Nothing, not even the risk of municipal-infrastructure-shennigans-leading-to-disaster, should stand in the way of more competition entering the ISP market. Google Fiber is awesome and all but they're pretty much the only company big enough to tackle large-scale rollouts nationally. These smaller, municipal efforts have much lower barriers and will ultimately provide the market the kind of competitive landscape it needs to begin improving.
US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
21–30 of 166 posts
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#22I think by now it's hard to deny that Comcast & friends are stifling the progress of the US economy. The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone), consumers and businesses are complaining across the board about high pricing, bad service, and lack of options. These companies do the country and its inhabitants a big disservice. I think the only reasonable option f…
> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone)
By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's (http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i...). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18).
On Ookla's ranking, the U.S. is quite comparable to other big western countries (France, Germany, UK): http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries. Compare the U.K., at 29 mbps, with comparably-dense northeastern states like New York (35 mbps), Massachusetts (33 mbps), etc.
Indeed, if you look at Ookla's rankings, you can see that density/wealth is a driver of internet speeds: http://www.netindex.com/download/2,1/United-States. Sparsely populated or poor states like Wyoming or West Virginia are down in the 15-20 mbps range. Rich, dense states like New York and New Jersey are at 35+. The U.K. and Germany are ~600 people per square mile, somewhere between New York State and Connecticut in density. The U.S. as a whole is only 90 people per square mile, and states like Wyoming are less than 10 people per square mile.
EDIT: I don't normally get annoyed at down votes, but I point these facts out every time someone repeats the trope "the U.S. lags in broadband speed!" but I never get a real answer, just down votes. The narrative that the U.S. lags behind in broadband speeds seems pretty central to criticisms of U.S. broadband policy, but the surveys I've seen that measure actual speeds (as opposed to advertised speeds), contradicts the assertion that the U.S. lags behind its counterparts. Can someone explain why they disagree with this analysis?
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#232 questions: 1. Why aren't cities everywhere doing this? 2. Who do I have to bother in my city to get this to happen?
Big telcos lobby for laws to make it illegal, e.g. Louisiana 844.42 [1]:
"To ensure that cable television services and telecommunications and advanced services are provided through fair competition [...]"
Advanced services are defined in 844.43 [2] to mean Internet that's faster than 144 kilobits per second.
This means that the wifi in MSY (New Orlean's airport, a government facility) is utterly unusable.
I can understand the narrative: having government skim the good stuff is a bad deal for corporations since government can do things corporations can't (e.g., taxes, zoning, land use permits, seize land). Presumably, this discourages corporations from providing comprehensive services since they cannot subsidize poorly-performing areas with great performing areas. I'm skeptical that that's a valid reason to have such a law, but c'est la vie.
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#24This is a really good example of how lobbying works. On one hand, these telecom companies have a clear interest in not having to "compete" with cheap, publicly funded broadband. On the other hand, their position just happens to tie in with a broader political debate: states and municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, and municipal infrastructure projects are a disaster outside a few well-managed cities like NY…
By that logic we all better stop using tap water, roads, libraries, schools and parks before we get hit upside the head with that "boondoggle".
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#25This is a really good example of how lobbying works. On one hand, these telecom companies have a clear interest in not having to "compete" with cheap, publicly funded broadband. On the other hand, their position just happens to tie in with a broader political debate: states and municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, and municipal infrastructure projects are a disaster outside a few well-managed cities like NY…
>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.
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#26This is a really good example of how lobbying works. On one hand, these telecom companies have a clear interest in not having to "compete" with cheap, publicly funded broadband. On the other hand, their position just happens to tie in with a broader political debate: states and municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, and municipal infrastructure projects are a disaster outside a few well-managed cities like NY…
> or disproportionately benefit parts of the population
Wouldn't more people be able to afford internet access under this municipal connection's pricing than under Comcast/Verizon/Time Warner/etc? I have trouble understanding how that would be a disproportionate benefit.
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#27> 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’…
Cable could easily offer these rates by using the bandwidth currently occupied by their tv channels. If comcast had a unified digital backbone it wouldn't be a problem. It is only because they have monopoly power. I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control.
We need to clean out these bullshit laws.
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#28Most interesting part of the article: USTelecom would like "public entities [to] bear the same regulatory burdens as private service providers".
What's that about? What regulatory burdens are these public providers avoiding, and are those burdens in the public interest or not?
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#29My opinion of those companies is so poor at this point that my knee jerk reaction is to assume that whatever they want is the opposite of what's good for me.
At least they are consistent.
Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet
#30I think by now it's hard to deny that Comcast & friends are stifling the progress of the US economy. The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone), consumers and businesses are complaining across the board about high pricing, bad service, and lack of options. These companies do the country and its inhabitants a big disservice. I think the only reasonable option f…
> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone) By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's ( http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i... ). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18). On Ookla's ranking, the…
Let's see north east US, Main = 14 MBPS or 0.1 MBPS faster than Mongolia woot!
Comparing nations to states is ridiculous. However, if you read the report it's damming with faint praise. "the average connection speeds seen in the United States and Mexico remained more than twice as fast as the next fastest country"
Sure, if you discount everyone that's better than you then you can call yourself #1 at anything.
PS: Note this is of course average bandwidth which radically distorts the picture. One person nominally at 1GBPS and 10 people at 1MBPS is not the same as 11 people at 90+MBPS. For a more realistic vew you would average the square roots of bandwidth, but that makes US look bad.