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The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

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Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#61

Post by bane »

catmanjan wrote: post #23
michaelochurch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some neat cities with character. For quality-of-life (relatively speaking) you have Austin and Portland. If you think you can make it rich, there's San Francisco and New York. For historic charm, you have Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The upper midwest has a relatively high quality of life, too. Life in the politically sane parts ("blue states") of the US, if you have a job in tech, isn't so bad. You…

I understand what you're saying, but I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I don't think living a life that "isn't so bad" is good enough for the caliber of people that visit HN. And the fact that your country has "sane" and presumably "insane" political areas is creepy :(

Europe, and hell, the rest of world, have similar sane and insane political areas if I might remind you. Lots of the politics, especially the race/culture/nationalism politics, in Europe shock most Americans.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#62

Post by wtallis »

zw123456 wrote: post #49

I have tried posting this idea a couple of times before and have been roundly scolded, but oh well, here goes again. I think... that readers of this forum are ideally equipped to find a way around this problem. What I mean to say is that it is universally felt by everyone that they hate their broadband provider, phone company etc. Why can't we, the tech community come up with a competing technology? I know many have…

It's not a technological problem. The technological barriers have been taken care of. Google Fiber exists and is awesome and affordable. The reasons we don't all have Google Fiber level of service are political: regulatory capture, monopolies and oligopolies, conflicts of interest, etc.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#63

Post by zw123456 »

warfangle wrote: post #57
zw123456 wrote: post #49

I have tried posting this idea a couple of times before and have been roundly scolded, but oh well, here goes again. I think... that readers of this forum are ideally equipped to find a way around this problem. What I mean to say is that it is universally felt by everyone that they hate their broadband provider, phone company etc. Why can't we, the tech community come up with a competing technology? I know many have…

I wonder if an automatic peering arrangement could be built on top of a mesh infrastructure, to give incentive for running more robust nodes (not just for in-network traffic, but for uplink to the internet at large).

Interesting. I was thinking about some of the open source implementations of LTE that have been posted here but maybe the wifi mesh approach needs tweaking. Also, from a business perspective, I think it would be cool if there was a way to make it sort of like a "co-op" so people who host hot spots or base stations would get some profit sharing or something?

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#64

Post by zw123456 »

wtallis wrote: post #62
zw123456 wrote: post #49

I have tried posting this idea a couple of times before and have been roundly scolded, but oh well, here goes again. I think... that readers of this forum are ideally equipped to find a way around this problem. What I mean to say is that it is universally felt by everyone that they hate their broadband provider, phone company etc. Why can't we, the tech community come up with a competing technology? I know many have…

It's not a technological problem. The technological barriers have been taken care of. Google Fiber exists and is awesome and affordable. The reasons we don't all have Google Fiber level of service are political: regulatory capture, monopolies and oligopolies, conflicts of interest, etc.

The problem with fiber I think is that a lot of communities are "trench weary" and don't want more fiber providers digging up the streets. I think Google gets around that by hyping that they are coming to town, which is smart, it gets the politicians to back them.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#65

Post by zw123456 »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #60
zw123456 wrote: post #49

I have tried posting this idea a couple of times before and have been roundly scolded, but oh well, here goes again. I think... that readers of this forum are ideally equipped to find a way around this problem. What I mean to say is that it is universally felt by everyone that they hate their broadband provider, phone company etc. Why can't we, the tech community come up with a competing technology? I know many have…

I guess the problem is that all of these (broadband provider, phone company) are regulated by the government. Once you have the government involved, forget about competition, the market won't fix. You have to fix politics.

Too bad there is not a tech way to work around them. Maybe using some kind of unlicensed wireless?

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#66

Post by gametheoretic »

marincounty wrote: post #44
andyl wrote: post #16

My broadband service is terrible. Far to expensive, it is slow and drops packets. And the competitive environment sucks. Comcast and Regulators: go to hell. I'll vote for any politician who is interested in improving the situation.

I don't understand how Comcast charges differnt rates for internet speeds, but at around 5:30 p.m., when people settling in after a hard day of work--the rate is reduced? My hope is Comcast is eventually split up by the government.

Do you think the government would rather deal with more ISPs or fewer, insofar as surveillance is concerned?

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#67

Post by jfb »

grecy wrote: post #9
catmanjan wrote: post #4

I'm Australian, am I to understand that our internet quality and distribution is only just approaching what the American's had in 2007? WTF!? I wish poor internet connection was something I could really get upset about, but I guess the rest of my life is a lot better than most around the world.

As an Australian that lived in America for a long time, trust me when I say life in Australia with crappy internet is significantly better than life in America with fast internet. You don't want to live there, trust me.

Fewer killer jellyfish. For now.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#69

Post by vacri »

catmanjan wrote: post #4

I'm Australian, am I to understand that our internet quality and distribution is only just approaching what the American's had in 2007? WTF!? I wish poor internet connection was something I could really get upset about, but I guess the rest of my life is a lot better than most around the world.

I'm just in the process of upgrading our office in the heart of Melbourne from ADSL2 to a 10/10Mb synchronous DSL. That costs us just shy of $600 per month. There is enough fat in that pricing that the vendor dropped around 10% off the list price with us just asking, no real haggling.

Our office in the heart of SF has 100/100Mb (admittedly, 'selected buildings only') for $50/month.

And this is just after us receiving an new government which scuttled the NBN that might have given us comparable service in 1-2 decades time. We're going to have expensive, slow internet for a long time.

Re: The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)

#70

Post by gradstudent »

derleth wrote: post #42
catmanjan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I still haven't heard any arguments _for_ a life in America other than "it isn't all bad" or "it isn't as bad as Hollywood makes it look".

Robust free speech protections, ability to rough it in a country that's still in the first world, and the ability to enter industries that don't exist to the same extent elsewhere. We're also much less racist than Europe, for example: We haven't banned wearing traditional Muslim garb, for example, and we don't have the hatred of the Roma which is endemic to the European continent.

> we don't have the hatred of the Roma which is endemic to the European continent.

s/Roma/Mexicans; s/European/American;

Fixed.

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