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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)

#151
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying is legal in the EU too. The organisation is one of the bigger employers in the EU. It's just not so known as in the US.

Lobbying bribery. There's a difference between buying a politician diner and talking to them and writing a big fat check.

In theory that's right. But in practice the line that divides them is somewhat blurry.

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

#152
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying is legal in the EU too. The organisation is one of the bigger employers in the EU. It's just not so known as in the US.

Lobbying bribery. There's a difference between buying a politician diner and talking to them and writing a big fat check.

Actually, it's conflicting interests either way.

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

#153
post #75
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that a significant majority of the United States' healthcare system is lacklustre. I understand that a significant majority of the United States' only offer limited annual leave (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). I understand that a significant majority of the United States' suffers from an extremely high murder rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't want to live in the US, even th…

Let's do one for another country, say Korea. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's healthcare system is lacklustre, but cheap. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's only offer limited annual leave (1 week) (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). - I understand that a significant majority of Korea suffers from an extremely suicide rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't…

> I understand that a significant majority of Australians still support the Aboriginal segregation and forced adoption laws.

> I understand that Australia not only has a slow internet, but widespread and regular censorship of what sites citizens can go to.

You are greatly mistaken.

> I understand that a significant majority of the Australia's healthcare system is lacklustre.

It ain't perfect, but its significantly better than the US'

> I understand that Australia doesn't even offer free speech protection.

I know. This really sucks. We have "implicit" free speech, but it still sucks.

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

#154
post #83

It took fierce competition to even get broadband companies to advertise what they are offering. I had to deal with a very small local monopoly in Western Maryland that just advertised "faster than dial up," had typical pings of over 200. It was thick on the local board, had a deal with local government as the sole authorized supplier in the county. Now I'm in a different part of the country, can get FiOS, but while V…

lol at calling all the providers. the free market fails if left alone, under shady regulations it is almost a joke. i found a aDSL number for ATT that was not advertised (and you reached a person on the first minute!) that was the result of some obscure regulation that they had to provide dsl without charging for a phone line if so i wanted. it was a very good service. as i was next door to their trunk. i moved, less…

Eastern Europe, especially Bulgaria and Romania, would beg to differ about the "free market fails if left alone". Between 2000 and 2010 it was basically a free-for-all for ISPs and each city had almost dozens of them running wires on poles, on apartment building facades, on... trees.

And today you can get a 1 Gbps connection (in reality it works at 900 mbps in Europe and at around 300 mbps across the Atlantic) for less than $20 per month.

How could you call the banning of new infrastructure (through an insane ammount of regulation) by local authorities in the USA as Free Market?

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

#155

Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work. I'm not an expert, and would be interested in hearing from one, but I imagine that wireless networks could benefit from algorithmic advances in a way that might be more difficult in traditional copper/fiber networks. If you…

WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box.

Start small in a part of the city populated by mostly young people - like university students. Buy ad time on the Discovery Channel. Run your cables through the air between buildings and over trees - it will fail with every storm, but it's cheap to replace. Hopefully you'll get big enough fast enough to put some proper cabling before regulation catches up with you.

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

#156
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do one for another country, say Korea. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's healthcare system is lacklustre, but cheap. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's only offer limited annual leave (1 week) (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). - I understand that a significant majority of Korea suffers from an extremely suicide rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't…

I understand that a significant majority of Australians still support the Aboriginal segregation and forced adoption laws. What? I don't think I've met anyone, ever, whom holds such an opinion. (And I grew up in south west Sydney).

I wasn't trying to be accurate, just reflect how absurd the parent was.

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

#157
post #153
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do one for another country, say Korea. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's healthcare system is lacklustre, but cheap. - I understand that a significant majority of Korea's only offer limited annual leave (1 week) (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). - I understand that a significant majority of Korea suffers from an extremely suicide rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't…

> I understand that a significant majority of Australians still support the Aboriginal segregation and forced adoption laws. > I understand that Australia not only has a slow internet, but widespread and regular censorship of what sites citizens can go to. You are greatly mistaken. > I understand that a significant majority of the Australia's healthcare system is lacklustre. It ain't perfect, but its significantly be…

I wasn't trying to be accurate, just reflecting how absurd your comment was.

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

#158

Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work. I'm not an expert, and would be interested in hearing from one, but I imagine that wireless networks could benefit from algorithmic advances in a way that might be more difficult in traditional copper/fiber networks. If you…

> Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. That reasonable way is for municipalities to gather some courage and run their own open-access fiber. Until municipalities realize that the monopolies that they've granted their "local" cable companies are now working fiercely against the interests of their citizenry, real change in thi…

"Decision-making power in the US is too spread out to make that feasible!"

If you wanted to run a fiber-optic line between SFO and SJC, you'd probably have to ask at least three or four different county governments, never mind the state, federal, or municipal governments. Take a look, for example, at the mess that is keeping Caltrain funded every year.

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

#159
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol at calling all the providers. the free market fails if left alone, under shady regulations it is almost a joke. i found a aDSL number for ATT that was not advertised (and you reached a person on the first minute!) that was the result of some obscure regulation that they had to provide dsl without charging for a phone line if so i wanted. it was a very good service. as i was next door to their trunk. i moved, less…

Eastern Europe, especially Bulgaria and Romania, would beg to differ about the "free market fails if left alone". Between 2000 and 2010 it was basically a free-for-all for ISPs and each city had almost dozens of them running wires on poles, on apartment building facades, on... trees. And today you can get a 1 Gbps connection (in reality it works at 900 mbps in Europe and at around 300 mbps across the Atlantic) for le…

Something like this happened in Russian cities too. Broadband is cheap, fast, lot's of competition, cables hanging between apartment buildings etc.

Recently there have been some troubling signs when (government) monopolies started to buy smaller private ISPs. Internet is still cheap and fast, but who knows what will happen…

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

#160
post #155

Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work. I'm not an expert, and would be interested in hearing from one, but I imagine that wireless networks could benefit from algorithmic advances in a way that might be more difficult in traditional copper/fiber networks. If you…

WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box. Start small in a part of the city populated by mostly young people - like university students. Buy ad time on the Discovery Channel. Run your cables through the air between buildings and over trees - it will fail with every storm, but it's cheap to replace. Hopefully you'll get big enough fast enough to put some proper cabling before regulation catches up with you.

>> WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box.

hahahaha :D

OK, dear anon4, do you have idea what the fastest connection to the stock market today is, no? Hint, it's "wireless". High Frequency Trading set an arms race to have the best and fastest connection to the trade-market. Every nanosecond counts.

TL;DR?

Wireless is faster than Cable. Yup.

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