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New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

arstechnica.com

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Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#21

Post by eikenberry »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #9
nashashmi wrote: post #2

> New York Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian last week issued an order stating that the law will take effect on January 15. > $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds. This looks like it will be applied statewide. Not sure if remote parts of the state can handle such heavy connections.

the $15 plan is about what I expected. the $20 plan is kinda absurd. I'm in CA, but I'm paying 100/month for a 400 Mbps plan.

I'm in Oregon and paying $65/mo for symmetrical 1Gb plan which seems more in line with those prices if you scale them linearly. But I have my choice of multiple providers here, so they compete.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#22

Post by scarface_74 »

missedthecue wrote: post #18
doctorpangloss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't see why it's obviously yes. Broadband providers can compete with each other in a way that the water utility or roads cannot.

How? A broadband provider either has to create infrastructure costing billions hidden like water utilities or use over the air internet which has it own limitations based on spectrum and not all spectrum being usable for data transmission.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#23

Post by scarface_74 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #13
chatmasta wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If every bill came with a line item adding $0.50 charge for “underprivileged broadband access program,” nobody would complain. Sure they would.

It’s been happening with both landline and cell phones since the mid 80s on a national level

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#24

Post by doctorpangloss »

missedthecue wrote: post #18
doctorpangloss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't see why it's obviously yes. Broadband providers can compete with each other in a way that the water utility or roads cannot.

> Broadband providers can compete.

They can, but they don't unless forced to.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#25

Post by esafak »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #9
nashashmi wrote: post #2

> New York Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian last week issued an order stating that the law will take effect on January 15. > $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds. This looks like it will be applied statewide. Not sure if remote parts of the state can handle such heavy connections.

the $15 plan is about what I expected. the $20 plan is kinda absurd. I'm in CA, but I'm paying 100/month for a 400 Mbps plan.

The prices in CA are what's absurd. $100 for 400Mbps in 2025 is gouging.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#26

Post by snakeyjake »

bko wrote: post #5

> 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 does not increase the cost to ISPs.

It does marginally decrease their profits.

A profit is not a cost, and despite what finance bros think lower profits are also not a cost.

It is perfectly possible to supply 1000Mbps symmetrical fiber service to end users for $20/mo because numerous self-sufficient non-profit municipal broadband organizations in the United States are doing just that.

This is 2.5% the capacity for 75% the money. If ISPs can't figure out how to do that profitably, they deserve to fail.

After several decades of taking public money to build out their networks, ISPs can give back a little by very slightly lowering their margins when serving low income residents.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#27

Post by ashoeafoot »

bko wrote: post #5

> 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…

but the Internet is free once the infrastructures base costs have been paid.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#28

Post by locallost »

bko wrote: post #5

> 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…

Is there a real market? I'm not int the US, but from reading things like these when they come up, people usually complain about the lack of choice. No competition, no market. No market, there is nothing to distort.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#29

Post by doctorpangloss »

bko wrote: post #19
doctorpangloss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Trash removal is free in NY, sure. The city says people should have trash removal provided and it should be centralized. 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?

> "you have to provide them service even though you'll lose money on these customers".

So if you're not yet convinced, fuck Comcast right? Yes! I want Comcast to lose money! I fucking hate Comcast more than anything, almost everyone who isn't working there does. There are things I can imagine never doing, like working for a tobacco company (fuck them too), and working for Comcast. It's okay to sometimes have limits. You can step on some toes without worrying about the ass they're connected to that you might have to kiss later. I will never kiss Comcast's ass. Laissez-faire absolutists do not arrive at economically or socially optimal outcomes all the time.

Re: New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

#30

Post by airstrike »

nodesocket wrote: post #3

Didn’t see in the article what they define as “low income”. As a general rule of thumb I don’t like government and bureaucracy interfering with free market, however I see the potential benefits here. Glad they excluded smaller ISPs with less than 20k customers.

ISPs aren't really a free market, they are more like natural monopolies because it's virtually impossible to compete given large capex costs, long dated infrastructure projects, etc

Given the lack of competition, this is precisely the kind of non-free market in which government regulation is not only fine but advisable.

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