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A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

arstechnica.com

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Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#91

Post by ogre_codes »

> Comcast has spent more than $10 million on lobbying in Washington this year

One of the remarkable things about our political system is how little money (relatively) it takes to lock in a multi-billion dollar advantage. In terms of benefits per dollar spent, lobbying is one of the most profitable investments an established company can make.

Want to shut out new competition? $100k Prevent municipal broadband? $10m Get affordable access to a low-cost corridor for your facilities/ network? $20m

etc etc.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#92

Post by nostromo »

muststopmyths wrote: post #31
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Seriously, I feel like I say it every time it comes up: WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? It seems like such a cut-and-dried political issue: they're utilities and they overcharge you whether you're a Republican or Democrat. And taking action doesn't require new antitrust concepts, because it's just your garden-variety utility. It's the same established principles as electric or natural gas. Yet…

It's only baffling if you didn't bother to read the party platforms. The Democratic party platform explicitly talks about removing barriers to municipal broadband as a goal, which is the only way you are going to get competition where ISPs have a monopoly. At least in the current landscape where it's cost-prohibitive for a competitor to enter a region. Also (emphasis mine), > Democrats will restore the Federal Commun…

> Democrats will restore the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) clear authority to take strong enforcement action against broadband providers who violate net neutrality principles

This seems antithetical to their newfound views on how corporations like Twitter should be able to block political news on their platforms. I don't see how it's dramatically different for Twitter (or Facebook or Google) deciding to block the New York Post than it is for Comcast to do so.

It's not obvious to me right now which is the party for a free and open internet.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#93

Post by mikepurvis »

joshAg wrote: post #55
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Seriously, I feel like I say it every time it comes up: WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? It seems like such a cut-and-dried political issue: they're utilities and they overcharge you whether you're a Republican or Democrat. And taking action doesn't require new antitrust concepts, because it's just your garden-variety utility. It's the same established principles as electric or natural gas. Yet…

Because america is so anti-socialist. No, seriously. And it's the same reason why PG&E does such a shit job of maintaining their infrastructure, too. Letting anyone tear up the street to run their own wires whenever they want isn't feasible. From a competitor perspective,that's super expensive and a massive capital investment, so any preexisting competitor with a large enough warchest could just lower their competing…

I'm not sure exactly what the legal framework is around it, but Canada's monopoly network operators (Rogers for coax, Bell for copper) are I believe required to sell bulk bandwidth to MVNO-style carriers. I've been a long-time TekSavvy customer, and certainly I get way better pricing from them than I would buying equivalent service directly from Rogers. And for what it's worth, when I tracert out of my house, the very first hop (9ms away) is a TekSavvy IP address which geolocates to a point in my neighbourhood, so it's not like I'm going through a ton of Rogers infrastructure to get to them (unless it's all transparent and extremely low latency).

There isn't much of a difference on the service side either; the trucks which come around here are all third party fulfillment firms regardless of who your ISP is (and they have super-bland, forgettable names like "Dependable HomeTech")

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#94

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #44

Actually, everyone is talking about this: Big Tech has been beating this drum for years, and paying everyone else to talk about it. The source of this article, Conde Nast, has an incredibly close partnership with Google, and this whataboutism has no real place here. This entire article is tech companies' public policy teams screaming "please look somewhere else!" Meanwhile, Big Tech is vastly larger, vastly more prof…

> (Section 230)

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#95

Post by jjoonathan »

nostromo wrote: post #64
rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Democratic party platform explicitly talks about removing barriers to municipal broadband as a goal, which is the only way you are going to get competition where ISPs have a monopoly. At least in the current landscape where it's cost-prohibitive for a competitor to enter a region. It's only "cost-prohibitive for a competitor to enter a region" because of build-out requirements which are broadly supported by Dem…

We see this so often now I'm starting to think it's an intentional strategy. Step 1: create conditions that prevent capitalism from solving a problem. Step 2: declare that capitalism has failed and call for government solutions.

There's a republican version, too:

Step 1: kneecap a social progrm Step 2: argue that because the social program isn't working, it should be canceled outright.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#96

Post by ogre_codes »

muststopmyths wrote: post #31
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Seriously, I feel like I say it every time it comes up: WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? It seems like such a cut-and-dried political issue: they're utilities and they overcharge you whether you're a Republican or Democrat. And taking action doesn't require new antitrust concepts, because it's just your garden-variety utility. It's the same established principles as electric or natural gas. Yet…

It's only baffling if you didn't bother to read the party platforms. The Democratic party platform explicitly talks about removing barriers to municipal broadband as a goal, which is the only way you are going to get competition where ISPs have a monopoly. At least in the current landscape where it's cost-prohibitive for a competitor to enter a region. Also (emphasis mine), > Democrats will restore the Federal Commun…

I don't think this is a Dem versus Rep thing. Local corruption issues like this usually end up boiling down to following the money. Many municipal broadband projects end up being scrapped after lobbyists $$ get involved regardless of who is running the show.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#97

Post by nitrogen »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #11
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Seriously, I feel like I say it every time it comes up: WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? It seems like such a cut-and-dried political issue: they're utilities and they overcharge you whether you're a Republican or Democrat. And taking action doesn't require new antitrust concepts, because it's just your garden-variety utility. It's the same established principles as electric or natural gas. Yet…

> WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? Mainly because ISPs are not engaging in viewpoint discrimination. They don’t care what political viewpoint you have, as long as you pay them money, they will let you post it on the internet. In addition, most people have become used to the prices and expending a bunch of political energy to save $30/month isn’t worth it to a lot of people. Now the feeling of b…

One could argue that ISPs participated in the fight against peer-to-peer technologies, the hindrance of which allowed social media and other communication technologies to centralize.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#98

Post by [deleted] »

jjoonathan wrote: post #95
nostromo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see this so often now I'm starting to think it's an intentional strategy. Step 1: create conditions that prevent capitalism from solving a problem. Step 2: declare that capitalism has failed and call for government solutions.

There's a republican version, too: Step 1: kneecap a social progrm Step 2: argue that because the social program isn't working, it should be canceled outright.

[deleted]

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#99

Post by jjoonathan »

rayiner wrote: post #85
nostromo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see this so often now I'm starting to think it's an intentional strategy. Step 1: create conditions that prevent capitalism from solving a problem. Step 2: declare that capitalism has failed and call for government solutions.

I don't know about intentional, but I think it's unfortunately common. I think housing is the most egregious example. I live in a neighborhood filled with millennial parents who have their own detached homes and fairly modest jobs (mix of college/non-college). Meanwhile, my lawyer friends earning six figures feel like they can't afford homes or to start families. The difference is that they live in heavily regulated…

> The difference is that they live in heavily regulated cities, and I live in an unincorporated part of a fairly rural county

I can think of another difference: loads of people want to live where they do, pushing up prices, while few people want to live where you do, keeping prices reasonable.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#100

Post by marketingPro »

I live in an area where we have at least 3 providers, I pay 20$/mo and never have to call to lower my rate.

If government didn't create regulations or horrible contracts this is a solvable issue.

This reminds me of another complaint about regulation in healthcare... Does any party support deregulation? Or is that a sure way to lose donors?

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