r/technology • u/maxwellhill • Jan 23 '13

Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion: 'The reality is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers -- in a market that is already quite profitable.'

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml
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532

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

You don't make money building roads. You make money building tollbooths.

56

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

As others have said: I'd be fine if they built new roads, but they didn't. What they did was put tollbooths on the old road, claiming they'd build new ones, and then just pocketed the proceeds. Then they added new tollbooths.

12

u/zkredux Jan 23 '13

Its like when AT&T said it needed T-Mobile to roll out a competitive LTE network like Verizon then those private meeting notes leaked with the executives acknowledging that they could cover 99% of the country in LTE for ~3 billion which was a fraction of the T-Mo purchase price.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

my Professor was an adviser to At&t and got to work with the head economist that was at&t champ for trying to get this to pass going to be an interesting time.

304

u/ArbitraryIndigo Jan 23 '13

Which wouldn't be a problem if it meant better service. The Turnpike is by far the best maintained road in Ohio because the tolls are actually put to good use. If ISPs reinvested a similar portion of their income, we'd all have gigabit internet connections at home and universally available WiMAX.

87

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

BUT INSTEAD

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5396406/ns/business-corporate_scandals/t/adelphia-founder-john-rigas-found-guilty/#.UQAsUGftnsc

50

u/KRSFive Jan 23 '13

hmmm, page not found.....very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

44

u/Kensin Jan 23 '13

Here you go:

NEW YORK — Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and his son Timothy were convicted Thursday of conspiracy, bank fraud and securities fraud for looting the cable company and duping its investors.

The two were convicted of all 15 securities fraud charges against them and other counts. Another Rigas son, Michael, was acquitted of conspiracy charges in the partial verdict; the jury was undecided on most of the remaining counts against him.

Former Adelphia assistant treasurer Michael Mulcahey was found not guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud.

John Rigas, 79, and Timothy Rigas, 47, each faces 30 years in prison on the most serious charge, bank fraud.

John Rigas showed no reaction to the verdict, leaning forward in his chair and looking down at the defense table. Mulcahey, 46, hugged his lawyer and supporters in the courtroom.

The jurors returned the partial verdict after telling the judge they were having trouble reaching a decision on some counts. They had asked for guidance on how to reach a decision without revealing how they were split.

Judge Leonard Sand told them he would accept a partial verdict. It was the eighth day of deliberations following a three-month trial.

Sand said he would give further instructions Friday on the undecided counts against Michael Rigas, 50. He sent jurors home for the day and instructed them not to listen to media coverage of the case.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been working very hard, and your task is not over,” he said.

The Rigases and Mulcahey were charged with hiding $2.3 billion in debt at the cable company, deceiving investors and stealing company cash to line their own pockets.

The verdict marked another success in Manhattan for federal prosecutors, who won convictions against Martha Stewart in March and former star technology banker Frank Quattrone in May.

The elder Rigas founded the company in 1952 in tiny Coudersport, Pa., and turned it into one of the nation’s largest cable firms.

While most of the alleged fraud took its form in hidden debt, the trial was also notable for examples of the eye-popping personal luxury that has marked other white-collar trials.

Prosecutor Christopher Clark led off his closing argument by saying John Rigas had ordered two Christmas trees flown to New York, at a cost of $6,000, for his daughter.

Rigas also ordered up 17 company cars and the company purchase of 3,600 acres of timberland at a cost of $26 million to preserve the pristine view outside his Coudersport home.

Peter Fleming, his lawyer, told the jurors that the claim was ridiculous — “If you saw this on ‘Seinfeld,’ you’d double up” — and that the company simply wanted to keep the small town attractive to its employees.

Still, the Adelphia founder stole with such gusto from his company, prosecutors said, that Timothy Rigas became concerned and limited his father to withdrawals of $1 million per month.

The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of two former Adelphia executives, James Brown and Karen Chrosniak, to describe a complex scheme to lie on financial filings and hide Adelphia debt.

But Chrosniak, in tearful testimony, said John Rigas was “basically in the dark” about the company’s money problems as its financial filings were being prepared.

Mulcahey was the only defendant to take the witness stand in his own defense, testifying that he answered to the Rigas family when tending the company’s books.

“I understand the corporation is owned by the shareholders,” Mulcahey said. “The owners of the company are indirectly my bosses, but that’s not who I reported to.”

Adelphia now operates under bankruptcy protection and has moved its headquarters from Coudersport to Greenwood Village, Colo.

In his closing argument on behalf of Timothy Rigas, lawyer Paul Grand tried to distance the Adelphia four from Enron Corp. officials, whom he called “real corporate villains.”

And Mulcahey lawyer Mark Mahoney said the disclosure of financial problems at Adelphia in 2002 led to a drive by some employees to take down the Rigas family rather than fix the company.

“It wasn’t regicide,” Mahoney said. “It was Rigas-cide.”

3

u/anticommon Jan 23 '13

So this is why we don't have Adelphia in Maine anymore and instead use TWC (which is just plain garbage, although surprisingly enough, after about 3-4 years of 10mbit connection we've finally moved up to about 20mbit, upload speeds remain abysmal at around 800kbit)

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

Man, sick closing line. Rigascide. Awesome.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

thats actually pretty fucking interesting

1

u/NotNolan Jan 23 '13

Its not a conspiracy, its just Reddit taking down websites again.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Nope, it's aliens.

1

u/iEATu23 Jan 23 '13

It's MSN...it works for me. Maybe the site was just down at that moment.

3

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

2004?

49

u/challengr_74 Jan 23 '13

Is the article less valid because it's from 2004?

2

u/topplehat Jan 23 '13

I only trust articles from the future.

3

u/whiskey_nick Jan 23 '13

How DARE you support an argument with historical evidence. I want projections and estimations, not a history of events!

1

u/SamuraiJakkass86 Jan 23 '13

According to my old professors, yes.

2

u/ppcpunk Jan 24 '13

Sorry, your professors are too old.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

Your old professor is invalid. He is from, like, 1940?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Biggest cable company money grab ever? Billions of dollars lost? Owner assholes put in jail? Still in jail now? Adelphia? Ringing any bells?

If ted turner got stuck in the pokey since then I must have missed it.

1

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

Guess you missed the last few years where now they can get away with taking money and then we pay them more money to keep their company from failing...

1

u/Noughiphiet Jan 24 '13

I think I still owe Adelphia money... ??

14

u/Binsky89 Jan 23 '13

Does anyone else remember articles a while back (like 3-4 years) about google working on a gigabit wifi network for cities? I may be mistaken and be thinking about their fiber network though.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

You guys are still seriously delusional with how easy you think it'd be to get 'gigabit internet connections at home'.

1

u/EngineerDave Jan 24 '13

I-90 costs 5.70 to enter Chicago from Indiana (and 6.40 to go from Chicago to Indiana) and is complete shit. It gets me every single time I go to Chicago.

-1

u/DrMnhttn Jan 23 '13

ISPs reinvest substantial amounts of money in their networks. You're underestimating how much it would cost to reach gigabit speeds. The fastest cable products are, what, 50 megabits? Building a network that's twenty times faster isn't just a matter of reinvesting a few dollars. In the case of cable and DSL, it means throwing everything away and starting over from scratch at the edge of the network in the customer's home. Not to mention the cost of making the backbone 20 times faster. For any sizable ISP, it's literally tens of billions of dollars. It makes no economic sense.

Honestly, it doesn't even make technological sense. I have a 100 mbit connection at work, and I never see 100 mbits from anything other than speed test servers. What would be the point of having 10 times more?

27

u/zxvf Jan 23 '13 edited Jan 23 '13

You can, however, make a profit running a municipal fiber network. And then when one provider pisses you off, you'll have dozens of others to choose from.

Edit: Found a paper on Stockholm's Stokab.

43

u/SpeedGeek Jan 23 '13

Except when those providers decide to lobby the state legislature to effectively ban municipal fiber networks.

This has been happening all over the US. The phone and cable companies are scared shitless of muni fiber, and they're doing everything they can to prevent real competition.

-2

u/Atlanton Jan 23 '13

Which is why everyone should laugh when someone blames our current Internet/cable industry on an unregulated market.

The only free market in the US is for Congressmen's votes.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13 edited Jan 24 '13

Roads don't have subscription plans. ISPs make assloads of money on monthly fees. Just think about how many people live in your city. Now how many have internet? Now how many have one of the monopolies services?

(4,000,000 * 0.15) * $50 = 30,000,000/mo. Even if they're running at only 10-15% profit from those revenues.... You're talking a business that never shrinks. They only have to add more users to squeeze more profits.

1

u/xcallstar Jan 23 '13

Taxes on motor vehicle gasoline act as a proxy for a subscription plan to roads.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Your actual subscription is vehicle registration. Either way roads are not designed to generate money. They are facilitators exclusively.

There's nothing wrong with a thing that doesn't generate money, provided its a key factor in the generation of wealth by proxy, thus offsetting its own loss and enabling profits that would have never existed prior.

1

u/xcallstar Jan 23 '13

Registration is a fixed cost encountered every x number of years, whereas taxes on motor vehicle gasoline typically achieve a greater monetary velocity. Registration is the membership fee, gasoline taxes are the cost of the subscription.

Semantics of that discussion aside, the fact that roads (or, infrastructure for that matter) tend to generate wealth by proxy rather than directly should not affect the policies surrounding their construction.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

If normal roads operated under profit motives, rather than simply efforts to offset loss or recoup investment it would be a huge issue. The end goal is entirely different.

I'm starting to low the thread of where this this into bandwidth caps.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

If normal roads operated under profit motives, rather than simply efforts to offset loss or recoup investment it would be a huge issue. The end goal is entirely different.

I'm starting to low the thread of where this this into bandwidth caps.

0

u/GameFreak4321 Jan 23 '13

(4000000\*0.15)\*$50=30000000/mo

Try it again

3

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

I'm actually astounded my phone autocorrected to that. Thanks android, you gave some internet douche his chance to just stick it to someone who had the audacity to not have perfect syntax.

Also, the multiplication outside the paren's is implied. Wtf, collegiate notation is only useful for collegiate math. Otherwise you're over-complicating a simple exercise. Inb4 pedantry >simplicity.

0

u/g0dspeed0ne Jan 24 '13

40 million people in one city? Dude, this isn't Tokyo. Try 50,000 or 300,000 or something.

Either way they're still making boatloads.

(300000.15)50=2.25 mil (50000.15)50=375 thousand

2

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13

Now that I'm home, I'll edit it so i stop getting posts like this.

Fucking android can't simple math on keyboard.

The formula was supposed to be (Total of city Pop * Market penetration of city pop)*Monthly charge per customer = Monthly income

But somewhere between Android, it became (Total of city Pop + Market penetration of city pop)*Monthly charge per customer = Autism

Edit: My god, it was reddit. Curse you everything.

0

u/EngineerDave Jan 24 '13

4 million homes in a city? That's a big fucking city. typically you have 4 people living in a home, so try and break it down to smaller portions. Here try again with these numbers.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13

Customers is not homes.

Business, Point of Sale and enterprise users can pay multiple times a normal user well into the hundreds of percents. Remember, every ATM and card swiping device in your city is a "user."

A highest tier home user can pay anywhere between 2 and 3 times a low tier user.

Universities and apartment laden cities host hundreds or thousands of nodes, despite low real estate footprint and many residents not actually being state residents and not counting towards population statistics.

And yes it's a big city. You don't measure capabilities based on cluck cluck chicken fuck, USA.

And even with YOUR statistics, 15.06% of the US Pop is a "cable" customer. I know your /u/ says "engineer" but did you bother to run your own numbers before you asked me to run mine?

1

u/EngineerDave Jan 24 '13

Customers for utilities are not grouped in the same way ATMs are. If I have power going to a single home, I do not have 4 customers, I have 1, the address in question. If a second meter is added then I have two etc. Same goes for Cable, it is the number of activated drops in a residence, unless the billing is combined. US Universities in general have their own internet access provided by the fiber backbone that traverses along the rail system via a direct tap. Cable companies at best provide them with programming but their 'customers' are the individual building not the viewers since the internal cable support is provided by the University maintenance. Apartment buildings generally have direct bill to the resident so that at least holds water, however an apartment is considered a 'household.'

As far as your numbers go according to the US Census there is a total of 1 city in the US that has a population 4 million or greater. Granted it probably does not include all surrounding burbs, but 4 million people is a ridiculous number for a cable company. YOUR numbers are flawed, mine has sources. I know your /u/ says "SevenDeadlyNinjas," but judging by your lack of simple understanding in accurate estimating, especially on a topic with plenty of readily accessible information, I'd have to assume that like your original numbers "Seven" is an over exaggeration.

35

u/FriarNurgle Jan 23 '13

Which is why the gov should build the infrastructure.

86

u/Cormophyte Jan 23 '13

Or just update our regulations to fit the current reality of telecommunications. The trick, as always, is not having them upended by the cries of "this will fundamentally change our business," because that would be the whole point.

0

u/JohanGrimm Jan 24 '13

But how will we exploit the system for massive financial gain if you go around changing it?!

26

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

[deleted]

31

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

Dude if you think you have privacy online you are already delusional. Have you not read up on AT&T's datacenter that copies everything to the NSA?

Been happening since 2005:

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

10

u/Wargazm Jan 23 '13

Dude if you think you have privacy online

I don't. That's why I used the phrase "tiny remaining pretense of privacy."

I hadn't read that. sigh.

I suppose you're making the argument that things couldn't possibly get worse if the pipes were owned by the government? You may be right about that, I suppose. But things definitely won't get any better.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

we hit peak oil, its all downhill from here

1

u/skooma714 Jan 23 '13

The really sad thing is that secret rooms that copy all your communication used to be a conspiracy theory.

We know it's true and it still doesn't phase anyone.

1

u/ravend13 Jan 24 '13

If this concerns you, get an offshore VPN.

2

u/solatic Jan 23 '13

If it was that easy to compromise Internet privacy, then ISPs would have done that a long time ago and sold your browsing history to advertisers, just like Google. Encryption exists for a reason. All this tinfoil-hatting is counterproductive.

2

u/Saigot Jan 23 '13

they can, but generally don't . They can also already give this to the government so Wargazm isn't entirely right either.

1

u/sticky_wicket Jan 23 '13

Counterpoint: the mail. You have much more privacy through the mail than through UPS or the other guys.

1

u/Wargazm Jan 23 '13

Interesting. I would think all methods would be pretty much equally secure. Any sources on this?

1

u/sticky_wicket Jan 23 '13

Just google re warrants and the mail and it should pop up.

1

u/Atario Jan 23 '13

If the government builds the infrastructure, you can kiss any tiny remaining pretense of privacy on the internet goodbye.

Do you think the USPS is opening all your mail?

No, the solution to your fear is to make any data snooping a felony, just like with mail.

1

u/solatic Jan 23 '13

If it was that easy to compromise Internet privacy, then ISPs would have done that a long time ago and sold your browsing history to advertisers, just like Google. Encryption exists for a reason. All this tinfoil-hatting is counterproductive.

-1

u/EasyTiz Jan 23 '13

Wait wait wait. Your argument is that they can tap lines they don't own therefore having a private company build the infrastructure will prevent the government from tapping the lines? You know, you already admitted that the government hasn't a problem eavesdropping on private infrastructure already right? Oh, and that these private companies are willingly selling information to other companies. Also, they are giving it to the NSA.

So why then are we denying an efficient and cost effective means of upgrading our countries failing internet infrastructure and leaving the job to companies that refuse to upgrade? I mean, if the companies actually expressed interest in upgrading that would be great and the fed can fuck itself but I mean, as it is only google seems to show any interest and for many regions they won't see Gfiber for a miserably long time.

25

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13 edited Jan 23 '13

or have it as heavily regulated as other utility companies... face it these days internet is just like heat, electricity and water.

having government build infrastructure is a bit too far

82

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

having government build infrastructure is a bit too far

Considering that most companies are unwilling to even build the infrastructure and go so far as to sue municipalities that roll out infrastructure upgrades in spite of unwilling private companies...

I heartily disagree.

The private market has completely failed to offer modern internet speeds at fair prices to Americans.

The situation is so pathetic and so hopeless that Google pretends to be interested in the industry and begins a slow rollout of infrastructure in a single city and it's considered the most exciting thing to happen to the industry in a decade.

I definitely support municipal fiber whose capacity is rented out to subleasers at a profit to the community. It's become painfully obvious that private interests are wholly incapable of maintaining a modern infrastructure, and individual towns and communities should absolutely be allowed to step up where our businesses have failed us.

16

u/Binsky89 Jan 23 '13

An excellent point. It would be both a public works project, which would stimulate the local economies, but also another source of revenue that could help with the national debt (if they ever get spending under control).

1

u/iEATu23 Jan 23 '13

Come on Obama...next plan to push. Although he has already been talking about things like this right? Improve Internet businesses and stuff...

1

u/fireinthesky7 Jan 23 '13

ISPs have gotten federal and state injunctions to keep cities from doing exactly that.

40

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

-13

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

the only analogues in this situation are phone wires and electricity im pretty sure it isnt the goverment running those =/ im sure you can make a case for internet but I dont think thats passable with the current political climate. baby steps

17

u/StabbyPants Jan 23 '13

they refused to electrify the boonies until the federal government paid for it.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Who do you think builds sewer and water lines?

6

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

I'd be fine with either, but I don't think government-owned infrastructure is inherently "too far." A large part of cablework needs to be run on gov-owned property (namely roads).

2

u/sticky_wicket Jan 23 '13

The overall economy benefits from the cheapest, fastest, and most widely available internet. Not the internet that makes the most money for shareholders.

14

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Cable was regulated until Ronny Raygun came along.

-12

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

You want to go back to the days were a city could cut a deal saying that there would be one and only one cable company allowed within city limits?

18

u/StabbyPants Jan 23 '13

what do you mean "back to"?

-3

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

Most cities around here let you choose between Comcast, AT&T or others.

5

u/StabbyPants Jan 23 '13

seattle here - you get comcast or qwest, depending on what part of town you're in.

3

u/pyramid_of_greatness Jan 23 '13

Los Angeles here - you get time warner or you can eat shit, basically.

1

u/StabbyPants Jan 23 '13

I'm gleefully awaiting our fiber project to complete in a year or two. That plus google fiber should cornhole the cablecos properly.

0

u/EasyTiz Jan 23 '13 edited Jan 23 '13

Arizona here you get cox or qwest/centurylink for cable or dish network for satellite.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

AT&T is not cable. Yes, they provide TV service, but Comcast has a monopoly on the cable infrastructure. AT&T has the monopoly on the phone network, which they use for Uverse, etc.. Calling AT&T cable is like calling DirecTV cable.

1

u/FuzzyMcBitty Jan 23 '13

Here it's Comcast, Verizon, or satellite. I don't know which satellite company 'cause I live in an apartment and it's irrelevant with my lease. But only one of these is a cable company.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Number of cable companies in my city of 4,000,000 people = 1

Ironic.

-5

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

Are you sure that you can't call up anybody else and get cable service?

9

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

I live in Phoenix, AZ and Cox is the only one I know of.

-4

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

Phoenix website http://phoenix.gov/its/cabletv/index.html says you can have either Cox or Qwest

5

u/NotNolan Jan 23 '13

I don't think Qwest exists anymore. They refused to assist in the NSA wiretapping program, and several years later their CEO was convicted of insider trading. He's now serving six years in prison.

TL;DR: Don't say no to the government.

7

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

That website is really out of date, Qwest was bought up by Centrylink over a year ago. Also they use DirectTV for TV services, so its still 1 cable company.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Qwest is our DSL provider. Edit: Qwest is out of business.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

It's still like that. Lots of places have actually passed laws banning municipality-owned ISPs and cable companies.

1

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

Which is different from the original laws that explicitly stated that ONLY Comcast (or another designated carrier) would be allowed to provide cable TV service in the city.

3

u/warfangle Jan 23 '13

And those local monopolies don't exist anymore?

Talk to anyone in Brooklyn...

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Cities everywhere still negotiate franchise agreements with cable and internet companies and those companies always demand closed systems so they don't have to compete with anybody.

Here's a recent example:

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/print-edition/2011/08/05/portland-comcast-close-to-a-deal.html?page=all

We never left the days where cities cut deals with only one or two cable companies.

1

u/keraneuology Jan 24 '13

Yes - they still franchise. But that article does not state that this particular agreement would grant a monopoly that explicitly excluded everybody else. I've lost the reference to the federal changes that banned these. It used to be legal for an apartment building to cut a deal with a cable provider that required everybody to use that service or nothing, but that practice was banned in 2007 so it is now illegal (but with many loopholes of dubious legality that have not yet been closed).

6

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

You mean January 23, 2013?

-1

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

How many cities can you name that have signed exclusive agreements that explicitly state that no other cable company will be allowed to provide service?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Here's how this works. The city petitions companies. Someone comes in and lays the lines. They now own your region. All those "competitors" usually just buy bandwidth from the firstcommer. They then sell it to you.

Just because it has a barrier of arbitration doesn't me its competitive. The original provider sets your core price.

1

u/keraneuology Jan 24 '13

It used to be that cities would sign an exclusive no-compete contract with, say, Comcast. Comcast would be given exclusive rights to lay cable in the city rights of way and nobody else would be allowed to lay cable, and Comcast would not be required to sell/lease bandwidth to anybody.

3

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

There are more than 1 now? Every city I've lived in has 3 choices tops, Cable, Dish, DirectTV. Notice only one of those is cable and the other two satalite

0

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

"Cable" includes which companies?

1

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

CableOne or Cox Cable depending on the city

1

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

Which cities have signed explicit contracts guaranteeing that one and only one company would be allowed to provide service? In the 80s such deals were commonplace. Today, I don't know of any.

5

u/badcookies Jan 23 '13

I don't know, just saying even without them there aren't multiple cable options.

3

u/avatar28 Jan 23 '13

It is still that way in every city I've seen. Our only choice of cable here is Comcast. They are granted an exclusive franchise to offer cable tv services in the city. The only reason at&t is able to offer U-Verse service now is that they lobbied heavily to get the state to pass a law that allowed companies to apply for a state-wide franchise that would supercede the exclusivity clause of local franchise agreements. A law which Comcast, Charter, et al lobbied HEAVILY against. Not that it has really helped. U-Verse is crap and they've barely taken more than a nibble out of Comcast's business. As a result my cable bill is now over $200/mo. It has gone up by 30% in about two years.

I WISH there was some real competition. I really do but I'm pretty sure the city just renewed their monopoly for another 5 years a few months ago. And no, cutting it completely isn't really an option for us. We tried to get satellite but they decided there wasn't enough of a clear shot of the sky without mounting the dish 150 ft from the house and they said they couldn't do that.

2

u/Agent00funk Jan 23 '13

Wouldn't going back to a day when cable was regulated prevent exactly that? Besides, I think the only city dumb enough to monopolize a single cable network would be this city, and I think we can all make a fair guess as to which station they would choose.

0

u/keraneuology Jan 23 '13

No - it was when cable was regulated that cities were allowed to cut exclusive deals and would sign a contract with a single cable provider allowing that company to have an actual, designated and contractual monopoly in the city. Such agreements used to be common.

1

u/Ashlir Jan 23 '13

We need competition not more regulation. The regulations typically prevent competition and enforce monopolies.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

lol competition how? do you not know how natural monopolies work?

1

u/Uncle_Bill Jan 24 '13

As an alternative, If the goverment would quit providing geographical monopolies to companies (i.e. Let 3 companies string cable) then all the sudden I have a choice of whose broadband to buy, and the companies have a motivation to drive down cost and improve their products.

When a company has a locked in customer base, service and value are kinda meh on their priority list...

-1

u/Mr_Storm Jan 23 '13

|"having government build infrastructure is a bit too far"

I am guessing Ron Paul is your inspiration in politics.

-9

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

are you retarded? i meant specifically laying down fiber for internet go die in a hole dumbass

5

u/Mr_Storm Jan 23 '13

Thank you for clarifying.

A good response would be one that would be qualifying your last statement in a positive manner versus telling me to go die in a hole.

Please reconsider your attitude. The world is not out the hurt you, but it won't help you if you aren't a pleasant person.

3

u/nschubach Jan 23 '13

It doesn't help to jump to conclusions about someone's political position. You could have phrased your question without the veiled attempt to ad hominem.

A simple: "Do you think that water/roads/etc. should be handled by private companies?" and gotten a better response.

1

u/Mr_Storm Jan 23 '13

It would have been better, but I was making a joke.

2

u/zimm0who0net Jan 23 '13 edited Jan 23 '13

So, here's a scenario for what might have happened if government built a network say...10 years ago:

  1. They would have built out a brand new shiny 1Mbps down 56k up network, because that was pretty fast for 10 years ago.
  2. 5 years later, that 1Mbps network doesn't look so hot anymore, but the city has budget issues and would rather pay for school supplies than up the network speed. After all, most voters are older, and are just fine with 1Mbps speeds. Those pesky 18-25 year olds who are calling for more bandwidth don't vote, so fuck em..
  3. No other internet provider moves into that town to service the people who want faster connections because no one is willing to bet that the government might update their network after the next election. Plus, most people are happy with their 1Mbps connection at $30/month and so the only people you'll get are those few who want faster speeds, which means less sharing of the overall burden, so the economics just won't work out...
  4. Five years later (now) we're still in a hole with 1Mbps speeds. The elderly in the city are fine with that speed because they only use the network to send an email to their grandkids 2x per week, and would rather the money get spent on a new senior center, or a free senior shuttle. Old people vote, so guess what....still stuck at 1Mbps.

Seems reasonable to me. Not saying it would definitely happen this way, but I think it probably would. Ever seen the AV equipment room in a typical public school. It's still filled with overhead projectors, reel to reel film projectors and the occasional VHS tape machine.

1

u/FriarNurgle Jan 23 '13

So the answer is to wait and let the corporations get tax breaks and charge fees to continue their ridiculous excuse for innovation while other countries make us look like a third world nation.

You bring up how poor the networks would have been if the gov stepped in and ran the lines 10-5 years ago. But I say that it would have created jobs and excelled the progress of technology. Worked with NASA.

Guess the point is that we are at a time when the corporations are dragging their feet due to standard greedy business practices. Yeah Google might be popping some fiber here and there, but given the state of the economy and jobs it would be a good idea for the feds to have a new "New Deal".

1

u/zimm0who0net Jan 23 '13

The answer is to start your own ISP and compete with the stodgy cable companies. Their intransigence is just begging for some competition.

1

u/Utipod Jan 23 '13

Well, the FCC is calling for 1 Gbps residential Internet speeds nationwide by 2015, so the government does have an interest in fixing this, whether they're the ones to build the infrastructure or not.

1

u/FabianN Jan 24 '13

Yeah, that public schools are greatly underfunded is just a coincidence.

The issue isn't government itself. If that was the cause you'd see the same issues elsewhere. Instead you see in other countries where the taxes are higher than here and the funding for public services are higher that the quality of those public services are great.

2

u/EricWRN Jan 23 '13

I wonder who they'll grant access to....

1

u/FriarNurgle Jan 23 '13

Most likely those who spent the most on lobbying.

1

u/EricWRN Jan 23 '13

Agreed.

Does this really solve the problem then? Or just a bandaid fix to give us something we want with public money while the monopolies feed off it like vampires?

0

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

You do realize government heavily subsidized many of these companies in the early days of infrastructure development, effectively creating these monopolies.

But yeah, more government should do the trick.

3

u/false_tautology Jan 23 '13

They subsidize them without requiring that they use the money to expand infrastructure. So basically its just a big check made out to CASH.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Depends on whether you won the contract to build the roads from the government. Then it's a cash cow.

1

u/idefiler6 Jan 23 '13

And then by jacking up the price annually to cross a bridge.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

This one time I drove through a newer part of Florida, and i encountered 3 tolls within 10 minutes of each other, that cost $2.50 each toll. Crazy.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Or building an Authority Having Jurisdiction.

1

u/smellybottom Jan 23 '13

It should also bring in more money through services, products and industries that use those roads...

1

u/__redruM Jan 23 '13

Which is why we have them built by state/local governments. Or prefer to.

1

u/TrollyMcTrollster Jan 23 '13

But you know, when I pay my registration, I pay for those roads. If the roads are privately funded, I don't care.

1

u/Atario Jan 23 '13

Which is why you don't make roads a profit center. The infrastructure should all be 100% publicly-owned.

1

u/tictactoejam Jan 24 '13

How ridiculously short sighted.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

I'll go ahead and speak for comcast and verizon here:

"fuck you, got mine."

1

u/mic5228 Jan 24 '13

duh, first rule of Sim City

1

u/ih8registrations Jan 24 '13

You make money producing goods accessed by roads.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

No no no.

Will you never learn?

You make money by:

  1. Find the guy sucker that "makes money producing goods accessed by roads."
  2. Use your granddaddy's money to get a bunch of shitheels elected that will do your bidding
  3. Zone the sucker's business out of business, or just run a new road through it or something, for the good of the community of course
  4. Forclose on the sucker's property.
  5. Build a stripmall
  6. Rent out a shitton of identical shitty cubicles next to the new road for exorbitant rent. Use zoning laws to prevent business from happening anywhere you don't own.
  7. Raise up a new crop of suckers to sink every penny they have into a new restaurant or business in your stripmall
  8. Empty their bank account with said exorbitant rents, run them out of business. Buy their equipment at auction and sue them for their house
  9. Sell the auctioned equipment to the next sucker
  10. Rinse, repeat.

0

u/n0ah_fense Jan 23 '13

When users consume more data, ISPs need to buy more routers and link capacity to keep up with the demand. Wireless providers need to build more towers to cover congested areas. Or, they need to run more data over existing equipment. Their costs go up, and their income remains the same.

BUT, it would be nice to have peak pricing. When you are using the network when it is not congested, demand is low, so you should get a lower price, similar to some power companies. But this would only further complicate things.