Valley employers that was frowned upon. The world is full of racketeers, but many have connections that protect them.
*Wikipaedia (or Wikipædi) is a wab-foondit, free beuk o knawledge (or encyclopaedia) that oniebodie can chynge gif thay like. Wikipaedia haes aboot 24 million airticles, but no monie in Scots.
...omphaloskepsis often...
This. We keep voting in anti-Internet people like the wife of that Microsoft employee.
What's the landlord's incentive to disallow access to a company wanting to install a utility for the tenant if the landlord isn't getting some kind of price break on their own utilities in exchange for an effective monopoly ?
The FCC's regulations prohibit such price deals, so why would a landlord participate in keeping a monopoly going when there's nothing in it for them?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Kshama Sawant doesn't want anyone to have fast access. She makes most her money from Microsoft so she sees the Internet as an enemy.
You can't get cable without wires.
No building owner is going to allow random wiring all through their building. The bigger the building, the bigger the problem.
Sorry, it suck to rent in this case. Even single family homes can have clauses in their agreements about wiring. The FCC can't write rules about it.
If you don't own the building you're locked into whatever the owner wants. Don't like it, move.
Same here. I'm sick of paying per minute charges with ISDN.
She is a socialist so of course she stands against freedom of information.
Can't do that
Account already blocked - no more posting allowed
This stinks like phones in hotels. Adding a huge surcharge to any long distance calls.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Reading your answer made me headdesk involuntarily. It was correct - the fact you had to say it in the first place is what miffed me.
I went to public school and I'm pretty sure we learned about this anti-trust stuff in junior high.
The Internet has hurt Microsoft so much, so I don't blame he for keeping us from it.
The irony is that half of you idiots complaining will vote for Hillary Clinton, who is 100% guaranteed to not only continue this, but do MORE of it for her Wall Street Buddies...
Now I have no idea if Trump would do anything to stop it, but there is at least a CHANCE... Even Bernie would be better than Hillary... (and I think Bernie is nuts! But I also think he is an honest nuts, and I can live with that)
But go ahead, rant at how evil companies are, then keep voting for the same idiots in office over and over...
NOTE: This applies to both the R's and the D's, Paul Ryan isn't any better than Nancy Pelosi in this regard... So I'm not playing favorites there...
Hillary will be just like Obama, that is exactly why I vote for here. Obama accepts wall street donations. Obama accepts pharma donations. Obama accepts big oil donations. Obama accepts cable co donation. But Obama has not been bad president for any of these reasons. I dont mind 4 more years (or 8 more years) of Obama alike.
Now I have no idea if Trump would do anything to stop it, but there is at least a CHANCE
That is exactly the problem. Trump could make it better. Trump could make it worse. Trump could make it far better. Trump could make it far worse. There is no way of knowing anything. It like voting an 8 ball as the president. An 8 ball is not hillary, it has that going for it, right?
Perhaps time for tenants to team up, tenants should agree to share connection through wifi. It is expensive to directly fight the vested interests landlords-ISPs.
But Obama has not been bad president for any of these reasons. I dont mind 4 more years (or 8 more years) of Obama alike.
No, he has been a terrible President for lots of other reasons... :)
You may not mind 4 more years of him, but you would if you understood what was happening to America in the process... unless of course, you WANT that to happen to America, I suppose those people exist too..
America has become diminished, less, in the eyes of the world and in itself in the past 8 years. I am no longer proud of my country and now see it for the falling power that it once was.
And this is sad, because so many men fought and died to get us here, and now so many are willing to throw that all away...
You won't know what you've got until it is gone, then it will be too late...
America has only become better during Obama's tenure. I certainly am proud of my country.
America has become diminished, less, in the eyes of the world and in itself in the past 8 years. I am no longer proud of my country and now see it for the falling power that it once was.
And this is sad, because so many men fought and died to get us here, and now so many are willing to throw that all away...
If more people have to die, just to make you proud of your country, I dont think I can support that.
The real irony is that you're calling out others while you think this is a problem solved by selecting a different figurehead in a broken system of government.
America has only become better during Obama's tenure. I certainly am proud of my country.
You have a funny idea of what "better" means...
The sad thing is, like I said, you won't know what you've lost until it is gone...
If more people have to die, just to make you proud of your country, I dont think I can support that.
You make my point, you simply don't get it... It is unlikely I could say anything to help you since you probably aren't open to learning anything. You would rather reinforce your existing viewpoint rather than open your mind to something new.
Ban lesbianism and mandate a "Two male lovers per woman" law.
Was tooling along, happy as a clam on cable at the time.
And we get a notice that the landlords are kicking Comcast out of the building and turning control over to some no-name (Suite Solutions) DSL and Satellite reseller.
What's more, they hadn't even notified Comcast about it yet!
It got fought in the courts for about a year and a half and then boom. No more Comcast.
So I had a couple years' slog with DSL (bought straight from AT&T so as not to pay the Suite Solutions markup) until I finally got fed up with that, and other situations, and moved the fuck out.
Basically, if you require fast, dependable Internet access, DO NOT rent at The Towers In Four Lakes in Lisle, IL.
I'm currently on another property by the same management company, and yeah, they're pushing AT&T U-Verse REAL hard.
But at least they're not interfering with me and my 150Mbit cable connection...They do, I'm gone.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The real irony is that you're calling out others while you think this is a problem solved by selecting a different figurehead in a broken system of government.
I'd rather try a new figurehead who at least might toss out the bums, before tossing out the entire Government... Putting Hillary in office does nothing, it just continues the existing path we've been on for many years...
Removing them all will be ugly before it gets better, and isn't a decision to be taken lightly... We aren't there yet, but I can see it happening within my remaining lifetime if we don't change course...
---
Since WWII, we've had 2 or 3 really good Presidents, and a lot of bad ones... Congress is a problem as is money in government...
You make my point, you simply don't get it... It is unlikely I could say anything to help you since you probably aren't open to learning anything. You would rather reinforce your existing viewpoint rather than open your mind to something new.
The problem you dont have a point, I cant get your point if you dont have one. In what ways has America become worse than it started in the last 8 years. What makes you not so proud of America. You dont say anything, and you expect me to telepathically understand your point, and you blame me for not getting your point? Well, looks like we have found what America's problem is. It is this.
You have a funny idea of what "better" means...
Touche
Why doesn't the competition between ADSL, fibrechannel, wireless and cable, work in the USA? When alternatives become cheaper or faster, cable company's would be forced to play along right? Why doesn't that happen?
To give you an indication: I have 150 Mbit down and 15 up, digital tv and a VOIP connection which I don't use but comes with the package. For 60 Euro's per month.
Is this written into the lease? In other countries this is restriction of trade; or willful anti-competitive practice. So any legal clause allowing it is null and void.
Ahh, the USA: They can't take guns off anyone, but any wealthy person can trample over a consumer's rights.
In their attempts to foster competition,
they can't compete with the monopoly's lawyers.
I guess the answer is keep trying and eventually get 'er done.
Instead we have 4 internet company that mange to own all the lines.
You have 4 telecom companies and that's it. Shaw, Rogers, Telus, Bell. They all treat you rather poorly when it comes to price gouging since they have the market cornered. Even Shaw and Rogers traded assets, basically western canada and eastern so they don't compete with each other, so each company can suck as much as they can out of someone with no viable alternatives.
5 MBIT connection runs you around 55$ now.
A libertarian utopia would be rife with deals like these, and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop it. Landlords could do the same for (separate) TV and phone service too if they liked.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What makes you think landlords are? How many franchise agreements for an area out there include language that block any other provider?
The idea we live in a free market economy is just jerking off capitalists. There is no free market; you're only free to do as the market demands.
Oh I agree. But it's the system which wreaks the efforts of even those who are capable. The wholesale removal of all people in congress would be a great start to changing things.
Certainly it's anticompetitive, but it's not actually illegal because of loopholes in the FCC rules. And FCC is not charged with antitrust enforcement - that's another agency's problem, and it's either not interested or not able (for a variety of reasons) to do anything about it. Welcome to America. Hire a lawyer, but understand that if you fight it you will 1) lose; and 2) be evicted for trying. Have a backup plan for housing.
Actually, I'm leaning toward the Metro PCS unlimited plan with a LTE local hotspot (hey, my old Windows phone will do that!). $60/month all inclusive for something near 5 mbps isn't much more than the price quoted by AT&T for 6 (usually 3 or less) mbps Uverse/DSL before adding taxes, equipment rental (can't buy your own gateway for Uverse; DSL you can), etc.
As an ATT install/repair provider 15 years ago I personally experienced this in the Bay area. Management (not the owners) did not allow access to SCBell facilities by outside contractors, even with Photo Credentials.
So I stole elevator lock boxes and made keys, I could then gain access to the wiring closets by getting the keys from the provided elevator service key box. Or I would prybar the door if it was soft.......
I did the same with SCBell padlocks. A couple of keys would open all the padlocks.
If anyone loaned me access keys, I would copy them.
Increased productivity by not having to deal with uncooperative management.
Rain, sleet, or snow, nothing kept me from fixing your phone.
The loopholes are irrelevant - Congress, after all, is not the highest law in the land, the Bill of Rights is the highest law in the land.
The right to ethics in business, one of the fundamental rights arising under the 9th Amendment - as a right retained by the people, already covers this. It's double covered by the 10th Amendment, as a right "reserved to the people".
It's unethical for both ISPs and landlords to be participating in these schemes, and hence illegal.
It doesn't matter that this is happening on private property - it's property being used for Business, and hence the authority of the state is applicable. Further, property law is not the highest law in the land - the Bill of Rights is, and when they come into conflict the Bill of Rights wins.
Violation of fundamental rights 'under the color of law' (meaning using a 'loophole' in the law to exploit others) is already actionable under US federal law, as both a criminal and civil violation.
Put a few landlords and ISP executives in jail, or sue them as individuals for punitive damages of millions of dollars (to discourage others), and this problem will go away.
Also, since the Bill of Rights supersedes the authority of Congress, there's no dodging penalties for Bill of Rights violations by using bankruptcy laws enacted by Congress - it literally does not have the authority to enact this.
Did you ever have a choice of CATV providers like comcast, for your broadband, except in rare circumstances? If the building has telephone service then you'd have same choice as nearly everyone else; DOCSIS or DSL
they charge ~$50 for their "technology package" that provides 3MBbps internet and basic SD cable. Usually every resident chooses to get ATT or Time Warner but all must continue to pay for the unused Camden-supplied service.
My condo signs contracts that cause every unit to be billed $35. per month regardless of the fact that many owners only spend a few weeks a year in their units. Snowbirds keep condos here for the worst weeks of winter up north as an escape from the cold. That $35 dollars a month gets a cheaper bill for all residents and we can not stop anyone from also getting a dish to access other programming. But most people simply do not want to pay for a dish service and a cable service so the effect is that Comcast gets 100 percent of our business and all other companies account for next to nothing. The posture was taken in order to discourage owners from installing dishes on the property. And it works. Very, very few owners have dishes.
America has become diminished, less, in the eyes of the world and in itself in the past 8 years.
Says who? You? Why? You're talking about the nation that with a few allies pretty much runs the ENTIRE PLANET. A Cultural, Technological and Information Hegemony like you wouldn't believe. Even in nations that supposedly "hate" us, they consume our media!
Do you actually think a few terrorists attacks diminished us? There are over 300 MILLION people in the US. They're like the buzzing of flies, no real threat.
Tenants teamed up to rip off on Landlords and ISPs broadband and cable
Oh I agree. But it's the system which wreaks the efforts of even those who are capable.
It would take a "strongman" to do it, but so often those turn bad (see: most of them in history)...
The wholesale removal of all people in congress would be a great start to changing things.
It will, sadly, take another war to do that, I don't see a peaceful path forward to do it.
Which is a shame...
Damn, I can't wait until this horrible election is over with and we can stop getting political comments on every damned story.
That's the problem. Some things become a natural monopoly unless you're willing to spend a LOT of money. Well, no, the real problem is that building managers - like hotel phone service managers before most guests had cellphones - start to see everything as a profit center, including something that they aren't even paying costs for. For buildings that existed before cable, someone chose ONE cable company to come and retrofit cable everywhere, so it's a monopoly; for newer construction, with cable preinstalled, there is still only one cable preinstalled.