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FCC Leaves Broadband Alone
DaPhreaker writes "As reported by The Industry Standard in this article. The F.C.C has decided to take a hands off approach on the broadband market. " While I would advocate opening the lines up, I think the FCC may have adopted the best position for the next six months - let things sort themselves out more, especially in light of the rising battle between DSL and cable.
If they want whats best for the consumer, shouldn't they allow multiple cable companies to serve's our homes?
oh FP
Hello! I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die
I don't really know if it would be in everybody's best interest for the FCC to butt out. Why? Because I want broadband and it's not available!
I've checked in my area, and it'll be approximately two years before either cable or DSL will become available. This is ridiculous. The way I see it, the FCC could step in, run the lines, and then turn the business end of it over to the cable or phone companies. This wouldn't be the first time something like this has taken place. The governement helped to get electricity and telephones spread across the country. Broadband Internet access isn't as big a commodity as either of those, but it's certainly useful!
Also, if the FCC were to run the lines, then monthly charges should be cheaper. That's because the phone or cable companies wouldn't have to have an enormous amount of capital to the the program off (or rather under) the ground. Then, broadband would become so much popular.
The way I see it, if the FCC were to step in and take control, then the popularity of broadband would supersede that of dial-up. Then, the entire country's telephone lines clear up and become less suggested. In the end, it would save amazing amounts of money!
Brad Johnson
Advisory Editor
Brad Johnson
I can't agree enough with Hemos on this one. If the government took a under developed and growing industry as broadband access and shackled it up with restrictions, user fees would undoubtedly skyrocket (no longer do you only pay for the network owner's maintenance, research and expansion fees but also a seperate isp fee) and it would probably leave the country in standard-shift limbo (anyone remember "DVD will replace CD-ROM"?).
"Perspective is lost in the spirit of the chase."
I believe the FCC is taking the right approach here, but I'm completely biased, having operated an ISP and being involved in network research (and a general net-head). I'd be interested in hearing counterarguments to this - what are the reasons the government should regulate these new industries? I can think of a few:
Right now it seems like the markets aren't mature enough to determine what regulation is needed. However, I think that just like issues of pornography and illegal materials on the net, the way to keep the government OUT in the long term is by being good children from the get-go and sharing the sandbox. Hope some of the telecos and cable people are listening.
Like many of the people on /., I consider myself something of a libertarian. However I disagree (preemptively) with the replies I expect approving the decision as being hands-off. The problem is that, as far as I'm concerned, most of those lines aren't legitimate company property. Most of those lines were created under protected monopolies; improving bandwidth in many cases required threats and arm twisting from local towns In my opinion, lines created under monopolies benefited from public regulation, should be considered effectively public property, and therefore should be open to other providers. Note that this does not apply to networks built during competition; those are legitimiate private property.
To claim that a laissez-faire attitude towards Broadband doesn't in fact create fundamental shifts in the regulatory structure of network access is ludicrous.
One of the prime factors of the Internet's ascent over the past few years has been the tens of thousands of people who chose to start up their own small businesses(guess what--not everything's a startup!) and provide Internet service to people.
While AOL was falling over itself just to pick up the phone, those thousands of people gave personal, real, one on one service to people all across the country--the world, for that matter.
Those of us in the open source world would do well to remember not all development comes from college students--ISPs fund development of critical infrastructure that's used today on an every day basis to keep things running.
I don't know what kind of delusion the FCC is under that AT&T will give up and divest itself of its broadband operations if it is forced to provide copper services to other ISPs. I do know that thousands of ISPs going out of business because the FCC believed the threats of the country's most powerful phone company(of course, being chased heavily by that UUNet/PsiNet/WorldCom/MCI/Sprint behemoth; who needs trusts when you have mergers?) smacks of injustice.
Nobody wants to regulate the net, meanwhile the entire concept behind failing to regulate the net is that self-regulation will occur. Self-regulation is presumed mainly in competitive environments where the failure of one party to "play by the rules" leads to a loss in market share to the gain of a competitor. ADSL and Cable companies are similar enough in corporate structure that both are likely to violate the same concepts that self regulation would be likely to solve.
Thus, the war on self regulation takes its shape as a demand for freedom. Whose freedom, of course, has been muddled substatially.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
This makes me extremely pleased.
The fundamental problem right now concerning high speed access is simply:
We can't get anyone to sell it to us!
In my area, which is far from the Boonies, we are not even scheduled to get anything until at least 2002. Regulations would slow this process down even further!
While one medium gaining a larger share of the marketplace is a valid concern... we should get the technology out first! Your average consumer is not going to give a rat's ass whether they are using DSL, cable or whatever... they are going to jump onto the first one available to them (aas long as it is a reasonable price). I believe there will be plenty of competition between the different mediums to keep prices down and to spur further innovations.
Listen folks, the Republican congress is no friend of the consumer. They only care about aggrandizing big business. Remember, these are the folks who de-regulated the cable industries. We all know how well that's gone. Poor customer service. Rampant increase in cost in comparison to inflationary costs and investment in infrastructure.
My cable company went from having 2 plans (basic or expanded) to a "tier" structure giving consumers 3 options. This was done, according to the cable folks, so that customers would only pay for the channels they actually wanted to view. The customers who wanted fewer channels would not have to subsidize other views, they told us.
Here's how it really works. The cable companies have shifted a good majority of the cable channels that used to be part of the basic service to the top tier. This is all done under the guise of giving you, the consumer, more choice. More money out of your pocket. Cable companies don't offer a la carte programming. When asked why not, they never give a reason. Local sports programming that used to be included as part of basic service is now part of the top tier service.
Opening up broadband will not weaken the cable companies any more than opening up the phone system to independent carriers weakened the local telephone monopolies. It's called competition. Not too many people in business want to compete anymore. And we all lose out.
I decided to opt of the cable service. Unfortunately, I won't have that luxury with broadband.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
While I agree that de-regulation has improved competition from the break-up of monopolistic groups, such as the AT&T breakup in 1984, and that the hands-off approach helps in many ways, I see one problem:
The FCC also decided to take a complete hands-off approach to cellular phone standards. Each company was allowed to create or support whatever they wanted, and as a result we have PCS, GSM, and a host of other incompatible standards. The Europeans, who are usually much more pro-standards" than we are, are now years ahead of the US in cellular technology...because they were able to agree on using GSM.
I have no problem with having the broadband market open, but it would be nice if there was a STANDARD so that I could take my broadband box/TV/whatever to some other state and sign up with a different company without having to worry that the damn thing won't work because my box uses FOO, but my new provider only supports BAR.
Ich suche die Leidenschaft, die keine Leiden schafft.
- Since the cable company has an exclusive on the local broadband market, the customer can expect to see useless "services" layered into their bill.
- Access to other ISP's will be slower and/or more difficult.
- Should the phone company roll out xDSL, these mega-companies can be expected to behave like the airlines: when one of them adds a "service" or raises prices, the other will too. Customer choice will all but vanish.
The FCC should have bitten the bullet and kicked the cable companies (and the phone companies) out of the content business. Entities which supply bandwidth should not be able to tie that product to a particular brand of content; the customer should be able to go anywhere for pay content, or forego it entirely and only visit free sites. The only thing the monopoly cable/phone companies should be allowed to do is move data; everything else should be the province of independent, free-market suppliers.--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
While I am against large monopolies just as I should be, there are other factors involved with the government just opening up the cable lines. Think of this analogy. You are a farmer, and you have spent years cultivating and building up your farm. Your soil is finally nice, and you are having abundance of crops. What if the government told you that you have to let other farmers use the land with you have nutured for the last few years. Its the same principle. The cable companies have spend many years and millions and millions of dollars to upgrade there networks. Why should they have to let others use there network, if these other people have had no part in building the network in the first place. Its a free ride for these companies that are riding other the cable companies years of hard work. Nothing was stoping these other people from building large fiber networks while the cable company were upgrading theres.
Jeff Knox
The problem with the idea of opening access up to other content providers is this: It will cost more. If I subscribe to ISP x, and they provide the same content as CableModem Provider Y, I will spring for the cable modem provider. To say that CableModem providers must open their lines up to other companies that compete with them would be foolishness, as they would charge an additional fee. Here's the scenario as I see it:
The FCC decides to regulate broadband access to the internet. They mandate that broadband providers must allow other ISP's to provide the content (web access). So my cable company decides to go along, now charging separate fees for the cable modem and the internet access. Someone gets the bright idea to lower the price to internet access and raise the price to broadband, or worse yet make the internet access free. Now people have a choice between buying a broadband connection that comes with free internet access, or buying a broadband connection and paying additional fees for the internet access. Which do you think the average John Q Computeruser, who doesn't know the difference between phone ISP number one and phone ISP number two is going to pick?
Note: This strategy is obviously flawed for additional content providers, such as AOL, which let you access additional content that would not normally be available through another ISP. But, this is already available. The Bring your own Access plan does this.
I would appreciate it if someone would kindly point out all the flaws in my reasoning, and thanks for reading my rant.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
This seems like a fairly appropriate place to ask..
Why are the phone and cable companies taking so long to deliver high speed access to consumers? For example, my friend, who is 7 blocks from me, will have to wait at least 1 month longer than I before cable modems are available to him. People are not only willing, but are eager to hand over money to the companies to get faster internet access.
Is the process of setting up the line more difficult than I realize? Or are the companies just being lazy slobs?
Uh, ever hear of Dish TV and all its permutations.
My parents got this run-around-no-a-la-carte baloney from the cable company. In desperation, they nailed a pizza dish to the side of the house.
Ask them now, they wish they had done it years ago. And they can still get on the internet. Better downloads to boot, and a customer service rep that has more than a passing acquaintance with manners and civility. And the picture is a million times better than cable will ever be able to deliver.
Please don't be a whiner.
I can't help but find the FCC's treatment of cable access to be giving that service a unfair market advantage. ADSL services are required to be open to multiple ISP's, and that is one of the factors which slowed its deployment. Yes, it is growing faster now with the standardization on G.Lite; but, using the FCC's own arguments, the deployment would be even quicker if the phone companies could deploy the service with the phone company being able to control the ISP selection, just as the cable access market has at this time. Giving cable a market advantage is unfair. Both services should be allowed to compete on its own merits. Giving one a cost advantage is not fair competition. The only equitable solution is to either open up the cable access market to multiple providers; or allow the ADSL providers to limit the ISP access to their networks. Meanwhile, as it stands, ADSL will continue to be hindered, while cable will live with the myth that market forces will eventually force cable providers to open their services. I am yet to hear a valid argument that demonstrates how the cable companies could ever be forced to open their services due to these mythical market forces. (ie: devoid of competition in the cable field, what incentive is their to give up their control).
but hey people, where would be your e-commerce be now if that gummint dint reg-u-late the shit out of labour unions? or what if it dint crack down on anarchists, socialists, and yer assorted anti-busyness types throughout the last century? (git the national guard, shoot dem strikers!) where would be your globalised economy if there were, 2, 3, many cubas? y'all should be thankin' yer lucky stars you got so much reg-u-layshon.
where is your gratitude, people?
I can't help but find the FCC's treatment of cable access to be giving that service a unfair market advantage.
ADSL services are required to be open to multiple ISP's, and that is one of the factors which slowed its deployment. Yes, it is growing faster now with the standardization on G.Lite; but, using the FCC's own arguments, the deployment would be even quicker if the phone companies could deploy the service with the phone company being able to control the ISP selection, just as the cable access market has at this time.
Giving cable a market advantage is unfair. Both services should be allowed to compete on its own merits. Giving one a cost advantage is not fair competition. The only equitable solution is to either open up the cable access market to multiple providers; or allow the ADSL providers to limit the ISP access to their networks.
Meanwhile, as it stands, ADSL will continue to be hindered, while cable will live with the myth that market forces will eventually force cable providers to open their services. I am yet to hear a valid argument that demonstrates how the cable companies could ever be forced to open their services due to these mythical market forces. (ie: devoid of competition in the cable field, what incentive is their to give up their control).
The current state of broadband access is shockingly incosistent. Consider the following:
In my hometown of Hammond, IN, AT&T is offering cable Internet access, or at the very least the service is imminent. Hammond has _some_ commercial growth, but is far from being a booming metropolis. And 56k doesn't even work properly yet... we get better results not using it and connecting reliably at 28.8k!
Our infamous neighbors, Gary, are also slated to get the same AT&T cable Internet "soon". However, I can't imagine who in that city could afford the $40 a month, and the equipment is liable to get stolen the day after you get it. (I may be exaggerating, but there is a definite poverty and crime problem there)
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, home of all things American (well, Miller beer and Harley-Davidson motorcycles anyway...) and location of Marquette, my university, AT&T simply says cable Internet is not available. That might have something to do with the fact that our cable provider is Time Warner and not TCI^H^H^HAT&T.
But, it gets worse... Road Runner cable Internet service (I hope it's faster than their Web site) is not scheduled to be launched until sometime in 2000. In fact, we don't even have digital cable yet, while at my real home we've had it for a couple of years!
It doesn't make any sense... How can a relatively insignificant place such as NW Indiana be more technically advanced than a large, important, All-American city such as Milwaukee???
Oh wait... NW Indiana is in the Greater Chicago Area(TM), even though it's across the state line, so I guess it automatically gets all the benefits that Chicago gets. My bad.
Still, I would not expect such a long delay between large cities getting these technological advancements. It doesn't make any sense!
Can we point to the FCC's complacency as a root cause of this, or are the cable companies at fault?
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
DSL is great (so far) even through Bell Atlantic.
:-P
The setup was pretty staight forward, just setting up two NIC's with IP and routing info provided by BA. Pretty consistent throughput too, though it's not near the 640kbs maximum.
Hey, at least I can't browse my neighbor's computer.
There are several fundamental problems with the strong "the free market will self-regulate arguments" put forth by many on /.
First, if we are going to criticize M$, we might as well start criticising the Baby Bells and (expecially) AT&T for trying to put small business out of business. Consistency folks.
Here's my dilemma: I want broadband access. I want to use the cable pipes, but alas, I'd have to give up my local ISP, who have always been wonderful. I also have no way to get the several static IPs that I want for my home network. I can get that with DSL, but the catch is that because I have phone service with a small non-baby bell company, I can't get DSL access over the lines, even though it is technically possible. I'd have to get another phone line that I don't want from USWEST as well as my phone company just to get DSL, which COULD operate over my existing thrid party phone lines (because in my apartment building, the phone lines are leased to USWEST from my phone company). But that won't happen because there are no regulations that FORCE these companies to interoperate. It's not the little companies such as my local ISP or my smaller 3rd party phone company that are not cooperative, but the big companies who already have monopolies - they are going to be putting small businesses into bankruptcy and giving the consumer headaches. What is technically possible (innovation) is actually crushed by the free-market in favor of what is profitable for big biz, not the consumer.
Libertarians and some conservatives royally piss me off when they argue for a hands-off free market approach, because they often times end up screwing over the consumer, the undervalued employees of this world, the environment, etc.
I have an idea: if we are going to have the FCC not regulate, lets have the EPA and OSHA not regulate workplace toxins; let's also have the EEOC not regulate under Title VII of the Equal Rights act of 1963. While we are at it, let's allow gun-toting psychos with concealed weapons into churches and elemetary schools because they have permits. And to finish up our reign of terror, let's support the Microsoft lobbyists in the riteous quest to slash the DOJ antitrust budget.
My $.02 for right-wingers ignorant of any kind of political philosophy and applied ethics, Sean
Disclaimer: I work for a subsidiary of one of those evil large telecom companies
You're just spitting out the cable owning company propaganda. There is no technical reason that it cannot be opened. This is such a big lie. And none of the ISPs will get a free ride, as they will have to pay to get access.
We already have open access. It's called TCP/IP. Anybody with an IP address can sell me whatever services I'm willing to pay for, and in fact I have an AOL account for content (my original Compuserve account even though I vowed AOL would never take me alive), a Mindspring account for reliable, portable email, and an @home account for a broadband connection. While I'd rather buy those services a la carte, my inability to do so does not result from the absence of government regulation of access. The open access debate as presently framed presents a false dichotomy because it suits both sides to bundle services. The bundling issues have very little to do with access and will eventually be solved either in the marketplace or in the courts under existing antitrust proscriptions against tying.
Here I go again, this is basically a repost that I have posted at least 20 times about this issue but I guess I will have to keep syaing this over and over and over. Cause people still don't get it.
First thing Tau, content doesn't have jack to do with anything here, we are talking about bandwidth. I don't pay Time Warner for their pretty little pictures. I pay them for my 800kbps downloads. And secondly who paid for the copper at this point is irrelevant (sp?), the fact is cable companies control the copper. For all practical puposes it is thiers. Besides when you are talking about the grants, those didn't include switches, routers, and hubs. That came from the cable companies pockets. And that is quite a pretty penny. But even that doesn't matter because the competition that your advocating will amount to absolutely nothing.
What people don't realize here is that allowing ISPs to terminate connection across the cable companiy's copper is not going to create the competition that will effect the level of service people recieve. The cable company will still run the show when it comes to the physical layer. Understanding that, any logical person will come to the conclusion that the cable company will still have controll on your level of service, no matter who you are paying for your IP address. You will still pay the cable company for the connection, and then you will pay you ISP for the ip address. The cable company is still gonna get your cash for the bandwidth. The only competition that is taking place here is for the ip address. It would be exactly like a dialup. You have bad line noise on your phone and can't hit a 56k connection? Your ISP can't do anything about it. This will hold true in an open cable network. You have extreme latency on your neighborhood segement? Your ISP can't do anything about it. The only compititon that will effect your level of service is competition of the PHYSICAL LAYER!!!!!!!! Open access advocates are trying to fix a glass table with sledgehammer here. Wrong tool, it won't get the job done. Open acces will do nothing for anbody except shoot the consumer broadband market in the foot. I had put this with my orginal post but Hemos took it out, (I am sure most people are getting sick of me saying this but)The consumer broadband market it too young for the FEDS to be muking around with it. Case Closed, End of Story.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
We are talking about bandwidth. Big difference. I don't deny that cable companies pretty much suck when it comes to content ov TV channels. But that is not what is being debated here. We are debating if the cable companies should be forced to allow ISPs to run service over ther data connections.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
Open Access BAHHH!!! Letting ISPs terminate connections across cable networks will do nothing for us consumers. Only competeing cable comapnies can rectify the problems that are happening
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
No wonder you post anonymously. It is very very easy to do. All you have to do is have a few cable pipes coming in to your office (you could do it with one pipe but bandwidth would disapear real quick). Hell, I can setup an ISP in my own living room with my cable modem as the backbone. But I like my bandwidth TOOOO much to let some one else use it. Don't believe me? Ask me. I tell you exactly how to do it. Using Linux as the server of choice of course. Try not to make ;) Open acces is wrong though see my other post on this subject and you will learn why it is really flawed. Technically impossible, sheesh where do these people come from.
yourself look stupid in public, it is a bad thing.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
..as long as the broadband carrier is a REAL ISP (like the incompentent cretins at RedConnect, and not like AOL) you'll be able to get access to whatever bits of the Internet you want, and ignore any proprietry(sp?) content that might be provided.
There is no reason that the broadband providers shouldn't be able to recover their costs of installation, as long as they don't TIE you to their own content.
Remember, an ISP is an INTERNET Service Provider. Don't pay for content you don't want/need.
(Ok so I had a crap week at work, and I'm on my second LARGE V&O - I'm still allowed to rant)
This sig left unintentionally blank.
I must agree with the general sigh of relief that the FCC is taking the Hands Off approach
:)
but..
I've had my cable modem (Century @Home) for approximately four months now.
In the beginning I was extreemely happy with it's performance! My linux box has never been so happy!
Then @Home decided to limit my upstream to 128k. Well, needless to say I was a bit unhappy. My first reaction was to simply cancel service. Then cognative reasoning emerged, and I realized that 128k up wasnt that bad, and regardless, it is better than 33.6!
All of this took place within a month of my signing up. Now, three months later, the connection speeds have degraded so sharply that (at times) it almost would be worth my while to return to dialup! Unfortunately, DSL is not available to my residence (yet?) and even if it was, my limited DSL experience has shown me that it really isn't the answer I am hoping for anyway.
So, I am left with @Home's severely congested network. I sure would like to see an alternative!
I understand that it was @Home's money which paid for all of the equipment, but I would like to see some "allowed" competition. @Home uses only one channel of bandwidth. my cable company offers in neighborhood of 60 channels of programming. This leaves quite a lot of room for alternate services.
Another (equally less likely) option would be for @Home to place the blame where it belongs. Perhaps some of you reading this know more than I, but this is how I understand it. Please correct me if I'm worng.
Back in the early days of @Home, they engineered a network which was well designed, and very fast.
They began offering services to select areas (East coast I believe) and everyone was happy. In fact the response was so overwhelming (and unexpected) that within a short period, the network was brought virtually to it's knees forcing @Home to make some decisions. A. Increase network capacity to handle to extra load, or B. limit bandwidth and continue using the existing infrastructure.
I guess we know which option they've chosen. Publicly they have stated that this move is intended to dicourage those of us who run servers (Yes, I am guilty as charged! after all, it's a Linux box. what would you do?!?). However, this not only stops me from running a decent FTP/WEB/Whatever else server, it also prohibits me from sending small avi's (thats a relative term) of my son to my father because even though we both have "high-speed" internet access, it takes ages to send.
Other Cable ISPs that I am aware of such as RoadRunner have no anti-server policy so long as you are not using it for commercial purposes. This seems like a real win-win for @Home. Not only can they bring on more customers with thier existing infrastructure, but they also can reap the benefits of forcing us to subscribe to @Work so that we can run our personal FTP/WEB servers. This seems unfair to me.
Bottom line. I am happy to see what the FCC is (or isn't) doing, but at the same time I hope cable ISPs (specifically @Home) will start to provide us with better service by upgrading thier backbone and not placing the blame on those of us who really make use of thier services. Lets face it, while there are a lot of us out there who use the service, and utilize bandwidth, the vast majority of internet users are simply surfing the web and reading email, and dont know that the service they recieve may be "sub-standard". If we are ever to reach a point where the internet is cheaply available at acceptable speeds to nearly everyone (utopian society??) so that more and more users can experience the joy of videoconferencing and host their own websites etc., then competition will be necessary to provide higher quality of service at lower prices.
Any Thoughts?
Cheers!
Linux user since 1994!
It's very possible to have multiple cable companies in the same town. What it takes to get this done is not up to the cable companies themselves, but the town council. They make the deals with the cable company. As it stands several towns in Massachusettes share cable between MediaOne and RCN. MediaOne was already there, RCN made a good offer to the town, and now RCN is running their own lines throught the town. That's competition and doesn't open the lines to potential problems as each system stays it's own. Solarius
He doesn't have enough time. He has about a year left in his tenure. Right now he is fighting hard for low-power radio. The radio industry says it will interfere, minority groups (the ones who could now have radio stations) say that it won't with another set of independant tests. Kennard is also fighting with congress over ownership caps. Ownership of cable, which AT&T might be violating, and network coverage, both from the CBS/Viacom and Clear Channal/AMFM mergers (That's over a 1,200 radio stations/35 TV stations in the U.S.).
Kennard is plenty busy to try and even BEGIN to tackle the Internet. Trust me, this will be a big issue. The next FCC Chairman will most likely tackle the 'Net. And, correct me if I'm wrong, the President appoints (nominates) the position. So VOTE, dammit.
+&x
The cable companies haven't exactly "cultivated" their resource. They spent as little money as possible on it, and made every effort to prevent competition. (Read: DSS and local stations)
They did not invest money over time to develop their infrastructure, and continued to charge more money over time for reduced services.
Their lack of efficiency and the guarantee of a monopoly provided no incentive to innovate the services or to provide improved content as their subscription base improved.
Once built, their infrastructure had tremendous opportunities, but it has taken them 15 years to really do anything digital.
Incompetence aside, they should not be able to control content.
But, of course, the bottom line is practicality. They will have to have cache servers all over the place, so the equipment setup makes it easy to "control" the content...
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The only hope is wireless broadband. Lower infrastructure costs, ease of deployment, ease of expansion/upgrade.
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I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Standard Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not for my employer.
/. do not watch much television, but that is fundimentally what makes people very happy with the idea of a HFC upgrade. Also, the two-way converter boxes can provide an on screen channel guide. I find that to be the most useful feature of all.
It takes millions and millions of dollars and huge amounts of labor to rewire a town for cable modems. This is becuase most of the cable lines need to be upgraded to hydrid fiber-coax.
Why would cable companies spend so much money on upgrading the lines to provide cable modem service that will need a large number of customers to make profitable?
Becuase of what else can be offered on HFC lines. More channels, two-way converter boxes, impulse pay-per-view, telephony services, and digital cable.
Other than telephony, the new services that can be offered are tremendous money makers. They also tend to make the customers in a particular town very happy, because before when they were paying 12$ a month to recieve only one channel of HBO, they can spend the same amount and get three channels of HBO. I know that many people who read and post to
Digital set-top boxen also are very exciting. It is going to be offered soon in some areas, and that will provide many more basic, premium, digital music, and pay per view channels.
That is where the money is. More cable. More channels. Especially more Pay Per View.
Out of the towns that MediaOne services, 70% of them are upgraded and serviceable for cable modems. Many more will be launching by years end. Those that have other cable companies are left out in the cold, unless RCN wants to wire them, or their contract comes up in the town and MediaOne makes a bid for it. If you want to have a paticular cable company, or want to prevent a paticular cable company from servicing your town, when the contract comes up, make your wishes known to the cable commission for your town. I know that cable modems make people very enthusiastic about MediaOne coming to service them, even though there is a delay while the town is upgraded.
Cable companies have competition for video and internet services. They *are* the competition for telephone services.
The primary source for competition for video customers is satellite dishes. For those who want a particular channel, or channel linup, or even more channels than their cable company can provide one can purchase service with a satellite company.
Other cable companies also provide another source for competition. RCN services several towns in the Boston area for video, internet, and telephone services. They provide resonably equivilent services for a lower price. This creates a negative price pressure on MediaOne.
As to internet services, the competition comes in the form of regular dialup. Most customers that use the internet and are fairly adept with it have already moved from their dialup to a cable modem. They understand what '1.5 mbps' means. They see that the cost is about the same as a dial-up and a second phone line.
The other source of competition comes from nationwide content providers, like AOL. Their customers are not familiar with the internet. Their use of their provider has sugar-coated their experience of the internet, and they do not understand what high speed means. Mostly, they come over to a cable modem for cost reasons at first, and then are hooked by the reality of high speed and continuous connection.
I should say that the most foolish thing that AOL ever did was to make their Instant Messanger accesible to the Internet and vice-versa. Without that functionality available to users of other providers, I don't think that many AOL customers at all would come over to MediaOne.
Another route of competition is ADSL. In the boston area, Bell Atlantic is years late in deployment. They are only now starting to pick up steam. They are ultimately able to provide more bandwidth than the cable modem, but at a higher cost. Their pentration isn't as good as a fully wired town with cable modems, becuase of the realities of the ADSL technology. But in towns that MediaOne doesn't service, they will gain great footholds. As long as service is of good quality, then people will tend to say with the high speed access provider that they have.
Satellite internet services also represent a competitor, but their service is inferior and much more expensive compared to either ADSL or a cable modem. The primary customer for satellite internet services is those that live in towns or areas that are not currently serviced for either ADSL or cable modems and are unlikely to be serviced in the moderate future.
Standards. MediaOne uses a proprietary standard for almost all of it's towns. But that is changing. The reason for the proprietary standard is that there was no standard when MediaOne started providing service. In new towns, and slowly converting in currently serviced towns, a standard for cable modems certified by Cable Labs is taking place. With these new modems, people can move to any town, serviced by any provider, that supports a stream that these modems can use. This concenus was createed amongst cable providers, rather than being imposed by a regulatory body. As the modems upgrade over several years, even more can be offered, like multi-port modems, and VOIP. The proprietary modems will still supported as well. There are too many of them out there to force everyone to switch over.
Ultimately it is the goal to have everyone that can be serviced for cable modems, serviced.
But if access is forced, the bright future of everyone wired for broadband vanishes.
The FCC is just going to wait until it's technically feasible to do something interesting, and it's politically clearer what would be useful to do.
Most of the routers being installed into big ISPs now have the ability to selectively drop IPs (or at least class C's)--the whole bandwidth industry is rapidly consolodating into a few big companies.
In a few years there will only be a couple of big players, who will be happy to toe the line, and they will have installed equipment that allows them to implement whatever restrictions are wanted.
By then the politicians will know what it is they want to restrict, and the FCC will suddenly be a lot less hands off.
If you expect competition, tell your local government not to grant monopoly cable franchises. After all, your local government officials are the ones being "paid off" to keep cable monopolies.