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US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

theguardian.com

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Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#121

Post by henrikschroder »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #109
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. However, having gone down that rabbit hole too often, the arguments devolve. One particularly puzzling exchange devolved from my position of "Japan and Korea has ultra high speed Internet, why doesn't the US?" to "population density" on the other side, then to this same argument about Sweden's density, then to "cultural homogeneity" on the other. That made me pause. "Cultural homogeneity?" I asked. And, the d…

> And, the debate devolved into how there are too many minorities in the US and because of that, no one in any position of power wanted to allow everyone universal access because minorities (which I assumed to be Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.) would need too many handouts to get the same speed, which no one would want to pay for. If anything it's probably the other way around. It will be a long time before it's cost…

> So the telcos end up saddled with build out requirements

Whoa there, this story is about "the telcos" opposing municipalities taking the matter in their own hands and ensuring their citizens get fiber.

I would assume there would be no build-out requirement for private entities if there is municipal fiber, but they're welcome to offer service over it if they want, but apparently they don't want that. So if they're saddled, they're hell-bent on keeping on being saddled, presumably so that they can continue wringing their hands and building out things veery slowly, while keeping the local monopoly.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#122

Post by [deleted] »

quink wrote: post #57
sitkack wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hate selling bandwidth first So we pretty much agree then. They might not get to 1Gbps but the 50 Mbps I currently get (latency is horrible) is derived from a handful of channels. There is at least 600Mhz of more bandwidth sitting there. They could uncap the local network and allow other providers to tap into their last mile for a fee.

What? No. Comcast has their network reliably built out to 750 MHz. If you think there are 600 MHz unused on that, you're left with 150 MHz. Which is about enough space for about 20 NTSC channels and the FM band. I can assure you that there's basically no HFC/CATV provider in the world, never mind the US, with 600 MHz unused just sitting there.

[deleted]

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#123

Post by p1mrx »

kalleboo wrote: post #76
beloch wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandwidth is insanely cheap compared to last-mile infrastructure. Bandwidth caps are basically just a way to soak the customers who use the service more and are, hence, willing to pay more.

Well if you have a lot of contention in your last-mile infrastructure bandwidth caps make sense. This applies to shared infrastructure like a coax cable network, or the connection up to a DSLAM. Fiber nicely solves that though.

Why would the connection up to a DSLAM have more contention than a fiber-to-the-home network? Shouldn't most DSLAMs be using fiber already?

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#124

Post by dunmalg »

p1mrx wrote: post #123
kalleboo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you have a lot of contention in your last-mile infrastructure bandwidth caps make sense. This applies to shared infrastructure like a coax cable network, or the connection up to a DSLAM. Fiber nicely solves that though.

Why would the connection up to a DSLAM have more contention than a fiber-to-the-home network? Shouldn't most DSLAMs be using fiber already?

Yeah, there's no contention AT ALL up to the DSLAM. DSLAM is DSL Access Module. Every DSL customer has their own dedicated copper pair from the DSLAM to their house--- it's their phone line. There may be congestion between the Central Office where the DSLAM lives and the rest of the internet, but in practice that rarely happens. The big limit on DSL is getting reasonable speeds a mile down the line over ancient copper pairs that were never intended for the purpose. Don't people remember the old Cable vs. DSL commercials, where the DSL companies were showing cable customers furiously calling each other bandwidth hogs and telling them "log off!"

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#125

Post by nitrogen »

harryh wrote: post #83
nitrogen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally, at least as fast as the other guy or gal competing for the same job.

If all you're doing is moving text around then faster internet isn't going to help any. Unless you're streaming video or doing a few other high bandwidth activities then even really shitty broadband is going to service your needs just fine.

But who just moves text around? Work frequently requires the use of Hangouts, Skype, GoToMeeting, Dropbox, etc. If you have to work through a VPN, the latency added by poor service is a serious drain on productivity.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#126

Post by techsupporter »

rayiner wrote: post #34
unethical_ban wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and municipal infrastructure projects are a disaster outside a few well-managed cities like NY citation needed... I know government has a reputation for being wasteful and corrupt, but weird for you to defend NYC.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says that U.S. infrastructure is underfunded to the tune of $3.6 trillion: http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org . People like to compare municipal broadband to municipal water, but the ASCE gives our water and wastewater systems a grade of 'D'. I defend NYC because as corrupt as it may be, over the last 20-30 years it has a pretty good record of getting municipal projects do…

> you need social consensus and a forward-looking bureaucracy to ensure that public infrastructure receives adequate funding. Most American cities do not have either.

Absolutely, because it's trivially easy for a somewhat small minority to simply stand around and say "nope, nope, nope, not gonna do any of that" and then retort "why are all of our bridges falling down around our ears?" 10 years hasn't changed anybody's mind, so why not build some Internet connectivity to let people work from home?

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#127

Post by jonknee »

sehrope wrote: post #4

> Chattanooga has the largest high-speed internet service in the US, offering customers access to speeds of 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average. The service, provided by municipally owned EPB, has sparked a tech boom in the city and attracted international attention. EPB is now petitioning the FCC to expand its territory. Comcast and others have previously sued unsuccessfully to stop EPB’…

My ISP in Seattle is similarly equipped/price and it's awesome. No contract, no data caps, no problems. Support is great too, a real person who knows their stuff answers instead of a machine. I got set up in about 2 minutes from hello to loading my first web page.

http://www.condointernet.net/

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#128

Post by wnevets »

ams6110 wrote: post #81

Ugh. The answer is not municipally owned ISPs. Sure it's easy for a municipal ISP to have "cheap" rates when you consider that they are taxing authorities and don't have to run a profit. How exactly would this service be put into place? It would take a massive capital investment by the municipality, full of opportunities for fraud. I live in a fairly small, highly liberal town and yet in the past few years we've had…

> Sure it's easy for a municipal ISP to have "cheap" rates when you consider that they are taxing authorities and don't have to run a profit.

why is this a bad thing?

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#129

Post by monksy »

kordless wrote: post #95
sandstrom wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's cheap by US standards. My 100 Mpbs (symmetric, fiber) is $42. It's in Sweden though.

I don't suppose you have a few servers laying around, do you? :)

They do. Infact there is a lot of fiber infrastructure built in germany and that has been taken advantage of by business. I.e. Hetzner.
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