11–20 of 106 posts
I have tried 300 and had issues once in a while, 500 works fine. That is because with Comcast, you will never get 200Mbps, no matter what the plan, at least were I live.
> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups. I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". W…
What hidden costs? Taxes? Probably the top 5 thing I'd love my taxes to go to. I think the downsides will be obvious: their internet is super cheap but not really fast. In other words, not too dissimilar to 3/4/5g plans with phones almost everyone has. No one's gonna be streaming Netflix and any Youtube over 360p on this plan. If we're arguing that the Internet is a public need, then I don't see the downsides here. u…
Now, I’m not saying that’s right - I actually agree with your premise - nor am I saying that any ISP truly has a marginal cost of each customer (especially given their engrained habit of oversubscribing their infrastructure) that they need to “make up for.” I’m just clarifying the “hidden costs” that GP seems to be mentioning.
IMO, this would be better handled as an explicit tax that’s passed onto customers of the ISP. If every bill came with a line item adding $0.50 charge for “underprivileged broadband access program,” nobody would complain. Phone bills already include these kinds of line items. And at least this way it would be clearly delineated rather than masked in a future price increase.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What hidden costs? Taxes? Probably the top 5 thing I'd love my taxes to go to. I think the downsides will be obvious: their internet is super cheap but not really fast. In other words, not too dissimilar to 3/4/5g plans with phones almost everyone has. No one's gonna be streaming Netflix and any Youtube over 360p on this plan. If we're arguing that the Internet is a public need, then I don't see the downsides here. u…
The hidden costs are the price increases that ISPs add to customer bills to “make up for it.” Now, I’m not saying that’s right - I actually agree with your premise - nor am I saying that any ISP truly has a marginal cost of each customer (especially given their engrained habit of oversubscribing their infrastructure) that they need to “make up for.” I’m just clarifying the “hidden costs” that GP seems to be mentionin…
Sure they would.
First, foster competition. I don't know the NY landscape, but in the West Coast, it's not uncommon for a residency to have effectively a single option for ISP. Ensure consumers have options (incentivize creation of new ISPs? Stop allowing big corporations to buy small ones? break up big corporations and force them to compete?)
Second could the government offer public internet? (ie, be a player in the market).
Only as a last resort should these types of heavy hand price enforcements should be taken.
1. Starlink has more than 20K customers, can I get Starlink at home?
2. A) What if I live somewhere remote and the nearest cable is 20 miles from home?
B) If Verizon has cable but I want Xfinity, should they be forced to dig 20 miles to my home?
C) I am waiting more than 14 days for this 20-mile cable to come to my home and I am running out of patience. How long can they stall this?
4. If someone is already locked into a long-term contract with a higher price, can they switch immediately to the $15 plan without penalty?
5. Will the $15 plan include unlimited data, or can ISPs impose data caps? So far in the article I saw only bandwidth requirements—no mention of data caps or latency.
6. What happens to customers if their ISP gets an exemption after initially offering the $15/$20 plan?
I am sure the lawmakers had good (PR) intentions here, and probably my questions are already answered, but this article is in pure Ars style.
I'm not even from the USA, I'm just curious how these things work.
Edit: Formatting and swapped ISP names in the examples
2% is below current inflation rates, so this could potentially go haywire super easily.
New York has been here before; the subway was fixed to a nickel for four decades, which ended up bankrupting the private subway companies and set the stage for the underfunded, deferred maintenance of future decades, which New York is still working through the backlog for nearly a hundred years later.
> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups. I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". W…
Subsidising doesn't make the market more efficient. As a capitalist American you should have said "we need more competition!" In France Free dropped the price from something like 45$ to 15$/month, and then they did the same with mobile plans and a 2$/month plan that still exist today. Recently the senate invited the CEO and asked them why they don't increase their prices. The CEO got mad at them for even asking the q…
> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups. I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". W…
This is a lot of words. Do you think Internet should be a utility, or not? Obviously: yes. You enjoy water, schools, roads and power. Trash removal in NYC is free, and it's better for that community than being private. But also, you work in tech or something. More customers, less money being paid on meaningless rents. And fuck Comcast, right? Think critically. We don't need ISPs, and little about that ecosystem resul…
> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups. I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". W…
This is a lot of words. Do you think Internet should be a utility, or not? Obviously: yes. You enjoy water, schools, roads and power. Trash removal in NYC is free, and it's better for that community than being private. But also, you work in tech or something. More customers, less money being paid on meaningless rents. And fuck Comcast, right? Think critically. We don't need ISPs, and little about that ecosystem resul…
The equivalent would be that the city pays ISPs to provide service to certain people.
Instead they say "you have to provide them service even though you'll lose money on these customers".
Do you see why this is different?
> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups. I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". W…
Internet access is more or less a “natural monopoly” because of right of way issues and cost to build just like electricity and gas and water. Those things have always been regulated and had price controls.
> Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". Which sounds nice, but you can't really get something for nothing. This will increase costs for ISPs and likely increase prices for others. How much? Who knows!
And what happens when ISPs can charge whatever they want - again a natural monopoly - should the subsidies increase,