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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

#51

Post by muhfuhkuh »

mkempe wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, less than 1/10th the density of the U.K. or Germany. Maine is just Northeast's version of Montana.

Please stop bringing up this kind of measurement as if it were an excuse. Sweden's population density is 21 inhabitants/km2 -- about 54/sq.mile. Finland's population density is lower. Both countries have much better, and cheaper Internet connections on offer than the US.

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 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. But if it were all-white like Sweden or all-Japanese, etc. it would be fine because it's "for the good of the people".

I just kinda tuned out after that argument. That debate did make strike a nerve, though. I wonder how much "cultural heterogeneity" actually _does_ come into play rather than the tired "population density" argument.

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

#52

Post by encoderer »

rayiner wrote: post #36
sitkack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 contro…

> 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. Are you serious? Rent control laws are awful, destroy the incentive to maintain housing stock or build new housing stock, and ultimately raise rents for everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlle…

Honestly I think you're way off base on rent control. I'd love to know what experiences you've had with rent control that have led you to such a negative POV? Perhaps living in Philly, as you profile mentions, has blunted you to some of the benefits of RC in housing-crunched cities.

The biggest fallacy I hear from people who don't live in one of these housing-crunched cities is the line.. everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlled apartments. Rent control laws in SF, for example, are very inclusive. I mean, RC apartments can't be both rare AND pervasive enough to "destroy the incentive" to invest in housing, right? And every RC law I know of (which is only a few) has exemptions for new construction. In SF it's anything built after ~1980. In NYC I know it's back much further than that. So it doesn't do anything specifically to depress new construction.

Fundamentally, the question is do tenants have rights or are they at the mercy of the property rights of the building owner? In SF we believe tenants DO have rights. And you know what? RE investors here, where a rent controlled 2br apartment will set you back at least $3k a month in the city, are doing quite alright. They don't seem too desperately in need of expanded protections under the law.

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

#53

Post by sitkack »

quink wrote: post #40
sitkack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 contro…

> Cable could easily offer these rates by using the bandwidth currently occupied by their tv channels. Not exactly. It's true that a coax cable can, over distances of hundreds of metres, carry up to a frequency of 850 MHz at a fairly low attenuation and, at greater attenuation and/or ideal circumstances, up to 1.2 GHz in a useful capacity. This may translate, as per Shannon-Hartley and QAM into a raw bandwidth of mul…

> 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.

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

#54

Post by atmosx »

sitkack wrote: post #29
acjohnson55 wrote: post #2

My 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.

word

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

#55

Post by rjsw »

rayiner wrote: post #22
raarts wrote: post #19

I 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…

A single "average" value can be misleading, the options in the UK have quite big speed jumps once you go beyond ADSL+, the figure you quote will be made up of x number of customers on ~40 mbps and y number on ~80 mbps.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

encoderer wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Are you serious? Rent control laws are awful, destroy the incentive to maintain housing stock or build new housing stock, and ultimately raise rents for everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlle…

Honestly I think you're way off base on rent control. I'd love to know what experiences you've had with rent control that have led you to such a negative POV? Perhaps living in Philly, as you profile mentions, has blunted you to some of the benefits of RC in housing-crunched cities. The biggest fallacy I hear from people who don't live in one of these housing-crunched cities is the line.. everyone except the lucky fe…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by quink »

sitkack wrote: post #53
quink wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cable could easily offer these rates by using the bandwidth currently occupied by their tv channels. Not exactly. It's true that a coax cable can, over distances of hundreds of metres, carry up to a frequency of 850 MHz at a fairly low attenuation and, at greater attenuation and/or ideal circumstances, up to 1.2 GHz in a useful capacity. This may translate, as per Shannon-Hartley and QAM into a raw bandwidth of mul…

> 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.

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

#58

Post by [deleted] »

mkempe wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, less than 1/10th the density of the U.K. or Germany. Maine is just Northeast's version of Montana.

Please stop bringing up this kind of measurement as if it were an excuse. Sweden's population density is 21 inhabitants/km2 -- about 54/sq.mile. Finland's population density is lower. Both countries have much better, and cheaper Internet connections on offer than the US.

[deleted]

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

#59

Post by [deleted] »

Retric wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, less than 1/10th the density of the U.K. or Germany. Maine is just Northeast's version of Montana.

Let's see, Washington DC has a population density ~10 times that of Japan. Guess which has the faster Internet speeds? As an independent state that have no need to subsidize anyone in low population areas yet the Internet is just not that fast. Population density is something of a misnomer as for example parks significantly lower population density but there basicly irrelevant when building a network.

[deleted]

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

#60

Post by rayiner »

oostevo wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, Washington DC has a population density ~10 times that of Japan. Guess which has the faster Internet speeds? As an independent state that have no need to subsidize anyone in low population areas yet the Internet is just not that fast. Population density is something of a misnomer as for example parks significantly lower population density but there basicly irrelevant when building a network.

I can't think of any place that I've lived in the US which has consistently worse broadband performance than DC and Northern Virginia. This is especially sad given Northern Virginia's density of large tech companies and history as 'internet alley'[1]. [1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley

If D.C. and Virginia were countries, they'd be in the top 5 in Akamai's data, between Japan and Switzerland.
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