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Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

arstechnica.com

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Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#61

Post by rdiddly »

ams6110 wrote: post #58
ender89 wrote: post #16

I mean, duh. They basically have a monopoly and a license to print money right now. they can't make the same profit margins they have been if they have to compete with local municipal providers who aren't based on a profit model unless those local providers are so incompetent that they can't deliver reliable fast internet to their area. Comcast can't do price hikes and data caps and generally continue treating their…

Agree, in most places the cable company has a monopoly or close to it. But why do we think giving the municipality a monopoly is better? Every municipal service I can think of is overstaffed and inefficient compared to private businesses. The "nickle and diming" is just moved to tax rates and fees that are under the radar for most people. Just cancel the franchises and let the market compete for internet service. I t…

People can vote to change the leadership and direction of the municipality. Not so much the corporation.

Yes I realize this argument wears thinner the more democracy gets weakened... and hey, weird, the ones weakening it are the same few people (Comcast in this case) who stand to profit from weakening it. Just a coincidence I'm sure!

Anyway you're not helping democracy either, by giving up on it and/or buying into the whole "the market will fix everything" idea.

Free markets would be great, but what you find instead is that those who want to exploit a given market, sell everybody on the idea that "the market will fix everything" when they want to enter it. But after that, they do everything in their power to make sure it's NOT a free market. They want to avoid dealing with competitors, so they work to keep them out of the market. But unfortunately competition is the precondition on which most of the "market will fix everything" argument rests.

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#63

Post by linsomniac »

Comcast and CenturyLink: You've shown you do not want to invest in fiber to the home, so you don't have any right to stop the city from doing it.

I don't hate Comcast as much as others, but I'm really looking forward to Fort Collins starting the process of doing municipal fiber.

Comcast and CenturyLink have neglected upgrading infrastructure for decades, and so if they aren't going to do it I don't see why the city shouldn't. Comcast at least has a reasonable service, CenturyLink tops out at 40Mbps at my home.

CenturyLink is particularly culpable because they received $2B in taxes to roll out fiber to the home by the year 2000, and did little if anything for that money. I've never even known anyone who has QWest/CenturyLink FTTH.

They are just sitting on a bunch of copper twisted pair, hoping to get as much money as they can without any investment in new technology.

Even back in the last '90s they had that attitude. They refused to deploy DSL concentrators in neighborhoods, because that would open the pedestals to CLECs to put gear into. So instead they required all DSL runs to go to one of the two Fort Collins Central Offices. A huge amount of the city was un-served because they were more than 18K feet from a CO.

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#65

Post by asdfaefasdf »

eldavido wrote: post #40
klttunets wrote: post #31

Good. Internet access is more and more a utility like water and electricity. Municipal broadband in my town works great and is more than 100x the speed of comcast at a cheaper price. As another poster said, would you want Comcast providing water to your neighborhood?

I think people misunderstand Comcast. They're arguably more in the business of retailing/financial services than anything having to do with TCP/IP or DOCSIS. Americans as a whole are horrible at managing money. They don't pay their bills on time, have tons of credit card debt, etc. This isn't my opinion, it's cold hard reality: look at the subprime crisis, debt burden, charge-offs/delinquencies, etc. Frankly, the cro…

I have literally no idea how you could have reached the idea that you would be an indentured servant/bill collector. Is this some sort of post-truth propaganda?

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#66

Post by crdoconnor »

erentz wrote: post #37
ender89 wrote: post #16

I mean, duh. They basically have a monopoly and a license to print money right now. they can't make the same profit margins they have been if they have to compete with local municipal providers who aren't based on a profit model unless those local providers are so incompetent that they can't deliver reliable fast internet to their area. Comcast can't do price hikes and data caps and generally continue treating their…

Just as long as they don't bust them up like they did AT&T. Following the same model used overseas might make more sense. Semi-natural[1] monopolies tend to form for providing access networks. We see this with power, water, gas distribution too. Over building multiple networks costs a lot more than having one good network. The correct response IMO is: 1. Don't block municipal broadband or new commercial providers, th…

>Split access providers up into two: the wholesale access network

This should be municipally owned, too. Monopolies almost always function better when answerable to voters rather than taxpayers (the exception being when the privatization playbook is being followed: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/tsa-as-example-of-pr... ).

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#67

Post by phil21 »

erentz wrote: post #37
ender89 wrote: post #16

I mean, duh. They basically have a monopoly and a license to print money right now. they can't make the same profit margins they have been if they have to compete with local municipal providers who aren't based on a profit model unless those local providers are so incompetent that they can't deliver reliable fast internet to their area. Comcast can't do price hikes and data caps and generally continue treating their…

Just as long as they don't bust them up like they did AT&T. Following the same model used overseas might make more sense. Semi-natural[1] monopolies tend to form for providing access networks. We see this with power, water, gas distribution too. Over building multiple networks costs a lot more than having one good network. The correct response IMO is: 1. Don't block municipal broadband or new commercial providers, th…

I argue going one step further, even at the loss of some theoretical efficiency.

Split layer 1 from layer 3. I want a fiber pair from my house to the central office, where I can then patch to any provider who decided to pay the cost-recovery based co-location connection fee. Basically I should be able to tell this wireline provider to plug my patch cord into service provider X and they do it within a reasonable timeframe. I pay this provider for the wire itself.

I then get provider #2 and subscribe to their IP services. Hopefully there would be enough competition (e.g. dozens) here to not have to regulate further.

Yes, this does create a middle man agency and relatively inefficient physical infrastructure (e.g. I'd be pretty anti-GPON or similar tech for this use for a variety of reasons) so in theory prices would be more. However I think if you could get back to an environment where ISPs can compete on a wide variety of merits like in the late 90's dialup ISP days you would see overall price decreases.

It would also allow for the creation of "boutique" local ISPs that can cater to certain crowds. The highly technical crowd who is happy to pay more for a clear channel ping and pipe and no other BS will be able to find a home, just like grandma who needs a cheap nicely filtered/secured internet to check her e-mail and use facetime. Basically allow for a bunch of sonic.net style ISPs to compete in most markets.

Anything short of this I think just devolves into both stagnation and rent-seeking. Even municipal provided broadband would be subject to this - many networks will likely be built out and then left to languish long-term if there is no competitive pressure.

Re: Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

#68

Post by toomuchtodo »

phil21 wrote: post #67
erentz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as long as they don't bust them up like they did AT&T. Following the same model used overseas might make more sense. Semi-natural[1] monopolies tend to form for providing access networks. We see this with power, water, gas distribution too. Over building multiple networks costs a lot more than having one good network. The correct response IMO is: 1. Don't block municipal broadband or new commercial providers, th…

I argue going one step further, even at the loss of some theoretical efficiency. Split layer 1 from layer 3. I want a fiber pair from my house to the central office, where I can then patch to any provider who decided to pay the cost-recovery based co-location connection fee. Basically I should be able to tell this wireline provider to plug my patch cord into service provider X and they do it within a reasonable timef…

Having helped shepherd municipal broadband initiatives along, I'm sorry to say that your requirements are a hill too far for almost all consumers. They don't care about the level of provider selection you want, they simply want The Internet (Netflix, Youtube, Google Gmail, et al) at the lowest possible cost (and reliable to boot).

> many networks will likely be built out and then left to languish long-term if there is no competitive pressure.

Municipal broadband is accountable to its local citizens or stakeholders, depending on the model used to develop it (government owned or non-profit owned). If it languishes, it will only do so because its citizens or users allow it to.

EDIT: If you're in an area where there are only large corporate internet providers, please take up the cause for municipal or co-op broadband!

https://muninetworks.org/

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