Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#61

Post by jessriedel »

jsjohnst wrote: post #58
dogma1138 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest 10 cities are home to 16M Americans, the 10 largest cities in the UK are host to 12M Brits. The 100 largest cities in the US are home to 59M Americans, the 100 largest cities in the UK are home to 34M Brits. The US is 5 times as populous but there is only 30% difference between the top 10 cities in the US vs UK and 50% in top 100. Most people in the US live in cities under The rest of Europe isn't that mu…

Your numbers are way wrong, even if we discredit another commenter's point about city vs metropolitan areas. The top FIVE cities in the US total over 19 million people. If you instead use the top FIVE metropolitan areas you get just shy of 70 million. That's 20% of the US population living in or directly around the top five cities. Furthermore, there are over 300 cities in the US with populations over 100k. I'm too l…

Where are you guys getting these numbers? The top 5 cities in the US have 19.2 M residents, and the top 10 have 26 M.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

This one is more sensitive to noise, but still pretty different than what you quote: The top 5 metro areas have 56.9 M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropo...

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#62

Post by wtbob »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #6
Animats wrote: post #2

There's a nice analysis in this week's Economist on cellular competition in Europe. There's been a conclusion by some European antitrust regulators that it takes at least four competing cellular carriers before prices come down. Three isn't enough. The US acts as if one unregulated carrier is enough in cable.

I think we still have some cultural inertia such that things like high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure (plus some who believe that the poor ought to be excluded from using basic infrastructure anyway). I'm also not convinced that Capitol Hill has fully realized that Comcast isn't competing with rabbit ears anymore.

> high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure

I would never want to live without high-speed mobile Internet (which can provide the equivalent of cell service), but is it really a necessity to live? I was a boy before cell phones even existed, and anyone outside academia and a few tech companies had the Internet, and life was fine.

It's certainly extremely convenient, but I don't think it's a necessity.

> plus some who believe that the poor ought to be excluded from using basic infrastructure anyway

Do you have evidence for that statement?

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#63

Post by wtbob »

riskable wrote: post #3

Can someone explain to me what innovation cable companies provide that they deserve their anti-competitive monopolies? If we were to replace them all with municipal broadband what would the short and long term consequences be? I'd wager that the short term (~10 years) consequences would be vastly superior service for every day citizens. In the long term, not certain but I suspect it would be much of the same as long…

> I'd wager that the short term (~10 years) consequences would be vastly superior service for every day citizens. In the long term, not certain

I think that you'd see the same phenomenon as in any country which socialised an industry: at first things are — as you guess — much the same, because the same people keep coming to work in the same buildings, operating the same machines according to the same processes &c. But the rate of innovation lowers, and eventually you get the equivalent of a Soviet grocery store (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOBFMMbUFI8): something much better than what you had before, but nowhere near as good as you could have had.

So after a decade or two of municipal broadband, you can expect that you'll have better broadband than when you started, but far, far, far worse broadband than where there is competition.

Now, if the debate is between a public and a private monopoly, I honestly don't know which is worse. Possibly the public monopoly, because its employees are unfireable, but — I don't know.

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#64

Post by sib »

mrep wrote: post #22
noobermin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and 200x slower than those in Korea.

They also have 1/6 the population density as the United States.

I think S Korea has about 14x the population density of the US. See, for example, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#65

Post by chongli »

jsjohnst wrote: post #58
dogma1138 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest 10 cities are home to 16M Americans, the 10 largest cities in the UK are host to 12M Brits. The 100 largest cities in the US are home to 59M Americans, the 100 largest cities in the UK are home to 34M Brits. The US is 5 times as populous but there is only 30% difference between the top 10 cities in the US vs UK and 50% in top 100. Most people in the US live in cities under The rest of Europe isn't that mu…

Your numbers are way wrong, even if we discredit another commenter's point about city vs metropolitan areas. The top FIVE cities in the US total over 19 million people. If you instead use the top FIVE metropolitan areas you get just shy of 70 million. That's 20% of the US population living in or directly around the top five cities. Furthermore, there are over 300 cities in the US with populations over 100k. I'm too l…

If you use metropolitan areas then you're just proving the original point. Metro areas in the US are HUGE! For example, the Greater Las Angeles area is ~34k square miles. The entire country of England is only ~50k square miles! Understanding this is key to understanding why the cable and telecom businesses in the US are so difficult to enter.

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#66

Post by nickpsecurity »

wtbob wrote: post #62
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we still have some cultural inertia such that things like high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure (plus some who believe that the poor ought to be excluded from using basic infrastructure anyway). I'm also not convinced that Capitol Hill has fully realized that Comcast isn't competing with rabbit ears anymore.

> high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure I would never want to live without high-speed mobile Internet (which can provide the equivalent of cell service), but is it really a necessity to live? I was a boy before cell phones even existed, and anyone outside academia and a few tech companies had the Internet, and life was fine. It's certainly extremely convenient, but I d…

I hear you but you can counter-claim it easily for high-speed Internet for business. Just look at how critical the Internet is to all kinds of firms these days. Even those that mostly don't need the Internet often have an expensive, leased line for main HQ. There's also the meme of traveling salespeople and such who benefit from higher speeds.

So, with so much dependence, it stands to reason a country's businesses can be a bit more competitive and efficient if they have high-speed, low-cost Internet. The Internet part is necessary for most even if other attributes aren't. They're certainly useful, though, as they increase capabilities and profit simultaneously.

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#67

Post by wtbob »

andrewclunn wrote: post #13

So effective monopolies are unintended side effects of anti-monopoly laws?

That's the real lesson here: if there were less regulation then companies would compete with one another — which would cost them profits, which is why they lobby for more regulations.

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#68

Post by setpatchaddress »

wtbob wrote: post #62
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we still have some cultural inertia such that things like high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure (plus some who believe that the poor ought to be excluded from using basic infrastructure anyway). I'm also not convinced that Capitol Hill has fully realized that Comcast isn't competing with rabbit ears anymore.

> high-speed internet and cell service are seen as luxuries and not basic infrastructure I would never want to live without high-speed mobile Internet (which can provide the equivalent of cell service), but is it really a necessity to live? I was a boy before cell phones even existed, and anyone outside academia and a few tech companies had the Internet, and life was fine. It's certainly extremely convenient, but I d…

Do you consider basic telephone service a necessity?

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#69

Post by setpatchaddress »

wtbob wrote: post #67
andrewclunn wrote: post #13

So effective monopolies are unintended side effects of anti-monopoly laws?

That's the real lesson here: if there were less regulation then companies would compete with one another — which would cost them profits, which is why they lobby for more regulations.

Nonsense. See Afforess's comment above. Read the history of Standard Oil.

Re: One reason cable companies won’t willingly compete against each other

#70

Post by jimmaswell »

wtbob wrote: post #63
riskable wrote: post #3

Can someone explain to me what innovation cable companies provide that they deserve their anti-competitive monopolies? If we were to replace them all with municipal broadband what would the short and long term consequences be? I'd wager that the short term (~10 years) consequences would be vastly superior service for every day citizens. In the long term, not certain but I suspect it would be much of the same as long…

> I'd wager that the short term (~10 years) consequences would be vastly superior service for every day citizens. In the long term, not certain I think that you'd see the same phenomenon as in any country which socialised an industry: at first things are — as you guess — much the same, because the same people keep coming to work in the same buildings, operating the same machines according to the same processes &c. Bu…

The comments on that video are pointing out that the title is misleading, and the video description isn't reassuring.
Post reply on HN