Having the government controlling the cabling won't raise costs because it increases the number of competitors that can lease the lines and takes the infrastructure costs away from each of them and spreads the costs out. This is the whole idea of insurance. If too few people pay relative to the claimants then costs go up but if they get loads of people paying then costs go down. It makes sense that there are things everyone should have and so those get bundled in with a national insurance or some other taxation.
When has government involvement EVER lowered prices or increased quality? This is another Gruber of a lie!!
1. easier to do it when not transparent.... see Jonathan Gruber!!
Vacuous comment, Richard. Your original comment concerned the impending taxation based upon the designation as a "utility". I pointed out that such a designation was immaterial, a point you choose to ignore. Now you're on to transparency, and I suppose that next we'll have mirrors and the White Rabbit.
2. All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson
If this is indeed true, how is it that any government these days is anything other than "bad"? I pointed you to a specific example which might make the case to the contrary. I guess that you were tl;dr
3. I don't think they are, and they shouldn't be outside of competing for my money
In your area, how many companies are competing for your broadband dollars? Few in the U.S. have more than one provider and my experience is that in the few areas where there is more than one, there is no "competition". My area is served by both Verizon (FiOS) and Comcast but they run a duopoly - the prices are virtually identical. The notion of "competition" is great but it has to happen in more than name only. If you can quote some examples of real broadband competition then please help us out and tell us where we can get them.
Moving it to a Utility gives the government more (cough) transparent control. I'd rather see the government completely out of most everything. Let competition figure it out. Let the airwaves be open to wide area WiFi
Wow, what government would you call good? What government in the world is not overbearing on it's people? This is not even a conversation!!!
AT&T, COX, Verizon. So more like a tri-opoly. I'm sure most places have AT&T and Verizon with COX or Comcast as a third. The point is, the content and connectivity is so locked up, local/independent providers can't exist.
Government tends to mess things up more than fix them, or have you not been paying any attention these last 6 years?
Wow, what government would you call good? What government in the world is not overbearing on it's people? This is not even a conversation!!!
Government is good because law and order is good. Vital to civilisation and progress in fact. But yeah I agree they don't need to be involved in telecommunications.
When has government involvement EVER lowered prices or increased quality?
Is that what the telecoms are doing? Because for every theoretical bump in "quality" most of us don't notice, how many cost increases have there been? Even if you call to complain, overall over time costs go up for little actual quality increases. While they make record profits. The free market lets them be a monopoly here, 1 provider or no internet. That doesn't make me feel very free.
I could provide numerous examples of how the free market is charging us more for less, but you're so worried about a non-existent gov takeover that you're more than happy for us to give our "freedom" to private companies that are known to be terrible.
Moving it to a Utility gives the government more (cough) transparent control.
Interesting claim. I don't buy it. As far as I can see it makes no difference. If you have info to support the "more transparent" idea then you should share it.
I'd rather see the government completely out of most everything.
I am reminded of the protest signs on the Mall a couple of years ago ...
"Get your Government hands off my Medicare"
Let competition figure it out.
Competition is good as long as it's real competition. But telcos in many states (about twenty, I think) have encouraged (cough) State lawmakers to prevent municipalities and related entities from providing broadband, even if they already provide similar services such as electricity (i.e. they already own poles, wire and rights-of-way). There is a delicious irony in this which is lost on those legislators: as they strongly argue for States' rights against the tyranny of the Federal Government, they practice the exact same tyranny against their smaller political subdivisions. If the citizens decide through a referendum that they wish to establish their own broadband service, because the "majors" aren't doing a decent job, then why should the State Government, at the behest of the telcos, prevent this? To "foster competition" ? Really ?
Let the airwaves be open to wide area WiFi
Agreed. This is a winner. There's enough dark fiber out there that some creative folks could set up a broad-area WiFi (I guess using white-space spectrum, but maybe others ?) without the massive expenditure entailed in physical connection to every house.
Wow, what government would you call good?
Your own claim was "All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson".
Since you claimed that all were bad, a single counterexample will suffice. And since you asked, let me refer you again to the example I quoted before.
This is a really crisp description of how the French government has done well at regulating telecom services (which they screwed up very badly years ago, as I well remember). And not that I do not argue that everything in France - government or otherwise - is wonderful. Only that here the French have done, through government regulation, very much better by their citizens than the U.S. governments (Federal, State and otherwise) have done for us. In case some readers are losing us at this point and don't follow the link, this choice tidbit explains it well ...
"Trust me when I say that you don’t know how truly awful things are in the U.S. when it comes to broadband and wireless until you leave."
AT&T, COX, Verizon. So more like a tri-opoly. I'm sure most places have AT&T and Verizon with COX or Comcast as a third.
It would be helpful if you looked at the numbers. At 25 down/3 up only 2.4% of places have three providers. Far short of "most". Crank it back to 10/768K and the number goes to ... 10%. And for all broadband, the availability is just under 15% (14.6 as of last December). (Source: NTIA data Dec 2013)
So it's mostly a monopoly, and partly a duopoly. And, as I said, there does not seem to be any competition.
The point is, the content and connectivity is so locked up, local/independent providers can't exist.
I have argued at length that "content" and "access" need to be separated. In a way similar to that for electric power and gas in many states - you can run either supply or infrastructure, but not both. For example, an electric utility maintains poles and wires and bills for power, and various power companies and intermediaries generate power and sell/resell to consumers.
In the "internet" environment, it means that you can either
1. be an ISP and provide access to Internet services, or
2. be a content provider and sell movies, run studios, own TV stations, etc
But you cannot do both.
To your point, once you split content from connectivity ("access") then local/independent providers can exist and will flourish. This is not possible if your ISP is also a content provider, let alone a content creator (as is Comcast).
To take the really simple case, if you want "NFL Sunday Ticket" (content) then you have to buy DirecTV (connectivity). You can't get that content with any other connectivity option.
Government tends to mess things up more than fix them, or have you not been paying any attention these last 6 years?
I am intrigued by your time horizon of six years. If we look back at the telecommunications landscape to, say, 1997 then what are the instances of "mess things up" that characterize the last six years ? It would be really helpful if you can describe the bad things you've seen in the past six years and contrast those with the good things you saw since, say, 2001.
Sounds like just what we need. If I'm paying $145 a month for 60 Gigabits Per Sec, I'm paying to get my content faster when I want it. To throttle my service down to 5 because they made a deal with another company is total crap! This simple solution is that anytime a paying customer's service is potentially effected by one of these contracts their bill is automatically credited by the percentage of decreased available service.
If you are unhappy with the service you can always cancel or threaten to cancel, but once the government sinks their claws into the relatively open Internet we know today, it is an absolute certainty they won't stop there. Bad idea. Very bad.
If you are unhappy with the service you can always cancel or threaten to cancel, but once the government sinks their claws into the relatively open Internet we know today, it is an absolute certainty they won't stop there. Bad idea. Very bad.
If Internet is more important than where you chose to live, then you should move. THAT'S reality.
That's what to do, live where the corporations want you to live because they provide such terrible service. That's what you call freedom and the success of the free market.
I notice more vague fear-mongering about what the government is going to do to the relatively open internet. What are they going to do specifically?
If Internet is more important than where you chose to live, then you should move. THAT'S reality.
Not in most places. The US seems to be pretty unique with this lack of choice. Funny how a lack of government regulation would lead to a market failure and reduction in consumer choice and service.
That's what to do, live where the corporations want you to live because they provide such terrible service. That's what you call freedom and the success of the free market.
I notice more vague fear-mongering about what the government is going to do to the relatively open internet. What are they going to do specifically?
None of it's really a free market and we've gone around in circles on this endlessly. How can you curse the free market if you don't have one?
None of it's really a free market and we've gone around in circles on this endlessly. How can you curse the free market if you don't have one?
That's true, but that isn't going to change. You aren't likely to have several companies supply comparable infrastructure due to the upfront costs, and issues of where it runs on both public and private land.
Not in most places. The US seems to be pretty unique with this lack of choice. Funny how a lack of government regulation would lead to a market failure and reduction in consumer choice and service.
If we look back a century ago, it was precisely the abuses in the free market that led to the Anti-Trust laws and Government regulation.
"Let the market sort it out" many have said in this thread. I agree that's desirable but there are times when the market system fails. And then the only remedy is government interference and regulation. We have to cautious about when to apply it but it is essential that the tool be there.
Just think what we'd all be doing now if the Bush administration had not stepped in in 2008 when major financial firms were headed towards failure. How many of us would have a job? What money would any of us have in the bank ? And how many banks would there be? More than one - who knows. That was the path the government took in 1929 and it's chilling to read the history of that time. I am glad we did not do a rerun.
Not in most places. The US seems to be pretty unique with this lack of choice. Funny how a lack of government regulation would lead to a market failure and reduction in consumer choice and service.
Because now they'll only wire up areas that will be profitable. Not many companies are willing to wait decades to see a return on their investment.
None of it's really a free market and we've gone around in circles on this endlessly. How can you curse the free market if you don't have one?
It'll always go round in circles because you defined the ideal free market to be free of regulations and yet you would accept that regulations have to exist. I could similarly say that communism is an ideal system with no greedy people. Once you have a requirement for an ideal system that can't be obtained, why bemoan the lack of such a system? We just have to pick a practical setup based on the outcomes we can observe. Regardless of the theories behind the current situation and what wouldn't work, the observable reality is the system implemented in the US that isn't controlled and regulated by the government sucks and the ones in socialist Europe don't suck. It's in your own self-interest to pick the one that doesn't suck.
Another route that is possible outside of cabling is to use those pCell transmitters. This would sort the mobile phone problems out to an extent too and would be much easier for the government to implement or it can be done privately. They need to outlaw data caps though. There are still security issues with wireless but pCells are designed to be low latency. Just put them in street lights or something.
Internet can actually be delivered over power lines too so that could be a route for more remote areas. The aim for a consumer would be unlimited wifi of minimum 4Mbps everywhere and private companies have no reason to provide that.
I wonder. Would you say the situation here is similar to that of immigration? In that:
[category] has a problem.
Laws exist on the books that, when followed, will cleanly alleviate said problem.
Laws are not followed.
People clamor that stronger laws are required to police [category], lobby for said laws.
You haven't followed that at all or you didn't pay attention to the amount of money that ends up being dumped into things such as deportation, which is an overall stupid strategy when you consider that costs could be lowered by sanctioning any business of individual that acts as an enabler. If legislators decided to attach a $20k fine to any employer who doesn't use e-verify, how many do you think would continue to hire undocumented workers? Consider that a very generic example. The point was that people typically act in favor of their own interests. If it's not in their best interests to act as enablers, they will no longer do so. At that point just offer transportation back to their respective country of origin. It would probably be much cheaper, considering that current deportation hearings attempt to account for other factors as well, such as mitigation of human trafficking and in some cases political asylum.
Edit: Edit: I guess the TLDR version would be not to look at the strictness of the laws but also their overall effectiveness. The cost to forcibly deport all illegal immigrants would be enormous compared to just denying any and all benefits combined with safe return transportation.
Comments
Having the government controlling the cabling won't raise costs because it increases the number of competitors that can lease the lines and takes the infrastructure costs away from each of them and spreads the costs out. This is the whole idea of insurance. If too few people pay relative to the claimants then costs go up but if they get loads of people paying then costs go down. It makes sense that there are things everyone should have and so those get bundled in with a national insurance or some other taxation.
When has government involvement EVER lowered prices or increased quality? This is another Gruber of a lie!!
1. easier to do it when not transparent.... see Jonathan Gruber!!
Vacuous comment, Richard. Your original comment concerned the impending taxation based upon the designation as a "utility". I pointed out that such a designation was immaterial, a point you choose to ignore. Now you're on to transparency, and I suppose that next we'll have mirrors and the White Rabbit.
2. All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson
If this is indeed true, how is it that any government these days is anything other than "bad"? I pointed you to a specific example which might make the case to the contrary. I guess that you were tl;dr
3. I don't think they are, and they shouldn't be outside of competing for my money
In your area, how many companies are competing for your broadband dollars? Few in the U.S. have more than one provider and my experience is that in the few areas where there is more than one, there is no "competition". My area is served by both Verizon (FiOS) and Comcast but they run a duopoly - the prices are virtually identical. The notion of "competition" is great but it has to happen in more than name only. If you can quote some examples of real broadband competition then please help us out and tell us where we can get them.
Government tends to mess things up more than fix them, or have you not been paying any attention these last 6 years?
Government is good because law and order is good. Vital to civilisation and progress in fact. But yeah I agree they don't need to be involved in telecommunications.
A multitude of times.
ACA lowered prices and improved quality of healthcare for me.
Is that what the telecoms are doing? Because for every theoretical bump in "quality" most of us don't notice, how many cost increases have there been? Even if you call to complain, overall over time costs go up for little actual quality increases. While they make record profits. The free market lets them be a monopoly here, 1 provider or no internet. That doesn't make me feel very free.
I could provide numerous examples of how the free market is charging us more for less, but you're so worried about a non-existent gov takeover that you're more than happy for us to give our "freedom" to private companies that are known to be terrible.
Moving it to a Utility gives the government more (cough) transparent control.
Interesting claim. I don't buy it. As far as I can see it makes no difference. If you have info to support the "more transparent" idea then you should share it.
I'd rather see the government completely out of most everything.
I am reminded of the protest signs on the Mall a couple of years ago ...
"Get your Government hands off my Medicare"
Let competition figure it out.
Competition is good as long as it's real competition. But telcos in many states (about twenty, I think) have encouraged (cough) State lawmakers to prevent municipalities and related entities from providing broadband, even if they already provide similar services such as electricity (i.e. they already own poles, wire and rights-of-way). There is a delicious irony in this which is lost on those legislators: as they strongly argue for States' rights against the tyranny of the Federal Government, they practice the exact same tyranny against their smaller political subdivisions. If the citizens decide through a referendum that they wish to establish their own broadband service, because the "majors" aren't doing a decent job, then why should the State Government, at the behest of the telcos, prevent this? To "foster competition" ? Really ?
Let the airwaves be open to wide area WiFi
Agreed. This is a winner. There's enough dark fiber out there that some creative folks could set up a broad-area WiFi (I guess using white-space spectrum, but maybe others ?) without the massive expenditure entailed in physical connection to every house.
Wow, what government would you call good?
Your own claim was "All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson".
Since you claimed that all were bad, a single counterexample will suffice. And since you asked, let me refer you again to the example I quoted before.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/12/what-france-has-taught-me-americans-are-suckers-who-have-themselves-to-blame-for-crappy-broadband/
This is a really crisp description of how the French government has done well at regulating telecom services (which they screwed up very badly years ago, as I well remember). And not that I do not argue that everything in France - government or otherwise - is wonderful. Only that here the French have done, through government regulation, very much better by their citizens than the U.S. governments (Federal, State and otherwise) have done for us. In case some readers are losing us at this point and don't follow the link, this choice tidbit explains it well ...
"Trust me when I say that you don’t know how truly awful things are in the U.S. when it comes to broadband and wireless until you leave."
AT&T, COX, Verizon. So more like a tri-opoly. I'm sure most places have AT&T and Verizon with COX or Comcast as a third.
The point is, the content and connectivity is so locked up, local/independent providers can't exist.
Government tends to mess things up more than fix them, or have you not been paying any attention these last 6 years?
I am intrigued by your time horizon of six years. If we look back at the telecommunications landscape to, say, 1997 then what are the instances of "mess things up" that characterize the last six years ? It would be really helpful if you can describe the bad things you've seen in the past six years and contrast those with the good things you saw since, say, 2001.
If you are unhappy with the service you can always cancel or threaten to cancel, but once the government sinks their claws into the relatively open Internet we know today, it is an absolute certainty they won't stop there. Bad idea. Very bad.
If you are unhappy with the service you can always cancel or threaten to cancel.
And if you have only one broadband provider, what threat is this ?
They laugh at you, and continue to provide crappy service, and you still have to pay.
Because the alternative is no service.
Welcome to reality, Telco-style.
Thank you!
If Internet is more important than where you chose to live, then you should move. THAT'S reality.
That's what to do, live where the corporations want you to live because they provide such terrible service. That's what you call freedom and the success of the free market.
I notice more vague fear-mongering about what the government is going to do to the relatively open internet. What are they going to do specifically?
None of it's really a free market and we've gone around in circles on this endlessly. How can you curse the free market if you don't have one?
I wonder. Would you say the situation here is similar to that of immigration? In that:
[category] has a problem.
Laws exist on the books that, when followed, will cleanly alleviate said problem.
Laws are not followed.
People clamor that stronger laws are required to police [category], lobby for said laws.
None of it's really a free market and we've gone around in circles on this endlessly. How can you curse the free market if you don't have one?
That's true, but that isn't going to change. You aren't likely to have several companies supply comparable infrastructure due to the upfront costs, and issues of where it runs on both public and private land.
Not in most places. The US seems to be pretty unique with this lack of choice. Funny how a lack of government regulation would lead to a market failure and reduction in consumer choice and service.
If we look back a century ago, it was precisely the abuses in the free market that led to the Anti-Trust laws and Government regulation.
"Let the market sort it out" many have said in this thread. I agree that's desirable but there are times when the market system fails. And then the only remedy is government interference and regulation. We have to cautious about when to apply it but it is essential that the tool be there.
Just think what we'd all be doing now if the Bush administration had not stepped in in 2008 when major financial firms were headed towards failure. How many of us would have a job? What money would any of us have in the bank ? And how many banks would there be? More than one - who knows. That was the path the government took in 1929 and it's chilling to read the history of that time. I am glad we did not do a rerun.
Because now they'll only wire up areas that will be profitable. Not many companies are willing to wait decades to see a return on their investment.
It'll always go round in circles because you defined the ideal free market to be free of regulations and yet you would accept that regulations have to exist. I could similarly say that communism is an ideal system with no greedy people. Once you have a requirement for an ideal system that can't be obtained, why bemoan the lack of such a system? We just have to pick a practical setup based on the outcomes we can observe. Regardless of the theories behind the current situation and what wouldn't work, the observable reality is the system implemented in the US that isn't controlled and regulated by the government sucks and the ones in socialist Europe don't suck. It's in your own self-interest to pick the one that doesn't suck.
Another route that is possible outside of cabling is to use those pCell transmitters. This would sort the mobile phone problems out to an extent too and would be much easier for the government to implement or it can be done privately. They need to outlaw data caps though. There are still security issues with wireless but pCells are designed to be low latency. Just put them in street lights or something.
Internet can actually be delivered over power lines too so that could be a route for more remote areas. The aim for a consumer would be unlimited wifi of minimum 4Mbps everywhere and private companies have no reason to provide that.
I wonder. Would you say the situation here is similar to that of immigration? In that:
[category] has a problem.
Laws exist on the books that, when followed, will cleanly alleviate said problem.
Laws are not followed.
People clamor that stronger laws are required to police [category], lobby for said laws.
You haven't followed that at all or you didn't pay attention to the amount of money that ends up being dumped into things such as deportation, which is an overall stupid strategy when you consider that costs could be lowered by sanctioning any business of individual that acts as an enabler. If legislators decided to attach a $20k fine to any employer who doesn't use e-verify, how many do you think would continue to hire undocumented workers? Consider that a very generic example. The point was that people typically act in favor of their own interests. If it's not in their best interests to act as enablers, they will no longer do so. At that point just offer transportation back to their respective country of origin. It would probably be much cheaper, considering that current deportation hearings attempt to account for other factors as well, such as mitigation of human trafficking and in some cases political asylum.
Edit: Edit: I guess the TLDR version would be not to look at the strictness of the laws but also their overall effectiveness. The cost to forcibly deport all illegal immigrants would be enormous compared to just denying any and all benefits combined with safe return transportation.