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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.
I'd suggest getting a 5 gallon bucket, filling it with concrete, and setting a pole in the center. Once the concrete cures, schedule the dish guy to come out and attach the dish to the pole. It's unsightly as fuck, which is a nice way of giving the finger back to the landlord. Once potential renters start telling him they're put off by all the ghetto looking satellite buckets, maybe he'll reconsider.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
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...