Do I really need to go into the massive waste of public airwaves that have forbidden people especially in rural and suburban communities from using UNUSED frequencies simply because somewhere else in the country they are used?
The entire spectrum should have been leased out like the homestead act only instead of granting ownership it should have granted a temporary lease. A use it or lose it system which could be broken down on some sort of grid system based on the average range of a broadcast tower. If no one is using a given frequency in a grid then I don't see why anyone shouldn't be able to use it.
A good example of where this is relevant is delivering internet to rural communities. If no one is using that frequency in that area, then why can't I use that frequency to stream internet? Because the FCC.
FCC regs frustrate the free use of unused spectrum in the US to a dramatic degree. The rules were set up in a very different time and they haven't matured since that time by any great degree. They're also very focused on given contexts that are not always relevant.
There is a fundamental lack of dynamism and flexibility in the entire system.
In areas of lower population density there is no reason why practically everyone could just claim their own bit of the spectrum. No one else is using it. Now you're going to have an issue as the density changes but that doesn't happen overnight and worst case you'd just buy existing lease holders out of the spectrum you needed. It wouldn't be a big deal. Absolute worst case, you'd eminent domain them out of it. Again, you'd just pay whatever the market value was and then you'd have reclaimed it.
That would service everyone. And we'd get all sorts of neat products on the market that facilitated the use of that kind of spectrum.
But we're not going to get any of that because the FCC still thinks it is the 19 fucking 20s.
It varies depending on the location. I've seen small towns with as many as four ISPs all with their own cable. They've operated for years under those conditions... one can extrapolate that if that is effective then a large city could sustain dozens of ISPs all serving the same territory.
What is more, you can look up the cost of fiber. It is extremely cheap. Then you can look up the costs of the routers and switches an ISP would use to manage a municipal grade ISP and you'll see that the per user cost of it all is pretty low.
The argument the big ISPs use is that if they are subjected to competition they'll have to focus on profit making internet service delivery rather then providing access to everyone. Under the current agreements they roll out internet service to areas that aren't going to make them much money or that they might lose money on. And they even have subsidy programs where they'll offer their internet at a discount.
That is the bait.
The reality is that the cost is so low that while you might not roll out the fastest internet to some areas you'd still roll out something. And as to the subsidies they only exist on paper. Very few people ever get them in large part because they're not advertised and tend to be kept secret. Comcast, Verizon, etc all have subsidized internet programs where poor people can get really cheap or even free internet. However, almost literally no one has that service because it is not discussed outside of a room with the politicians.
Beyond that, one cannot get past the point that practically everywhere in the US is it is illegal to lay last mile cable to consumers because local governments have signed exclusivity contracts that forbid any other company from laying cable.
Now you can lay other types of cable. So if your cable is not last mile cable or it is entirely private cable that won't be resold or marketed then you can lay cable all you like. In New York there is a lot of private cable often run by investment banks that run private cable from their offices to the backbone. They do that because the offers from any company in the city are inferior to what they can get by just doing it themselves. It is mostly of use to them because of their high frequency trading. They can cut some milliseconds off the latency by running it themselves and in that business latency is money.
Anyway, if you're seriously interested, I can probably find some hard numbers for you. if your question is rhetorical however then obviously I shouldn't bother.
I'd prefer not to have the nurse personally unless I need their hands. And in that case, I might be happier with either a medical drone or a remote physician piloting a medical drone.
The real revolution will be when the expert systems are personal. Right now you need some big super computer to do it. What happens when Moore's law puts that power on your home server or your wrist watch?
1. High volume data reporting such as sports and fiance where people are just looking for numbers. I mean... who cares? These are things that previously were often just charts. And really, which would you rather read? A chart that gives you the numbers of some natural language engine that turns the numbers into a bogus article? Give me the chart any day. And that never took much labor.
2. Scanning emails to to do targeted advertising. How is this a job anyone got taken away from them? For one thing, if something is going to read my emails, I'd prefer it be a robot rather then a human being. And beyond that, this is a job that wouldn't even exist without robots. After all, who is going to pay someone to go through all those emails to look for key words and then match those key words to targeted advertising? Dumb.
3. I'm not terribly worried about a supped up version of WebMD. But if that system can actually do that job... then that is amazing and a blessing. Look at all the people struggling with paying for medical bills. National budgets are getting strained with the expense. And then so many communities don't have first class hospitals to get access to such people even if they can pay/they're subsidized. This technology if it works will save lives and lower medical costs which is something we sorely need. The first two things listed were bullshit and the third if viable is fucking amazing.
4. Discovery in law suits is possibly the most boring thing anyone in law can ever be assigned to do. Whenever this happens they always put the most junior interns they can get their hands on to do it. It is a bullshit job that no one wants to do and a horrible waste of a law degree. Also... this could make court costs more reasonable... which is also good.
5. The problem with human financial analysts is that they get emotional. They get scared or they get greedy or they get lazy or they drawn into some fad. What is more, they're expensive again if you want a good one and that's just out of reach of most people. AI financial assistants will have their own problems. But something is better then nothing.
All these ideas are better then the current system. A centralized too big to fail system is dumb... I think we can all agree on that. Damn near anything is an improvement.
The idea should be to make every target so granular that the NSA won't bother unless they are literally and specifically interested in YOU.
A lot of the problem is that we have these overly centralized systems where in if the NSA wants to listen in on a terrorist or something they have to compromise the whole network. Which means the terrorists etc are basically using us as human shields... and the NSA doesn't care and shoots through us anyway. The analogy is terrible but you get my point. I'd like to not be a human shield for the terrorists or collateral damage when the NSA etc comes knocking. And the only way to do that is to so atomize security that they just won't touch our security keys unless they're interested specifically in you or me. And if they compromise either of us they'll only have compromised that one person and no one else.
Do that and they're not going to hack 100,000,000 people because they lack the resources and the interest. They might well hack 10,000 people... but they're probably going to be people that plausibly they should be trying to hack.
I like your idea a lot... I just wish they'd use end to end encryption that didn't even betray meta data to the cell tower. All the cell tower needs to know is a customer ID code and possibly some authorization key. The only part of the system that needs to know the phone number is actually the literal recipient of the call. But for the sake of argument the phone company could know as well. The cell tower doesn't need to know that at all though, much less need to be able to decrypt calls. All the cell tower needs to do is link your phone to the internet/phone company. It doesn't need to know who you're talking to or be able to decode your call.
I get your joke but seriously this could work. You can buy personal biogas generators that cost about 10k and they're able to power about three or four homes at once. If you live on a farm or have access to a lot of free biomass then this could be a cheap source of power.
The technology is proven and has been in used for about a hundred years in various places. It got a lot of use during WW2 in Europe because of the lack of gasoline at the time. People ran farm equipment and cars on syngas that used this exact process.
So yes, it sounds pie in the sky but that is mostly because most people don't know about it. The only serious draw back to it is that the system does tend to get gummed up with tar however that is owed more to design flaws in some of the generators. If you can control the temperature and air flow then the build up of tar isn't a problem.
Syngas or biogas is something people should look at seriously. It is an easy way to get people on biofuel without genetic engineering or cultivating weird strains of algae.
You can burn wood, leaves, crop dross, grass clippings, etc. About sixty pounds of biomass will provide about enough power for three residential homes for a day. And that potentially can include lots of waste heat that can be used to heat homes and water further increasing efficiency. What is more, some systems can even provide refinery type products such as gasoline, diesel, and heavier byproducts such as tar etc.
Here someone will say "but what about the environment"... well, a lot of biomass is going to be burned or decompose regardless. And that is going to release its carbon either way. A rotting tree gives up its CO2 just like a burning tree. Also assuming you're not using fossil fuels in this process or are just using net less... the process is effectively carbon neutral.
I think we can all agree that corn ethanol is a stupid bio fuel. Consider that we could be burning literal garbage, scrap wood, saw dust, farm dross... and from all of that we could produce power that is net zero CO2. At the same time, we can produce Syngas, biogas, etc from the process which can be stored and independently burned in modified internal combustion engines. And that fuel is again... basically or literally carbon neutral.
The fuel can be sourced from anywhere. Your backyard... where ever. Obviously this is quite useless for more people living in urban conditions but they can use nuclear power if they really want to go green. Otherwise... good luck.
And that was before the government took the internet especially seriously. The FCC believes it is losing relevance as tv and radio are losing relevance. So they're moving into the internet in part to save their little department of the government. To retain that relevance they're going to have to do things. And that means fucking with people on occasion just to keep the limbs lubricated.
The hands off days of the internet are ending and it is this attitude that is letting it happen.
I will tell you that I told you so... people generally don't like hearing that... but it is the right of those that were right in the first place. So... I have that going for me.:)
Yeah but you still have to use their cable and pay them what they've lobbied to be a "fair price" for it. You are not allowed to lay your own cable which is ACTUALLY how real competition will work.
Until we have lots of ISPs all competiting the same area with comparable services the big ISPs will be able to get away with murder. Perhaps they'll have to be sneakier about it in the future. All they have to do is do it in a way that it doesn't become a political problem. Because now that the government has been brought in, the economics and quality of service don't matter any more. All that matters is the politics.
I don't choose whether I get mustard on my sandwich based on politics and I shouldn't have which ISP I can use determined by politics either.
First, I found dozens of articles when I did that search so you apparently suck at the internet.
Second, you've provided no reason or evidence or logic what so ever as to why I am wrong. I literally cannot possibly lose absent that. Neither he nor you provided any reason why I am wrong. You just said I was and then asked me to jump through hoops as if you have that kind of authority in any discussion. Comical.
Third, if you join a discussion mr AC and only offer dumb insults... why exactly would you expect anyone to take you seriously?
Yeah except that only happened because they successfully bribed every municipality from Maine to California. Try to lay cable and the local governments will literally tell you that you cannot. They have signed exclusive service arrangements with those ISPs.
THAT is the problem. You are quite right that the issue is the monopolies. But the monopolies only exist because the government protects them. Mostly it is the local governments and not the federal government. However, this FCC legislation does nothing to reduce the power or hold of the monopolies. If anything, they've just made it more expensive to become an ISP and even harder to compete with the big ISPs because they've increase the legal overhead required to do it.
You're not going to solve this problem by regulating the big ISPs. They'll still be monopolies and they'll always find a way to exploit that and fuck you. If you want this to get better, then you need to break their hold. And that means more companies laying cable.
No it isn't. You're just some internet halfwit that thinks he can contradict an argument by calling his rival a liar and then backing it up with literally nothing. I provided a link to show you what I was talking about. You've provided nothing but baseless insults and halfwit logic.
I notice you made me a "foe" on slashdot... OH NOES... Kindly find that chainsaw... you have my first instruction to carry out.;)
1. That was well before the internet was established or taken especially seriously by the government. Comparing that time to this time symptomatic of your lazy thought process.
2. Flesh that out a bit, what is your problem with my statement?
3. As to intentions... dude... you know when social security numbers were first proposed people complained because they said the government would use them as personal ID systems? And the government of the time PROMISED that they would never be used that way? Here is the reality... if the law doesn't say they can't do something... they'll do it if they want to do it. What is more, even if you say they can't to do it, if they really want to they'll try and letter of the law and hair split around it. Look at all their evasions on the constitution despite the constitution being pretty fucking clear about a lot of things. Yet little things like Due Process frequently don't happen because "reasons". So it is really not my responsibility to educate you on all the million and one ways your statement is wrong/ignorant.
4. Absent law on the books that stops them from doing it, I expect them to operate the same way they always do... which means it isn't FUD... its observing patterns and making rational extrapolations from those patterns.
Lets say I am Time Warner cable... is it anti competitive for me to bundle TV, internet, and phone service? See the issue?
I have no problem with T-Mobile or Verizon bundling a service in there. You're effectively paying for it in your regular service fee.
Where I would have a problem is if they actively discouraged competitors.
See the difference? If they give me something or they have a service they want to offer that is fine. It is when they actively lock out competition that there is a problem.
So for example when Verizon was blocking Netflix until they paid them, I would have a problem with that. That is bullshit and Verizon is fucking stupid for doing that. Most of the other ISPs actually told them as much. Even comcast was sending them little letters saying effectively "you're going to fuck it up for all us if you don't stop."... But what are you going to do. Some companies are run by greedy idiots.
I don't mind greedy people or aggressive people. That's fine. You can be a pig... you just can't be a hog. And you're quite right that many of the ISPs crossed that line. However, these rules are going to cement their monopolies which are the root cause of the problem. Current regulation will only address recent ways they've thought of exploiting their monopolies. Give them time and they'll come up with new ways which will require an increasing amount of regulation.
Eventually you'll be looking at phonebooks worth of regulation to stop them from exploiting their monopolies...
All of which would be unnecessary if you just dealt with the monopolies directly.
First off, they don't promise you that max download speed all the time. They're quite clear about that and it is one of the main reasons there is a big price bump between consumer broadband and business broadband. And even in business broadband they often do not promise the max bandwidth. They say quite clearly that there is going to be some fluctuation. And when that happens, they're going to maximize everyone's experience prioritizing data streams that are more sensitive. Lets say I'm gaming or doing some other low latency activity... it makes sense to prioritize my communication over someone downloading email. You slow down their email by 2 seconds and the person playing the game or doing VoIP doesn't get a lag spike.
Second, as to your statement about how all this can be fixed by upgrading one thing or another... no one disputes that. No one. However, RIGHT NOW, if there is congestion... you seriously want me to slow EVERYONE down and make people that will notice miserable even if I can slow down some people that won't even realize it and effectively make everyone happy? Seriously?
Note that I am not defending the ISP plans to sell fast lanes etc. That's bullshit. We already have dedicated guaranteed bandwidth options. If you want a fast lane, you buy that. You'll already pay a premium for that, always have, and probably always will. Very few applications actually need that. Some corporate VoIP systems like to have it for example... I struggle to see other situations where you actually need it. Possibly high frequency trading? I don't know... Most people don't need that and if you want it, then of course you should pay more for it. You're basically buying exemption from the QoS system or first place in it. And expecting to get that for free isn't going to happen.
Best case what you're going to do is disallow ISPs from having a QoS system which will require them to have more bandwidth on hand per customer. Which shrinks their profit margins.
Now given that your probably a fan of these FCC rules, you're ultimately protecting their monopolies. So from that perspective, fine... fuck their profits if they're going to have monopolies. Fucking cut their margins to the bone. But I don't think that's going to improve our experience on the internet.
What might help is if we got the competition going with more companies laying cable in the same area competing for the same customers. The argument that this is not profitable is a fiction. The cost of laying cable is trivial IF you exclude the costs that cities and counties charge ISPs to lay the cable. And that is effectively an artificial cost in most cases. A stealth tax. And so saying it is too expensive because of government we should have more laws... is dumb. Just fix the laws so we can run more cable and you'll get so much competition that any ISP that doesn't respect their customers won't have customers.
Exactly. The government creates these monopolies by making it illegal to run competing cable and then uses the resulting monopolies as justification to regulate the shit out of them... and through them we get regulated.
It is the typical pattern of government failing up. They fuck up and use that fuck up as justification to get more power and when that is fucked up they conclude that clearly they just don't have enough power.
By this logical, totalitarian states should be paradises. Since they're universally shitholes, one has to wonder where this is all going.
They should have just left it alone.
Is it right for Verizon to get greedy with its fast lane bullshit? No. But that isn't justification to regulate the shit out of everyone.
So you do nothing but call people liars and I have to do exhaustive research while you make zero effort?
In a proper debate this might be permissible because I could personally humiliate you. However, on the internet, your policy is a troll's dream. I've already made far more of an effort then you did. Expecting me to make more of an effort or get branded a liar is idiotic. You can't call me a liar simply because I'm not going to provide you with the specific information you want. It doesn't work that way.
You don't get to personally define all the hoops I have to jump through or morally damn me. You'd have to be the internet Pope to pull that one off.
Are you the internet Pope? The one with the power to arbitrarily excommunicate me? Or are you a fuckwit?
I never said that. that wouldn't be any better either. What I'd prefer would be a distributed system where every company has its own encryption requiring each one to be subverted individually.
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Do I really need to go into the massive waste of public airwaves that have forbidden people especially in rural and suburban communities from using UNUSED frequencies simply because somewhere else in the country they are used?
The entire spectrum should have been leased out like the homestead act only instead of granting ownership it should have granted a temporary lease. A use it or lose it system which could be broken down on some sort of grid system based on the average range of a broadcast tower. If no one is using a given frequency in a grid then I don't see why anyone shouldn't be able to use it.
A good example of where this is relevant is delivering internet to rural communities. If no one is using that frequency in that area, then why can't I use that frequency to stream internet? Because the FCC.
FCC regs frustrate the free use of unused spectrum in the US to a dramatic degree. The rules were set up in a very different time and they haven't matured since that time by any great degree. They're also very focused on given contexts that are not always relevant.
There is a fundamental lack of dynamism and flexibility in the entire system.
In areas of lower population density there is no reason why practically everyone could just claim their own bit of the spectrum. No one else is using it. Now you're going to have an issue as the density changes but that doesn't happen overnight and worst case you'd just buy existing lease holders out of the spectrum you needed. It wouldn't be a big deal. Absolute worst case, you'd eminent domain them out of it. Again, you'd just pay whatever the market value was and then you'd have reclaimed it.
That would service everyone. And we'd get all sorts of neat products on the market that facilitated the use of that kind of spectrum.
But we're not going to get any of that because the FCC still thinks it is the 19 fucking 20s.
It varies depending on the location. I've seen small towns with as many as four ISPs all with their own cable. They've operated for years under those conditions... one can extrapolate that if that is effective then a large city could sustain dozens of ISPs all serving the same territory.
What is more, you can look up the cost of fiber. It is extremely cheap. Then you can look up the costs of the routers and switches an ISP would use to manage a municipal grade ISP and you'll see that the per user cost of it all is pretty low.
The argument the big ISPs use is that if they are subjected to competition they'll have to focus on profit making internet service delivery rather then providing access to everyone. Under the current agreements they roll out internet service to areas that aren't going to make them much money or that they might lose money on. And they even have subsidy programs where they'll offer their internet at a discount.
That is the bait.
The reality is that the cost is so low that while you might not roll out the fastest internet to some areas you'd still roll out something. And as to the subsidies they only exist on paper. Very few people ever get them in large part because they're not advertised and tend to be kept secret. Comcast, Verizon, etc all have subsidized internet programs where poor people can get really cheap or even free internet. However, almost literally no one has that service because it is not discussed outside of a room with the politicians.
Beyond that, one cannot get past the point that practically everywhere in the US is it is illegal to lay last mile cable to consumers because local governments have signed exclusivity contracts that forbid any other company from laying cable.
Now you can lay other types of cable. So if your cable is not last mile cable or it is entirely private cable that won't be resold or marketed then you can lay cable all you like. In New York there is a lot of private cable often run by investment banks that run private cable from their offices to the backbone. They do that because the offers from any company in the city are inferior to what they can get by just doing it themselves. It is mostly of use to them because of their high frequency trading. They can cut some milliseconds off the latency by running it themselves and in that business latency is money.
Anyway, if you're seriously interested, I can probably find some hard numbers for you. if your question is rhetorical however then obviously I shouldn't bother.
Granted... I used the term loosely... obviously.
I'd prefer not to have the nurse personally unless I need their hands. And in that case, I might be happier with either a medical drone or a remote physician piloting a medical drone.
The real revolution will be when the expert systems are personal. Right now you need some big super computer to do it. What happens when Moore's law puts that power on your home server or your wrist watch?
Software.
1. High volume data reporting such as sports and fiance where people are just looking for numbers. I mean... who cares? These are things that previously were often just charts. And really, which would you rather read? A chart that gives you the numbers of some natural language engine that turns the numbers into a bogus article? Give me the chart any day. And that never took much labor.
2. Scanning emails to to do targeted advertising. How is this a job anyone got taken away from them? For one thing, if something is going to read my emails, I'd prefer it be a robot rather then a human being. And beyond that, this is a job that wouldn't even exist without robots. After all, who is going to pay someone to go through all those emails to look for key words and then match those key words to targeted advertising? Dumb.
3. I'm not terribly worried about a supped up version of WebMD. But if that system can actually do that job... then that is amazing and a blessing. Look at all the people struggling with paying for medical bills. National budgets are getting strained with the expense. And then so many communities don't have first class hospitals to get access to such people even if they can pay/they're subsidized. This technology if it works will save lives and lower medical costs which is something we sorely need. The first two things listed were bullshit and the third if viable is fucking amazing.
4. Discovery in law suits is possibly the most boring thing anyone in law can ever be assigned to do. Whenever this happens they always put the most junior interns they can get their hands on to do it. It is a bullshit job that no one wants to do and a horrible waste of a law degree. Also... this could make court costs more reasonable... which is also good.
5. The problem with human financial analysts is that they get emotional. They get scared or they get greedy or they get lazy or they drawn into some fad. What is more, they're expensive again if you want a good one and that's just out of reach of most people. AI financial assistants will have their own problems. But something is better then nothing.
I'm fine with that as well.
All these ideas are better then the current system. A centralized too big to fail system is dumb... I think we can all agree on that. Damn near anything is an improvement.
The idea should be to make every target so granular that the NSA won't bother unless they are literally and specifically interested in YOU.
A lot of the problem is that we have these overly centralized systems where in if the NSA wants to listen in on a terrorist or something they have to compromise the whole network. Which means the terrorists etc are basically using us as human shields... and the NSA doesn't care and shoots through us anyway. The analogy is terrible but you get my point. I'd like to not be a human shield for the terrorists or collateral damage when the NSA etc comes knocking. And the only way to do that is to so atomize security that they just won't touch our security keys unless they're interested specifically in you or me. And if they compromise either of us they'll only have compromised that one person and no one else.
Do that and they're not going to hack 100,000,000 people because they lack the resources and the interest. They might well hack 10,000 people... but they're probably going to be people that plausibly they should be trying to hack.
I like your idea a lot... I just wish they'd use end to end encryption that didn't even betray meta data to the cell tower. All the cell tower needs to know is a customer ID code and possibly some authorization key. The only part of the system that needs to know the phone number is actually the literal recipient of the call. But for the sake of argument the phone company could know as well. The cell tower doesn't need to know that at all though, much less need to be able to decrypt calls. All the cell tower needs to do is link your phone to the internet/phone company. It doesn't need to know who you're talking to or be able to decode your call.
I get your joke but seriously this could work. You can buy personal biogas generators that cost about 10k and they're able to power about three or four homes at once. If you live on a farm or have access to a lot of free biomass then this could be a cheap source of power.
The technology is proven and has been in used for about a hundred years in various places. It got a lot of use during WW2 in Europe because of the lack of gasoline at the time. People ran farm equipment and cars on syngas that used this exact process.
So yes, it sounds pie in the sky but that is mostly because most people don't know about it. The only serious draw back to it is that the system does tend to get gummed up with tar however that is owed more to design flaws in some of the generators. If you can control the temperature and air flow then the build up of tar isn't a problem.
The NSA loves centralization. So by all means... play right into their hands. Its so much easier when you put all the eggs in one basket.
Syngas or biogas is something people should look at seriously. It is an easy way to get people on biofuel without genetic engineering or cultivating weird strains of algae.
You can burn wood, leaves, crop dross, grass clippings, etc. About sixty pounds of biomass will provide about enough power for three residential homes for a day. And that potentially can include lots of waste heat that can be used to heat homes and water further increasing efficiency. What is more, some systems can even provide refinery type products such as gasoline, diesel, and heavier byproducts such as tar etc.
Here someone will say "but what about the environment"... well, a lot of biomass is going to be burned or decompose regardless. And that is going to release its carbon either way. A rotting tree gives up its CO2 just like a burning tree. Also assuming you're not using fossil fuels in this process or are just using net less... the process is effectively carbon neutral.
I think we can all agree that corn ethanol is a stupid bio fuel. Consider that we could be burning literal garbage, scrap wood, saw dust, farm dross... and from all of that we could produce power that is net zero CO2. At the same time, we can produce Syngas, biogas, etc from the process which can be stored and independently burned in modified internal combustion engines. And that fuel is again... basically or literally carbon neutral.
The fuel can be sourced from anywhere. Your backyard... where ever. Obviously this is quite useless for more people living in urban conditions but they can use nuclear power if they really want to go green. Otherwise... good luck.
Based on what? You're providing nothing to back up that position.
And that was before the government took the internet especially seriously. The FCC believes it is losing relevance as tv and radio are losing relevance. So they're moving into the internet in part to save their little department of the government. To retain that relevance they're going to have to do things. And that means fucking with people on occasion just to keep the limbs lubricated.
The hands off days of the internet are ending and it is this attitude that is letting it happen.
I will tell you that I told you so... people generally don't like hearing that... but it is the right of those that were right in the first place. So... I have that going for me. :)
Yeah but you still have to use their cable and pay them what they've lobbied to be a "fair price" for it. You are not allowed to lay your own cable which is ACTUALLY how real competition will work.
Until we have lots of ISPs all competiting the same area with comparable services the big ISPs will be able to get away with murder. Perhaps they'll have to be sneakier about it in the future. All they have to do is do it in a way that it doesn't become a political problem. Because now that the government has been brought in, the economics and quality of service don't matter any more. All that matters is the politics.
I don't choose whether I get mustard on my sandwich based on politics and I shouldn't have which ISP I can use determined by politics either.
First, I found dozens of articles when I did that search so you apparently suck at the internet.
Second, you've provided no reason or evidence or logic what so ever as to why I am wrong. I literally cannot possibly lose absent that. Neither he nor you provided any reason why I am wrong. You just said I was and then asked me to jump through hoops as if you have that kind of authority in any discussion. Comical.
Third, if you join a discussion mr AC and only offer dumb insults... why exactly would you expect anyone to take you seriously?
Yeah except that only happened because they successfully bribed every municipality from Maine to California. Try to lay cable and the local governments will literally tell you that you cannot. They have signed exclusive service arrangements with those ISPs.
THAT is the problem. You are quite right that the issue is the monopolies. But the monopolies only exist because the government protects them. Mostly it is the local governments and not the federal government. However, this FCC legislation does nothing to reduce the power or hold of the monopolies. If anything, they've just made it more expensive to become an ISP and even harder to compete with the big ISPs because they've increase the legal overhead required to do it.
You're not going to solve this problem by regulating the big ISPs. They'll still be monopolies and they'll always find a way to exploit that and fuck you. If you want this to get better, then you need to break their hold. And that means more companies laying cable.
No it isn't. You're just some internet halfwit that thinks he can contradict an argument by calling his rival a liar and then backing it up with literally nothing. I provided a link to show you what I was talking about. You've provided nothing but baseless insults and halfwit logic.
I notice you made me a "foe" on slashdot... OH NOES... Kindly find that chainsaw... you have my first instruction to carry out. ;)
1. That was well before the internet was established or taken especially seriously by the government. Comparing that time to this time symptomatic of your lazy thought process.
2. Flesh that out a bit, what is your problem with my statement?
3. As to intentions... dude... you know when social security numbers were first proposed people complained because they said the government would use them as personal ID systems? And the government of the time PROMISED that they would never be used that way? Here is the reality... if the law doesn't say they can't do something... they'll do it if they want to do it. What is more, even if you say they can't to do it, if they really want to they'll try and letter of the law and hair split around it. Look at all their evasions on the constitution despite the constitution being pretty fucking clear about a lot of things. Yet little things like Due Process frequently don't happen because "reasons". So it is really not my responsibility to educate you on all the million and one ways your statement is wrong/ignorant.
4. Absent law on the books that stops them from doing it, I expect them to operate the same way they always do... which means it isn't FUD... its observing patterns and making rational extrapolations from those patterns.
That's fine, I'm just saying that there shouldn't be a single company that can be exploited to compromise the whole fucking network.
How is bundling services anti competitive?
Lets say I am Time Warner cable... is it anti competitive for me to bundle TV, internet, and phone service? See the issue?
I have no problem with T-Mobile or Verizon bundling a service in there. You're effectively paying for it in your regular service fee.
Where I would have a problem is if they actively discouraged competitors.
See the difference? If they give me something or they have a service they want to offer that is fine. It is when they actively lock out competition that there is a problem.
So for example when Verizon was blocking Netflix until they paid them, I would have a problem with that. That is bullshit and Verizon is fucking stupid for doing that. Most of the other ISPs actually told them as much. Even comcast was sending them little letters saying effectively "you're going to fuck it up for all us if you don't stop."... But what are you going to do. Some companies are run by greedy idiots.
I don't mind greedy people or aggressive people. That's fine. You can be a pig... you just can't be a hog. And you're quite right that many of the ISPs crossed that line. However, these rules are going to cement their monopolies which are the root cause of the problem. Current regulation will only address recent ways they've thought of exploiting their monopolies. Give them time and they'll come up with new ways which will require an increasing amount of regulation.
Eventually you'll be looking at phonebooks worth of regulation to stop them from exploiting their monopolies...
All of which would be unnecessary if you just dealt with the monopolies directly.
That's not reasonable.
First off, they don't promise you that max download speed all the time. They're quite clear about that and it is one of the main reasons there is a big price bump between consumer broadband and business broadband. And even in business broadband they often do not promise the max bandwidth. They say quite clearly that there is going to be some fluctuation. And when that happens, they're going to maximize everyone's experience prioritizing data streams that are more sensitive. Lets say I'm gaming or doing some other low latency activity... it makes sense to prioritize my communication over someone downloading email. You slow down their email by 2 seconds and the person playing the game or doing VoIP doesn't get a lag spike.
Second, as to your statement about how all this can be fixed by upgrading one thing or another... no one disputes that. No one. However, RIGHT NOW, if there is congestion... you seriously want me to slow EVERYONE down and make people that will notice miserable even if I can slow down some people that won't even realize it and effectively make everyone happy? Seriously?
Note that I am not defending the ISP plans to sell fast lanes etc. That's bullshit. We already have dedicated guaranteed bandwidth options. If you want a fast lane, you buy that. You'll already pay a premium for that, always have, and probably always will. Very few applications actually need that. Some corporate VoIP systems like to have it for example... I struggle to see other situations where you actually need it. Possibly high frequency trading? I don't know... Most people don't need that and if you want it, then of course you should pay more for it. You're basically buying exemption from the QoS system or first place in it. And expecting to get that for free isn't going to happen.
Best case what you're going to do is disallow ISPs from having a QoS system which will require them to have more bandwidth on hand per customer. Which shrinks their profit margins.
Now given that your probably a fan of these FCC rules, you're ultimately protecting their monopolies. So from that perspective, fine... fuck their profits if they're going to have monopolies. Fucking cut their margins to the bone. But I don't think that's going to improve our experience on the internet.
What might help is if we got the competition going with more companies laying cable in the same area competing for the same customers. The argument that this is not profitable is a fiction. The cost of laying cable is trivial IF you exclude the costs that cities and counties charge ISPs to lay the cable. And that is effectively an artificial cost in most cases. A stealth tax. And so saying it is too expensive because of government we should have more laws... is dumb. Just fix the laws so we can run more cable and you'll get so much competition that any ISP that doesn't respect their customers won't have customers.
Exactly. The government creates these monopolies by making it illegal to run competing cable and then uses the resulting monopolies as justification to regulate the shit out of them... and through them we get regulated.
It is the typical pattern of government failing up. They fuck up and use that fuck up as justification to get more power and when that is fucked up they conclude that clearly they just don't have enough power.
By this logical, totalitarian states should be paradises. Since they're universally shitholes, one has to wonder where this is all going.
They should have just left it alone.
Is it right for Verizon to get greedy with its fast lane bullshit? No. But that isn't justification to regulate the shit out of everyone.
What link? He didn't send it to me.
I'd prefer if the cards came blank and the carrier just imprinted their own key on it at issue.
So you do nothing but call people liars and I have to do exhaustive research while you make zero effort?
In a proper debate this might be permissible because I could personally humiliate you. However, on the internet, your policy is a troll's dream. I've already made far more of an effort then you did. Expecting me to make more of an effort or get branded a liar is idiotic. You can't call me a liar simply because I'm not going to provide you with the specific information you want. It doesn't work that way.
You don't get to personally define all the hoops I have to jump through or morally damn me. You'd have to be the internet Pope to pull that one off.
Are you the internet Pope? The one with the power to arbitrarily excommunicate me? Or are you a fuckwit?
its one of the two.
Take your time, dipshit.
I never said that. that wouldn't be any better either. What I'd prefer would be a distributed system where every company has its own encryption requiring each one to be subverted individually.
You've completely missed the point.