251–260 of 674 posts
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This is plainly false. Most households have multiple internet providers.
I'm wondering where you are getting your information from. Particularly, when I search my own zip on ISP search sites, I get anywhere from 4-6 providers even though I only have 2 options. There's possibly a discrepancy between what's reported and what customers actually have.
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> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted. 1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz... 2. https://consumeris…
What is the actual reason they shouldn't? This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion. If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network. Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpay…
Limiting websites they can access is a violation of that agreement with the end user.
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In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…
Let me guess, you live in some mecca of ISP options like the Valley? Because the rest of us don't. I live in a major tech city of 1mil+ pop, to the point that a quarter of the city has Google Fiber, and the only ISP options my neighborhood has (12 miles from downtown and in a vastly tech area) is 1 Cable provider, 1 DSL provider, and Directv. That means my speed options are 300mbps, 3, or 1.5 with 400ms latency. Such…
Oh man, I wish. I live in the heart of SF and the only option I have is Comcast. I suppose I could try Monkeybrains, but I'd have to get landlord approval and that may be an issue.
The point is, in the US, even in the tech capital of the world, we are still encumbered by private ownership of internet infrastructure.
It's fucking pathetic.
To be clear, I'm a supporter of Net Neutrality, but more so a more built-out municipal fiber system across the US.
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The vast majority have some choice. The average household can choose between their telecom or their cable company. In some areas one or both of those companies don't provide broadband, but in the bulk of locations they do. And while 4g service isn't a true replacement, it provides enough competition to prevent the AOL-ization of the internet. At a certain point, people would choose more expensive wireless over absurd…
Only a little over 50% of households have at least 2 high-speed internet choices[0]. I wouldn't call that the "vast majority". [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
Is it time to go full decentralized peer-to-peer wireless mesh yet? I know it would be slow, but that's par for the course in most of the US anyway. Routing would be painful, but something like IPFS would encourage peers to cache content in order to ensure faster access to the content they want. It could be done if only the barrier to entry for normal folks was lower. I'm thinking a dedicated piece of hardware in a f…
Or just fix the policies.
This is a design flaw in the Internet and most conventional network designs. There is an inherent level of trust given to network members and this works just fine for a research network between CS departments at Universities, but when my traffic must pass through 12 routers each potentially malicious to reach the edge of Google's network I have to trust each of those 12 routers.
Protocols like the ones that underly Bitcoin and IPFS place no trust in nodes. The IPFS whitepaper outlines a very abuse-resistant protocol whose concepts could be used to build another more resilient network layer.
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People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model? If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.
How about if Comcast charges Netflix more to be able to access you? [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/comcastlevel3/
Why are people buying high-bandwidth plans from ISPs? Because they want to use services like Netflix. Netflix is not costing ISPs money, it's giving them something to sell.
Imagine that taxi drivers want to charge the airport for overwhelming them with passengers and you'll see the absurdity.
When the mobile internet was first getting it's roots most of the American mobile providers offered unlimited bandwidth. Once the network become constrained and consumers started overloading the networks with streaming content the industry moved to tiered bandwidth plans. Years later a few companies (possibly t-mobile leading the charge?) saw this as an opportunity to win customers and started offering all you could eat again. In order to compete it seems most if not all of the providers have an unlimited plan now.
I think the same thing will happen with internet providers. At first you might think that it won't be possible because there are locations with zero provider competition. But I don't think competition is all that far away. Mobile internet is starting to get fast enough for many use cases and there's all kinds of innovation in internet delivery (balloons, planes, sat, etc.) Eventually someone is going to use unfiltered access as a competitive advantage and an opportunity to win customers. The industry will have to follow to compete.
Sadly this is going to get much worse before it gets better. But here's hoping!