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FCC Can Define Markets With Only One ISP as 'Competitive', Court Rules (arstechnica.com)
An appeals court has upheld a Federal Communications Commission ruling that broadband markets can be competitive even when there is only one Internet provider. From a report: The FCC "rationally chose which evidence to believe among conflicting evidence," the court ruling said. The FCC voted last year to eliminate price caps imposed on some business broadband providers such as AT&T and Verizon. The FCC decision eliminated caps in any given county if 50 percent of potential customers "are within a half mile of a location served by a competitive provider." This is known as the "competitive market test." Because of this, broadband-using businesses might not benefit from price controls even if they have just one choice of ISP.
These are places were your food is grown.
Despite looking like a painting from the 1800's With fields of produce, and livestock. Modern farms are actually often more High Tech then most Silicon Valley offices. With Robots, Self Driving Vehicles, Big Data analytics, real time market access.... Much of this all done over the farmers phone, when he is taking a 5 minute break from shoving crap.
Affordable High Speed Internet is key for rural areas.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
have been spending so much to win local elections. They've spent the last 30 years stacking the courts. Now it's paid off.
And I know it's not popular to call out one party because there's a bunch of pro-corporate Dems who helped stack those courts. But the Democrats at least have a party wing that refuses corporate & PAC money (they're called Justice Democrats, look 'em up). I know of no such animal for the other side. The Dems seem somewhat redeemable. e.g. the pro-consumer elements might take over at some point in a future I could conceive of. Barring a seismic shift like we got in the 60s after the civil rights movement I don't see that happening to the Republican party. At a certain point it's time to call a spade a spade.
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These areas have only one ISP because local governments awarded a monopoly, and prohibit competition. These ISPs are not natural monopolies created by the market. There is no invisible hand of the market at work here because government regulation eliminated market forces.
The only areas free of the problem are the ones where government got out of the way and allowed multiple ISPs to compete.
Where are all the Trump/Pai supporters to tell us how this is really a good thing and the invisible hand of the market will make everything all right? Is it possible there is some level of corporate cronyism that even they can't justify?
But I also know that there are larger issues at hand, the two most obvious ones being the economy and immigration.
For example, I really like the new economy, and I think illegal immigration needs to be reined in..
Yet illegal immigration has already been way down for years before your orange dreamboat took office. And do you have any actual numbers that indicate that the illegal immigration that occurs has a negative impact on the country? I agree that laws are laws and should be enforced, but everything is a matter of priority (we don't insist that every driver who speeds MUST be fined) and I just don't see the evidence that illegal immigration is anywhere being the biggest threat to the US right now. That's why it always smells of racism when people complain about immigration, the concern just never matches the actual impact of the issue.
Also, what "new economy"? Are you seriously suggestion that the Trump administration has had a significant impact on the economy? the economy that has been steadily getting stronger since about 2008? I'll concede that there's some (possibly temporary) bump in the stock market caused by the tax cuts allowing corporations to do massive buy-backs of stock, but to equate that with economical gains on a global level is just silly. What else has Trump done (specifically) to boost the economy? Spend government funds at his own hotels and golf clubs?
The FCC assume that:
1) if there's a competitive ISP serving someone half a mile from you, then that ISP would be willing to extend their network to cover you. That's probably not the case, but it's what the FCC decided to (pretend to?) believe. Therefore, the FCC can claim that you have a choice of changing to that other provider
2) The fact that people have an alternative provider and could switch to it, means that the ISPs in that area have to keep the price down.
3) ISPs are going to set prices for everyone in the county to be the same, so if *most* of the county has an alternative provider and could switch to it, then that keeps prices down for everyone in the county.
Of course, every point I just listed is wrong, but that's what the FCC decided to (pretend to?) believe. This happens to be good news for the existing ISPs, which can raise their prices in every case where the FCC's assumptions are wrong.
50 percent of potential customers "are within a half mile of a location served by a competitive provider."
WTF? Has the government been proceeding with their ears plugged for the past decade?
The whole issue is The last mile problem
A competing provider is not going to travel Half a Mile to try and grab another provider's customers ---- buildout is so extremely expensive that typically there is a tacit agreement between so-called "competitors" that they will stay away from other providers' turf.
Just TRY and get a cable company to service you whose nearest line is 1/2 a mile away.
Extending service by 1/2 mile of thickline is something like $30,000+ in a suburban/rural area, and potentially half a million or more in build costs to run the additional cable in an urban area ---- thus they aren't inclined to build, especially when the consequence is violating a de-facto unwritten informal but anti-competitive agreement b/w neighboring providers that risks causing revenue loss from losing other customers.
Not to mention agriculture is a HUGE use of drone surveillance - often to measure irrigation, weeds, and other properties, as well as satellite imagery.
Except when receiving tons of farm subsidies. You want to know why Trump is harping on Canadian dairy? It's because in the US and Europe, dairy prices have crashed. They are making so much of it that if it wasn't for farm subsidies, they'd be out of business because the price is lower than the price of production.
Thus they see the higher prices for dairy in Canada as a savior, but then again, it'll likely collapse the prices and more farmers are out of business.
How come we never hear any Democrat candidates harp on this issue?
How many votes would it get them? Or a Republican candidate, for that matter? Probably only a rounding error, especially since this ruling just happened and it's going to take some time for these ISPs to exploit the situation enough to attract attention.
So instead of campaigning on this narrow issue that isn't upsetting many people (yet), make it broader like repealing the laws banning municipal broadband and/or going after companies like Verizon that failed to live up to their service commitments.
Much better economy
Except it isn't much better. It's a continuation of the recovery from 2008. You'll notice there's been no inflection points you can point to where a trend reversed. Also, you're ignoring the problem we've had for the last 20 years - the vast majority of voters aren't benefiting from that better economy. Wages are flat or down depending on industry, so run-of-the-mill voters aren't particularly excited that investment bankers are making more money.
end of ISIS
They're actually still around....and not being attacked by US or US-backed forces. Assad and the Russians are the ones fighting them. We aren't talking about them because it's not US bombs falling on them.
getting our allies to pay more for their own defense
They're continuing to follow the commitments they made to George W Bush. There has been no change.
renegotiating trade deals with EU and Mexico
There's no trade deal with the EU.
The deal with Mexico is actually a US-Canada-Mexico deal, so it's not done yet either.....also nothing has been announced about that not-quite-deal that is an improvement over NAFTA, so I'm not sure why you're celebrating NAFTA version 1.2. Oooh! Now we renegotiate every 6 years instead of renegotiating whenever we want to.....hurray!!
defunding terrorism by defunding Iran
The branches of Islamic terrorism that attacked the US is funded by the Saudis, and Trump is giving the Saudis more money and guns.
tax rebates
No tax rebates have been passed. There's a massive tax cut, but it's insignificant to the vast majority of taxpayers.....and it also should result in everyone laughing at Republicans when they start crying about the deficit again.
It's almost like you guys have a media environment designed to misinform you.....
If Kavanaugh gets put on the Supreme Court, ISPs like Verizon/ATT/Comcast will be given free reign to rape and pillage users as they see fit.
If one ISP is considered a "competitive market", then what's a little throttling and price gouging among friends?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Government can now declare fruit is a vegetable
Intelligence is knowing that the tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put one in a fruit salad.
The point is that the FCC is using a standard that is utterly divorced from reality, whether or not they have price caps.