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Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

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Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#11

Post by creeble »

The monopoly broadband providers are extremely good at spreading FUD based on (incorrect) market-based economies: that public-sector solutions are usually more expensive and less efficient than private-sector ones.

This is only true in the presence of healthy competition, which is generally absent in US broadband. Broadband providers tend to point to their (at most) single competitor as evidence of a competitive market.

It doesn't take collusion to fix prices if you only have one competitor.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#12

Post by cinquemb »

lordnacho wrote: post #9

Would it be possible to shut out such community ISPs by not peering with them? Is that something that might cause concern?

Id say its a concern in the short run, but that would incentivize neighboring communities to invest in shared infrastructure and to peer with each other in the long run, esp if their only other option is to be shut out of the market entirely.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#14

Post by 5ilv3r »

lordnacho wrote: post #9

Would it be possible to shut out such community ISPs by not peering with them? Is that something that might cause concern?

ecommerce retailers would peer with them directly and the entertainment networks would then be left holding nothing.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#15

Post by bronco21016 »

acd wrote: post #10

Most broadband providers work with overbooking / contention ratios, so if you sell 100/100mbit you buy 20:1 to 50:1 less from the upstream provider. Overbooking ratios for consumer internet can be between for example 20:1 to 50:1. That means for 20mbit of bandwith to consumers you buy 1 mbit of bandwidth from a upstream provider. Buying one megabit of uplink at current market rate is typically less than a dollar from…

I think you’re mis-interpreting the overbooking ratios. My understanding is that a 20:1 ratio means that for 1 mbit you can serve 20 customers 1 mbit.

Your point still stands though. That means if 1 mbit cost $1 then it costs $0.04/customer.

The real cost is in deploying the wires and countless studies have shown the ROI on that, especially given the exorbitant rates, is typically 5 years or less per hookup. Can you imagine how much Comcast etc have made per house they’ve run coax to? The ROI must be mind boggling.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#16

Post by gz5 »

The only way to get the last mile competition we need in the US, and make net neutrality irrelevant, is for org-run fiber builds in which the org doesn't offer services. The org operates a multi-tenant fiber infrastructure in which you and I can pick (n) "service providers"...part of what I am hoping is a 2018 full of decentralization and distribution: https://goo.gl/DkpmU5

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#17

Post by HarryHirsch »

asabjorn wrote: post #2

Living in Oakland I wish I could replace my slow, expensive and high-latency Comcast broadband connection with Fiber. It is crazy that we in silicon valley practically have no competition.

Peter Thiel explained it for you: competition is for suckers

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#18

Post by Rapzid »

lordnacho wrote: post #9

Would it be possible to shut out such community ISPs by not peering with them? Is that something that might cause concern?

Non-ISP transit providers would fill that need. Perhaps the ISPs would pressure them to not. Eventually a lawsuit would put an end to that.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#19

Post by walshemj »

bronco21016 wrote: post #15
acd wrote: post #10

Most broadband providers work with overbooking / contention ratios, so if you sell 100/100mbit you buy 20:1 to 50:1 less from the upstream provider. Overbooking ratios for consumer internet can be between for example 20:1 to 50:1. That means for 20mbit of bandwith to consumers you buy 1 mbit of bandwidth from a upstream provider. Buying one megabit of uplink at current market rate is typically less than a dollar from…

I think you’re mis-interpreting the overbooking ratios. My understanding is that a 20:1 ratio means that for 1 mbit you can serve 20 customers 1 mbit. Your point still stands though. That means if 1 mbit cost $1 then it costs $0.04/customer. The real cost is in deploying the wires and countless studies have shown the ROI on that, especially given the exorbitant rates, is typically 5 years or less per hookup. Can you…

That ignores that the USO does require some mind blowingly expensive links I doubt that laying new local plant is a positive roi in 5 years.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#20

Post by cptskippy »

lordnacho wrote: post #9

Would it be possible to shut out such community ISPs by not peering with them? Is that something that might cause concern?

Peering agreements are typically between two networks of comparable size. In the case of a regional ISP wanting to connect to the internet, they would paying for access to one or more Tier 1 or Tier 2 providers and possibly participating in an IXP.

There is much more competition in these markets and plenty of ISPs (e.g. CenturyLink) are also Teir 1 providers in markets where they do not act as an ISP.

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