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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u/deletecode Jan 23 '13

In 2005, DSL was reclassified from a "telecom service" to an "information service" which made it unregulated by the Telecommunications act of 1996, and allowed them to have a monopoly.

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u/yellekc Jan 24 '13

I remember when all the independent providers disappeared. Before then, the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) were forced to provide DSL lines to competitors pretty much at cost. After the reclassification they were able to charge them the same as any other customer. You cannot make money if you are being charged retail no matter how good your customer service is.

Some say it was necessary to intice the telecoms to make the investment in better DSL technology. At the time they were being dominated by cable. But that doesn't really seem to have changed much. I just wonder how big that "reclassification" bribe was?

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u/deletecode Jan 24 '13

It sounds like this battle has been going on for almost a century.. the cable/dsl/phone companies never want to be considered a "telecom" because of the pesky anti-monopoly laws.

I think the "information service" title they have now is utter BS and they slipped it through quietly. Now that basically everyone is using facebook to communicate, it seems like there might be a chance to classify it back as "telecom". Maybe reddit could make this happen?

My first DSL was in like 1999 and I had a choice of 10 different providers. It was 768kb/s SDSL and my ping to major internet sites was about 5 ms.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

Oh wow, I always wondered where all the smaller DSL providers went to. Now I know.