The internet should be a public utility • Hacker News Board

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#151

Post by namrog84 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #122

greedo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think "decent cooper" is as good as fiber. Unless you can deliver me 1Gbps symmetrically like my current fiber, you're inadequate. I currently have two kids doing remote learning, a wife who's starting to VPN at times, and I myself work remotely at least 9 hours a day for the last 20 days. My podunk town has FTH through a municipal partnership. It works great. If my town can do it, I expect every…

> Unless you can deliver me 1Gbps symmetrically like my current fiber, you're inadequate. I currently have two kids doing remote learning, a wife who's starting to VPN at times, and I myself work remotely at least 9 hours a day for the last 20 days. This really shouldn't require such exotic internet. Unless you are downloading large files, it's hard to use more than a few megabits per person on average. Often the nic…

> it's hard to use more than a few megabits per person on average.

With the coming rise of streaming services(currently using 6 to 12 mbps) and other things I can regularly see each individual person using 25mbps or more with the rise of 4k. And in a house of 4. That means the house needs 100mbps real capacity. And then it needs to not be bottlenecked on the street with dozens of other houses.

And not just streaming of games. But of movies. Education. Meetings. And tons of other streaming related activities compounded on potential normal usage non streaming.

And lets not forget that my predictions are based on the short term (Perhaps offer up to 1 gbps to 10 gbps during non peak times and during short spikes.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#152

Post by jcrawfordor » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #131

jcrawfordor wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T also provided an extremely high quality of service, not really seen since that time, and operated a corporate R&D arm that I think could fairly be called the global center of innovation for decades, designing as an almost side-effect of telephone switches a large portion of the computer technology we use today from silicon to operating system. One wonders where the state of the industry would be today had Bell L…

the argument you are making, from the perspective of microeconomic theory, in short: no. for a monopolist to offer high quality products and service is exactly part of the monopolist's playbook, not any sort of consumer benefit. The overly generous profits they earn allow them to use comparatively smaller quality enhancements as a barrier to entry for competition. The point is that "high quality service that you pay…

The problem is that AT&T was pretty heavy federally regulated prior to the breakup, Carterfone, etc, and the company achieved most of this work under a regulatory framework that was an early version of what we have today for the industry - and in fact because this was prior to CLECs and RBOCs was actually more similar to a "public utility" regime (e.g. electricity) than what we have today in the telecom industry, with regulated tariffs and the gov't achieving the policy goal of ubiquitous availability through tariff rate rather than the modern surcharge arrangement. The benefits of AT&T's golden era are most attributable not to their monopoly status but to their status as a government-regulated monopoly in a fashion similar to utilities operating under franchise - one which, unlike typical franchise utilities today, was permitted by regulators to maintain a substantial R&D operation.

The system was always somewhat haphazard, for example post-WWII AT&T faced 'competition' from rural telephone cooperatives under the REA as a means of speeding up rural development. However, this was initially a bright-line geographical division of duties and REA telephone coops continued to rely on Long Lines for transit.

Of course many, many things went wrong, including the regulatory regime being a cause of AT&T's decay even prior to court action against their favor. However, it's hard to say if that would be the outcome of such a regulatory framework today (or outright nationalization), because this was the nascent stage of telecom regulation which both the government and AT&T had equal hands in "making up as they went." This was the era in which regulatory capture was more or less invented, for example, and not necessarily on purpose.

My point though is exactly that describing AT&T as "a bad monopoly" or "a good regulated private interest" are not really great arguments in that both of those things were entirely true at the same time, and the particular environment in which The Bell System formed is not one that will likely ever exist again. Newer communications utilities have broadly been shoved into the category of telephony for regulatory purposes or entirely left alone, so it's hard to foresee any future in which we will have a second "telephone era" in which a new debatably-utility emerges to be managed.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#153

Post by basilgohar » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #104

bgorman wrote: post #69

The danger with government nationalizing telecommunications networks is that once it is done, innovation and quality go way down. We had nationalized telecommunications for over 70 years and customers could only have one brand of phone, and we're limited in the number of phones available in their houses. In addition, long distance calling was cost-prohibitive. The monopoly only started cracking when MCI introduced mi…

AT&T also provided an extremely high quality of service, not really seen since that time, and operated a corporate R&D arm that I think could fairly be called the global center of innovation for decades, designing as an almost side-effect of telephone switches a large portion of the computer technology we use today from silicon to operating system. One wonders where the state of the industry would be today had Bell L…

I can only argue back that the state of AT&T was such that it was such a massively profitable entity that exuded such power in terms of resources that what you are describing would not have been unique to AT&T had a less monopolistic situation arisen. The technologies that AT&T advanced, while notable, are far from impossible to have emerged had other entities had a fair share of the resources that AT&T monopolized.

To say AT&T should not have been broken-up due to its achievements is akin to say that Mussolini should have stayed in power because "he made the trains run on time". Yes, maybe, but at what other, hidden costs?

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#154

Post by jcrawfordor » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

TheColorYellow wrote: post #116

jcrawfordor wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T also provided an extremely high quality of service, not really seen since that time, and operated a corporate R&D arm that I think could fairly be called the global center of innovation for decades, designing as an almost side-effect of telephone switches a large portion of the computer technology we use today from silicon to operating system. One wonders where the state of the industry would be today had Bell L…

This is awesome content. Any chance you have a book you could recommend on this subject?

Both siblings name the books that I would most likely to recommend. Also, Steve Call's "The Deal of the Century" and "Telephone: The First Hundred Years," John Brooks. The latter is a 1976 book which was commissioned by AT&T as a corporate history. As a result it is both outdated and paints a rather rosy picture[1], but I think that's part of what makes that book rather interesting - it's sort of AT&T's best version of itself at the peak of its dominance.

[1] for what it's worth, John Brooks engages right in the introduction with the conflict of a history funded by its subjects, and the book was researched and written independently

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#155

Post by miguelmota » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #92

miguelmota wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s none for obvious reasons. Give me an example of a government making the internet a public utility and making it better and less censored than a privately run company.

https://muninetworks.org/content/owensboro-kentucky-headed-s... https://tech.co/news/chattanooga-fastest-internet-usa-2018-0... Those places are offering connections way better than I can get from AT&T.

Chattanooga’s municipally-owned telecoms provider (EPB) is charging $57.99 for 300mbs [0], while I get 500mbs for $39.99 in my area from a non-city owned company [1]

[0] https://epb.com/home-store/internet [1] https://frontier.com/offer/experiencefios-c

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#156

Post by jcrawfordor » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

erik_seaberg wrote: post #145

jcrawfordor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) laying fiber (either trenched or on utility poles) will likely be your biggest expense, it requires a huge, huge investment to be able to put infrastructure through a significant area. Think about feet of conduit a several-person crew can drive per day whether by trenching/trenchless methods - it's not that many. Microtrenching promised to significantly reduce this cost but Google Fiber's experiment with it went f…

I looked up microtrenching and it looks like they're basically stopping traffic and pointing an angle grinder straight down. Directional boring machines are out there, why aren't we running a bunch of those 24/7? Do they need a lot of supervision?

While the range of directional trenching is limited, requiring regular access points, the bigger issue is setup. Surveys and tests need to be done to determine if the area is suitable for directional trenching, and it only works well in certain circumstances. It's definitely heavily used in telecom installation but not a panacea.

Microtrenching is extremely simple and fast, but so far I don't know that anyone has nailed durability. Google's Louisville install used microtrenching and was an absolute debacle with the sealant constantly failing and the cables ending up laying on the surface of the pavement. Google ended up shutting down service in Louisville and the cost of repairing the failed microtrenching may have been a big reason why. Certainly get them a lot of bad press and ill will from their customer base.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#157

Post by slavik81 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #60

legitster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If internet is a fundamental human right, then over the air broadband should be perfectly acceptable. In which case there are a ton of competitive options across the US. Unless the argument is that a specific type of internet access at a specific speed is a human right.

Yes, a specific minimum speed would be required, otherwise you could claim IP over Pigeon or Postal Service would be sufficient. Also cost would play a role. LTE typically has restrictive caps and high costs, especially for at-home/hotspot internet. Someone having a 15 - 60 minute teledoc video conference with their doctor shouldn't blow through half their monthly data allowance.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. You can get a very respectable average speed out of the postal service.

Latency is an oft-neglected metric. You can browse the web on a satellite internet connection with a 200ms ping, but it's anywhere from bad to unusable for a lot of other applications.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#158

Post by bluejekyll » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #95

zbrozek wrote: post #4

I talked with the mayor of Los Altos Hills, CA yesterday where I advocated for a municipal fiber ISP. It seems crazy to me that in Silicon Valley, and specifically in one of its richest towns, that broadband is not available to every residence. She makes a good point: the residents don't care. Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough for the elderly population. And further - that for those who find that inade…

I daresay, it's even worse than that. Your neighbors are actively fighting against the installation of infrastructure that would enable faster internet speeds. AT&T tried to bring FTTN to San Francisco years ago, but neighbors decried the "ugly" green boxes that would run down the street. Boxes that are standard in literally any suburb with fast internet. There are limited parts of the bay area with gigabit fiber, in…

AT&T can put those under the ground. They are ugly. And they take up already limited sidewalk space in many areas.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#159

Post by gnopgnip » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #4

I talked with the mayor of Los Altos Hills, CA yesterday where I advocated for a municipal fiber ISP. It seems crazy to me that in Silicon Valley, and specifically in one of its richest towns, that broadband is not available to every residence. She makes a good point: the residents don't care. Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough for the elderly population. And further - that for those who find that inade…

Common.net is planning on gigabit wireless service in Alameda and San Leandro later this year. And they offer 300mbit service now. The technology is there to do this without laying fiber or other traditional infrastructure. If there are many people that want something better than DSL start a wireless ISP.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#160

Post by PureParadigm » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

I used to think municipal fiber was the answer to improve internet service, but while it may work, I've seen that it is certainly not the only way.

I moved to Berkeley for university and there are several competing options for gigabit internet (including Sonic, LMI, etc.). When the gigabit service arrived to disrupt the AT&T/Comcast duopoly, suddenly the customer was important, and we were able to get great speeds, prices, and customer service.

What I'm saying is that you don't necessarily need to make internet a public utility to improve service, just to get some real competition. If that competition needs to come in the form of municipal fiber, then that might also work, but it could also be a private company.