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How One Little Cable Company Exposed Telecom's Achilles' Heel (backchannel.com)
Reader mirandakatz writes: Forget net neutrality -- the real fight is over controlling price-gouging monopolies. As Susan Crawford writes at Backchannel, a little-known cable company, Cable One, just exposed the telecommunications industry's Achilles' heel: regulation. Cable One has been raising its data transmission prices quickly, and it's making cable giants very, very nervous. If people begin noticing that there's no competition, that Americans are paying too much for too little, and that the entire country is suffering as a result, that's a big problem for Big Cable. As Crawford writes, 'don't fixate on net neutrality... Even though the state of internet access is an issue that touches the bank accounts and opportunities of hundreds of millions of Americans and gazillions of businesses, very few people understand what's actually going on. Now you are among them. Do something about it.'
And building networks ain't cheap. Deal with it.
If my DVR didn't rely on some sort of internet connection to get it's program guide updates I think I'd probably dump it and spend that money on something else entirely. Even $60 for the cheapest connectivity I can get still feels like too much. I'd do without it, like I did without it before it was even something you could have.
Cartels lead to high prices. That is nothing new.
Net Neutrality is still important, too.
"Forget net neutrality - "
No. Paying attention to ANYTHING else does not justify forgetting net neutrality. Net neutrality SHOULD be a positive for anyone's political stance - it just means however imperfect the companies involved in providing services, they should have to treat content as just bytes, regardless of the source. That shouldn't be controversial, nor should it be forgotten, even 'for the sake of argument'.
Ryan Fenton
> How One Little Cable Company Exposed Telecom's Achilles' Heel
Your clickbait mind tricks will never work. The day before I read TFA before I start commenting is the day I turn in my SlashDot ID.
Seriously gazillions?!?! is it me or does msmash get worse with every post.
In the USA, backbone data is cheap, the cable companies are a monopoly with built out networks that are 10+ years old, and they are raking in the cash with no price regulation and minimal oversight. It is high time that laws were passed to:
1. Determine a fair pricing model and require that where there are less than 4 ISPs available. Net neutrality is really about the quality of the product and what exactly you are buying every month. I am surprised no lawsuits over net neutrality have been filed over bait and switch yet.
2. Use anti trust laws to break up cable companies into cable providers and internet providers sharing the same lines owned by a third company that maintains and owns the lines.
3. Protect internet access in the same way that the federal laws currently protect US mail (both privacy and penalty wise) both the privacy of email and browsing.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Trying to co-opt public outrage over net neutrality to a related, yet still entirely separate issue, is despicable. Net neutrality is absolutely one of the "real" fights. The idea that there can be only one is absurd. Who the hell is this woman? "Forget net neutrality?" No, fuck you. I will fixate on net neutrality as much as I damn well feel like it. She's actively hurting the case for her issue by spreading this nonsense, and that's a shame, since it is an important issue as well. Most U.S. Americans have absolutely no clue just how much more we pay for so much less than the rest of the civilised (and often, even uncivilised!) world.
They charge $55/month for 100 Mbps cable, albeit with slow (3 Mbps) upload.
I was expecting double that amount if not more, to warrant an article like this.
triple play from $150/month. Expensive, but I've seen much worse.
If this take on it helps people wake up and fight for net neutrality, then it is worth it. No doubt the article is right about the motives... it is always about profits and control from big businesses. The last thing they want is regulations.
Hmmm...
now that you mention it, yes, that's a good idea!
We didn't need this company to make this point, it's already common knowledge.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Lack of competition is a big problem, but net neutrality is important either way, and particularly important when there is no access network competition. Lack of net neutrality allows a monopoly ISP to charge a content provider for access to the customers who can't switch to a different provider. The monopoly ISP can practically use its customers as hostages to extort money from content providers.
On the other hand, if there is competition, charging content providers gives an ISP an advantage over ISPs which don't double-dip. The ISP which manages to get paid twice can charge the access customers less than competing ISPs. This gives the double-dipping ISP a competitive advantage, which results in more customers, which results in more leverage to extort payments from content providers. Without net neutrality, the rules are set up to favor charging content providers, making it next to impossible for newcomers to compete with established content providers.
Both competition and net neutrality are necessary for an innovative internet economy.
There are also problems with pricing on prescription drugs, that doesn't mean we should forget about net neutrality. There are many problems in the world and all need to be tackled. Here and now we have a chance to do something about net neutrality and we should.
The teleco firms have their billions of dollars and their lobbyist, I'm sure if there were a problem those lobbyist would have their fingers all up the arses of the politicians making them into their own personal puppets. Don't tell me to forget about problem X because there is problem Z.
Cable One has been raising its data transmission prices quickly, and it's making cable giants very, very nervous. If people begin noticing that there's no competition
I'm probably being hopelessly naive here, but if the likes of Comcast are so scared of what Cable One doing when there is no competition, then maybe they should, I dunno... compete?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Cable one bad, big cable big meanies. I have Comcast as my ISP so I get hating your cable co, but there is just no information in this article. Cable One is raising it's rates too much ? How much is too much ? What are their current rates ? how do they compare to the rest of the country ? They charge too much for television ? How much ?
Now forget net neutrality!
Oh, you mean because in france I'm paying 15€/month for unlimited (UNLIMITED) data and phone, flat rate to most of the world on the phone, and NO roaming fee in europe and many countries ?
Or is it because I'm paying around $40/month for 1 gigabits down 250 megabits down on fiber with "cable" tv included and land phone, and fax and stuff free ?
I've enjoyed Longmont CO's municipal fiber for a few months. $50 for 1Gbps/1Gbps service: (https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/broadband-service/rates-and-services). I just did an speed test with Ookla and got 3ms ping, 777.28Mbps down and 887.12Mbps up.
A few months back when cancelling comcast, the rep asked why and I told her the service and price for NextLight. She said, "Wow! that is good!" She's probably been fired.
OK. I learned all about that now.
You can get its footprint from publicly accessible sites like broadband.gov. It's not hard, just more work than the reporter wanted to do.
Virtually all the infrastructure that makes your data center anything more than a heap of silicon was paid for by my tax dollars. The Roads, the power lines, telecom, the engineers (paid for with subsidized schooling). Everything. It wouldn't exist without my tax money.
And the total cost of providing high speed internet (datacenter + everything else including cust service)? $9/mo. How do I know this? Comcast puts that little tidbit in their SEC filing. You can lie to everyone in America except your major shareholders. Those guys we protect.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
As Susan Crawford writes at Backchannel, a little-known cable company, Cable One, just exposed the telecommunications industry's Achilles' heel: regulation.
What a trainwreck. A summary is supposed to be useful.
A friend of mine went to law school at NYU. Near where she lived, there was a park where the drug dealers did business. Drugs aside, it was the safest place in town. Because the dealers didn't want any shit going down that would attract the police.
Big Cable is pissed at Cable One because they don't want hearings on the industries business practices.
Have gnu, will travel.
FTA: See the problem? If people begin noticing that there’s no competition, that Americans are paying too much for too little, and that the entire country is suffering as a result, that’s a big problem for Big Cable.
Really? People haven't noticed? BS.
Everybody knows.
Everybody already knows that territories have been divided up to avoid competition. Duh.
Anecdote: As president of my HOA (almost 100 units), I pushed through an opportunity we had to get every unit pre-wired with fiber from Verizon FiOS. That meant that every unit had on-order access to telephone, cable (TWC), and fiber (Verizon/Frontier). I turned my complex into a location that had actual competition between internet providers. The result has been lower prices for everyone.
And, politics being what they are, and me having spent my political capital on creating an even playing-field, I was not re-elected to the Board. Such is the nature of politics: If you do good, you will lose your elected office. I think it's a law of nature.
Again: Everybody knows.
If you don't like it because you can't force people how to "drive on the roads that lead to your shopping center", then don't connect to the public highway.
From what I have read, Title 2 of the Communications Act actually has a provision for keeping prices fair.
Correct me if I am wrong.
Yet be sure to get all the facts, first!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Cable One is a small cable company that has a blatant monopoly and is raising prices too high. As such, all the other larger cable companies are worries the government is going to step in to regulate Cable one. If that happens, ALL cable companies in the country will be regulated.
Quote from the linked article and edited
“..the unspoken fear among their larger peers is that over-reliance on broadband pricing invites regulatory intervention, not just for Cable One, but for everyone.”