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FCC Seeks To Increase ISP Competition In Apartment Buildings (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Exclusive deals between broadband providers and landlords have long been a problem for Internet users, despite rules that are supposed to prevent or at least limit such arrangements. The Federal Communications Commission is starting to ask questions about whether it can do more to stop deals that impede broadband competition inside apartment and condominium buildings. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday released a draft Notice of Inquiry (NOI) that seeks public comment "on ways to facilitate greater consumer choice and to enhance broadband deployment in multiple tenant environments (MTEs)." The commission is scheduled to vote on the NOI at its June 22 meeting, and it would then take public comments before deciding whether to issue new rules or take any other action. The NOI discusses preempting local rules "that may expressly prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of telecommunications services" in multi-unit buildings. But one San Francisco regulation that could be preempted was designed to boost competition by expanding access to wires inside buildings. It's too early to tell whether the FCC really wants to preempt any state or city rules or what authority the FCC would use to do so. The NOI could also lead to an expansion of FCC rules, as it seeks comment on whether the commission should impose new restrictions on exclusive marketing and bulk billing arrangements between companies and building owners. The NOI further seeks comment on how "revenue sharing agreements and exclusive wiring arrangements between MTE owners and broadband providers may affect broadband competition" and "other contractual provisions and non-contractual practices that may impact the ability of broadband providers to compete in MTEs." The NOI also asks whether the commission should encourage cities and states to adopt model codes that promote competition in multi-unit buildings, and the document asks what practices those model codes should prohibit or mandate.
This is a case of excessive regulations on landlords. If you don't like the deal your landlord has negotiated, you are free to move to another apartment or buy a house. We don't need more regulations on landlords, which will only drive up the cost of renting and harm consumers.
There's no way he'd be writing up something so pro-consumer. I'm guessing this would do away with the ability for landlords to get a package deal where everyone (such as the building where my parents live) only pays 15$ a month for unlimited internet?
If they wanted to do that, they should have started by keeping net neutrality...
Slow speeds for all apartment basement dwellers!!!
The headline you will never see.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
Where I live, the ILEC offers up to a whopping 7Mbps DSL package that, from what I've seen, runs at about 5Mbps under optimal conditions. The only other choice is cable that offers service up to 150Mbps. That's competition!
I'm not out in BFE, either. I'm a ~50k population suburb in a large metro area.
I don't know how the ILEC is even keeping the lights on at this point. Literally everyone I know has cable. Every third or fourth wireline pedestal is wrapped in a contractor bag with duct tape around it. It's sad, really.
I recently lived in a brand new complex that was designed without traditional POTS, plain old telephone system wiring. That was because the local cable company arranged an exclusive contract with the property owner- they would provide TV, internet and telephone for all the residents. It was very difficult for any competitor to reach that building.
Now I live in an older building with POTS & cable wiring. I had cable for internet, but they raised the price beyond reason. The telephone company had nothing competitive. Fortunately Google (a subsidiary called WebPass) came to the rescue. They offer a high speed internet connection at a reasonable price; less than $600/year for nearly 100Mbps. Fortunately my property manager invited this service to our building.
This service utilizes the old POTS wiring already available to give ethernet connections to each unit while still allowing telephone service for those who want it. They install a microwave antenna on the roof to connect to a source for internet backbone.
For several months I've had excellent service from WebPass. They are in limited cities now but expanding. This microwave connection seems practical, affordable, and for many people the only alternative to the criminal oligopolies commonly available. If the Google/WebPass service isn't available, ask for it or find or create your own alternative.
The concept of microwave transmission of internet across rooftops is viable in most cities. It will offer alternatives to millions of users.
...omphaloskepsis often...
he'll take any suggestion that he isn't being told to ignore. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
which will increase profits. This is why he is doing this. Republicans are all about competition which hurts consumers so much.
Of course /. and arstechnickel are going to try and downplay this because it goes against their narrative. "There's not a lefty in office so everything the FCC does must be bad" Already the comments are flooding with whines about not meeting some arbitrary high standard or how apartments don't count. You idiots get nothing right. Get bent.
>"FCC Seeks To Increase ISP Competition In Apartment Buildings"
Seriously? As if most of us even have a choice OUTSIDE apartment buildings? I don't know about you, but here there is only one choice for ISP, and it is the cable company. It doesn't matter what kind of building in which we reside.
How about increasing ISP competition, period.
Can we have two FCC chairmen, so I can pick the one I want? And direct my taxes to that one?
So, does thia mean that current FCC is not 100% evil.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Utility monopolies exist for the practical reason that you can't have multiple, competing companies laying down infrastructure in cities. Before this type of restriction was in place you had multiple electric companies (e.g. Edison Electric and Westinghouse) running overlapping, and often completely incompatible, infrastructure, all over the place. Downtown Manhattan and other places became a rats nest of cabling. It was a safety, planning and aesthetic problem (Edison's DC current cables were particularly dangerous).
Fiber has changed the dynamics of this a little bit for telecoms because having four different telecoms in the same neighborhood no longer means four 2-3 inch cables being run all over the place but the limitation still exists for power, water, gas, etc. When you buy "green" energy in the US (and probably other places), the power is still from the lower power utility. They're just trying to source it from the green power provider (because of the nature of electricity production/distribution it is impossible to source power from 100% green power unless you are on an isolated grid... anyone who tells you differently is lying or doesn't know what they're talking about).
This is really easy to solve.
Have the city/county own the links, and have the ISP's offer service over the municipal infrastructure.
You want email? Talk to an ISP. You want television? Talk to an ISP. You want VOIP service? Talk to an ISP.
All ISP's have equal access to the market over the common infrastructure.
I should be able to live in Alaska, get my phone service from Utah, get my email from Virginia, and get my television channels from 6 or 7 places, unbundled.
Just drive around LA and issue a hefty fine to any apartment building without any DirecTV dishes on the roof.
You can't be this stupid. Can you?
Bandwidth is not unlimited everywhere.
I could get behind a "last mile" access rights law, however, with mandatory slots for at least 20 competitors.
The 100+ yr old telecom wiring leases need to stop. Getting repaid over and over for something put in the ground 20 yrs ago is vile.
I used to work for a cable system in a competitive area. The two companies always tried to get an exclusive deal with the buildings, but through various court orders and lawsuits a compromise was reached: The drop coax going from the equipment demarcation box was owned by the building owner. A competitor had to "release" the line within 48 hours of getting an order from the other. The actual demarc was 1 foot outside of the box in the case of single family homes.
Where it got tricky was when there was a bad line, which was often in some of the older buildings that weren't wired for high speed internet and digital cable. Because the landlord owned the coax it became their responsibility to repair it. Of course they'd either tell the tech to "just repair it" expecting the company to eat the cost of the coax repair with the very real possibility of the renter switching service at any time. Or the landlord would get his maintenance guy to "certify" the cable as good because it worked for whatever test equipment (usually just a line toner) he had.
If a cable company comes in and rewires a building they almost always want exclusive use of the internal wiring because it's not cheap or easy to rewire buildings. Building owners aren't broadband cable engineers, they really don't care nor do they want to deal with it. So they sign the exclusive deals, renters are stuck with whatever service they get and that's that.
The real solution is to get 5G up and running. Then the inside wiring won't be a problem, unless you live in one of those reenforced concrete bunkers.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
How about just seeking increased ISP competition period? It was great back in the day when the tel-cos had to lease access to their lines to ISPs...you had real completion in DSL....then Cable comes in and wham....everyone dies a slow death and DSL is thrown to the side due to technological limitations.
This may seem silly to most readers, but it's important in NYC. The cable companies are:
Time Warner
RCN
CableVision
None of them cover the entire city, but most homes are passed by two of them, usually Time Warner and one of the other two. Time Warner signs deals with landlords and won't provide service without one. If you call them and ask for service without a deal in place, they will read some confusing script that says "let us talk to your landlord," at which time they make a deal. There would be no point for them to cover a building without a deal because every tenant would choose a competitor: their price sheet is inflated by making these deals. The other two companies don't seem to sign deals with landlords, and don't seem to overlap each other.
tl;dr we almost have competition among cable companies in NYC, except not really because they divide up the territory house-by-house to prevent actual consumer choice and instead compete for houses. Time Warner gets the ones where the landlord has a traditional abusive money-squeezing relationship with the tenants, while the other two get home owners and sanely-managed coops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1v4BUO7GJQ&lc=z13oeddxbnvif1mn423dez2gztrgitfrq04
Net Neutrality
(Ok, other stuff too.)
I arrange bulk internet deals for MTD/MUD, it's a good deal for tenants to get low cost internet. $50 for 100/25 Mbps fiber (no caps), 30 TV channels. Owner get revenue sharing on any upgrades.
Don't have option of providers, but a good smaller botique ISP can provide decent service.
Clearly overreach by the FCC. Let the invisible hand of the free market manage this. Ajit Pai should know better.
I suppose I should enclose that statement with a sarcasm tag.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Someone needs to seek to have at least one internet provider in the 60% of the U.S. geography which is stuck with dial-up and satellite.