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A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

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Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#131

Post by nostromo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #119
nostromo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democrats will restore the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) clear authority to take strong enforcement action against broadband providers who violate net neutrality principles This seems antithetical to their newfound views on how corporations like Twitter should be able to block political news on their platforms. I don't see how it's dramatically different for Twitter (or Facebook or Google) deciding to b…

"Net Neutrality" has never been about moderation of content on websites. Conflating the two is disingenuous.

Your comment is content-free and breaks the HN guideline to assume good faith.

I’d like to hear why you think it is terrible when Comcast bans a website but fine when Google/Facebook/Twitter do it. Both groups have monopolistic power. And, if anything, the ISPs are much less powerful and less important than the big tech companies. If anything they should be held to a higher standard.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#132

Post by 908B64B197 »

biggermike wrote: post #127
908B64B197 wrote: post #4

I'm always surprised this isn't discussed more. Big tech is accused of being monopolistic, but there is a constant flow of new players in the field, all gaining market shares and building the Next Big Thing, while telecom providers are pretty stagnant. I'm curious why cities don't directly lay down the infrastructure work for broadband access. In some cases that might raise property value enough that the town could m…

Big tech has big profit margins. Big telecom services doesn't. Competitors don't enter the industry because there's little money to be made. The only way you make money by starting an independent ISP right now is by serving some niche clientele e.g. serving wireless internet to events at locations without enough broadband access.

Sounds like a perfect situation for coops.

As long as they break-even then it's a success.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#133

Post by est31 »

Fellshard wrote: post #37
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Seriously, I feel like I say it every time it comes up: WHY aren't people taking action against ISP monopolies? It seems like such a cut-and-dried political issue: they're utilities and they overcharge you whether you're a Republican or Democrat. And taking action doesn't require new antitrust concepts, because it's just your garden-variety utility. It's the same established principles as electric or natural gas. Yet…

Because Net Neutrality was the angle that brings more money their way. Net Neutrality assumes the monopoly will stay, that no alternatives are available, and that top-down control is the best bet. If you focus on the monopoly instead, different ISPs could offer different advantages based on the consumer's requirements: gaming, video consumption, media upload, basic light browsing - you could tailor engineering costs…

Net neutrality doesn't forbid you from offering+building low latency services (needed by gaming), or from offering+building symmetric internet connections (useful for media upload). "Basic browsing" can be implemented by just giving users a low bandwidth or weekly traffic quotas.

Also, most of the difference in these services lies in the backbone, but that's not where most of the cost lies. The main cost is digging the last mile. Generally, having multiple ISPs put cables to your porch will n-fold their cost. Who's gonna pay for that in the end? You, the customer. It's best to have one ISP lay fiber cabling to your home and then have them rent it out to others, on terms set up by regulators in advance. Maybe that last mile ISP could even be publicly owned.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#134

Post by biggermike »

yaacov wrote: post #81
baq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

starlink cannot compete in densely populated area because the sats have comparatively (to dsl, fiber, etc.) limited total bandwidth to spare, just like any other shared medium. musk himself was very open about this. starlink is a game changer where the last mile is prohibitively expensive i.e. sparse/rural areas a few dozen miles away from population centers.

Currently urban broadband costs are high in part because they’re subsidizing rural areas, right? So if starlink can cover the rurals for less costs can hopefully come down for everyone

Building in dense urban areas carries its own set of problems akin to how pushing changes to a live product can be more difficult than hacking one together from scratch.

It requires aligning many stakeholders who often have conflicting interests e.g. all the building owners on the same block.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#135

Post by ceejayoz »

nostromo wrote: post #131
ceejayoz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Net Neutrality" has never been about moderation of content on websites. Conflating the two is disingenuous.

Your comment is content-free and breaks the HN guideline to assume good faith. I’d like to hear why you think it is terrible when Comcast bans a website but fine when Google/Facebook/Twitter do it. Both groups have monopolistic power. And, if anything, the ISPs are much less powerful and less important than the big tech companies. If anything they should be held to a higher standard.

> Your comment is content-free and breaks the HN guideline to assume good faith.

Nah.

> I’d like to hear why you think it is terrible when Comcast bans a website but fine when Google/Facebook/Twitter do it.

In many areas of the country, there is only one ISP available. In my area, there's two, but one only offers very slow DSL; there is a de facto monopoly on meaningful internet service.

This is not the case for social media.

> Both groups have monopolistic power.

That you had to say "Google/Facebook/Twitter" and not just one of them clearly indicates that they do not.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#136

Post by triceratops »

nostromo wrote: post #92
muststopmyths wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only baffling if you didn't bother to read the party platforms. The Democratic party platform explicitly talks about removing barriers to municipal broadband as a goal, which is the only way you are going to get competition where ISPs have a monopoly. At least in the current landscape where it's cost-prohibitive for a competitor to enter a region. Also (emphasis mine), > Democrats will restore the Federal Commun…

> Democrats will restore the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) clear authority to take strong enforcement action against broadband providers who violate net neutrality principles This seems antithetical to their newfound views on how corporations like Twitter should be able to block political news on their platforms. I don't see how it's dramatically different for Twitter (or Facebook or Google) deciding to b…

> I don't see how it's dramatically different for Twitter (or Facebook or Google) deciding to block the New York Post than it is for Comcast to do so.

If Comcast decides to block the New York Post, you can't see it at all until you change your Internet provider. That may involve breaking a contract, and will certainly cost you time and money. And that's if you have a choice at all - large swathes of the country have only one ISP. Many apartment buildings only have hookups for one provider.

If TwitFaceGoog don't show NYP links you're free to type in their domain name in your web browser and go to the site directly.

Suggesting there's no difference between the two is dishonest.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#137

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #101
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Section 230) https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

TechDirt (via the "Copia Institute") is paid by Google's Public Policy team, as disclosed at Google's Public Policy Transparency page: https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency/ in https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/4b9e2caa400b9cd5... (pdf) Mike Masnick is, as disclosed, a Google shill on payroll. If you didn't realize this, Google's public policy team is doing their job well.

And literally 90%+ of your twitter feed (www.twitter.com/ocdtrekkie, this is not doxxing, the user mentions their twitter handle in their HN profile) is full of posts against Google and big-tech in general, including several retweets of low-effort anti-FAANG humor, gloating about the recent DoJ anti-trust lawsuit, and so on.

So let's not even pretend that you don't have a beef with them and are more than a little biased.

Feel free to point out the legal issues that he gets wrong about Section 230, even if it is via an article written by an opposite shill.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#138

Post by woeirua »

I was all in favor of breaking up the ISPs a few years ago, but Starlink is coming on like a freight train, and it alone may break up the current monopoly structure. Tack on 5G from the major wireless providers in urban areas, and we might have a situation where the price of broadband plummets before an antitrust action from the DOJ would even get to trial. Not sure it's worth the effort at this point.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#139

Post by michael1999 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #22
donmcronald wrote: post #2

Canada has the same problem. I don’t have definitive data, but the promo pricing for internet plans has seemed pretty weak since COVID hit. We call our ISP every (fucking) year to ask them to give us the current promo pricing for the next year and this year everything is a solid $20-$40 per month higher than it’s been in the last 3-4 years. They’re totally price gouging IMO.

Canadians are unwilling to price shop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlRPLBLkZK0

I used to suggest joining a credit union to people who complained about bank fees, and the first response would be that there were fewer ATMs and the branches were farther away. Canadians want premium service for free, and will do exactly nothing besides complain to get it.

Re: A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

#140

Post by walterbell »

woeirua wrote: post #138

I was all in favor of breaking up the ISPs a few years ago, but Starlink is coming on like a freight train, and it alone may break up the current monopoly structure. Tack on 5G from the major wireless providers in urban areas, and we might have a situation where the price of broadband plummets before an antitrust action from the DOJ would even get to trial. Not sure it's worth the effort at this point.

Plus we broke them up already and know what happened next.
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