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Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

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

#91

Post by rayiner »

s73ver_ wrote: post #85
rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just cancel the franchises and let the market compete for internet service. I think you'd be surprised. We should make franchising requirements illegal at the federal level. There is no need for them, and all they do is artificially limit competition. Even though the franchises are, by law, non-exclusive, the terms for getting a franchise are usually onerous enough that nobody but the incumbent is willing to put up…

That's not entirely true. There is a very good reason for some of them: To ensure that lower income areas are serviced. Usually, a municipality will make servicing those areas a requirement of getting the franchise. Now, if we have municipal broadband, that could ensure lower income areas are serviced instead. But without that fallback, cancelling franchise agreements would likely increase competition in the rich nei…

It's not a good reason. If you force private companies to take on the government's role of providing a safety net, you're basically guaranteeing that only mega-corps will be able to take that deal. It would be better, as you suggest, to let municipalities perform the traditional governmental role of building the safety net.

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

#92

Post by dredmorbius »

pathseeker wrote: post #87
dredmorbius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LEO service is low-latency. Light's got a few hundred clicks to go, and much of that in hard vacuum. About 1-4 milliseconds, call it 2-8 round-trip ping. Geosync is a whole 'nother ballgame. It's a quarter second outbound, and a half-second round-trip ping (earth-bird-earth and back). Radio talks through clouds just fine.

1000 miles in a vacuum is 5.36 ms. Don't forget that it's up and back two times so you're looking at just over 21 ms waiting on light. The packet actually needs to go onto the Internet at that point too.

Sure, though 20 ms getting you to a fat node is pretty good, especially if you're in an underserved area. The net time cost is actually the difference between this and straight-line overland distance, which is both not in vacuum and hits node latency.

10 ms is roughly datacenter lag (or was a few years back). 100ms is good cross-country pings, 300-600 is continent-to-continent links.

Figure on edge caching aas well.

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

#93

Post by s73ver_ »

rayiner wrote: post #91
s73ver_ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. There is a very good reason for some of them: To ensure that lower income areas are serviced. Usually, a municipality will make servicing those areas a requirement of getting the franchise. Now, if we have municipal broadband, that could ensure lower income areas are serviced instead. But without that fallback, cancelling franchise agreements would likely increase competition in the rich nei…

It's not a good reason. If you force private companies to take on the government's role of providing a safety net, you're basically guaranteeing that only mega-corps will be able to take that deal. It would be better, as you suggest, to let municipalities perform the traditional governmental role of building the safety net.

Considering municipal is not an option in most of the country, franchise agreements are the only other way.

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

#95

Post by rayiner »

s73ver_ wrote: post #93
rayiner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a good reason. If you force private companies to take on the government's role of providing a safety net, you're basically guaranteeing that only mega-corps will be able to take that deal. It would be better, as you suggest, to let municipalities perform the traditional governmental role of building the safety net.

Considering municipal is not an option in most of the country, franchise agreements are the only other way.

Most states don't have any restrictions on municipal broadband: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law.... Even out of the 21 states that do have restrictions, most don't create really major impediments. E.g. in Pennsylvania:

> [C]ities need to approach their current ISP with a detailed broadband plan. The ISP then has 60 days to take that plan and implement it or reject it. If the company agrees to take the plan, it has a year to build it out. If the plan is turned down, the city is free to build its own network.

Out of the 10 most populous states, only three have significant restrictions on municipal broadband and none have an outright ban. I think the FCC should preempt all such restrictions, but it's kind of a cop-out to say that laws like these are why municipal broadband is so rare.

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

#96

Post by mindslight »

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…

> 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.

This is exactly how DSL worked, with ILECs being forced to sell wire access to CLECs. Many places were still not served by a CLEC.

The answer for keeping things competitive and modern is probably both. The physical infrastructure companies should provide dark fiber, which will be demanded if there is high enough population density to independently invest in the gear to light or even for individual businesses with special requirements. They should also provide aggregation through their own edge switches, so that less-dense places can experience provider-competition at regional meet-me centers.

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

#97

Post by s73ver_ »

rayiner wrote: post #95
s73ver_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering municipal is not an option in most of the country, franchise agreements are the only other way.

Most states don't have any restrictions on municipal broadband: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law... . Even out of the 21 states that do have restrictions, most don't create really major impediments. E.g. in Pennsylvania: > [C]ities need to approach their current ISP with a detailed broadband plan. The ISP then has 60 days to take that plan and implement it or reject it. If the company agre…

No, I don't think the laws are most of the reason why it's rare. It's probably more that other municipalities have seen the huge fights put up by the incumbents that tie the projects up in legal battles for years that have had a chilling effect on it. Citizens know that it's going to cost a lot for the infrastructure, and then probably a lot more for the legal fights.

Sadly, many of them don't seem to see what a success most of it is.

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

#98

Post by oaelchr342nt »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #33
stilldavid wrote: post #5

Best phone call I've made in the past few years was canceling my ~$100 Comcast internet plan in favor of my municipality's $50 gigabit plan. A year in and haven't had so much as a hiccup in service.

Same. I’d rather pay $300/month for municipal if it supports efforts to also make it available to my other neighbors, makes the program more successful (and thus more likely to continue) and I’d set up my own equipment volunteer to help them install. Actually, I’m going right now to see if there are any municipal broadband efforts in my area that I could throw money at / help out with. Is there some good place to fin…

Someone else in the comments here mentioned this site:

https://muninetworks.org

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

#99

Post by kaslai »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #80
linsomniac wrote: post #63

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 s…

I am a recovering Comcast customer of 10+ years, and while CentiryLink is nearly as incompetent on the customer service front, they pulled fiber down my block a year ago and my gigabit connection is a glorious thing (it's 2/3rds the monthly cost of Comcast, for 5X the speed, symmetrical).

I just had to take the opposite jump. I was very happy with my uncapped gigabit symmetrical connection from Centurylink, but my new address is only serviced by Comcast. I'm paying less, but once the promo expires it won't be by much, for a 1TB capped 200/10 connection.

I want my Centurylink fiber back :(

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